DealZone

ING Group completed the sale of its Asian private banking unit to Singapore’s OCBC, the biggest deal in the private banking sector since the financial crisis. Netherlands-based ING said the sale is in line with its strategy to focus on fewer franchises and reduces the group’s complexity.  Read the Reuters story here.

Spain’s Ferrovial has no plans to tap equity markets in 2010, though its British airport operator BAA will continue to raise cash through bond issuance, chairman Rafael del Pino told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

And in other news:

Bank of New York Mellon Corp is in late-stage talks to buy a PNC Financial Services Group business for about $2.5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Pittsburgh-based PNC has been shopping its PNC Global Investment Servicing business and a deal could come as soon as next week, says the report.

JP Morgan is launching a worldwide business aimed at selling loans and commercial banking services to multinational corporations, the Financial Times said. The new business will sell products ranging from loans to commodities and focus first on fast growing economies like China and India.

Across the different bits of financial services – such as fund management, broker-dealers, insurance, and trading systems – mergers and acquisitions fell sharply in 2009. But Freeman & Co outlines 10 drivers that should make this a busier year for dealmaking:

“1. Banks and insurance companies continue to assess whether their asset management units
are core to their business, especially those that have stand alone brands or are in non-core
markets

2. Large transformational asset management deals will diminish, but deals in the $3-30 billion
AUM range will increase from current lows

General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt went to Michigan, the bleeding heart of the U.S. industrial heartland, on Friday to call for a resurgence in American manufacturing.
But even as he warned against relying too heavily on the financial industry to drive economic growth, he subtly set up a defense of the largest U.S. conglomerate’s hefty finance arm.

Analysts and investors are worried that the Obama administration’s proposed overhaul of U.S. financial regulations could force GE to spin off GE Capital, which has businesses ranging from leasing jet planes to investing in commercial real estate.

“We also need a financial system that is built around helping industrial companies to succeed,” Immelt told the Detroit Economic Club. “GE is an important part of this financial services approach. We plan to focus GE Capital on financing small- and medium-sized customers in industries that we know the best.”

New opportunities for ex-bankers are few and far between. However, one area of the financial industry continues to grow: restructuring.

Like the credit boom turned on its head, restructuring deals help lower companies’ debt before it drags them into insolvency. Deleveraging is the awkward word the industry uses and it offers opportunities right across the financial services business.

As I wrote in February, the big investment banks see restructuring as a great chance to restart relationships with indebted corporate clients, and are willing to go head-to-head with well-established boutique advisory firms for lucrative advisory mandates. JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley have all made high-profile hires in London.

Having largely held off from picking up cheap financial services assets last year, private equity firms will boost their buying as low valuations make assets in the sector too attractive to pass up, a new report predicts.

The increased interest will come as these firms look for ways to  use funds raised in the last two years and regulators further loosen restrictions on ownership of banks, independent advisory firm Freeman & Co projects in its annual summary on transactions. Buyout shops have about $600 billion to work with.

Private equity tested the financial sector waters last year – and sometimes got burned. But they have continued to look at the sector with interest. Private equity firms put in $23 billion in 84 financial services deals last year, down 69 percent from 2007, Freeman said.