ING For Sales

Global insurers Manulife Financial Corp , Metlife and Prudential Financial Corp  are among suitors expected to place first-round bids on Friday to buy ING Groep's Asia life insurance unit in a deal worth about $6.5 billion to $7 billion, sources familiar with the matter said.

A sale topping $7 billion could rank as Asia's top insurance M&A deal and would help the bailed-out bancassurer repay the 3 billion euros ($3.81 billion) of state aid plus the 50 percent premium it still owes the Dutch government.

ING has turned into a divestment machine since receiving the state aid and has sold 15.2 billion euros worth of assets across the world. The Asian sales would figure among the top two deals from ING's stable.

As part of the Asian divestment, ING received about 10 initial bids for its Asian asset management business this week. The asset management business, expected to fetch between $500 million and $600 million, is being sold separately.

ING sent out a dozen information memorandums for its insurance business, which spans southeast Asia and includes operations in Japan and South Korea. A winning bid by a larger insurer could introduce more competition into Asia's rapidly growing life insurance market, currently dominated by AIA Group Ltd  and British insurer Prudential plc