The Successful Investor Hotline – Friday, August 31, 2012

Article Excerpt

BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA, $52.25, Toronto symbol BNS, has agreed to buy ING Bank of Canada (which operates as ING Direct) from its Netherlands-based parent, ING Group. ING Direct offers a wide variety of no-fee banking services, mainly over the Internet. It has 1.8 million customers and $30 billion in deposits. Bank of Nova Scotia will keep ING Direct as a separate business and will not merge it with its regular banking operations. The bank will pay $3.1 billion for ING Direct when the deal closes in December 2012. However, ING Direct holds cash of $1.2 billion, so the real cost is around $1.9 billion. To fund this purchase, Bank of Nova Scotia plans to sell up to $1.7 billion of common shares for $52.00 each. That would increase the number of shares outstanding by 3%. Separately, the bank reported that its overall earnings jumped 57.4% in the three months ended July 31, 2012, to $2.05 billion from $1.3 billion a year earlier…