ING to cut back on F1 sponsorship
ING, the Dutch bank that is title sponsor of the Renault F1 Team and sponsors several Grands Prix, will cut back on its F1 sponsorship due to the financial crisis. The bank will lay-off 7000 employees worldwide and announced in a statement that it will reduce its sponsorship budget in order to cut operating expenses by one billion Euros in 2009.
The statement of the bank read: "ING will cut operating expenses by EUR 1 billion in 2009. The structural expense reduction will lead to annual savings of approximately EUR 1.1 billion from 2010 onwards. Of the cutback, 35% will come from a reduction of the workforce by approximately 7000 full-time positions in 2009.
"The remainder of the expense reduction comes from decreasing costs for our head office, marketing, the Formula One program, consultancy, third-party staff and the renegotiating of certain contracts with IT-vendors. Of the total expense reduction, EUR 650 million will be realized in Banking and EUR 350 million in Insurance."
