Contemplating ING US (VOYA)

Ran into ING US (VOYA) while hunting for cheap price to book investments. It has turned into a bit more interesting than just that metric and indeed may be an aig-style investment.

A background:
ING US is a financial services company that until recently was part of the Dutch company ING Groep NV. It, like many global financial services companies, went to the brink of catastrophe in 2008 and more specifically received a $13.5B tarp-like capital injection from the the Dutch State. Since then, ING has been selling assets to repay the bailout, most recently with the IPO of ING US (to be renamed VOYA Financial in 2014).

Key points of a long view here include: 1) forced selling by ING's parent 2) a stabilizing retirement, insurance & asset management business:

1) Forced selling - VOYA's own prospectus calls this ipo a divestment transaction meant to repay part of the remaining 2.2B EUR ( 10B - 7.8B from previous transactions) that VOYA still needs to repay. As such, it is clearly government-driven and not focused on economic value given back to the firm.

2) While it is one of the largest life insurers in the US, nearly half of VOYA's revenues actually come from the retirement division:

Revenues from that half the firm are fairly recurring and stable as a percentage of AUM. Provide plan administration, i.e. the boring/safe side of the business. Same goes for the asset/investment management side of the business. On the insurance side, there is exposure in the variable annuity product in that VOYA provides capital protection in an equity-like product. It is risk, but one that I continue to like because of my overall positive view on us equities (see previous blog posts).

Finally, there is the issue of the closed books (i.e. the "bad bank" that holds alt-a and other legacy assets from the financial crisis). Considering the great reversal of many of these former toxic instruments and the gains from last year, I do not think they are marked aggressively).
 

As such, is such a business trading @ ~0.5x book value in an industry usually => 1x book a compelling investment? This is not meant to be a full pitch, but rather a starting point for further thoughts.

P.S. Looks like I am not the only one looking into VOYA.

Thoughts?

Disclosure: I am long VOYA