ING Investment Management announced today that it will merge a number of its funds to streamline its offering of regional and sectoral equity offerings.

Three of ING sub-regional RSP funds — the ING Austral-Asia Equity RSP Fund, the ING Japan Equity RSP Fund and the ING Europe Equity RSP Fund — will be merged into the existing ING Global Equity RSP Fund.

The ING Canadian Communications Fund will be merged into the ING Global Communications Fund.

Management fees will remain the same. Unitholders will be asked to approve the mergers at meetings to be held in October 2002.

“While investors are showing much interest in sub-regional funds for their investments outside their RSP, they tend to rely on more diversified funds for their RSP portfolios”, said Doug Paul, ING Funds’ managing director, in a statement,