Kingdom
Great activity in London
Rabo
Area management coordinates
agri-trade finance
Rapid internationalization of De Lage Landen
Issue 10/January, 1992 band
etcetera. Rabobank has also built up a
good reputation in the market tor large
international companies, where it engages
in corporate banking activities. It was no
easy task tor the London Branch to take a
photograph, tor it is located in the centre
of the City on a busy street with heavy
traffic. It was impossible to photograph 82
people standing in front of the door. In
addition, ongoing business dealings are
such that a number of colleagues had to
remain at their desks.
In 1983 Rabobank started in London
with a modest representative office. It
was soon obvious that there was enough
business to justify setting up a branch.
This was opened in 1985 and it rapidly
proved to be too small. The present office
is large enough to cope with the growth
in staff for the coming years. In addition,
a Loan Production Office was opened in
Edinburgh last November. It now has a
staff of three.
London is one of the largest
fihancial centres in the world. The
London Branch has organized its
activities in such a way that it can
provide appropriate advice and
guidance for Dutch businessmen
operating in the UK. On the other
hand, the bank plays a full role in
both the interbanking money
market and the currency market,
besides being active in the field of
Swaps, Floating Rate Agreements,
Rabobank's activities abroad are large-
ly focused on operating as a prime inter
national food and agribusiness bank. This
focus is global in dimension, a fact most
eloquently demonstrated by the spread of
our agri-trade finance activities.
Branches and offices of Rabobank in
almost every country in the network work
together to finance an ever-increasing
share of world trade in goods. These
include products such as grains, edible
oils, fertilizers, potatoes, cotton and many
other soft commodities. In international
trade, every export becomes an import.
Similarly every exporter deals with an
importer. Properly coordinated, trade
finance in an exporting country will point
Rabobank commercially to the importer,
and vice versa. The area management
team coordinates much of Rabobank's
worldwide agri-trade finance from Utrecht.
Commercially, area management has
divided its spheres of attention into three
geographical areas: Europe and the
Americas, Africa and Asia, the Middle East
and North Africa. Their main respon-
sibilities with respect to agri-trade finance
are all the commercial activities in those
countries in which Rabobank has no agri-
trade finance group. But also bridge
building, between import and export
financing, to ensure that the network can
work together as much as possible.
Furthermore, area management is in
charge of the allocation of country limits
and bank limits and of product and market
development coordination. In addition to
agri-trade finance, area management is
also responsible for maintaining relation-
ships with correspondent banks. This is
done for a wide-ranging group of 'clients'
within Rabobank: the Financial Markets
Division, branches and offices abroad,
Rabo Merchant Bank and, of course, the
agri-trade finance activity of area man
agement itself.
De Lage Landen (DLL), a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the Rabobank Group, special-
izes in factoring and leasing. It has a sub-
stantial market share in both these fields
in the Netherlands. By now, DLL also has
over a hundred employees abroad.
De Lage Landen has leasing and factoring
companies in Germany and Belgium, and
factoring companies in the UK (photo), Ita-
ly and Hong Kong. Factoring is concerned
with the collection, insurance and possibly
financing of claims on customers on behalf
of suppliers. In the Netherlands, which lar-
gely depends on imports and exports, fac
toring is quickly acquiring an international
dimension. That also applies to the leasing
company, for a significant proportion of the
lease goods come from imports. DLL start
ed setting up branches abroad at almost
the same time as the parent company,
Rabobank Nederland. With the liberaliz-
ation of the financial markets, financial in-
stitutions are also increasingly cooperating
with each other. DLL has always been a
faithful partner in the Rabobank Group's
domestic business and its developments
abroad go hand in hand with those of
Rabobank Nederland. DLL, too, concentra-
tes on the European Community and on
the major international trade flows. As a
result of an ever-stronger penetration into
countries outside the Netherlands, DLL re-
organized its activities last year. An inter
national holding company was set up, De
Lage Landen International BV, and the va-
rious country activities were grouped under
this organization. With this last change -
following the move into a new head office
in Eindhoven and the establishment of a
new communication policy - DLL expects
to be able to cope with the challenges of
1992.
