Best in the business
WHAT'S Nf.wS Issue 7 November 1995
working relations
3
The Argentinian Moreno Group is the world's number one exporter of
crude sunflower-seed oil and meal.This top agri-producer and trader is a
Rabobank cliënt in both its home country and in Rotterdam. CEO Anto-
nio José Moreno and the general manager of the Group's Geneva-based
marketing arm, Anton van Buel, visited Rotterdam recently.They were
willing to talk to What's NewS about what they want from their bank.
INTERNATIONALLY
COMPETITIVE
Big is a word you almost cannot avoid
when looking at the family-owned Moreno
Group. Started by Antonio Moreno's grand-
father and namesake, an immigrant to Ar-
gentina from the Lebanon, today its three
processing plants have a combined crushing
capacity of 1.3 million tonnes a year in
sunflower alone. In addition, the Group is
active in a number of other sectors, includ-
ing livestock and some forestry. 'As a com-
pany,' says Moreno (second from right), 'we
have of course had our ups and downs. But
in the last ten years, we have focused very
much on our core business and have man-
aged to pump the necessary investment into
high-tech fixed assets in order to make us
internationally competitive.'
TEAM SPIRIT
The result of this investment has tripled
crushing capacity since 1984 and almost
quadrupled productivity in the same
period. 'As a family firm, we're very big
on team-work,' Morena says. 'Tradition-
ally, our policy has been based on creating
a spirit of efficiency, mutual effort and re-
sponsibility among our own people. In an
extremely competitive business and we
need those facets in our organization to
stay ahead of the competition.'
NEW BUSINESS
Asked how his Group intends to do that,
Moreno is quick to point out new markets
opening up for his products. 'We're
looking seriously at China,' he says, 'be-
cause there are real
opportunities there.
But you must not for-
get our own region.
Argentina has a popu-
lation of only 33 mil
lion, but the Merco-
sur countries have
around 200 million.
That represents a
growth market for us
as well. But to go
back to China, we
were very interested
to see Rabobank has established a pre-
sence in the PCR. We'11 be looking for
some proactivity from you there. You know,
a bank's function is not only to lend money.
In fact, it's to create business. In the past,
you went to the bank for credit and you
haggled about amounts and the fees involv-
ed. Today, there is a lot more to a banking
relationship. At Moreno, we are looking for
a different cooperation, a way of studying
new business opportunities together.'
As the Moreno Group is a Rabobank Argen
tina cliënt and the marketing arm is located
in Switzerland, you may be wondering where
the Rotterdam office comes in.'That's easy,'
says Paul Dekker, 'Moreno is a producer and
processor and they ship their products. Many
of those products are physically routed
through Rotterdam.This kind of trade in-
volves a lot of documents. Before a ship can
discharge its cargo, a number of documents
have to be exchanged. I'm talking here spec-
ifically of Bills of Lading which are, in fact, title
to the goods. But there's also import duty to
be paid, charges if the ship cannot be dis-
charged, guarantees for missing Bills of
Lading.There's a whole stack of physical
documents that are continually being rushed
around the port.Our documentary credits
department takes care of that.'
But this is only one element of what we do for
clients such as Moreno. Our Commercial Sup
port Office people actually operate like an
agent for clients,' Dekker says, 'and this can
mean Rabobank customers from any and all
of our operations worldwide.We keep track of
SERIOUS DIALOGUE
Van Buel (right) agrees. 'You need a work
ing relationship with your bank,' he says.
'It should be an open cooperation. But that
has to be based on confidence, so you have
to know that when you think you have an
interesting project, your bank will enter a
serious dialogue with you, and vice versa,
of course.' Moreno confirms this approach.
He believes major changes have occurred in
the culture of family-owned companies in
recent years. 'We used to be rather
introverted,' he says. 'Now, we are ready to
look outside. This is essential if we are to
grow. And looking at our bank for real
input is all part of that development. In
recent years, we've noticed all banks are
talking about "partnership". Few practice
what they preach. Rabobank is an excep-
tion - although not the only one,' he
laughs. 'We work with the bank both in Ar
gentina and here in Rotterdam. It's a good
cooperation, but we certainly evaluate per
formance constantly. We are always weig-
hing Rabobank and its competitors because
if we want to beat the competition, we have
to have a competitive bank.'
MORENO: NEED A COMPETI-
TIVE BANK
De Argentijnse Moreno Groep, de grootste
exporteur van ruwe zonnebloemolie, is
klant van zowel Rabobank Argentinië als
kantoor Rotterdam. Antonio Moreno ver
wacht dat zijn bank tevens zijn partner is:
samen nieuwe kansen bespreken en benut
ten. Een samenwerking gebaseerd op ver
trouwen.
their cargo, we advise on counter-party re-
liability and do just about everything else an
agent does.Say a Chilian fruit company sells a
cargo to Company X. Before giving out title to
the goods, the fruit company wants to know
when - and perhaps more importantly if -
he's going to be paid. We check that out for
him. And if he has sold the goods on, say, a
60-day term, we'll then check after that
period has elapsed whether payment has
been made and make sure they get it.'
According to Dekker, this type of trade isfairly
precarious for the exporter. 'When the
Chilean fruit exporter sees his shipload of
goods sail out of port, he is usually watching
his whole capital leave for a very distant
place. He has to be sure he will get his money.
So we are really providing a comfort level to
him as well as taking care of all the documen-
tation. You could say we're like the client's
eyes and ears here. We're not the only bank
which offers this kind of service, but we are
the only food and agribusiness bank that has
the network and the experience to achieve it
forourF&A clients.'