The business of F&A
6
rabobankers at work
WlUT's Nf.wS Issue 6 June 1997
lf we have been congratulating ourselves on the comparatively strong
niche already built in global food and agribusiness, then we should
think again, according to F&A business manager Peter Greenberg.
'We not only have to make our current position a lot better,' he says.
'We also have to make it different.' As he prepares to move into
this exciting position in Utrecht, Greenberg anticipates
immediate priorities.
Peter Greenberg
When Peter Greenberg was appointed
representative in Buenos Aires from his
job at New York branch, he made a bit of
Rabobank International history. This was
the first time a non-Dutch manager had
been ex-patriated. Since then, the network
has become rather more internationally
(upwardly) mobile and Greenberg is no
longer a three-day wonder. Now, he is on
the move once again, this time to Utrecht.
In February this year, he was invited to
join the F&A policy committee and take
on the tough task of business manager.
1'm going to be right in the middle of
some pretty interesting developments
which by definition means fun.'
CLIENT VALUE
Among these interesting developments are
the deepening and broadening of the
current narrow basket of products and
services to F&A sectors around the world.
The change we see unfolding now,' he
says, 'is one aimed at expanding what we
deliver to our F&A customer base,
particularly in terms of clientvalue
generation. There is little clientvalue and
consequently little ROS to us in credit-
driven products at low margins over
LIBOR or Fed Funds.'
DEEPENING ABILITY
Greenberg sees this shift as part of a
general and growing awareness that the
fundamental transformation in the Dutch
financial sector prompted more than just a
flurry of mergers, marriages, and
acquisitions. 'The home market was
saturated and we had to redouble our
efforts to internationalize the
organization. As I just said, one element in
that ongoing internationalization is to
increasingly add value for customers.
Executing that element will be an exciting
challenge and, as is called for in the
Customer Focus Strategy, will require us
to unite and deepen all our F&A,
investment banking and corporale finance
capabilities into a seamless whole whose
constituent parts are invisible to the cliënt.
Not only can this be done, it needs to be
done - more than we have in the past.'
NEW THINGS
The business manager function is a role
which extends to global coordination and,
in the case of F&A, this will extend to the
creation of local and regional market core
teams led by senior relationship managers.
'These, of course, will include product
specialists and other elements representing
the bank's major disciplines,' Greenberg
explains. 'We will do better the things we
do now. We will do new things. We will
emerge with our F&A activities being seen
clearly as a very major contributor to
solvency. And we will remain true to
tradition of being a cooperative
enterprise.' What does he mean by new
things? 'Our cliënt list of family-owned
F&A companies is a natural launching
pad for everything from private banking
to initial public stock offerings. And on
the credit side, I think we need to
selectively move ourselves more in the
direction of financing primary production.
Why not?'
LEARNING CURVE
Asked what he will be doing first when he
arrivés in Utrecht, Greenberg pauses for
quite some time. 'In general terms, I think
I'll be learning a lot,' he says. T'11 be
getting to know other members of other
policy committees and management teams
based in Utrecht, and I'll be travelling a
lot. The F&A policy committee cannot
DE ZAAK VAN F&A
Volgens de nieuwe
business manager van de
F&A policy committee,
Peter Greenberg, moeten we onze huidige
positie in F&A sterk verbeteren, maar ook
veranderen. Greenberg vertelt over zijn
eerste prioriteiten.
and will not operate in isolation with a
headoffice mentality. I will try to apply an
outside-in approach. We'11 be involved in
a multiplicity of dialogues.' In very
practical terms, he sees as an immediate
priority implementation of the F&A
business plan which is currently in the
final stages of discussion.
F&A BRIDGE BUILDING
While the role of business manager clearly
has advantages from a global management
perspective, what can relationship
managers and other F&A dedicated
international Rabobankers expect in
concrete terms from Greenberg? 'I am to
be a bridge between our traditional F&A
activities of the past and our F&A and
investment banking/corporate finance
successes of the future. I aim to help
facilitate the transition. To do this, I will
also have to be a bridge, a kind of
ombudsman, between F&A account
management and policy decision-makers,
which will not be easy and in advance I
would like to thank the various team
leaders and GMs for their cooperation.
They can certainly expect cooperation
from me. In a perhaps more concrete vein,
I also hope to bring to the surface and
help bridge F&A credit policy differences
of opinion that are of concern to
relationship managers. For example, if we
can earn only 30 basis points on working
capital loans to Cargill-Argentina, which
we absolutely will not do, perhaps we can
earn 300 basis points by financing their
larger suppliers of grains and oilseeds. But
that gets us into a credit policy discussion
on the topic of financing primary
production outside Holland. I look
forward to coordinating the debate on
such topics, hopefully to the benefit of
F&A relationship management.'