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.'

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blad 'What's news' (EN) | 1997 | | pagina 6