Increasing cross
border LEASING
14
working relations
In recent months, Rabobank International has won a spate of
important cross-border leasing mandates.The knowledge
gained from this stands at the disposal of the entire Rabobank
International network. It offers every office a powerful tooi with
which to provide value for existing and future corporate clients.
It's fun doing leasing deals: from left to right:
Hem Mulders, Tanja Cuppen, Jos Schreurs,
Ton Röttjers, Wim Roozenboom and Ariëtte
Dekker.
The international cross-border leasing
market has been evolving rapidly over the
last several years. Built on origins in
aircraft leasing, both the geographical
scope of the market and the qualifying
assets have expanded. One can nowadays
see cross-border leases being arranged in a
number of countries which include not
only the United States but also Ireland, the
UK, Germany and Sweden. Customarily,
aircraft were favored assets because they
are easy to identify and quite valuable,
which is important since these are
complex and long-term transactions.
More recently, real fixed assets such as
power plants, electric transmission lines,
airport terminals, and even big-ticket
industrial facilities have been subject to
cross-border leasing arrangements as well.
MAKING ECONOMIC SENSE
Involvement in the cross-border lease
market enables us to build our market
profile and buy entry to the top 100
corporates. This is why we are proactively
selling our know-how in these
constructions both in Holland and
worldwide. In addition, since the bank
acts not only as lender but also as deposit
bank in these transactions, our triple A
credit rating makes us attractive to other
parties wanting to minimize their credit
risk.
GRASPING OPPORTUNITIES
Cross-border leasing deals were traditionally
assembled by a small handful of 'packagers'
who acted as the sole intermediaries between
the investor and a lessee. (Recognized
packagers include Babcock Brown,
Capstar, Allco and D'Accord.) Rabo
assumed such specific roles as financing,
acting as deposit bank, and issuing letters of
credit. Now, we are also directly structuring
deals for our European lessees. According to
Hem Mulders, a member of the Utrecht-
based Structured Finance group, 'we are
making a concerted effort to explain to
existing or prospective clients who are not
yet actively engaged in, but qualify for this
type of business, that they should seriously
LEASING -
INTERNATIONALE
GROEI VOOR Rl
RI's internationale leasing
activiteiten vinden hun oorsprong in de
luchtvaart. De aanschaf van dure vliegtuigen
was de aanzet tot de ontwikkeling van een
fiscaaltechnisch voordelig produkt. Dit jaar is
het de leasing medewerkers gelukt een
groot aantal mandaten te winnen voor
huidige klanten waardoor niet alleen het
provisie-inkomen wordt verbeterd, maar ook
het profiel voor toekomstige klanten.
consider the kind of leasing structures we are
in a position to arrange. There is at least one
simple reason: they result in a significant
lowering of financial costs. In today's business
climate, obviously, this makes a very real
difference. Indeed, any company with A
qualifying assets that isn't considering this
option can be sure that its competitor is.'
REASSURING CUSTOMERS
One example is a recent cross-border
leasing transaction in which we acted as
arranger for one of the large Dutch water
boards. 'Many of our clients see our
presence, in a structuring capacity, as a
long-term advantage', Mulders explains.
'They are reassured to know that, as
packager and financier, we share a common
interest in resolving any issues that might
arise further down the road.' A long-term
relationship with the bank is seen as
beneficial when compared with the one-off
selling of most of the investors. Acting as
arranger also makes it possible to increase
the proportion of fee-based income derived
from such deals, thus enhancing return on M
solvency (ROS). The fantastic growth in
this market has created interesting
opportunities for the bank,' Mulders says.
'Our priority at this point is to increase
customer value and show the market that
Rabobank is capable of handling these
complicated transactions.'
(continued from page 11)
to find solutions, adds Roberto Lopez
Ramirez, a colleague in Global IT.
TEHNICAL COMPETENCE
The issue of coordination on a global level
was one that participants considered
closely. Erny Kahle, who heads up the
Global IT operation, remarked that
'there's no need to reinvent the wheel
every time we start a new office or
introducé a new application.' For
example, the 'centers of competence'
policy, which aims to insure that our
knowledge is efficiently coordinated and
physically concentrated in areas where
expertise already resides, will be applied
to Global IT as well.
CHANNELING INFO
The first day of the conference focused on
network-related issues, such as plans to
migrate towards the Windows NT
software platform, as well as new
applications that are being developed for
use throughout our internal net. The
second day had a twofold purpose: to
discuss the challenges of information
management - i.e. the questions of how to
get the right information to the right
people in good time - and also to
demonstrate the systems mentioned above.
On information management, it was
agreed that whether reporting is local or
global, good communication depends on
Standard definitions. The final day was
devoted to such issues as support: that is,
how to keep the system up and running in
an optimal way. In a free-ranging forum
discussion with participants, Arthur
Arnold stressed that henceforth common
systems will be mandatory at all offices,
and thus help us make the most efficiënt
use of our knowledge, standards and
experience to provide customer value.
