Talking trade
m°nt HLY INTERNAL NEWSLETTER FOR RABOBANK INTERNATIONAL Issue 10-November 1997
Rabobank
International
What's NewS
In the early days - not too long ago - the handful of trade finance
people from around the world met annually for a two-day meeting,
often in part conjunction with account managers. These days,
5 members from dedicated trade and commodity finance teams
around the world come together for their conference. October 1997
was no exception. The usual networking opportunities were again
high priority, but the conference itself had been structured to focus
on structure. Shafik Gabr of International Trade Finance says: 'In
line with the ongoing implementation of our customer focus strategy,
the theme of this conference was how to meet the often very specific
needs of customers and how to become increasingly proactive in
creating tailor-made solutions.' According to the conference, the key
to achieving the latter is knowledge and the program reflected our
growing appetite for gaining new know-how through the use of
external experts alongside our own specialists. Among the guests
invited to share very specialized knowledge of added-value
disciplines were Neil Galletti of Lloyd Thompson, the (re)insurance
brokers and Maurice Drage of Exporters' Insurance Company (EIC).
The message was that factoring insurance for a whole range of risk,
including confiscation, war and a host of others can add value in a
structured trade and/or commodity finance solution. More on page 6.
in brief
GROUP POWER
At a recent food and agri
policy committee meeting, a
F&A product development
reference group was established
globally place members
^^iround the network. According
to F&A business manager Peter
Greenberg, 'it's all about
communication. The idea is to
help implement our customer
focus strategy by informally
tapping into the experience and
expertise of our global F&A
marketing platform. The new
group can communicate to the
network innovative and ROS-
friendly deal structures that
may be applicable in more than
one location.' The new product
development group consists of
Peter Greenberg, Guus
Rozendaal, Wilfried Mulder
and Thos Gieskes from
Utrecht, Ben Davies London,
•klancy O'Connor New York,
loger Bradshaw Hong Kong,
Implementing our customer focus strategy, left to right:
Carol Harding (South Africa), Jdnes Bogakin (Budapest),
Izabel Salvucci (Brazil), Jan Remie (Utrecht) and Sundram
Thiagarajan (Singapore).
Yong Meng Singapore,
Paulo Bellotti Sao Paulo and
Ab Gillhaus in Sydney.
M&A CLOCKING UP
CLIENTS
Our Rabobank International
London branch co-hosted a
major food and drink
conference last month. The
conference, held annually in
London, was jointly sponsored
by Rabobank International
together with Acquisitions
Monthly, the UK based monthly
M&A magazine regarded by
many as the 'bible' for the
M&A industry. According to
London's M&A director John
Cripps, 'the conference is
something of a prestigious event,
previous years have been
sponsored by the international
merchant banks Lazard and SBC
Warburg together with the
management consultants
OC&C. Co-hosting provided a
lot of positive exposure for
Rabobank. It attracted over
100 attendees, mainly executives
from F&A companies of all sizes
from all over Europe, including
Russia.' The conference included
a cocktail party attended by the
speakers and senior members of
Rabobank, including Wouter
Kolff, Henk Gentis, London's
general manager Gijs van der
Schrieck as well as members the
mergers and acquisitions team.
Networking at London's M&A
conference, left to right: Paul van
der Wel (c.e.o. Meneba), Gijs van
der Schrieck and Henk Gentis.
contents
ANOTHER MONTH OF
WHEELING AND DEALING
IN WHAT'S NEWS.
Working with Nutreco
banking that is nochild's play 3
Investment banking seeing
opportunities not threats 4
Frankfurt special disclosing
Rabo Deutschland 7
Currency crisis - how we're
holding up in the Far East 12
International cash
management - new policy
framework 13
Rabo Olsen - the latest on
what's happening and who's
involved 14
Talking heads - Flans Flannaart
goesto India 16
