'It's the team that
makes it happen...'
talking heads
Argentina's Chris Abbenhuis on the hot seat.
16 What'sNewS
Issue 10-October 1998
From talking to Chris Abbenhuis at
occasional meetings, it had become
clear there is no waffle or small talk about
the man. Some familiarity with him tells
you he speaks carefully, weighing how he
can impart information as efficiently as
possible. This serious and succinct way of
communicating means initially he comes
across as quiet, unassuming, organized
and decisive in a rather single-minded
way. What is not immediately apparent is
his dry sense of humour and, once he's
comfortable talking, his ready laugh -
often at himself. He's clearly thought over
our request for a Talking Head: 'Fire
away, he says even before we've got to the
big guns and big bangs that were part of
his life during military service. These were
entrusted to him - even now he shrugs
incomprehendingly at the notion - by the
Dutch ministry of defence when he was
still only in his early 20s.
But the stint in the artillery was very
important for him in that it gave him
pause to think about what he was doing.
'I had a great time in the army, made a lot
of friends there; it was almost a
continuation of my student days in that I
had more fun than anything else. The
experience sobered me and when I left the
army, I finished my studies very quickly.'
In fact, Abbenhuis had first attended the
prestigious Technical University at Delft.
'It was an obvious choice,' he says,
'engineering suited my taste for detail,
precision and intricate structuring. What I
hadn't reckoned on was that once I'd
chosen a major, I'd have to sit in a small
cubicle alone with a drawing board for
three years while working on my
graduation project. When I realized that, I
moved to the agricultural university at
Wageningen.'
At Wageningen, he was able to pursue a
broader-based study of the kind that
would mark his career thereafter -
although this wasn't conscious then. 'If I
look back on what I've done, then you
can see a pattern,' he agrees. The pattern
began with learning corporate banking
the hard way - serving SMEs in a rural
area of Holland. The Betuwe has long
been known as the country's orchard, but
in recent decades, it has become a centre
for trans-European distribution. For
Abbenhuis, it would teach him the basics.
'What I liked about working with SMEs is
that you are close to the customer,' he
says. 'You get to know them intimately
and you're involved in the dynamism that
makes SMEs successful. I had a great
team there, we had a lot of fun.'
service industries. Very soon, 1 was part of
a McKinsey advisory team looking at
international activity. This is where I got
to know a lot of people who were
working on international.' When the
opportunity to go to Australia came up,
Abbenhuis and his agri-engineer wife Elly
were tempted. 'We'd never really thought
about working abroad,' he says. 'Elly had
her own - highly successful - career.
Moving would ntean she'd have to give
that up. On the other hand, the prospect
of Australia was exciting and on balance,
too good to miss.'
But after some time, he began to
understand that there was a lot more to
be learned. 'I wanted to go deeper into
how banking worked,' he recalls. His
move to the Nationale Investerings Bank
(NIB) would take him there. As one of the
earliest European venture capital
providers, NIB offered him insight into
the intricacies of a business that added a
very different dimension to rural
wholesale banking. From venture capital,
he moved to a newly created capital
markets team designed to capitalize on the
contacts NIB had build through its other
business. 'That worked very well until the
crash of 1987,' Abbenhuis says. 'Our
activities wound down and I then moved
to corporate banking, this time for the so-
called middle market food companies and
health care organizations.'
This mosaic of varied experience proved
extremely attractive to Rabobank, which
at the time was in the process of
reorganizing its wholesale activities. More
focus on international activity was part of
that move. 'I came into Rabobank in
1990 to work on large corporates in the
When pressed about the seemingly
hopeless economie prospects, he replies
seriously, but without a tracé of concern:
'Yes, the forecasts are not optimistic, d
especially if the region as a whole slides
further into difficulties. But we're still
looking for expansion of our business.'
Abbenhuis then goes on to expound a
three-sided expansion plan which will
build on their fully dedicated F&A focus
through growing the customer base and
broadening the range of available
corporate finance products, not least
through Rabo Trading Argentina, an
entity rather like the hugely successful
operation set up in Chile a couple of years
ago. Then there is health care, an area
which looks highly promising. At the
office in Buenos Aires, there is an upbeat
atmosphere. Everyone is aware of the
economie prognosis, but no one appears
in anyway pessimistic about the future of
Rabobank Argentina. There is a quiet
confidence about the way he explains
their growth plans - a confidence which is
clearly shared by the latest in his ongoing
succession of 'great teams'. You can't help
but believe they'11 do it.
I
Team worker, Chris Abbenhuis
The period in Australia proved very good
for Rabobank, too. Within a year of
Abbenhuis arriving, the first steps towards
the acquisition of PIBA were ongoing ancL
the corporate banking side was starting tl
flourish. 'We had a great team,' he says,
'and the team made that happen. It was a
dynamic period and I certainly learned a
lot.' The growth generated by the
merchant bank belies the fact that
Australia was in the grip of a severe
economie downturn at that time. Perhaps
that is why Abbenhuis and his team
(which he describes as 'top class') in
Buenos Aires do not appear too
concerned about the impending collapse
of the Argentinean economy touted by
just about every conceivable forecaster -
and then some.
