deals
Smooth sailing Feeling fruity
Publisher triumph
IO What'sNewS Issue 1 January 1999
The regular 'Deal of the Month' column will no longer appear in the pages of
What's NewS. Given the high volume of newsworthy transactions generated
within the Rabobank network, it has been decided to end the unduly
restrictive practice of singling out just one individual deal per month.
Instead, we will introducé a new format: each quarter, What's NewS will
publish a page devoted to all outstanding transactions firmly conduded in
the preceding three months. Without revealing too much information about
our customers and/or proprietary aspects of these transactions, we will
concentrate on the most salient details and outline the ways in which these
transactions exemplify our dient focus strategy and demonstrate successful
networking within our bank. Readers are encouraged to contact the What's
NewS team at Rl marketing (tel. +31 30 216 2433 or by e-mail:
whats_news@rn.rabobank.nl) with any successful transactions that they feel
should be considered as candidates for indusion on the new deals page.
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Hong Kong branch has successfully
concluded a USD 200 million US
commercial paper facility and a 365-day
line of credit/revolving credit facility for
China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company,
also known as COSCO. The cliënt is not
only one of China's leading shipping
groups, with some 550 vessels, hut also
one of the largest and best known liner
carriers in the world. Under the deal,
Rabobank International (RI) will play the
roles of book runner, administrative
agent, and the line of credit (or 'fronting')
bank. The deal involved networking,
China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company
USD200,000,000 US Commercial Paper
4 Day Line "1 Credit'Pevolvmg Credit Fac ty
k
Key players in the COSCO deal, Northeast Asia's
genera! manager Dennis Ziengs (left) with
COSCO chairman Chen Zhongbiao (middle)
and head ofcorporate fmance May Wong Tung
namely with Nedship and with New York
branch providing support. The deal was
closed in November with a total of 13
participating banks representing a wide
geographical spread, with RI and Nedship
participating to a total of some USD 30
million conibined.
Rabobank Hungary last month
closed a successful financing deal
for Sió-Eckes, a Hungarian fruit juice
producing subsidiary of Eckes
Granini, the well-known German fruit
juice brand. The deal involves an off-
balance sheet financing of the clients'
fruit pulp stock, using a special
purpose company jointly owned by
Rabobank International (Rl) and
Rabobank Etungary. The Deutsche-
mark denominatéd transaction,
engineered with assistance from the
Frankfurt office, is valued at DEM 3.5
million (EUR 1.8 million). It includes
six forward foreign exchange
transactions and it generated an
additional 0.5 percent in management
fees as a result of the off-balance
sheet structuring activity. The cliënt
agreed to channel its turnover through
accounts with us, further cementing
the relationship. The deal is the
culmination of a multi-year effort to
establish a relationship with Sió-
Eckes, and the innovative nature of
the financing was decisive in prizing
open the door and winning the deal.
A similar transaction was recently
done for Szobi Szörp, a French-owned
fruit syrup firm, and yet another also
likely to be concluded for a third
cliënt in the very near future at even
higher fees. The deal team included
Zsolt Aranyosi, Krisztina Sipos, Agnes
Balint, Janos Bogatin and NDS liaison
officer José Bours.
Our fixed income origination and sales
teams, together with the London
syndication desk, last month succeeded in
puiling something of a rabbit out of the
hat by capturing a mandate to underwrite
an NLG 400 million (EUR 182 million)
subordinated bond issue from one of our
biggest competitors, ABN Amro. The
seven-year transaction for Wolters Kluwer,
the large Dutch publisher, was formally
settled on December 15 and would have
been unremarkable but for the
circumstances in which it was brought to
market. True, it was the last Dutch
guilder-denominated bond deal to be
completed before the introduction of the
euro. And it was fully subscribed against
background of unusual market volatility.
But perhaps the key source of delight was
the fact that the mandate, although
initially awarded to ABN Amro despite
the best efforts of our team, was later
captured back by Rabobank. It appeared
that the competitor was finding it
extremely difficult to place a sufficiënt
sum with their institutional customer
base. 'We were very happy to have had
this opportunity to show the market just
what we're really capable of in
distribution terms,' says Mirelle Pennings
of the origination team. 'We were terribly
disappointed when we first heard that
ABN Amro had been awarded the
mandate in November. But then, when it
subsequently became clear that they
couldn't perform and were withdrawing
the issue from the market, we were quick
to step in. We made a firm offer to
Wolters Kluwer and our sales team was 4
able to place the paper the following day,"
within two hours. We like to think of this
as an accomplishnient that other potential
corporate clients will have noticed.'
The team underwriting the Wolters Kluwer
deal, left to right: Laurent Guntenaar, Michael
Jasper, Paul Michielsen, Mirelle Pennings, Olaf
van Thull, Gert-Jan Vliem, Mare Ligthart, Jeroen
Wakkerman and Theo Verboom
