Rabo Securities
Proactive integration
Focus on capitalization
1BU ÉS
Last month saw an important step in Rabo Securities' (RS) ongoing effort to
"d%w- -
bolster its already established, though at times embattled position on the
markets. The unit, which is becoming an increasingly important contributor
to the overall business development of the Rabobank Group as a whole,
announced that it will act as senior co-lead in the prestigious initial public
offering (IPO) of WorldOnline, a burgeoning Internet service provider that is
soon to be floated on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange (AEX).
This announcement firmly puts to rest
any speculation and negative publicity
tliat might have been aroused by the
defection last November of fornter Rabo
Securities chief Andries Mak van Waay
together with several senior players
including the heads of trading and
research. Quite understandably, this
departure, which was widely reported in
the domestic and even the international
press, gave rise to speculation that the
Rabobank Group might be less than
serious in its commitment to developing
the RS franchise. In fact, as subsequent
developments have shown, nothing could
be further from the case.
'My predecessors' behaviour was terribly
inelegant and deceptive,' says Willem
Beelaerts van Emmichoven, the new
RS chair. (A financial markets veteran
of considerable stature, Beelaerts' decision
to join Rabobank on short notice quashed
much of the negative publicity.) 'To be
quite honest, I've never in my entire
business career known of an executive
who spent three months preparing his
own defection, sitting all the while behind
his existing entployers' desk. Still, these
things do happen.'
Beelaerts is keen to shrug off the faintest
hint of any long term damage as a conse-
quence of those shifts. 'At first of course,
it canie as quite a shock both internally
and on the market as a whole. People here
feit isolated and vulnerable; market play
ers voiced certain concerns about the
continuity of their relationships with RS.
That was to be expected. But the fact that
we were able to move so quickly and
indeed to hire back two of the contmer-
cially most important people we initially
lost, without resorting to the lure of
increased salaries, decisively demonstrates
the underlying potential inherent in the
franchise we've so carefully built up to
this date. True, we had to go through a
period of damage control, but the vibra-
tions on the market and in the corridors
here at RS in Amsterdam clearly indicate
that we've left that phase behind.'
Of immeasurable help, together with the
positive announcement of our senior
co-leadership of the WorldOnline deal,
has been the fact that Rabo Securities'
strategie role within the context of the
Rabobank Group has now been clearly
and unequivocally enunciated. RS's
responsibilities within RI, plus its commit
ment to support the newly established
Rabobank Nederland Grootbedrijf as well
as the member banks, are now clear, even
if the broader implications of the DG
cooperation project, as well as certain
details such as internal service level agree-
ments, remain to be finalized.Within the
framework that has now emerged, Rabo
Securities is firmly integrated within the
functional orbit of the newly established
RI business unit known as 'Equity and
International M&A', while it formally
remains a legal entity in its own right.
Among other things, this tie will pave the
way for a much more proactive network-
ing between RS and other divisions in the
Rabobank Group.
As before, RS's core activities will be
corporate advisory work (equity including
M&A), plus research, sales, and trading.
What's NewS Issue 7 January/February 2000 I I