'Let's face ityou will never build a profitat relationship with a cliënt based on lendi? alone. So we have to cross-selV Rl forges transatlantic deal Focus 24 ISSUE 16 JUNE 2008 THE WORD Rabobank International acted as the exclusive financial advisor to leading Spanish wine group Osborne in its strategie business alliance in the United States with The Wine Group, world 3,d larg- est player in the wine industry.The two partners joined to develop new Spanish wine brands for the US market and to further enhance Osborne's leading position for Spanish wines in North America. The transaction was jointly executed by RI's New York and Madrid M&A teams, with thefull involvement of the relationship managers in Spain and the US. The Relationship Managers -- says Armando de Sanna, managing director of Rl in New York- played a decisive role in the origination of the deal opportunity in Spain and in the identifïcation of the US partner". In July 2007, Carlos Gomez-Arroyo and Fernando Garcia, respectively GM and M&A Vice President in Spain, invited Armando to a meeting with Osborne's shareholders and managers. The company was looking to increase its access to the highly contested premium segment in the US. Rob ten Heggeler (left) and Rutger Schellens. Rl has also spent a number of years building up this kind of close relationship with its clients in Europe, but has only recently begun to develop a true pan-European strategy, focused primarily on the Food Agri sector. The bank has identified seven F&A sub-sectors, in Europe, that it believes to be driven by cross-border deals in the near future and in which Rl believes it can play a significant role for the ma jor players in those sub-sectors. But to replicate any measure of RI's success in the Netherlands on a pan-European scale, requires incredibly high levels of cliënt intimacy, Schellens says, referring to the fact that he sees around 60 European clients on a regular basis. "You have to be even more proactive with clients outside our home base. We've achieved this with 60 major clients in Europe, because of our focus on and expertise in F&A. The question now is whether we want to deepen that relationship even "Quite frankly, says Fernando, we left the meeting thinking that Os borne's goal was extremely difficult to pursue, given the US market's high level of consolidation and competitiveness." Back in the US, how- ever, Armando approached John McHugh in San Francisco, RM focused on the US wine business, and John immediately recommended to approach The Wine Group (TWG). TWG was immediately enthusiastic

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