'RI's focus should be on
the activities in which
we are genuinely strong:
Food and Agribusiness
and retail banking
You presented the Rabobank mid year results in
August. Are you satisfied with RI's contribution to these?
A "For the most part, I am satisfied. You have to understand
that we only started our international activities in 1980.1 think
we accomplished a lot in a reasonably short period of time.
We built a considerable international network with some 500
offices spread across 28 countries and initiated very successful
businesses in, for example, Australia and North America. There is
a lot of opportunity for us to leverage this international success.
On the other hand, I think we should carefully decide what
businesses we want to run in Rl. In recent times, we have had to
write off considerable amounts due to exposure on subprime
related investments. These developments made us strongly
consider what our focus should be across the coming years.
Some activities, especially those that are not client-focused, will
no longer fit our 2009-2012 strategy."
What then will be the direction of Rl
for the coming years?
"RI's focus should be on the activities in which we are genuinely
strong. By that I mean financing Food and Agribusiness and retail
banking. Considering our Wholesale business, we should have
presence in all parts of the world that are relevant to the different
food chains, for example, the soybean food chain. Soybeans are
produced and processed in Brazil, shipped by Dutch traders to
China where refiners produce end-products based on soybean
oil. For Rl, this means you need to have presence in cities like Sao
Paulo, Rotterdam and Fiong Kong. The same goes for products like
meat, wheat and grain. If you want to be the biggest international
F&A bank, you need to be located in all places that are central to
the big food chains. I think that in the past, we started operations
in locations just to have global presence. Now we need to clearly
focus on locations that provide us with a strategie presence in the
big food chains. This of course also means that we will terminate
activities and leave locations that are not directly contributing to
our F&A strategy."
How do you want to combine the focus
on F&A with retail banking operations?
"We want to enlarge our retail presence in locations where
we already have a strong F&A position. Our Wholesale and Retail
businesses can then reinforce one another. It will be the same
process we went through in The Netherlands, where we started
as a lender for small farmers and gradually extended our product
suite to savings, payments and insurance products. That's the
growth model we are currently implementing in countries like
Poland, Australia and New Zealand and the state of California.
Additionally, we also see good opportunities for straight retail
banking in emerging markets like Turkey, Mexico and Brazil.
We of course also consider China and India; however, these
countries are too big for us to build up an independent presence.
Our strategy there is to take minority interests in successful
local banks."
How are you going to finance these ambitions?
A "RI's profit will be used for the autonomous growth of the
international business. Additionally, investments will come
from Rabobank Group, which Rl can use for acquisitions in
retail markets."
Is the cooperative idea still important
in our international business?
A "Certainly. Until now all our interests are in banks that strive
for profit optimisation and not profit maximisation. These are
banks that are truly investing in their respective communities.
Ultimately, we strive for a model in which our foreign members
can equally decide on the future of our bank. Already, the profit
of the local banks in the different countries returns to their
own operations for further investment in growth. We are not a
company that skims the regions' profit only to become bigger
and expand in the home country. That's not in our nature.
In all our ventures, we want to return value to the communities
in which we operate. In that sense, I also want to stress the
importance of our Rabobank Development programme.
Although it is not part of Rl, it clearly demonstrates how this
bankoperates in the world. Through minority stakes in promising
banks in countries like Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda and Paraguay,
we try to build up these banks to run professional rural operations
that add to the economies of those developing countries. In due
course, these banks can be integrated in the Rl network."
You already have quite a responsible function
as Chairman of the Rabobank Executive Board.
How do you combine this with your function
as Chairman of Rabobank International?
A 'To be honest, in the coming year I will spend about half of my
time on Rl. Although Sipko Schat is doing a great job managing
a large part of RI's strategy and operations, re-focusing RI's
activities will require much of my time. And I am not alone in
managing Rabobank. The other parts of the company are
managed superbly by my colleagues on the Executive Board."
ISSUE 17
THE WORD
