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there are still growth opportunities. "There's
a great deal of potential within the market,
particularly through consolidation - in other
words, where larger producers acquire
smaller, less efficiënt producers. Through our
experienced team we are better placed than
our competitors to further capitalise in the
F&A space. In doing so, one of the challenges
is to manage the risk and our credit quality
to ensure our growth is sustainable."
Dobbin echoes an opinion heard around the
world, namely that with a growing world
food shortage, the F&A sector wiil suffer
the least compared to other food markets.
Both Australia and New Zealand are
attractive markets for Rabobank to be involved in through
their stable, well developed economies with commodity
production primarily for export as well as their world class
technology and farm management techniques. "We have
well established products which are highly regarded and
tailored to the market including a suite of treasury products,
domestic funding through RaboPlus, value adding through
FAR and education programmes and a close alliance in
equipment fïnance through our subsidiary De Lage Landen.
We're confident about the future, and, more importantly
perhaps, our customers remain extremely confident about
our abilities, service and products."
Rabobank has a 27-year heritage in the United States, during
which time it has arguably become the premier F&A bank
in the country. According to Bob Bucklin, Rabobank's Chief
Corporate Banking Officer for the US and Canada, the bank's
reputation, stability, and depth of knowledge within F&A has reputation.'
been invaluable in seizing the many opportunities since the
onset of the credit crisis. "One of our greatest strengths here
at Rabobank is our commitment to the F&A sector. Because
we understand business cycles, we can respond to cliënt
needs where other banks may choose to back away. Similarly
our triple A status plays an important role. One example: a
major US bank was struggling with liquidity recently and
decided to downsize its securitisation operations. Our vehicle
was (and is) doing well, and we literaily had prospective
clients calling us to request our service. We're proud of the
fact that our continued focus on cross-sell has proven to be
successful year after year. The onset of the current financial
crisis has presented us with unique opportunities to capitalise
on our ground work and organisation, notably within M&A,
interest rate swaps, foreign exchange, and debt products."
Going forward, Bucklin believes Rabobank's consistency
wiil be key to maintaining its leading position in the US. "If
we can continue to focus on our core business, even more
so during this turbulent period, we wiil only enhance our
issue 19 apk'! v THE WORD