lij' lil wMMmx J IIËÉ1 United States HiWf'M i 27 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

Rabobank Bronnenarchief

blad 'RI The Word / The Word' (EN) | 2009 | | pagina 27