*It's about applying
our knowledge in
a slightly different
manner 9
El Who is Soh Hang Kwang?
EO So having spent a large part of your
career at ABN AMRO you've now chosen
to move to another Dutch bank. What's
the appeal?
El How do you envision RI's Asia Strategie
Plan 2010 - 2014 lifting the business in
the Singapore region?
El And how will the Asia Strategie Plan
impact the way we deal with our clients?
0 Can you give an example of how you
can provide clients with cross-border
F&A advice?
A 'Tm a 51-year-old native Singaporean, who's been married
to a wonderful lady, Rachel, for 24 years. We have six children,
which is a bit unusual for Singapore, the youngest of whom
is nine and the eldest 23.1 graduated as an accountant and
began working for Price Waterhouse. After a few months,
however, I decided that I wanted to switch to banking, so took
a management trainee position at JP Morgan. After four busy
years there I moved to what was then ABN Bank, but is now ABN
AMRO. I remained with them for around 20 years, broken only by
a two-year stint at Citibank. My first role at ABN was developing
the corporate banking business in Southeast Asia, before I took
over as head of the corporate bank in Singapore. After that I was
given the role of branch manager at ABN's Shanghai branch, and
ultimately developed the bank's presence in China by expanding
the Shanghai office and establishing branches in Beijing and
Guangzhou. I then returned to Singapore and headed up the
bank's private wealth management business in South East Asia
and, ultimately, became head of ABN AMRO's Corporate and
Investment Banking business for the last 7 years."
A"When I first became aware that Rabobank was looking for
a CEO of Singapore, I was immediately intrigued. Firstly, I was
well aware that Rabobank's intention is to build its international
franchise with a focus squarely on the F&A sector, and because
Singapore is clearly a very important location in terms of the
bank's presence in Asia, that attracted me. Secondly, Rabobank
was relatively untouched by the credit crunch, and remains
a very, very healthy bank. This gives me great confidence that
the bank has the capacity to invest within the region. And thirdly,
Asia is enormously important to me. I'm based in Asia, and clearly
I want to be working for a bank that is both committed to the
region and wants to expand its activities here."
A "I think Rabobank has two great strengths: its ability to manage
risk and its unrivaled knowledge of the F&A sector. Rabobank's
future in the region lies in combining those strengths with our
corporate banking skills, while developing high quality revenue
streams from key clients within our chosen sectors. Let me
illustrate this by looking at some figures. The Asia strategy aims to
doublé revenues from around EUR 50 million this year to around
EUR 100 million by 2014. That is the top line number. This will be
achieved by increasing revenues from three main areas: India,
China, and Southeast Asia. In both China and India, the consumer
market will grow rapidly, which will result in greater food demands.
The greater demand for food will consequently result in in-
creased imports. In particular the Southeast Asia region will
turn into a major supplier of oilseed, producing mainly palm oil.
And with a population of roughly 500 million people, it also has
the ability to become a major consumer of goods. Additionally,
the Southeast Asia region is geographically close to Australia,
another high volume food provider, which means that Southeast
Asia can be viewed as the linking pin in the Asia region."
A"Wecurrently have around 90 to 100 global clients within the
region, and those clients will also be managed from a sector
perspective. Essentially we will have sector heads operating within
each region, ensuring that we are supplying our clients with not
only the financial products they need to operate their businesses
successfully, but also the F&A intelligence and expertise that they
need to grow and expand into new markets. Of these sectors, three
will be covered from Singapore, namely grains and oilseeds, animal
protein and value-added processing."
A "Because we'll be operating a client-led strategy, our focus
will be on the products and services, irrespective of which
business unit or office services the cliënt. This means focusing
on opportunities and selling our knowledge intelligently.
For example, if we were to go to China and say to a Chinese
dairy cliënt 'We are Rabobank. We know dairy. Can we help
you?' They'd say Thank you, but no thank you. We're Chinese,
you're not'. However, when we approached one of our clients
in Indonesia, Japfa, and gave them advice and feedback on
expanding their dairy business in China, they understood that
our cross-border knowledge, coupled with our sector expertise,
was an unbeatable formula. As a result, we're currently in the
process of arranging USD 40 million of funding for Japfa's
new dairy project in Shandong, China. So in essence it's about
applying our knowledge in a slightly different manner, and
looking for cross-border opportunities."»
ISSUE 26 JANUARY
RI WORLD
