Istvan Csejtei is Head of Rabobank International M&A, where he
leads a team of 35 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) specialists.
The group recently relocated from Amsterdam to Utrecht to be
closer to the wholesale offering of Rabobank International.
[9
Can you explain how Rabobank
develops M&A business in
the Netherlands?
0 How can M&A business help
Rabobank become the sustainable
market leader in the Netherlands?
A Tve been at Rabobank for three years, having
joined as a Managing Director in the M&A
team before moving to my current role. Before
moving to Rabobank I spent nine years working
in Corporate Finance at ING, and prior to that
I worked in business development at a large
media organisation in the Netherlands and
the U.S. 1'm an economist by training, live in
Amsterdam, and am married with two children,
a son and a daughter. When 1'm not working, I
spend as much time as possible with my family
and friends."
A "In the last two years we have invested
heavily in attracting top-quality senior staff,
expanding our group with three new hires
from organisations including Barclays Capital
and RBS. We've also focused our efforts on
attracting young talent from universities and
other institutions, and have expanded the team
from 17 professionals to 35. This approach
has helped us develop new M&A business
in the Netherlands, and we now have one of
the best-quality M&A teams in the market. In
2010, for example, we topped the Dutch M&A
league table in terms of number of transactions
completed, and we are competing head-on with
ING among others for the title of best Dutch
M&A bank. We consider all Rabobank clients as
our potential cliënt base. We're able to service
both large and small deals, while still being
able to concentrate on our core large corporate
and mid-market franchise. We do this in close
cooperation with relationship management
and various product groups within Rabobank.
We service the smaller segment of the market,
mainly clients of our member banks, through
our daughter organisation Rembrandt Fusies
Overnames (F&O), which executes transactions
valued at up to EUR 70 million. This means we
have a solution for any company within the
Netherlands, irrespective of size."
A "Over the last 12 months we've seen a
significant improvement in the Dutch market, with
an increase in deal volume. Although companies
remain cautious, the trend is definitely positive,
with many more deals out there. 1'm confident
that this pattern will continue in the coming two
to three years and following the current wave of
private equity deals we'll see more corporates
becoming active as well, boosting M&A activity.
So putting macro economie issues to one side -
such as the uncertainty surrounding Greece - in
terms of revenue we are optimistic and I believe
that this trend will continue. If I look at our own
income figures, 2010 proved to be a far better year
than 2009, while this year we are ahead of budget.
Since ABN AMRO feil away as the dominant player
in the Netherlands, clients increasingly see us,
Rabobank, as the Dutch powerhouse that they
should be doing business with. There is, however,
more competition than ever before in the Dutch
market, with large international banks remaining
very active and more boutique firms entering
the market. However, our focus is to continue
providing top-quality M&A advice, while looking
for ways to cross-sell banking products to have an
edge on our competitors."
A "I think M&A is a very important part of
an integral wholesale offering to clients. It's
essential for maintaining a strategie dialogue
at board level, as we bring market intelligence
to the CEOs and CFOs, providing them with
ideas and strategy options. Given that M&A is
a strategie service that's introduced at the very
beginning of a process, we are able to facilitate
cross-selling of other products. By working
closely with relationship management and other
product groups, we help to build the long
term wholesale relationships of Rabobank. It's
important to have the entire machine working
in sync with each other, and we believe we're
a crucial part of that operation."»
ISSUE 28 AUC
RI WORLD
