Vendor Finance
Finance Mobility Solutions
Sustainability
both on board and on shore, for the purposes of building team spirit and facilitating the
transfer of knowledge between them. Several integrated HR programmes, which are meant to
aid employees in their personal development, complement De Lage Landen's focus on
gearing up its organisation to be a valuable partner to its worldwide customer base.
The Vendor Finance division helps manufacturers and distributors to sell products and
services to their target markets. This division forms the heart of De Lage Landen's international
operations. Vendor Finance forges long-standing relationships with customers in the form of
partnerships in specific sectors in the lease market, including food and agri, healthcare, clean
tech and the industrial sector, exploring what financial solutions can be offered to help
partners and end users achieve their business objectives. Knowledge of the market takes
centre-stage in De Lage Landen's offering of advisory services. What is essential in this process
is a structured analysis of available market information, from general macro-economic trends
to short-term and long-term industry-specific data. In addition, De Lage Landen stands out
from its competitors because it offers integrated asset management services. Besides defining
the value of an asset over its useful life, this discipline also identifies its use and proper
deployment, combining it with financing options for maintenance and spare parts. As a result,
leases are increasingly being combined with service contracts for leased products, with
De Lage Landen settling any financial movements related to the contracts. Partnerships are
a priority in De Lage Landen's policy. Customers recognise De Lage Landen's offering of an
international partnership combined with industry knowledge as a unique selling point.
For this reason, De Lage Landen again managed to increase the number of contracts with
existing Vendor Finance partners. As many of De Lage Landen's Vendor Finance customers
operate globally, they suffered only minor effects from the current economic decline.
The Finance Mobility Solutions division provides services relating to leasing, factoring and
consumer credit. In the Netherlands, De Lage Landen offers leasing services via the local
Rabobanks and www.leaseloket.nl, or through the direct channel. Instead of purchasing assets,
businesses lease them because this offers more financial leeway and certainty about costs.
Athlon Car Lease is De Lage Landen's mobility division; it has about 231,000 (214,000)
contracts in its European lease portfolio. Athlon operates 126,000 (115,000) lease cars in the
Netherlands, making it the car leasing market leader.
Besides leasing solutions, De Lage Landen also offers factoring services, which are particularly
popular with wholesalers because receivables and inventories are greatly eating into working
capital in this sector. Factoring allows customers of De Lage Landen to free up extra working
capital from their receivables portfolio, which can then be used to fund growth or shore up
the financial position.
De Lage Landen offers consumer loans in the Netherlands through Freo and Athlon Car
Finance. Freo is De Lage Landen's online provider of consumer credit. It puts its customers'
interests first by offering simple products and transparency. Athlon Car Finance, a partnership
between Athlon Car Lease and the Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB focusing on mobility
services on credit for private individuals, was launched in 2012. Customers can submit a credit
application via the ANWB website.
The volume of the total consumer loan portfolio rose by EUR 0.1 billion in 2012, reaching
EUR 1.4 (1.3) billion.
De Lage Landen organises its sustainability activities along four strategic focus areas:
Sustainable Innovative Solutions
The Clean Technology Group continues to expand upon it solar project finance business as
well as strong movement into the community wind and energy efficiency segments. In
addition, the Group has had success adding core DLL products to the overall clean technology
offering, with commercial finance, construction finance and public finance transactions
completed in 2012. The Group continues to expand to additional countries of operation and
leverage Rabobank cross-sell opportunities with strong forward momentum.
64 Annual Report 2012 Rabobank Group
