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News
Rosenblatt appointed vice president at TradePoint
Alan Rosenblatt, director of Large Systems Group, was recently
appointed vice president of US operations for TradePoint Systems.
A 25-year veteran of the transportation and logistics industry,
Rosenblatt spent the past 11 years performing a range of job functions,
including application software designer and developer, business
analyst, software-development manager, and product director with
TradePoint, a software provider for the international trade community.
posted 3 Nov 2003
Deutsche Bank: Talking about an evolution
Reinhard E-Uhl, head of global trade finance at Deutsche Bank,
has announced a major realignment with respect to the strategic
delivery of the bank’s trade-finance products and services
worldwide.
Using largely the same resources, Uhl is changing the focus for
his business unit to allow relationship managers and product
specialists to concentrate on their particular roles while being
fully integrated into the overall goals of Deutsche Bank’s global
banking division.
“I compare it to a baseball team,” says Uhl. “The relationship
manager will be there to hit each transaction to first base or
second base. The product specialist should then make the home run
through deal execution. The key aim is to further strengthen the
bank’s client focus by easing their interaction with the bank.”
To affect this, one major change is that the relationship
managers will now feed transactions to both the high-volume,
flow-business product teams, within the trade-risk services area
(including documentary credits and collections), and the structured
trade- and export-finance product teams that are charged with
delivering bespoke, innovative solutions.
This allows the relationship managers to concentrate solely on
the client’s needs while the product teams deal with the mechanics
of transaction delivery. “It is evolutionary rather than
revolutionary,” says Uhl. “But it is an important change nonetheless
because it integrates and specialises the teams at the same time –
creating a matrix of client, product and region – with the sole aim
of offering the most effective deal delivery to the client.”
Why the change? According to Uhl, it better reflects the changes
in the market. Uhl sees a world of rapidly maturing emerging markets
that make the old delivery patterns for trade-finance products and
services obsolete.
“Where once we had buyer markets and seller markets – perhaps
correlating with developing and developed countries – we now see a
convergence,” says Uhl. “Markets are now much more two-way, as
indeed are the clients. They both buy and sell, both equipment and
resources. And the best way to serve these more diverse needs is to
locate relationship managers bang next to the client, whether in
Moscow or Madrid, while the product teams, with their particular
execution skills, are located in our hubs and focus purely on
getting deals done. In our view, this is the best way to both
maximise efficiency and stay as client-focused as possible.”
According to Dealogic, Deutsche Bank is the number one arranger
of global trade-finance loans by mandates, so far in 2003, and was
number one by mandates and volume in 2002. The team has also
consistently won awards for short-term trade finance, documentation
and structured trade finance, so any realignment on this scale is
likely to have a significant impact on the market – especially given
changes in the self perception of many traditional trade-finance
borrowers.
“Emerging-market corporates are changing the way they view
themselves,” says Robert Kelsey, managing director of Moorgate
Group, a London-based consultancy specialising in public relations
for emerging-market borrowers. “These borrowers are no longer simply
a risk to be mitigated. They are complex entities, buying and
selling capital goods as well as natural resources, and they require
a range of debt and trade-finance products that reflects this. Any
bank dealing with companies such as the Russian oil majors needs to
recognise the new truth and to change to meet the new demands. This
makes the latest wave of emerging-market lending different. The
corporate, sovereign and financial borrowers have matured – many
adopting international-accounting and corporate-governance standards
– and they expect their lenders to acknowledge this.”
New loans coming to the market, with Deutsche Bank as a mandated
arranger, include a one-year US$300m pre-export financing for
Turkey’s Akbank. Other relationships likely to be affected include
Russia’s Vneshtorgbank, where Deutsche Bank was one of 12 mandated
banks for the US$157m club deal, and Hrvatske Autoceste of Croatia,
where a 13-year Nexi-guaranteed loan for h250m was signed in
October, with Deutsche Bank acting as one of two mandated arrangers.
Kathleen Williams
SMBC’s Orita returns to Tokyo
Toshihide Orita of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) has
returned to Japan as the general manager of trade finance in the
global institutional banking department after five years in
Singapore.
Based in Tokyo, Orita is responsible for trade-finance activities
and will lead the bank’s trade initiatives. He established the
trade-finance team in Singapore shortly after the Asian crisis and
has since raised the profile of SMBC as one of the most active
players in Asia.
Orita’s successor, deputy general manager Junji Nawata has been
transferred from Tokyo.
Smith joins technology consultancy
Donald R. Smith, formerly of Citibank, has joined Norman
Technologies as vice president of client services.
A 30-year international banking veteran, Smith was most recently
vice president of global trade finance and services, and served as
co-chaired the International Chamber of Commerce’s task force
charged with documenting International Standard Banking Practices.
He also serves on the board of directors of the International
Financial Services Association, chairs the Banking Committee of the
US Council for International Business and represents the US to the
International Chamber of Commerce’s Committee on Banking Technique
& Practice.
Norman Technologies is a Charlotte-based consulting firm
specialising in supply-chain management, trade finance, cash
management, foreign exchange, factoring and global payments
established in 1997.
AFIA elects new officers
The financial institution members of the Association of
Forfaiters in the Americas (AFIA) have elected a new slate of
officers and board of directors for the term ending in 2004.
Hernan Narea of Orix USA Corp was elected president, Gregory
Bernardi of London Forfaiting Americas was elected vice president
and Bernardo Rothe of Banco do Brasil was elected treasurer. Other
officers include: Luis Ponce of Absa Bank, Dino Sani of Banco Itau,
Inwha Huh of Deutsche Bank, Diana Bustamante of Finantia USA,
Therese Rabieh of JPMorgan, Bruce Fields of Standard Americas, Mark
Ampuero of Standard Chartered Bank, Pamela Deutsche of TD Securities
(USA) and Donald Asadorian of WestLB.
The AFIA is a non-profit group incorporated in New York dedicated
to fostering and promoting international trade finance in the
Americas.
New leaders and new members for Berne Union
Hans Janus of Euler Hermes Germany was appointed the new
president of the International Union of Export Credit and Investment
Insurers, more commonly known as the Berne Union, at an annual
general meeting in Mexico. He succeeds Vivian Brown of the UK Export
Credit Guarantees Department.
Janus joined Euler Hermes Germany in the political claims and
rescheduling department in 1983. He subsequently moved through a
variety of management positions leading up to his appointment to the
board of management at Euler Hermes in 1994.
Topi Vesteri of Finnvera, the Finnish export credit agency, was
elected to take over from Marjan Kramar of SEC, Slovenia, in the
role of vice president. Vesteri was named director of export credit
guarantees in 1998 and then deputy managing director at Finnvera in
2000.
During the course of the week-long meeting, Thai Eximbank was
accepted as the newest observer member of the Berne Union, while
Zurich from the US, Sovereign from Bermuda and SBCE from Brazil were
voted in as full members after their two-year observer period. This
brings the total number of Berne Union members to 52.
Last year, Berne Union members supported US$485bn of exports, up
6% from 2001, and backed US$14bn of investments, which is down about
10% from 2001. The countries with the largest commitments for medium
and long-term business were China, Turkey, Mexico, Iran and
Indonesia.
Sullivan & Worcester expands New York office
Corporate law firm Sullivan & Worcester LLP has expanded its
New York office, including appointing George Lindsay to the
management committee.
Lindsay, the managing partner of the New York office, is head of
the firm’s securitisation practice group and a member of its banking
and finance department. He represents purchasers, issuers and credit
enhancers of asset-backed securities, and counsels banking
organisations in secured and unsecured lending transactions, project
financings, credit enhancements and capital-market activities both
in the United States and abroad.
In his new role as a member of the firm’s management committee,
Lindsay will serve on a seven-person team responsible for the
overall governance and management of the firm.
HSBC cuts jobs in London restructuring
HSBC has embarked on a drive to review its investment-banking
sector, leading the ‘world’s local bank’ to cut 30 staff in its
corporate-advisory and project-finance, areas in September. This
comes as part of a restructuring that is being driven by Stuart
Gulliver and John Studzinski, HSBC’s new co-heads of corporate and
investment banking who joined the group’s head office at Canary
Wharf in London earlier this year.
An HSBC spokesperson confirmed that the bank is also in
consultation with five staff in project and export finance and ten
employees in its emerging-markets foreign-exchange division who are
likely to be redeployed or made redundant. Despite reports that many
of those about to leave are senior staff, the bank maintains that
the majority of the job losses are in support areas. The
spokesperson said: “At the moment, on the project- and
export-finance side, there are job losses in support areas so we are
not actually losing anyone from project finance at all. And, it is
support staff in export finance that are going.” The bank has not
released the names of those employees affected.
However, the spokesperson pointed out, with regards to export
finance: “This is an area that we have traditionally been very
strong in and we are still hiring there and doing some good deals.
On the corporate and advisory side, where the 30 people are, it’s an
area that we want to continue to grow, but it is one that we do
actually need to review in terms of our business model and take it
forward in the best interests of our clients.”
HSBC has traditionally had a low profile in investment banking,
and Gulliver and Studzinski aim to revitalise it by capitalising on
HSBC’s corporate client base. The shake-up at the London office
follows the redundancy of 60 employees at the bank’s New York branch
earlier this year, but like New York, London headquarters are in the
process of hiring again in an attempt to strengthen its
investment-banking team.
New trade-finance and insurance head at Ex-Im Bank
Richard Maxwell has been named vice president and head of the
trade-finance and insurance division of the Export-Import Bank of
the United States (Ex-Im Bank).
Maxwell, a senior manager with broad experience in international
banking, lending, and political-risk and trade-credit insurance,
comes to Ex-Im Bank from GMAC Commercial Finance LLC, where he was
senior vice president of the risk-management, commercial-services
division.
Before joining that company in 2002, Maxwell was senior vice
president of commercial underwriting at Euler American Credit
Indemnity. Between 1983 and1997, he held a variety of positions at
American Express Bank, ending as senior director and manager of
international trade finance for North America. He began his career
at the Foreign Credit Insurance Association.
Fortis enters LME and precious-metals derivatives markets
Fortis Bank has announced its intention to enter the London Metal
Exchange and precious-metals derivatives markets through Fortis
Commodity Brokerage (FCB), a division of the bank based in London.
As part of this development, the bank has appointed John King as
head of its new base- and precious-metals operation, and Gerhard
Schubert as director of the precious-metals business. Seamus
O’Connell will head the base- and precious-metals administration,
and further appointments are expected in due course.
FCB’s main activities include advising, clearing and executing
cocoa, coffee and sugar futures and options contracts on the
commodity exchanges. Its clients are producers, traders and
industrial processors of these products. FCB will now expand its
services to include aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, tin, aluminium
alloy, nickel, gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
FCB will have the exclusive and worldwide mandate within Fortis
to offer hedging and investment services to its customers, as well
as the institutional marketplace. Fortis anticipates commencing the
business in the first quarter of 2004, once regulatory formalities
have been completed.
Fortis names new GM of strategy
Hans De Backer is to succeed H. van der Knaap as general manager
of strategy at Fortis, following a long and successful career with
the group.
After his traineeship and five years as a senior trade-finance
manager, De Backer joined Fortis Bank in Hong Kong, where he held
various senior positions, including deputy chief executive officer
of North Asia. He successfully redrafted Fortis Asia’s strategy and
re-engineered its activities, and was a key player in the
partnership negotiations between ICBC and Fortis.
New appointments at JPMorgan Treasury Services
JPMorgan Treasury Services has made five recent senior-level
hires. Astar Saleh was named regional head of network trade for the
Asia Pacific region. Based in Singapore, he will be responsible for
capitalising on opportunities that arise from JPMorgan’s
trade-finance solutions for large corporates and financial
institutions. Having worked in trade finance for more than 15 years,
he was most recently with Deutsche Bank as Asia Pacific head of
structured trade finance.
Meanwhile, Tim Decker joined as vice president and will focus on
JPMorgan’s response to technology and standards changes, and on
strengthening the department’s position as a non-indigenous euro
clearer.
Andrew Harding, who has been with the company for five years, has
been appointed to create and implement a liquidity and investments
business strategy for the EMEA corporate market.
Rod Staples, previously a senior manager of treasury consulting
solutions at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, will assist in the development
of financial-service-provider solutions.
And, with 13 years experience in business management and product
development in cash management, securities and trade at Citigroup,
Mojgan Faratin has been appointed vice president of trade. He will
be responsible for trade services and finance sales development for
corporates in France, Benelux, Ireland and the UK.
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