A global team

English is the common language of the Customer Relationship Management (ZKM) International unit – both within the team and in contacts with many of its customers. Helaba operates from sites in the USA, the UK, France, Spain, Sweden, China, Russia, Singapore and Germany. The employees staffing these various offices keep in touch with one another across continents and time zones by telephone and video conference and they also meet up face to face regularly to share information and experience.

CRM International essentially serves three different major customer groups – multinational companies, the German upper SME segment and customers of the Sparkassen, the latter supported through a special German Desk based at the London and New York sites – plus the all-important local customers, for which our range of services offers welcome added value. These customers appreciate the reliable partnership offered by Helaba and its consistency in terms of both strategy and customer contacts.

Our long-standing customer relationships enable us ...
to gain an insight into a wide range of different business models and a deeper understanding of the pertinent sectors of the UK market.

We mainly focused in 2016 on ...
developing and intensifying existing customer relationships, although we did also press ahead with new customer acquisition activities. Bilateral and syndicated loans are the cornerstone of our business, but we also assist our customers with cross-border finance, promissory note issues and interest and currency hedging. We see further opportunities in the market going forwards.

My objective is to steer the London office ...
so that in the medium term we end up with an active and well-diversified customer portfolio with selected British and Irish key accounts that look on Helaba as a reliable, strategically- significant long-term business partner. Our German Desk provides local payment transactions services for corporate customers of the Sparkassen to assist them with their business activities at home and abroad.

The best places to take afternoon tea in London ...
are the venerable old hotels like Brown’s, The Connaught and Claridge’s.

The main priority in our work is ...
new business with our local target customers. We have Helaba’s entire product range in our armoury to help us in this. The larger Spanish companies have stepped up their international operations massively over the past decade and all kinds of different strategic cross-border financing approaches consequently come into play for Helaba. Our activities as a representative office involve supporting inquiries not just from the Sparkasse realm, but also from Helaba’s various (product) departments, especially in the context of our German Desk and with banking support.

The specialised composition of our team ...
ensures that our “HQ” has specific knowledge of local business customs thanks to regular dialogue and discussion and that we are therefore able to bring notions here on the ground and circumstances abroad into balance and thus steer transactions to a faster conclusion.

My favourite museum in Madrid ...
is the one I feel like visiting on the day – different museums cover different subjects but they are all well worth exploring. Particularly noteworthy perhaps is the “museum” of football club Real Madrid, stadium tour included!

We officially opened our representative office in May 2015 and since then ...
our team and colleagues from Germany have been busy raising Helaba’s profile in the ASEAN region, India and Korea and working to arrange new transactions.

The main focus of our work ...
is to provide meaningful support for Helaba and the Sparkassen in their international business and assist corporate customers of both in the region in the areas of foreign trade, export finance and project finance. Other priorities for our office include international business with banks in the region, for example in the field of cash management, and the provision of expert counselling for Asian real estate investors with an interest in Europe.

The most promising areas in our view are ...
foreign trade finance and specialised lending, be it short-term cover for trading transactions using letters of credit or long-term sales finance for German investment goods. We also see good potential in structured finance for energy and infrastructure projects with German involvement.

If I need a dose of Europe in Singapore ...
(and even if I don’t) I just get together with European friends – nobody really loses their identity altogether even after many years abroad, which is a good thing as it is variety that makes meeting up so enjoyable.

Our particular niche strength is …
implementing promissory note loans, which Nordic issuers like to use as a cost-efficient supplement to their regular bond issues. Our structuring and under writing capabilities in the acquisition finance field are also in demand and we see enduring potential here: the solid financial foundations and global ambitions typical of companies in our region suggest more M&A activity to come. Turning to project finance, we see lively activity in the renewable energy field plus opportunities for infrastructure development projects using the public-private partnership model. We realise that we have to have big financing deals on our balance sheet in order for customers to take us seriously as a core bank. But thanks to our liquidity and our excellent and stable ratings, this is not difficult to achieve.

We are in contact with our customers all over the world …
day in, day out. For us, this is all in a day’s work. Our colleagues from Frankfurt and London visit the Nordic countries regularly, sharing the product expertise we need in order to develop specific solutions with our customers.

Nothing beats …
a morning coffee on a summer weekend in your own cabin, usually by a lake or the sea.

The German Desk provides our Sparkasse customers ...
(that is to say SMEs) a gateway to the American market in New York. Advisory services are extremely important and in strong demand alongside the actual banking services.

Outbound business with German and other European subsidiaries of US companies ...
is one of our main focuses because of the fact that Europe remains one of the most significant markets for US products. And just as German companies have manufacturing operations in the USA, so many American companies have deep roots in Europe.

My team and I win over American customers with the argument that ...
Helaba is a steadfast and reliable long-term partner that knows Europe inside out. It is particularly important for companies operating far from home to be able to rely on the expertise of a bank like Helaba that can help them avoid any unpleasant surprises.

My ideal Sunday begins ...
with brunch at 10,000 feet. I am an aviator and enjoy scouting out the US East Coast with my family: from Cape Hatteras to Maine, in summer we are out there together exploring almost every weekend.