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ABN Amro bolsters UK team, in search of expansion

ABN Amro bolsters UK team, in search of expansion

(6 April 2017 – Europe) ABN Amro is eyeing international expansion - and is seeking out corporate and investment bankers in the UK.

The bank has hired Zafar Khan, who spent 24 years with Citigroup in London and New York, most recently as head of the consumer, retail and healthcare sectors within the European corporate banking business. Starting in April, he will become London-based head of UK coverage within the corporate and institutional banking division, a new role.

According to the bank’s country executive for the UK, Robbert Booij. Khan will be tasked with hiring between seven and 15 bankers over the coming years.

Khan’s appointment follows that of ex-Rothschild managing director Stefan Meine as head of corporate banking in Germany.

The appointments come after the bank’s management board tabled plans to increase its international businesses’ share of group revenue from 27 percent in 2016.

In its 2016 annual report, the bank said that growing the international business was one of its “strategic priorities towards 2020”.

The bank said: “Enhancing our presence in northwest Europe provides us with access to additional revenue pools. Furthermore, it enables us to diversify our risks by lowering the dependency on the Dutch market.”

The bank is targeting various industries for work, including agricultural and food, business services, financial institutions, manufacturing, oil and gas, technology, transportation and utilities.

“We’ll work with companies that have a desire to expand or develop further and therefore have a financing need,” Booij said.

“We’ll help them to strengthen their balance sheet or assist them with acquisitions they may like to make. It’s about helping our clients to grow. It’s not that we’ll be building a lending book for proprietary reasons - we’ve moved away from that.”

Booji added that Brexit had also been taken into account when weighing up the expansion plans - but added that he doesn’t expect the UK’s departure from the EU to change the bank’s work there.

"We’re purely based in the UK to service our customers’ needs,” he said. “If our customers value our service and knowledge, we will remain in the UK and continue to serve them.”

The appoint follows that of Ian Haywood in March as head of banks for the UK and Ireland, within its financial institutions team.

Haywood has over 25 years of experience in the UK banking industry. Prior to his last role as a consultant to Williams & Glyn, was at JP Morgan for 23 years, where he was head of UK and Ireland for the financial institutions group and debt capital markets group for eight years.

Jonathan Greenwood, global head of financial institutions, said: “Having Ian joining confirms the strengthening of our international footprint for financial institutions, adding expertise and contacts to build the multi-product dialogue with banks, building societies, market infrastructure providers and challenger banks."

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