Fortis Lease in January, has had to make some tough decisions in
recent months. However, as Brian Rogerson
discovers, his relatively new team is now ready for whatever lies
ahead.
This January David de Buck was appointed as chief executive
officer of Fortis Lease Group, the largest leasing company in
Belgium and Luxembourg, and one of the top four European
cross-border lessors.
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His appointment came at a crucial time for Fortis Lease, not
least as Fortis, along with Royal Bank of Scotland and Banco
Santander, had won the battle to acquire ABN AMRO. De Buck, in
effect, was handed the role of preparing the integration of Amstel
Lease, the leasing arm of ABN AMRO, into Fortis Lease.
At time of going to press, however, all this has changed. Fortis
is now expected to sell its stake in ABN AMRO, which means the
future of this integration is uncertain.
Business administration
Despite de Buck’s senior appointment, he does not hail from a
career background in leasing. Born and attending school in
Rotterdam, he went on to Nijenrode University in Breukelen to gain
a degree in business administration.
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By GlobalData“I had originally planned to go on and read law,” he says, “but
somebody brought my attention to a job advertisement for a position
of market maker in equity derivatives.
“I was fascinated at the time by investments generally, and the
enthusiasm must have shown at the interview – because I was hired
and I started work on the floor of the European Options Exchange in
Amsterdam.”
De Buck was literally on the floor, because this was in 1988,
when he was only 21 years old, and before the days of screen-based
trading. Before long he found himself in Paris working at the
Bourse de Paris trading options on the French CAC-40 index.
He enjoyed the hectic work-style, and recalls: “I got used to
taking quick decisions and working speedily with numbers. At the
same time living in Paris and earning good money at the age of 23
was a very pleasurable experience.”
By 1991 he was eager to move on.
“I decided I wanted to do something more creative,” he explains.
“The trading business was not quite as sophisticated as it is today
so I quit my job and moved to Amsterdam.”
Here fate played another part in de Buck’s fortunes. The Monday
he arrived in Amsterdam – with no job in prospect – he met some
friends from university who pointed out to him the opportunity to
join their newly-established team at Bank Mees & Hope, a bank
whose origins went back to the 18th century and which specialised
in international commodity finance.
He started as an assistant vice-president of structured
commodity finance (SCF) before leaving to join ING as
vice-president of its SCF division in 1993.
Two years later he moved to Hong Kong to establish an SCF
operation for ING in the Far East. At the same time he began to
settle his domestic arrangements by marrying his Dutch girlfriend,
Dorien ter Haar.
In 1997 he was approached by Standard Bank with the challenge of
building its SCF business. It was a challenge he accepted and moved
to the City of London in 1997 as senior manager of SCF.
Meanwhile, in 1992 Bank Mees & Hope had merged with Pierson,
Heldering & Pierson (then owned by ABN AMRO) and become
MeesPierson and subsequently sold to Fortis Bank. In 1998 he
decided to rejoin the new operation and from 1998 to 2003 worked in
London for MeesPierson/Fortis firstly as managing director of its
Global Commodities Group where he was also put in charge of
restructuring its commodity brokerage activities and setting up its
global structured commodity finance team.
“I enjoyed living in London,” he says, “and my three children
were born there. In 2003, however, I was invited to move to
Rotterdam as global head of Fortis’ Energy & Utilities Group
and later added to this global responsibility for the bank’s
Telecom, Media & Technology Group.”
First real contact
He adds: “My first real contact with leasing occurred at this
time [in 2006] when we structured a leasing facility for one of our
larger Spanish clients.”
Was he concerned about his lack of leasing experience upon his
promotion to the chief executive post?
“Not really,” he says, “after all there were already over 800
experienced staff employed by the company with a sound knowledge of
leasing. My background in commodities finance had given me a sound
grounding in analysing risks, in valuing assets and how market
dynamics might influence prices and marketability of these assets.
If you focus on valuing assets thoroughly there are a lot of
similarities when assessing the risks of financing a warehouse full
of sugar, the construction of a new oil refinery, or leasing of a
fleet of 50 trucks or cranes.”
Fortis Lease has grown significantly in recent years. Both its
portfolio and profit grew by some 30 per cent in 2007 compared to
the previous year. Today, Fortis Lease is active in 20 countries
covering most of Europe. In Asia the focus of the company is in
expanding in China where it started its activities last year, and
in Malaysia which was acquired in 2007.
His predecessor as chief executive was the highly experienced
Philippe Delva who moved on to head the bank’s Commercial Banking
division.
Although de Buck has not seen the need for a wholesale
revolution to the leasing company he admits to having taken a
number of strategic decisions. De Buck explains there was a need to
refocus on those countries where Fortis Lease can achieve a
meaningful and profitable market position.
As a result Fortis Lease decided to discontinue its leasing
activities in Finland, Hungary, Hong Kong and Singapore.
De Buck says: “The resources we are freeing up in these
countries will be used to support growth in all the other strategic
countries where we remain active.”
“Very happy” with team
Also a few management staff changes have occurred and he is now
“very happy with the current team”.
De Buck is keen to develop Fortis Lease’s recently-developed
niche in the leasing of private yachts and business jets. At the
same time a new IT business portal is being developed for
implementation across the leasing group some time in the near
future.
The current global financial crisis is also presenting a
challenge.
“There is a new reality in the business world,” he says, “and
although as a company we are not experiencing specific negative
consequences of the crisis in the markets we have certainly
re-priced for risk. This is something that has not occurred for
some time while the markets were awash with liquidity and was due
for a radical overhaul anyway.”
De Buck seems to be an enthusiastic and congenial manager who is
willing to listen to alternative views.
His management skills, gained through a wide experience of the
international business scene will doubtlessly, be applied
effectively in the months ahead.
A day in the life
It goes without saying that, with responsibility for an
operation covering some 20 European countries, de Buck travels a
lot. He divides his time ordinarily between Fortis Lease’s offices
at Rotterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg.
“There are generally three formats to my day,” he explains, “and
they all start early. Firstly I may be in a train or a car to
Brussels or Rotterdam, secondly I may be on a plane to any of the
20 countries in Europe and Asia where we have an office, or
thirdly, I may find myself waking up in a hotel in any one of those
20 countries – with a day of meetings ahead of me.”
He admits to “learning fast” and each day he strives to widen
his network of business colleagues and contacts.
“I work hard,” he stresses, “to learn as much about the business
and the industry as quickly as possible.”
An enthusiastic sportsman, he regrets that these days he has
only time for the occasional game of squash although he still aims
to go skiing in wintertime. He enjoys playing bridge on the
internet and similarly with chess. He and his wife have three
children – an 11-year old boy and two girls aged 6 and 10.
In his younger years de Buck enjoyed taking the bat at cricket –
a game at which the Dutch are the outstanding proponents on
mainland Europe.
His son is a keen cricket all-rounder and last year his father
acted as team coach when the son’s junior team of 11-year old lads
toured Denmark for a series of friendly cricket games. A challenge
perhaps as daunting as any he now faces.
In any event, he laughs as he announces that he already has
tickets for the cricket World Twenty20 Cup due to be held in
England in June 2009 – when The Netherlands plays the host country
in the opening match.
