“Having a Dutch bank as our shareholder has helped us attract new clients”
Interview with CEO of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe Michael Bentlage
Michael Bentlage had never crossed paths with ABN AMRO during his long banking career. But a meeting in London changed everything. Today, Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe (HAL) is a cornerstone of ABN AMRO’s ambition to grow into a top-five European private bank.
“Interestingly, I’d had no previous interaction with ABN AMRO. I only knew it as a large, reputable bank from the Netherlands”, Bentlage says in Frankfurt am Main, where the bank’s origins date back to the 18th century. “When our Chinese shareholder met with then-CEO Robert Swaak in London and agreed to sell, ABN AMRO had just four weeks to negotiate the share purchase agreement. I would never have believed such a sizeable and complex bank could pull that off. But I learned that you can be big and still move quickly on a major decision when you need to.”
How does becoming part of ABN AMRO help HAL?
“First, size matters: when you’re not that big, your salespeople have to go knocking on every door. Once you reach a certain scale in asset servicing, private banking or investment banking, potential clients start calling you and inviting you to pitch. Since we became part of ABN AMRO in July, we can service much larger financing needs for private and corporate clients. This strengthens our position with the sizeable family-owned companies we serve, on both the business and the personal side. Second is reputation: our people feel positive, and not a single client has told us they are unhappy that we have a Dutch bank as our shareholder. On the contrary, it has helped us attract new clients.”
What do you expect for the combined businesses in Germany?
“Together with ABN AMRO’s Bethmann Bank, also based in Frankfurt, we will manage more than EUR 70 billion in assets. That makes us the third-largest private bank in Germany. Bethmann is a centuries-old bank that also has extensive capabilities on the corporate side, while HAL has strong expertise in areas such as asset servicing and digital assets.
With this much broader product offering and our good market position, we see room for strong growth across all our products in Germany.”
Will HAL and Bethmann clients notice any changes following the merger?
“Our combined wealth management organisation will operate under the name ‘Bethmann HAL’, but existing advisers, products and services will remain unchanged as much as possible. We will offer access to ABN AMRO’s international solutions, and I also envisage new markets opening for some of our products. For example, our custody and registry management for digital assets of institutional clients fits perfectly with ABN AMRO's current tokenisation activities, and I see it as a key area for joint growth. Culturally, I find the Dutch and German ways of doing business fundamentally similar. Both have a direct, matter-of-fact communication style and focus on substance and longterm relationships.”
Are bank branches still important in this digital age?
“Eventually, Bethmann HAL will have 17 locations across Germany's key economic regions and Luxembourg. Private banking is about trust, personality and empathy, and you cannot digitalise that. Clients often tell me: ‘When I call other banks, nobody answers. When I call you, someone picks up and helps me.’ Life is that simple.”
