Senior Agriculture Business Support Specialist - JHB at Absa South Africa

Job Description

Credit Risk Management

• Lead detailed negotiations with customers, other lenders, creditors and 3rd party advisors regarding the agreement to and implementation of strategy, to ensure properly mitigated credit risk for the Bank, based on continued bank support.  
• Where appropriate, obtain customer’s agreement to the use of professionals including accountants, turnaround professionals, attorneys and property professionals.
• For turnaround customers, agree critical success factors in liaison with Relationship Executives, Regional Credit Managers and other Credit teams to ensure credit risk normalisation and relationship preservation. Obtain customer commitment and agreement to implement appropriate risk mitigation strategies and remedial actions to improve the client credit risk profile.
• Be able to pro-actively identify and suggest alternative corporate structures and / or Corporate Finance actions (e.g. merger activity, consolidation or divisionalisation of entities etc.)
• Solid understanding of legal documentation and associated risks, including:
• Review of all legal documentation pursuant to the existing facility structure, identifying and obtaining additional security and / or shortcomings in terms of said structure
• Review of all legal documentation which is entered into from a restructure perspective
• Must be able to engage and support internal legal counsel with respect to litigation matters
• Interact with client representatives, most at senior level (e.g. CEO and / or FD), including shareholders from time to time, and be able to meaningfully discuss and question the client’s proposed strategies and action plans – including appraisal of budgets and cash flow plans
• Identify where risk mitigation strategies have broken down and negotiate and implement remedial or corrective action in consultation with the client.
• Make lending decisions within an appropriate personal mandate.
• Perform robust financial and non-financial analysis on the client that will support and underpin all new proposals in terms of the clients’ credit risk implications by liaising closely with business to formulate Credit applications/proposals.
• Assess credit applications for WL clients within own mandate and approve or decline these applications or recommend to the appropriate sanctioning level.
• Structure a lending solution for the client based on the analysis conducted, that will account for the potential threats to the client and, that is within set credit limits and the Bank’s credit lending policies and appetite.
• Facilitate the credit sanctioning process by responding to sanctioned enquiries i.e. non-acceptance of approved terms and conditions, applications and/or attend all relevant Credit meetings, where necessary, in order to present and sponsor credit applications that have been submitted under the roleholder’s signature.
• Produce relevant management information and statistics, i.e. monthly impairment assessment and Strategy sheets, etc as required from time to time.
• Manage exposures by taking daily credit decisions and reviewing information from various systems (CMS) and taking credit decisions accordingly.
• Use information gathered to compile reviews/amendments/new applications to be submitted to Business Support in liaison with the Relationship Executives (RE).
• Request and drive valuations on properties from RE’s/business units, which serve as security for facilities to be used to calculate impairments.
• Champion the Business Support team’s relationship with internal and external customers, develop a strong network of internal contacts, external and panel professionals to maximise financial benefit for the Bank. 
• To drive the implementation of appropriate strategies and/or risk mitigation measures in the client portfolio with a view to reducing the Capital at Risk.
• Inputs into the weekly/monthly impairment forecasting, as required from time to time.
• Proactively manage Business Rescue as governed by Chapter 6 of the Companies Act of 2008, and in alignment with the existing Business Support Procedures for time to time.
• Monitor the client’s business performance on a continuous basis, in addition to performing formal reviews at specified time intervals, to ensure early identification of changes to the client’s risk profile.
• Analyse and interpret the clients’ historical data i.e. financial statements to forecast the client’s potential growth and sustainability and make recommendations or take decisions within mandate.
• Ensure client meets financial convenants and the facility terms and conditions on a monthly basis by reviewing in line with the agreed covenants/terms and conditions/timelines.
• Review and recommend the impairment calculations, strategy to be adopted and Watch List risk classification for each client, which forms part of the Watch List summary for all High Value clients under his/her control.
• Review the Impairment/Capital at Risk calculation, on a monthly basis and sign off in line with the Bank policies.
• To manage the clients’ value to Absa through optimising revenue opportunities i.e. pricing for risk in terms of the Pricing policy.
• Mitigate and manage the credit exposure to the Bank by adhering to the Business Support Policy and Procedures and the Bank’s Credit policy.
• Maintain thorough, accurate and up to date client credit files (soft copies), which include a set of financials, evaluations and credit decisions.
• Obtain input from Product Industry Specialist/s, where appropriate, for assistance in analysing the risk for specific High Value clients.
• Ensure that the monthly Watch List is accurate and completed in line with the relevant policies and procedures.

People Management & Support

• Assist the Business Support Team Leaders to coach and support other members of the team by assisting their training and development.
• Provide subject matter expert advisory to the Business Support team on all agriculture related exposures.
• Ensure adherence to Absa’ values.

Change Management

• Assist with the development and execution of strategic projects (as required) from time to time.

Stakeholder Management

• Raise local profile in the team as well as the broader Group Risk team and business partners

Governance

• Ensure that you only take decisions within delegated mandate
• Ensure that you maintain standards in line with Absa policies and standad
• Ensure that you follow and abide by processes and procedures.
• Comply with the Bank’s credit policies and philosophy at all times, and check that any policy breaches have been suitably addressed and mitigated against and reported to the appropriate authority e.g. Forensics.
• Provide bank codes and reports on clients, to other financial institutions as and when requested.
• Adhere to the Relationship Banking Credit Policy and other relevant legislation e.g. NCA, Companies Act, Insolvency Act and other relevant legislation.
• Responsibility for adherence to governance, compliance and lending portfolio controls and MI as required from time to time.

Education and Experience Required

• Preference would be given to incumbents with extensive experience in managing Turnarounds, Restructures and Workouts of financially distressed clients.
• BCom degree (with Accounting III as Major) and /or other postgraduate qualifications in Business/Finance or related legal fields would be an advantage.
• Agricultural studies would be beneficial.
• Minimum 5 to 10 years banking experience
• 5 to 10 years senior Agricultural Credit Evaluation experience
• Preferably, proven success in a customer facing and/or similar Business Support role dealing with financially distressed clients
• Member of SARIPA and/or TMA-SA