Rebain International is a customer driven chemical raw material supplier. Since the start in 1998 in a small office in Takapuna on the North Shore of Auckland in New Zealand our company has grown to encompass a presence in Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Africa and Latin America.
Background
Rebain International was founded in 1998 on the North Shore of Auckland. Rene van Baarderwijk who had immigrated to New Zealand from The Netherlands in the mid 90's had become disillusioned with the approach of the newly formed multinational chemical trading company that he had joined. Along with Andrew Lowe, Rebain International (NZ) Limited was founded on Bastille Day 1998.
The Early Years:
The early ethos of Rebain was to be proactive and to do what you say you are going to. Being proactive means sitting in front of customers and suppliers and in the early years in the office at Rebain there were many road trips around the New Zealand country side, getting out to the provinces and getting people to see Rebain as an alternative to the multinational and established chemical trading companies present in New Zealand. Early success in timber treatment products and adhesives led to the ability for Sue Baker and Jack Thompson to come on board to support Andrew and Rene so that they could do what they do best; find out what people need and deliver it.
The year 2000:
Andrew had been working to convince his mentor John Gilbert to come on board and in August 2000 John came on board as a shareholding director. John’s considerable connections and esteem in the Chemical supply industry led to several agencies coming to Rebain. Notably the range of Tronox titanium dioxide pigments and the resulting access to the coatings and plastics industry helped to spur further growth.
Rene made the decision to move back to Europe and in January 2001 he established Rebain International in Spain. Based in the temperate Castelldefels just south of Barcelona, Rene was well position to take advantage of his multilingual ability and his strong family trading history to establish business between Europe and the four corners of the globe, shortly after he was joined by Raul Matute, native from Honduras who leads the exports to Latin America. The Spain office is nowadays a mostly has its focus on exports to Latin America and Africa next to its domestic market, and is a real united nations with many nationalities such as Taiwan, Argentina, France, Ethiopia besides Spanish.
Going Trans-Tasman:
John and Andrew had worked to grow the reputation of Rebain in New Zealand as a supplier of novel and new technologies and many of the Agencies that had been singing up had a Trans-Tasman element. This meant more and more frequent trips to Australia to support the developing business. On Bastille Day 2003 Andrew made the big step of relocating and establishing Rebain International Australia Pty Ltd in Melbourne.
Calling Rotterdam:
Also in 2003 Rene needed to add some capacity in the Benelux region of Europe and being originally from the Rotterdam area it would be an obvious location. The establishment of Rebain International Netherlands in October 2003 gave Rene the opportunity to involve Monique Buchbot along with Jan van Baardewijk as senior advisor to develop a stronger export port for developing business in Central and Eastern Europe.
Meantime the new generation with Mr Rick Kok and Mr. Elijan Buchbot have been added to the management team and have become shareholders and are growing the business to new heights.
Further Regional Development:
Since 2005 we have opened a sales offices in Sydney Australia which is handled from the Melbourne head office. Rebain in europe in the meantime established sales offices in Israel, Niger, Uruguay and Venezuela. Nos in its 25th year since its founding, we are looking forward to grow further with you.