Advisory desk
Advice that ends in something built, not a deck.
Structuring, feasibility and valuation work that carries through to implementation, because the recommendation is worth little if nobody stays to put it in place.
- Typical engagement
- 4–10 weeks
- Deliverable
- Written and implemented
- Sectors
- 50+ served
- Coverage
- UAE, GCC and Egypt
Who this is for
If the decision is bigger than the next filing.
Structure decisions are cheap to make and expensive to unwind. Most of the restructuring we do is undoing a choice made quickly at incorporation.
Talk it through- Groups whose structure no longer matches the business
- Founders testing a new market or product line
- Shareholders who need a defensible valuation
- Buyers running diligence on a target
- Businesses whose finance function has outgrown one person
- Owners planning succession or an exit
How the engagement runs
Four stages, one written answer
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Frame
Agree the question
Half of advisory work goes wrong because the brief was vague. We write the question down and get it signed before starting.
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Analyse
Model and test
Numbers built from your own data, with the assumptions listed openly so you can argue with them.
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Advise
A written recommendation
One option recommended and the alternatives explained, including the case for doing nothing.
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Implement
Put it in place
The licensing, filings and finance changes carried out by the same team that recommended them.
Scope of work
What the engagement covers
Fixed scope and fixed fee. If the answer turns out to be simpler than the brief assumed, we say so and bill less.
- Company structuring and restructuring
- Feasibility studies
- Business valuation
- Financial and tax due diligence
- Process design and implementation
- Finance function set-up and ERP selection
Inside this line
What sits under Business Advisory
10 services on this desk. Most engagements use two or three of them.
Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory
Buying, selling or merging, with the tax read
Ask about thisProject Management & Client Representation
We stay until the thing is running
Ask about thisBusiness Process & Implementation Advisory
Designing the process, then implementing it
Ask about this
Where we start
From your numbers, not from a framework
Most advisory work arrives as a deck. Ours starts with your last two years of accounts and the decision you are actually weighing, because a recommendation that ignores the balance sheet is a preference rather than advice.
We will tell you when the answer is to do nothing. It happens more often than the industry admits, and it costs you a meeting rather than a restructuring.
Implementation
The part most firms hand back
A structure on paper changes nothing. Somebody has to open the accounts, move the contracts, tell the bank and file the amendments, and that is usually where the value leaks out.
We stay through that phase with a named owner and a dated plan. Advice ends when the thing is running, not when the report is issued.
Engagement ends When it is implemented, not when it is reported
Before the first session
What makes the first meeting useful
Advisory work fails when it starts from a blank page. These let us open with a view rather than a questionnaire.
- Last two years of financial statements
- Current group or ownership structure
- Management accounts for the current year
- The decision you are actually weighing
- Any board papers or prior advice on it
- Who signs off, and by when
Where it goes wrong
Three things we are asked to fix most
Not theory. These are the ones that arrive as a problem rather than a question.
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01
Structuring before the numbers exist
A structure designed on assumptions has to be unwound once the accounts arrive.
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02
Tax treated as an afterthought
The cheapest time to ask the tax question is before the deal is agreed, not after.
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03
Advice with no implementation owner
A recommendation nobody is accountable for is a document, not a change.
Questions we get weekly
Advisory, answered plainly.
Only if you would genuinely act on a negative answer. If the decision is already made, a study is an expensive way to feel better about it, and we will tell you that before taking the work.
It can, and it is one of the first things we model. There are reliefs for qualifying group reorganisations, but they carry conditions that have to hold for years afterwards, not just on the day.
Yes, and most of our advisory engagements include it. Advice that stops at the recommendation tends to sit in a drawer.
Related
Usually engaged alongside
Talk to the advisory desk
Describe the decision you are stuck on.
Thirty minutes with a partner. If it is a question we can answer on the call, we will answer it on the call.