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Statutory Audit
We conduct an integrated audit, which combines the financial statement audit,independent and objective assurance on financial information, transactionsand processes.
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Limited Review
We offer services relating to reviews of historical financial informationby expressing negative assurance on such historical financial information.
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Agreed Upon Procedures
We engage with organisationsto perform specific procedures and report findings to conform to their needs.
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Financial Reporting Advisory Services (FRAS)
Our team provides timely advice on the impact of accounting changes to assist businesses in the development of an appropriate implementation roadmap.
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Business Consulting
Grant Thornton UAE provides organisations with implementable plans that drive sustainable growth strategies to grow and optimise their business performance.
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Business Risk Services
Organisations need to understand risks thoroughly to be able to manage them better. Grant Thornton UAE helps businesses achieve the best balance between minimising risk exposure, optimising profitability and developing compliance review checklists.
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Regulatory Advisory Services
Grant Thornton UAE's extensive understanding of the overarching supervisory framework within the region equips our professionals to support financial institutions comply and abide by the set of regulatory mandates throughout the rapidly evolving ecosystem.
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Financial Advisory
Grant Thornton UAE works with organisations on transactions from start to finish, assisting with strategy, identifying risks, executing deals, and helping to unlock their potential for growth and value creation.
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Restructuring Advisory
Grant Thornton UAE is committed to realising value for shareholders, in a way that recognises and supports the interests of all stakeholders. Our solutions maximise value, provide clarity and direction, and accelerate recovery and transformation for businesses.
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Technology Advisory & Cybersecurity
IT and technology are fundamental to drive the performance of businesses. Through leveraging the power of technology, Grant Thornton UAE helps organisations define and identify growth opportunities to achieve value-driven transformation and innovation.
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Forensics
Fraud and corruption pose a growing challenge worldwide. As the commercial landscape changes, an increasingly regulated environment requires stringent governance and compliance processes. Grant Thornton UAE helps organisations navigate challenges and crisis with a hands-on approach coupled with the use of technology.
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ESG Services
The Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda has gained significant traction over the years, to become one of the key strategic aspects of any business. It is imperative that all organisations, irrespective of industry sector, engage with their stakeholders and prioritise ESG practices to unlock sustainable growth opportunities.
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Business Process Solutions
Our team at Grant Thornton offers comprehensive and cost effective outsourced solutions, enabling stakeholders and business owners to focus on their core business goals.
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Corporate Tax
Our diversified team of corporate tax subject matter experts combines a perfect blend of international experience across several industry sectors, technical expertise, and commercial nuances with a commitment to deliver exceptional value to your business.
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VAT
The VAT team at Grant Thornton is well versed with the VAT Laws applicable across the region and holds valuable experience and professional accreditation in assisting clients across diverse industries to comply with the VAT obligations.
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Transfer Pricing
Grant Thornton UAE assists its clients in providing transfer pricing solutions that are implementable and operational, considering the facts and concerns of its clients.
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International Tax and Tax Due Diligence
Grant Thornton UAE supports multinational groups to optimise their tax structures. We can also assist businesses in analysing existing group transactions and inter-group supplies, as well as advising on potential implications of various taxes to facilitate an efficient Group tax structure.
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Economic Substance Requirements
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Customs and International Trade
The team at Grant Thornton is positioned centrally to assist the businesses with global cross-border tax structuring, planning and compliance needs.
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Excise Tax
We provide Excise Tax related advisory and compliance services to the producer, importer, and the storekeeper of excisable goods
M&A Outlook with Grant Thornton UAE and HSBC
01 Apr 2020Grant Thornton UAE CEO, Hisham Farouk, and our M&A and Transaction Advisory Partner, Salmaan Khawaja, sat with HSBC to discuss the current mergers & acquisition themes of the region post to the COVID-19 outbreak and the disturbance caused in the overall economy as a result.
Here are some of the key discussed points:
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Foreign Capital in The MENA Region:
The regulatory and business reforms that the MENA region is experiencing will further open the markets for foreign capital. So far and even prior to the outbreak, the region was slightly struggling to boost liquidity in the capital markets as well as the private equity space, and the national growth strategies had not yet achieved their desired growth. This means that there is a significant sectoral consolidation already on its way.
In this context and in the current crisis, MENA-based family businesses are turning their backs to outsourced investments and are choosing the investment management route instead, transforming into significant players when the consolidation activity starts to revive post crisis.
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Venture Capitalists and Their Role to Recover Global and Local Economies:
The role of venture capitalists is more important now than ever to help fill in the funding gap as innovative and disruptive businesses are essential for the region’s overall growth as well as the economy’s recovery.
Any decision made by the VC’s must be examined through the lens of social responsibility. If investors are not helping with safeguarding communities or are not focused on strategies that can help recover economies, now is the right time for them to change their monetary outlook and take into account new ways that their investment and expertise can help flatten the curve.
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Global Market Trends & Grant Thornton’s International Business Report:
Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR) that was published early this year, is a survey of key business decision-makers from 30 economies globally.
From an M&A perspective, the key findings were that 45% of business leaders cited access to strategic markets as a key factor for undertaking M&A, and that 25% of global leaders conducted domestic deals in 2019. One of the reasons discussed on this topic was that there were more protectionist measures taken globally whereby governments were playing a key part to prevent transactions from completing on the basis of national security concerns. This was particularly a theme noted between the United States and China, with it being less applicable to the MENA region.
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The MENA Region’s Sector Favouritism
From a sector perspective and based on deal activities, we have seen relatively higher levels of interest in the healthcare, logistics, financial services, and technology sectors:
- Healthcare: Historically, we have seen interest in polyclinics, laboratories and pharmacies in the healthcare space with an increased demand shifting towards specialized clinics.
- Logistics: In the logistics space, there is an increased level of interest in asset-light logistics businesses with a technology play.
- Financial Services: Post to a number of large banks consolidating, we now may see that the smaller banks will be the ones starting to merge in the next wave of consolidation.
- Technology: The technology space in the region is experiencing increasing M&A and investment driven by growth capital and flagships/unicorns.
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The Outbreak’s Impact on Forms of Consideration in M&A Deals
Since the recession back in 2008, the EV/EBITDA multiples have been increasing steadily at a global scale. Overall, the same can be said about the MENA region as well, although different parts of the region have understandably varying characteristics unique to each country.
It was also discussed that between the yeas of 2014 to 2018, globally and on average, 20% of the transactions involved share consideration offers only. However, in 2019, over 60% of deals were paper offers with buyers offering their shares as consideration, reflecting the fact that buyers were taking a conservative approach towards their balance sheets and conserving their cash. It is safe to predict that in the post crisis environment, debt may become a cheaper option and one might start seeing leveraged deals again.
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SARS Vs. COVID-19, and Transaction Multiples:
So far, evidence shows that the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to play a significant role in determining the impact on deal valuation metrics. It was noted that in previous pandemics, e.g. the SARS outbreak back in 2003, deal multiples more than halved in the aftermath. Now, if the COVID-19 pandemic will not be contained within a reasonable timeframe of 2 to 3 months, then a similar, if not worse, effect will definitely be on rise.
All in all, the region started off this year with having big strategic growth plans but is now required to revisit them all to prepare for resilience and to best survive the current crisis.
Reach out to Salmaan Khawaja, Partner of M&A and Transactions and to Neha Julka, Associate Director of M&A and Transactions, for more information.
