Corporate advisor Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has opened new offices in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – as it takes advantage of the Gulf’s active consolidation activity in recent years.
The New York-headquartered firm aims to have a Middle East team of more than 200. It now has 116 employees in its offices across Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
“Abu Dhabi and KSA are drivers of progress in the region and beyond, each at different stages of development, with their own unique requirements,” A&M’s new Middle East co-lead James Dervin, who is also the firm’s head of performance improvement, said.
The expansion comes as mergers and acquisitions in the Middle East and North Africa region gain momentum. Last year, consolidation deals hit $109 billion, jumping 57 percent from 2020 figures, with Saudi Arabia seeing most of the activity.
Dervin said they expect to see more of these deals in the Kingdom.
“The focus on cost and capital efficiency will continue to drive in-country consolidation, coupled with growing FDI and the government’s focus on the diversification of the economy,” he told Arabian Business.
“Our KSA-based clients are currently acquisitive both domestically and internationally, including public and private clients,” Dervin, who was previously in A&M’s London office before relocating to Riyadh, said.
A&M is currently involved in local consolidation and integration efforts towards the development of “national champions” in the Kingdom, he added, and is “also working with KSA-based investors who are executing pioneering transactions internationally.”
Last year, Saudi Arabia saw the merger of two major banks – National Commercial Bank and Samba Financial Group – to create what effectively became one of the biggest banks in the Middle East with $238 billion in assets.
Several Saudi insurers also staged significant mergers in the last two years – including six major insurance companies that consolidated in three different deals in 2020. The Saudi Central Bank was keen to support these deals, as it aims to strengthen the Kingdom’s financial ecosystem.
The region also saw a number of inter-country deals – with Abu Dhabi’s Agthia staging multiple acquisitions in the confectionary and poultry space, and Saudi Arabia-based Savola Foods acquiring UAE’s Bayara for $260 million.
Aside for mergers and acquisitions, A&M specialises in turnaround management – or helping troubled companies return to solvency. The firm was most recently known in the region for its work on the embattled healthcare giant NMC Group, which it hopes demonstrated the breadth of its expertise in these corporate and financial transactions.
“This expansion demonstrates our commitment to meet the demand for truly independent, different and impactful solutions to complex, local and cross-border concerns across multiple jurisdictions,” Paul Gilbert, the firm’s head of turnaround and restructuring, said in a statement.
He said the region’s leadership has increasingly taken a “tough stance on audit conflicts, creating a real need for independent advice.”
A&M was founded in 1983, and now employs over 6,000 people across five continents. It competes with other global coporate consultants like AlixPartners and FTI Consulting, as well as with more traditional firms such as McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group.
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