Reaping rewards from Dubai World debt deal

Focus: Having undertaken a delicate advisory mission for the Government of Dubai, Augusto Sasso and the US investment bank Moelis & Company are expanding their role in the region.

Dubai World has successfully restructured debt of $24.9 billion. Delores Johnson / The National

A crucial period in Dubai's history drew to a close last month when the final signatures were put to the deal restructuring US$24.9 billion (Dh91.45bn) of debt owed by Dubai World.

Executives, bankers and advisers breathed a sigh of relief that the process had been brought to a successful end after 19 months - none more so than Augusto Sasso, a Californian who had led a team from the New York investment bank Moelis & Company.

As an adviser to the Government of Dubai, Mr Sasso had been at the heart of the delicately complex negotiations. Now he is looking to build on that experience.

"It's taken us a year to get the right team in the region, but now we have it, and it proves we're long-term players and want to grow our presence in the region," he says.

He was speaking after Moelis announced the appointment of a co-head (alongside Mr Sasso) of its Middle East business: Yorick Van Slingelandt, the former head of corporate finance in the region for JPMorgan Chase.

It is quite a coup for Mr Sasso, and for Moelis, to have hired a rising star from an illustrious US investment bank generally regarded as having weathered the financial crisis better than most.

Some management consultants warn against splitting the top job in a region between two people, but Mr Sasso is aware of these pitfalls, and highlights the synergies: "Yorick and I are the same age, roughly the same time in the banking business, but we have complementary skills. He has valuable experience in the industrial sectors, like aerospace and defence."

Under Mr Sasso in Dubai, Moelis gained a reputation for expertise in restructuring from an independent advisory perspective. The big one, of course, was Dubai World, but the firm has also had smaller mandates.

"These are recapitalisations, rather than restructurings, and they're less intense," Mr Sasso says, declining to identify the clients.

So what has the region learnt from the experience of the past two years?

"The most important lesson learnt by companies in the financial downturn was the need to manage your balance sheet to be able to absorb a major market correction," says Mr Sasso.

"Most companies in the region, and globally, were not prepared for what many would consider to be an extraordinary circumstance - the financial markets under severe pressure for 18 months," he says. "As a result, companies are much more focused on balancing longer-term debt with long-term assets, to make sure that they can manage their liquidity regardless of how the financial markets behave.

"These are complex problems that have to be fully analysed ahead of a problem, and we feel that our independent approach is uniquely positioned to help companies navigate the complicated strategies to align their balance sheets with their corporate objectives."

Stripping out the jargon, this means that, as with Dubai World, companies in the region will have to learn to match borrowings with cash flow and income, and think longer-term than they did in the bubble days before 2008.

For Moelis, it also means moving into the more lucrative area of mergers and acquisitions.

Mr Sasso sees some recovery in the region's financial markets, especially in those areas related to sovereign wealth fund (SWF) activity.

"Pieces of it are returning, we've seen some big bond issues by SWFs, but capital markets are still under pressure, with initial and secondary offerings down considerably," he says.

The encouraging factor is that valuations have started to become more realistic in sectors with healthy cash flow, such as industrials, aerospace and chemicals.

"Sellers have started to get more comfortable with prices and volumes," he says, except in property, where "sellers are not realistic yet. The Dubai market is just starting to stabilise, and we need to see more of that."

He believes the current regional political situation - the "Arab Spring" unrest - is affecting how foreign investors see the Middle East and North Africa, but so far is not hurting the internal flow of investment.

"Five years from now, we'll see a larger proportion of SWF funds staying within the region, but there will still be those who see attractive opportunities outside," he says.

Moelis has expanded beyond its UAE bridgehead since landing the Dubai World job in late 2009.

"We now have more mandates outside the UAE than inside, with clients in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman," Mr Sasso says. "Bahrain is delicate, but funds there still need to do transactions. Long term, they'll still want to do things there."

In Saudi Arabia, he says: "The only way is to have somebody on the ground, and we'd love to spend more time there. It's a huge economy and big opportunity for us,eventually …"

The appointment of Mr Van Slingelandt means Moelis now has eight full-time executives covering the Middle East, an expensive remuneration bill in tough times for the regional advisory business.

Does the deal flow justify the headcount? "We believe it does," says Mr Sasso.