We haven't heard the last of the man who fixed Dubai

Aidan Birkett, "the man who fixed Dubai", moves on to new challenges but makes new tie with the emirate.

So farewell then, Aidan Birkett. The former chief restructuring officer of Dubai World recently went through the final formalities of selling his car, settling his bills and cancelling his UAE residence visa, before heading back to the UK last Thursday.

More Industry Insights:

Last Updated: May 01, 2011

Journey to cavernous future for oil

Singapore's Jurong Rock Caverns look like a scene from science fiction, but once completed they will transform 21st-century oil by helping to ease a shortage of space the industry faces.

Broadband needs digital communities Information technology investment should be a priority for governments in the Middle East and north Africa if they want to realise their economic potential. Read article

Not everyone at Australia's party is enjoying the music Australia's economy has successfully weathered the financial storm of the past few years, but deep fractures lie beneath the country's ostensible prosperity. Read article

Having parted company with Dubai World last October, after he pronounced "job done" on the US$24.9 billion (Dh91.46bn) restructuring of the conglomerate's debts, Mr Birkett was obliged by UK tax rules to spend a few extra months in the emirate.

He used that time to see a bit more of the wider region, including a trip up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, but is now back in his home in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and able to reflect on his time with Dubai World.

He is also, I hear, in the final stages of negotiating a job that will ensure he remains a regular visitor to the UAE, and that the expertise he gained at Dubai World is put to good use. But more of that later.

Some financial professionals in the emirate call Mr Birkett "the man who fixed Dubai". He laughs self-effacingly at that, and pays tribute to the small army of bankers, advisers, officials and others who were also involved in the restructuring process.

It's true he was just one part of the story, and also that he was a paid employee, appointed ultimately on the say-so of the senior echelons of Dubai Inc.

But it's also fair to say he probably did more than any single individual to hammer out the deal that defused Dubai World's debt problems, and the emirate's leadership should be congratulated on the shrewd judgement showed in appointing him.

Cast your minds back to the dark days of late November 2009. Dubai World faced such acute financial challenges that the economic well-being of the emirate was under threat.

In particular, its property subsidiary, Nakheel, was billions of dollars in debt to bankers, customers and contractors, and the collapse in property prices meant there was no possibility of it meeting those financial liabilities.

Mr Birkett, already recognised as a restructuring expert having worked on some of the biggest corporate financial disasters in the world, parachuted into the middle of this. Dubai's other creditors were increasingly nervous, global markets were in free fall, and there was talk of sovereign debt default.

The unique advantage he brought to the situation was experience. He had dealt before with virtually all of the main banks on the company's long list of creditors and was trusted by them as an honest negotiator. They knew his job was to look after the interests of the company he represented, but also that he understood the importance of making a deal acceptable to them.

The creditors recognised they would have to take some pain; Mr Birkett knew how to make it bearable.

Over the next few months there were many tense moments: last-minute helicopter dashes to Abu Dhabi, standoffs with government officials, several moments when Dubai World was teetering on the brink.

Details of these will have to await Mr Birkett's memoirs (or mine), but, with a strategy in place and determination to stick to it, the restructuring gradually came into shape. By June last year, a majority of creditors had signed up; by September acceptance was as near to 100 per cent as made no difference. For such a complicated and multifaceted process, it was a surprisingly rapid resolution.

Mr Birkett's guiding principle was this: fix Nakheel, and you fix Dubai property; fix the emirate's property difficulties, and you fix the macro-financial problem. This long-term strategy is still being tested, and the emirate's property sector still faces big challenges.

But thanks largely to the Dubai World restructuring, the emirate's financial position is on the mend. There is little possibility that another problem like Dubai World could be lurking unseen, and negotiations involving other parts of Dubai Inc have all learnt from the Dubai World "model".

It is in one of those other parts of Dubai's financial infrastructure that Mr Birkett's expertise will next be exploited. Talks are at an advanced stage for him to be appointed a non-executive director of Dubai International Capital (DIC), the global private equity unit that forms part of Dubai Holding.

DIC has largely completed the financial aspects of its own restructuring, involving the rescheduling of some $3bn of debts. Now it is going about the normal business of a private equity group, selling parts of its portfolio when market prices justify, and returning money to the owner.

Mr Birkett will be a valuable addition to the team overseeing that evolution.