THE CHALLENGE
A fashion retail group with operations across multiple GCC markets had reached a scale where private ownership could no longer support its next phase of growth. The board had decided to pursue an IPO, but when I came in, the business was not ready. Financial reporting lacked the rigour regulators and institutional investors require.
Governance structures were informal. There was no investor relations function, no consolidated reporting framework, and no clear audit trail across entities spanning multiple markets and jurisdictions. The window to list was tight and the cost of delay was significant.
THE ENGAGEMENT
I started with a full diagnostic of the financial infrastructure across all GCC entities. What I found confirmed the scale of the challenge: the consolidation framework needed to be rebuilt from scratch, the chart of accounts was inconsistent across markets, and the controls that public markets require simply did not exist yet. We moved on all of it in parallel.
Board-level governance structures were established, an investor relations framework was built from the ground up, and the finance team was restructured and upskilled to operate at the standard a listed company demands. Managing the prospectus preparation in close coordination with legal counsel, auditors, and the lead bank was where the real pressure sat. That ran right up to the wire.
THE OUTCOME
The group successfully completed its IPO within the target timeline. Regulatory requirements were met in full across all operating markets. Post-listing, the business had a finance function capable of meeting the ongoing reporting, compliance, and investor communication demands of a publicly listed entity.
The process also surfaced several structural inefficiencies that had been hidden under the previous reporting framework. Fixing those improved visibility and accountability for the incoming board in ways that went well beyond the IPO itself.