Acting as independent financial adviser to a European family office, the Brussels-based firm restructured a distressed joint venture to protect the investor’s locked-in capital.
DUBAI, UAE & BRUSSELS, BELGIUM. July 2nd, 2026 Pouly Consulting has helped steer a distressed AED 8.8 billion (approximately EUR 2.2 billion / USD 2.4 billion) master-planned waterfront development in Dubai back from the brink of insolvency. Acting as independent financial adviser to a prominent Western European family office, the firm guided a restructuring that protected the investor’s trapped capital and averted a forced sale of the project’s land bank.
The mixed-use development combines premium waterfront residential with a hospitality, retail and leisure precinct. It spans 1.8 million square metres of master-planned land, with around 1.1 million square metres of gross floor area. The scheme comprises 3,200 homes across four gated clusters, alongside an 85,000-square-metre precinct anchored by a hotel and retail space. An aggressive plan to build all three phases at once had drained liquidity and pushed the project toward insolvency. At the same time, the family office’s equity sat trapped inside a joint venture exposed to a looming default by its local development partner.
Pouly Consulting moved first to stabilise the company’s cash position. On the firm’s advice, the joint venture halted its capital-intensive later phase to ring-fence the near-term, cash-generating homes in Phases 1 and 2, which together account for 2,100 of the 3,200 units. The deferred phase covers the remaining 1,100 homes and the mixed-use precinct, the components least able to generate cash in the near term. In parallel, the firm led the renegotiation of around AED 4.2 billion (EUR 1.05 billion) of short-term liabilities into a sustainable seven-year amortising facility, easing immediate repayment pressure. To fund continued construction, it helped secure an emergency AED 650 million equity injection from the project’s existing shareholders.
With the project stabilised, Phases 1 and 2 are now targeted for completion in 2028, while the deferred phase is rescheduled for 2031 to match the restructured cash flow. By keeping the development out of a distressed sale, the restructuring protected the land bank against a projected fire-sale discount of roughly a third, preserving asset backing for creditors. A full shutdown would have put more than 11,000 construction and engineering jobs on site at risk, and the restructuring kept them in place. It also protected around 450 roles inside the client’s organisation.
“In a distressed development of this scale, early and decisive action is what preserves value,” said Alain Benard, Head of Business Development at Pouly Consulting. “Within weeks we stabilised the cash position and stopped the drain. Over the following months we restructured the debt and re-sequenced the build so the project could stand on its own. A rapid, disciplined restructuring of this kind protects far more value, and far more quickly, than a drawn-out dispute.”
Pouly Consulting does not advise on standard, happy-path development or commercial marketing strategy. The firm is built for special situations, where early engagement and senior judgement decide whether value survives.
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