Family-Owned Industrial Group Prepares for Generational Transition

A second-generation Saudi industrial group — six operating entities across fabrication, contracting and equipment leasing — engaged Aontas after the founder's decision to begin a structured transition of ownership. The intent was open: prepare the group either for sale to a strategic buyer or for an orderly hand-down to the next generation, on terms that did not depend on which path was eventually taken.

The challenge

The group had grown through opportunity rather than design. Each operating entity ran its own bookkeeping, on different chart-of-accounts conventions, with significant inter-company balances that had not been reconciled in years. Banking facilities sat across four GCC banks with overlapping security and inconsistent covenant reporting. Two of the entities were technically profitable but materially undercapitalised; one was loss-making and quietly subsidised by the others.

Any credible buyer — and any honest successor — would need consolidated, defensible numbers, a clean view of inter-company exposure, and a board structure that did not run through a single mobile phone. None of that existed.

Approach

Hafiz Fawad Ismail was embedded as fractional CFO from Dammam, three days a week on-site, with a brief that combined finance leadership with sale-readiness preparation. The work was sequenced deliberately — visibility before restructuring, restructuring before governance.

• Built a unified chart of accounts across all six entities and migrated trailing eighteen months of transactions onto a single consolidated reporting structure
• Reconciled inter-company balances and surfaced SAR-denominated exposures that had been informally absorbed across entities for years
• Restructured banking facilities across the group's four GCC lenders into a tiered security and covenant framework, releasing working capital headroom
• Designed a quarterly management-account pack and KPI dashboard at group and entity level, suitable for both a buyer's data room and a board pack
• Instituted a formal board with documented terms of reference, an independent non-executive seat, and quarterly governance cadence
• Scoped — and held in reserve — a divestment scenario for the loss-making entity, with the numbers and structure prepared in case the family chose that path

The fractional model mattered. A full-time group CFO at the seniority required would have cost the family more than the loss-making entity drained — and would have arrived without the M&A and restructuring background needed for the sale-readiness work. Hafiz's prior experience across debt restructuring and multi-entity consolidations meant the engagement did not need a separate transaction adviser.

Outcome

Twelve months in, the group produced its first audited consolidated financial statements. A tier-one Saudi bank refinanced the working capital line on materially improved terms, and the founder's family began formal discussions with a regional strategic on a partial sale of one operating entity — with the data room already built.

Most importantly, the family now has optionality. Sale, hand-down, or hold — the group is structured to defend any of the three.

"We did not need a CFO five days a week. We needed a CFO who had restructured debt, sold companies, and consolidated family books before — for three days a week, with the founder's confidence. Hafiz gave us numbers we could finally show a buyer, and a board that does not depend on my father's memory."

— Second-generation Director, Saudi family industrial group