JV offers region’s first comprehensive value assessment and asset sale proposition

Dubai, UAE, May 6 2014 – Dubai-based ValuStrat, a leading strategy consulting and valuation firm, which recently entered into a joint venture agreement with Hilco Industrial, the world’s largest, most experienced multi-class industrial asset services company, has brought to the Middle East a comprehensive solution for market-value assessments, forced-liquidation valuations and subsequent disposal services for industrial assets.

ValuStrat’s multi-dimensional array of services previously included strategy consulting, due diligence and valuation. The addition of industrial asset divestment services rounds off the package in a manner and scale not matched by any of the local competitors. “Thus far, our services were focused on advisory and valuations.  With this new JV, we can actually use our inspection & assessment reports to complete all background work and sell the plant & machinery assets seamlessly. We have brought a multinational to the region with a service that was not being offered at this level anywhere in the GCC,” said Khalid Umerani, Partner, ValuStrat.

The joint venture agreement allows Hilco Industrial to expand its operations to include the Middle East, where it will co-manage, along with ValuStrat, surplus industrial asset disposition projects in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

Annually, Hilco conducts more than 100 sales events, selling more than 250,000 pieces of machinery and equipment with sales revenues exceeding $1 billion annually.  In terms of experience and expertise, theirs is unmatched in the asset disposition industry.

“Internationally, asset disposal and disposition services are an integral part of valuation and assessment firms’ services.  Regionally though, this services segment was largely ignored.  As the portfolio of non-performing loans mounted during the market downturn, the immediate need for such services became very apparent. ValuStrat is the first and only company to provide such services in conjunction with Hilco,” added Umerani.

With regional markets slowly emerging from the downturn of recent years, industrial asset disposition has become a major issue for Gulf economies, in particular for banks as well as other lending and financial institutions which have accumulated these assets that were used as collateral to underwrite commercial loans.

For non-performing loans backed by industrial assets, the lending institutions now have the ability to foreclose and repossess the entire industrial facility and liquidate the assets to buyers using Hilco’s online, on-site, webcast, sealed bids and private treaty sales processes, worldwide.

“In market downturns, the instances of non-performing loans are the highest. In case of foreclosures or repossessions, the lender needs to know what they will recover by selling the underlying assets.  With addition of our new asset disposal services, ValuStrat can clearly relay the bottom-line disposal figures to the lending firms, at the time of loan origination,” explained Umerani.

Furthermore, the joint venture’s industrial assets sale and advisory services are critical in providing industry owners the opportunity to monetize plant and machinery at maximized values; as well as provide options to install reliable used machinery to reduce capital expenditure.These services also ensure a high level of comfort in deal origination involving industrial assets as collateral and in structuring appropriate credit programmes suitable to the nature of the assets involved.