Dubai · United Arab Emirates
Coello Advisory advises founders and shareholders on the sale of owner-operated UAE businesses in the AED 2 to 10 million range. Every mandate is exclusive, every process is confidential, and every buyer is qualified before an owner is ever named.
We are principals as well as advisors. When a business fits, we acquire it ourselves. That is why we underwrite your company the way a buyer will, not the way a listing does.
Every approach is treated as confidential from the first message.
The practice
We work a deliberately narrow book so that every process gets senior attention from the first conversation to the completion meeting. There is no junior team, no listing inventory, and no volume target.
We run the sale of your company end to end: normalised earnings, a defensible value range, an anonymised information memorandum, a private buyer approach, negotiation, and diligence management through to completion. One advisor is accountable for the outcome and attends the closing.
A written valuation built from seller discretionary earnings, contracted and recurring revenue, working capital, end of service accrual, and the multiple comparable UAE businesses are transacting at today. We deliver the range and the reasoning in 48 to 72 hours once we have your figures, and we say plainly where the number is soft.
We buy a small number of UAE businesses each year for our own account, in sectors we understand, at prices we can defend. If you would rather transact once, quietly, than run a process, that is a direct conversation. We tell you which side of the table we are on before anything is shared.
How we work
Most of the work in a UAE SME sale is not finding interest. It is filtering it. A qualified buyer list of six is worth more than an enquiry list of sixty, and it is the only way a confidential process stays confidential.
We discuss the business, the numbers, the shareholder position, and what you actually want from an exit. Nothing is committed and nothing leaves the room.
We normalise earnings, test them against bank and VAT records, compute the end of service accrual, and give you a written range with the reasoning behind it. If the gap between the market and your expectation is not bridgeable this year, we say so before you commit to a process.
We work on one exclusive mandate per company, signed by every shareholder, with the constitutional documents checked for pre-emption and drag or tag rights before any preparation begins. Engagement terms are set out in writing first.
No counterparty receives your name, your location, or your financials until they have identified themselves, executed a non-disclosure agreement, and evidenced funds. No owner meeting is arranged before that gate is cleared. This is the rule the practice is built on and it is not waived for anyone, however well introduced.
Heads of terms, then a documented diligence timetable your counsel and ours can hold to, then completion. Structures here are typically cash at completion with a retained portion and a defined handover, secured properly rather than left on trust.
Your staff, your landlord, your bank, your customers, and your competitors learn nothing from us. Your company is never listed, never circulated, and never named in an approach. Buyers see an anonymised profile and nothing more until you decide otherwise.
The principal
Coello Advisory exists because its founder has been the seller.
Joseph Coello built a construction and renovation company in New York from nothing and exited it, and made millions across that sale and a portfolio of property he bought, improved, and sold. He has signed the front of the payroll cheque, carried the risk personally, and handed over the keys. That experience sets how this practice treats an owner: candidly, and with the assumption that the number matters less to you than the certainty of getting there.
He moved to Dubai and found a market of genuinely profitable owner-operated companies being taken to market badly. Asking prices with no basis, intermediaries who have never read a set of management accounts, and buyers introduced to owners before anyone confirmed they could fund a transaction. Coello Advisory was built as the correction to that: fewer mandates, harder qualification, written work, and a principal in the room at completion.
The fuller personal account, including what the exit taught him, sits on josephcoello.com.
The platform
Coello Advisory holds the mandate. Two adjacent properties do the work of meeting people earlier: one for capital, one for owners. Both feed the same qualification standard, and neither is a listing site.
For qualified buyers. Acquirers, family offices, consolidators, and operators who have completed identification, executed an NDA, and evidenced funds see anonymised opportunities that are genuinely for sale, with real figures behind them.
Buyer side uaeexits.comFor owners researching a sale. What UAE businesses actually trade for, how a confidential process runs, what buyers verify, and what to fix in the twelve months before you go to market. Written for the owner who has not decided yet.
Owner sideContact
WhatsApp is the fastest route to us and the one this market uses. Tell us what you own or what you are looking to acquire, and we will tell you straight whether it is worth taking further. There is no form, no intake sequence, and no assistant calling you back.
