EXE Capital & Credit Advisory
Debt & Credit Advisory
Your raise, run end to end.
Credit Risk & Covenant Analytics
Independent reviews, sold as retainers.
Fund Placement & Co-Investment
Capital raised for credit funds.
Secondaries & GP Solutions
Liquidity for fund stakes.
Special Situations & Restructuring
Support for borrowers under pressure.
Capital & The Gulf
The Seat Nobody Was Sitting In
A founder of a profitable mid-market company sits across the table, term sheet in hand. He built the business over fifteen years. Revenue is real, margins are healthy, the growth plan is sound. And every bank he’s spoken to has offered him the same thing: a facility sized for their comfort, priced for their risk appetite, wrapped in covenants written entirely in the lender’s favour.
He isn’t being turned away. He’s being handled. There was no one in the room reading the documents on his behalf, no one who had priced a hundred of these deals and knew which terms were standard and which were simply the first number the bank tried.
In New York or London, he would have called an independent adviser before he ever spoke to a lender. In the Gulf, that call had nowhere to land. The banks have advisers. The mega-funds have advisers. The company actually borrowing the money has been negotiating alone.
EXE Capital & Credit Advisory
Everything a capital raise requires
End-to-end capital advisory for mid-market borrowers and the lenders who fund them, combining deal execution with analytics no regional competitor offers.
What Independent Capital Advice Actually Changes
Capital & Credit Advisory isn't brokerage, and it isn't consulting. A broker is paid to move a product. A consultant is paid to produce a report. We're paid to get a financing done on terms that hold up years after the ink dries, which means our incentive and the borrower's are the same one.
The GCC is entering its private capital era, and unlike the West, this one is led by credit, not equity. Basel capital rules keep regional banks anchored to large corporates, which leaves profitable mid-market companies structurally under-served precisely when global credit funds are arriving with capital to deploy.
Global managers have opened offices. Institutional capital has landed. What the market still lacks is the independent house that represents the borrower, benchmarks the terms, and closes the deal. In developed markets that role is permanent and well paid. In the UAE the seat is open, and it will be won first in credit.
The Numbers Behind
the Opportunity
This isn't a story about a trend. It's a structural gap in one of the world's fastest-growing capital markets, and the figures are specific.
The Private Credit Curve
GCC and Egypt private credit is projected to reach $11–20B by 2030, growing at a 15–30% annual clip. The asset class that barely existed regionally five years ago is becoming the primary channel for mid-market capital.
The Funding Gap
The GCC's SME and mid-market funding gap sits above $250B. That's not a shortage of good companies. It's a shortage of financing structured to reach them.
The Bank Retreat
Less than 10% of GCC bank lending reaches SMEs, against roughly 20% in developed markets. Basel capital rules keep banks focused on large corporates, and that structural bias is the opening.
Regulation Is Ready
UAE financial-centre private credit frameworks came into force across 2022–23, and the number of licensed asset managers in Dubai is up 35% since 2020. The rails are already built.
Capital Is Arriving
Apollo, Blackstone, Ares and Oaktree are active regionally. Jadwa launched a $200M credit fund and Amwal a $150M fund in 2025. The money is here and looking for deals.
The Advisory Gap Is Visible
Campbell Lutyens opened Dubai in 2024, Evercore opened Riyadh in 2025. Both serve sovereigns and mega-funds, not the mid-market. The seat between the borrower and the lender is still empty.
The Model Is Proven
This is the Evercore and Campbell Lutyens playbook, calibrated for a credit-first market. The independent capital adviser is a permanent, well-compensated fixture in mature markets. The Gulf simply hasn't had one built for it.
The Window
First-mover advantage in advisory is unusually durable. The first credible local franchise becomes the default relationship, and default relationships are hard to unseat. Windows like this close.
From Mandate to Close:
a Three-Stage Process
A capital raise isn't a form to file. It's a sequence, and each stage decides whether the next one goes smoothly or grinds. Here's how a mandate moves.
Structure & Story
Before anyone approaches a lender.
We assess the business, size the realistic debt capacity, and build the credit narrative and financial model a lender will actually underwrite. We agree the target structure and the terms worth fighting for before the first conversation happens.
- Business and financial assessment
- Debt-capacity and structure modelling
- Credit narrative and information memorandum
- Target lender mapping
A raise built on a story lenders believe.
Market & Negotiate
The competitive phase.
We take the opportunity to the right banks and private credit funds, run a disciplined process that creates genuine competition, and negotiate pricing, covenants and security in parallel rather than accepting the first term sheet as the baseline.
- Targeted lender and fund outreach
- Competitive process management
- Pricing and covenant negotiation
- Term-sheet comparison and selection
Multiple credible offers, benchmarked.
Close & Monitor
From signed terms to funded facility.
We manage documentation, diligence and conditions through to funding, then hand over to analytics: covenant tracking and monitoring so the borrower never gets caught off guard by a term they signed but forgot.
- Documentation and diligence management
- Conditions-precedent tracking
- Funding and close
- Ongoing covenant monitoring
Facility funded. Terms that hold.
Aligned Incentives, Stated Plainly
The way an adviser is paid tells you whose side they're on. Ours is built so that our incentive and yours point in the same direction.
| Service | Model | When It Applies | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Debt & Credit Advisory | Success fee on close | We're paid when your financing closes, not for effort or hours. |
| 02 | Credit Risk & Covenant Analytics | Retainer | Recurring, for lenders and investors who need an independent read. |
| 03 | Fund Placement & Co-Investment | Placement fee | On capital raised or committed. |
| 04 | Secondaries & GP Solutions | Transaction / advisory fee | On completed liquidity transactions. |
| 05 | Special Situations & Restructuring | Advisory / success fee | Structured to the mandate. |
A success fee means we only get paid when the deal gets done. It removes the incentive to keep a process running for the billing and aligns us with the outcome you actually want: a closed facility on good terms.
We don't lend, and we don't take positions in the deals we advise. We're not selling you a product from our own balance sheet, which means the advice you get is the advice, not a distribution pitch wearing an adviser's suit.
Every mandate runs under strict confidentiality. Your numbers, your strategy and your negotiating position stay between us and the counterparties you approve.
Why EXE Credit & Capital
Most people assume a private capital market starts with equity and venture money, then matures into credit. In the Gulf, the sequence is inverted. Basel rules pushed regional banks toward large corporates and away from the mid-market at exactly the moment those companies hit their growth phase. Global credit funds saw the gap and moved in. So the first wave of institutional private capital here isn’t chasing unicorns, it’s financing real companies with real cash flows, and that means the first adviser the market needs is a credit adviser. We built for that reality rather than the one imported from other markets.
Why the First Mover Wins
In advisory, relationships compound. The first house a borrower trusts becomes the one they call for the next raise, the refinancing, the acquisition and the restructuring. Reputations in capital markets are built deal by deal and are almost impossible to shortcut, which is why the firms that establish themselves early hold their position for years. Campbell Lutyens and Evercore understood this when they planted flags in Dubai and Riyadh. They aimed at sovereigns and mega-funds. The mid-market seat is still open, and it's open now.
We don't send generalists
to price your debt.
Most advisory firms in this region put a relationship manager and a spreadsheet in front of you. We put people who have underwritten credit inside a global bank, taught it at graduate level, and built the analytics that benchmark it.
Our practice pairs live-market deal experience with genuine credit-risk depth. When a lender pushes a covenant package, we already know where it sits against the market because we run the analytics that measure it. When a term sheet arrives, we're reading it the way the credit committee on the other side read it, because that's the work we've done our entire careers.
You aren't paying an adviser to learn your situation on your time. You're working with people who priced deals like yours before they walked into the room.
You describe the situation once. We take it from there.
About EXE Capital & Credit Advisory
EXE Capital is an independent capital advisory group, registered and embedded at Dubai World Trade Centre, built for the Gulf's credit-led private capital era. Our Capital & Credit Advisory practice runs debt raises end to end, delivers independent credit and covenant analytics to lenders, and, as the market deepens, places institutional capital and advises on secondaries and special situations. We take the Evercore and Campbell Lutyens model and sequence it for a market that will be won first in credit.
Positioned for the Market as It Actually Is
The independent adviser exists everywhere serious capital gets raised, except, until now, on the borrower's side of the Gulf mid-market. That gap is closing, and the first credible franchise to fill it sets the terms of the relationship for the decade that follows. We registered, embedded ourselves at DWTC, and built the analytics edge before opening the door, because in this market preparation is the advantage.
Start the Conversation
If you're raising debt, running a credit fund, or holding a position you need an independent read on, the time to have a capital adviser in the room is before the first term sheet, not after you've signed one. Reach out for a confidential conversation. We'll assess the situation, tell you honestly what's achievable and on what terms, and show you what having someone on your side of the table actually changes.