Dries Bogaert

Profile

Dries Bogaert is A.R.M. Management's Partner for Transaction Advisory & Exit Readiness, covering the GCC and Benelux. He advises the owners of privately held companies in the run-up to a sale — bringing financials to investor grade, documenting operations, and removing the risks buyers discount for — and supports transactions through to close. His premise is simple: buyers don't buy a P&L; they buy operations they can trust. In his experience, properly prepared businesses sell faster — often one to two turns of EBITDA above where they would otherwise land.

He comes to advisory from the operator's side of the table. A civil and structural engineer, he spent fifteen years directing mega infrastructure projects on four continents — the Panama Canal locks, marine works across Latin America, West Africa and Asia, and ultimately, as Project Director in Abu Dhabi, one of the largest land reclamation programmes in the region: 450 million cubic metres, a workforce of more than 2,000, and over AED 25 billion in directed project value. He completed his MBA (University of Liverpool) and a specialisation in M&A from Columbia Business School alongside that career.

Today he sits on every side of a transaction. Through his own transaction advisory practice, he has prepared and assessed businesses representing a combined enterprise value of AED 600 million. As an entrepreneur he owns and holds stakes in operating companies in the UAE, and as an acquirer he is actively buying established businesses in Belgium through his own holding. That triangulation — operator, buyer and owner — is what he brings into the room: he reads the business and the operations, not only the numbers.

Equally at home on a project site, in a data room or across the table from an investor, Dries is the adviser owners turn to when the outcome depends on what a buyer will actually see. He holds an M.Sc. in Civil and Structural Engineering from Ghent University, advises in English, Dutch, French and Spanish, and is based in Abu Dhabi, working across the UAE and Benelux.