The challenge:
After being referred to Diligencia by one of our long-standing law firm clients, an international organisation operating in the education sector approached Diligencia for our assistance with a large due diligence project. The firm owns and manages private day and boarding schools globally including in the Middle East.
The scope of the project was to undertake in-depth research into a UAE-based school that the client was considering acquiring to add to its expanding portfolio.
The solution:
To start, Diligencia’s team of business analysts used ClarifiedBy.com, our award-winning platform, to identify the school, its present and former management team, shareholdings and its past and current owners. Our platform also then helped to determine if there were any politically exposed persons connected with the school, if it was State-owned or if anyone connected to a ruling family in the MENA region was a director or owner.
Using established local sources in the UAE, the team went on to conduct further research into the school’s reputation – amongst teachers, parents and the local community – its academic performance based on past inspections by the education authority, staff retention rates, academic and extracurricular facilities onsite, and its potential for the future.
The result:
Feedback from the client on the work we carried out was extremely positive. Using the information provided by Diligencia along with other reports commissioned by the client focused on legal, environmental and commercial aspects, they were fully equipped with the information required to inform their decision making, which in this case, was to go ahead with the acquisition of the school.
