Building the Business Case for a UAE Cultural Entity's Performing Arts Centre
A UAE-based cultural entity planning a greenfield performing arts centre needed a full, capital-ready business case before committing investment, but had no in-house financial modelling capability to build one.
- Industry
- Culture & Entertainment
- Region
- GCC
The challenge
With no internal capacity to model a project of this scale, the client needed an external team who could build the assumptions from scratch, stress-test them rigorously, and stay embedded through multiple rounds of iteration as those assumptions evolved.
The approach
- 01
Research design & pod formation
- Constituted a pod of 1 manager, 2 financial analysts, and 1 modelling & valuation specialist.
- Structured the model architecture around the client's capital commitment timeline.
- 02
Assumptions & scenario modelling
- Built and stress-tested 50+ financial assumptions through secondary research and benchmarking.
- Ran scenario, phasing, and sensitivity analysis across IRR, NPV, and payback.
- 03
Business case & iteration
- Delivered the full business case, cost structure, and demand modelling in reporting-ready form.
- Directly supervised by a client-side senior supervisor, with continuous model iteration as assumptions evolved.
The result
Delivered a fully stress-tested, capital-ready business case in a fraction of the usual timeline, so the client could move on its capital decision faster and with less risk of costly rework later.
- 50+
- financial assumptions structured and stress-tested
- 4+
- parallel financial workstreams supported simultaneously
- 90%
- reduction in assumption research and benchmarking workload
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