By Bill Anderson, Senior Valuation Advisor & RICS Associate, Assetica — 2026-06-03
A simple five-step framework any UAE business owner can use to estimate what their company is roughly worth, with a worked example. Not a formal valuation, but far better than guessing.
Adjust accounting profit to what a buyer would recognise: add back your own salary, one-off costs and personal expenses, then deduct a market salary for someone to do your job, income that will not continue, and above-market family payroll. What remains, seller's discretionary earnings or normalised EBITDA, is the figure the whole valuation rests on.
Privately held SMEs in most sectors change hands at low single-digit multiples of normalised earnings. Score yourself on five questions: could it run without you for three months, is revenue recurring, does any client exceed roughly 20 per cent of revenue, are the accounts audited, and has profit grown for three years. Mostly good answers use the top of a conservative range such as 2x to 4x; mostly bad answers use the bottom.
Multiply earnings by the multiple for enterprise value, subtract borrowings, add genuinely surplus cash and discount aged receivables to reach equity value. Sanity-check against realistic asset value, which acts as a floor. Then date the number and repeat yearly: the trend matters more than the figure.
A napkin valuation is a navigation tool, not a sale price. It will not survive contact with a real transaction, dispute, bank or visa application, where methodology, evidence and independence are required. As an annual habit it keeps value on your dashboard next to revenue and cash.
How do I roughly value my own business in the UAE?
Normalise your profit (add back personal costs, deduct a market salary for your replacement), apply an honest multiple range such as 2x to 4x for a typical small owner-managed business, subtract debt, add surplus cash and sanity-check against asset value. The result is a rough range, not a sale price.
What is seller's discretionary earnings?
The normalised profit measure used for owner-managed SMEs: accounting profit adjusted for the owner's salary and benefits, one-off items, personal expenses, and a market-rate salary for a replacement general manager.
Is a rough valuation enough for a sale or Golden Visa?
No. Buyers, courts, banks and government bodies require a formal, independent valuation with methodology and evidence. A GDRFA-accepted certified report is required for Golden Visa applications; a napkin estimate has no formal standing.