The Dubai-based contractor has relied heavily on the support of Australian partner Leighton Holdings in recent years, which bought a 45% stake in the firm in 2007 for $803mn.

Since 2008, Leighton Holdings has also provided $515.5mn in loans and letters of credit and guarantees worth a further $238.8mn.

Over the past 12 months clear signs of progress have been witnessed – it turned a loss of around $44mn in 2012 into a $1mn profit in 2013 on revenues of $465.1mn.

It also picked up several new contract wins, including a $395mn deal from shareholder Al Habtoor to build three residential towers at the $3bn Al Habtoor City development, a $1.7bn joint venture with Al Jaber Engineering for package three of Doha’s New Orbital Highway and a $160mn deal to deliver infrastructure at Abu Dhabi’s Midfield Terminal.

There may even soon be progress at Dubai Pearl, where HLG put in 3.5mn man-hours until mid-2011 when the project stalled. Its developer recently said it had secured $1.9bn from an investor to take the project forwards. Lopez-Monis joined HLG in 2012 to help prepare it for an IPO in 2016.