OUR SERVICES
Integrated Market Capabilities
With end-to-end capabilities across all aspects of corporate transformation, capital market structuring and investment, real estate development and asset management, Black Oaks fosters a culture willing to undertake ambitious and considered projects, to challenge the status quo and collaborate with a range of retained partners. These are key elements in our approach to generate the right solutions.
Since 2008, Black Oaks leadership has served as CEO and Senior Advisor to a portfolio of distinguished Middle East Islamic Sovereign Wealth Funds, Family Offices and Investment Firms, executing commercial restructures and strategy mandates to consolidate, enhance or exit group holdings and new market entry.
With 25+ years Senior Corporate Leadership, serving multiple Forbes Middle East Top 100 Family Office mandates, Black Oaks retains senior relationships with US and EMEA sovereign wealth funds, UHNW family offices, institutions and regulators.
Black Oaks has executed multiple rounds of Western and Islamic financing resulting in being awarded the prestigious Islamic Finance News award for “Most Innovative Deal of the Year” in 2019 and executed numerous fundraising mandates and commercial asset sales to institutional REIT’s.
Black Oaks have structured & delivered complex Joint Venture and Consortium real estate developments requiring extensive stakeholder management, establishing long-dated project pipelines delivering accretive AUM growth.
Black Oaks focus on new ventures is rooted in solving legacy problems with modern, engineered clarity. We build and launch ventures that confront long‑standing structural challenges - market inefficiencies, outdated delivery models, fragmented governance - and replace them with integrated, future‑ready solutions.
Interested in securing valuable Thought Leadership without long-dated employment contracts? Our leadership team is available to support short-term client requirements.
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In 2008, Black Oaks Founder, Ben Ganley, was mandated by the distinguished Al Khorafi family office in Kuwait to support the acquisition of Liverpool Football Club. Ben served the family for a further 6 years, listing RAK Real Estate in London on ICAP Securities for USD 988MM in Q1, 2009 while congruently completing a reverse takeover of Rafco International Real Estate KSC.
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Prior to relocating to the Middle East, Ben worked with Deloitte in Corporate Re-Organization and thereafter joined ASX listed Lend Lease Retail and Lend Lease Communities before relocating to the United Kingdom in 2005 to support the restructure and launch of two private equity firm’s targeting social infrastructure and affordable housing.
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Ben was raised in Adelaide, South Australia and is married with 2 boys. He is an Alumni and former Foundation Board member (2003 - 2005) of Charles Darwin University.
Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. Accredited Member #1288108.
Australian Institute of Company Directors. Accredited Member #2469258.
Australian Property Institute. Accredited Member #5984.
Australian Marketing Institute. Accredited Member #28686.
Project Management Institute. Accredited Member #1929028.
Institute of Directors, London. Member.
Charles Darwin University Foundation, Alternate Board Member 2003-2005. Established in 1993 to raise benevolent investment for a wide variety of programs, projects and infrastructure. At time of service, the Foundation has raised over AUD 21MM.
Black Oaks takes its name from the native Black Oak trees that grow on Ben’s family property - The Oaks - in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia.
The brand draws on this landscape - resilient, grounded, and enduring - as a metaphor for the firm’s approach to strategy and execution.
The below photo is an entrance signpost to the property, a proud marker of place and legacy that informs the identity of our Middle East based firm.
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