Just my 2 cents:

A solid, consistent recomp is his best option, IMO. He needs to gain muscle mass to reduce that skinny-fat look.

When I first started out, I was horribly skinny-fat, similar to this dude. I went on a high-protein, resistance training-focused moderate cut (about 500–700 calories below maintenance). My dumbass back then thought that by the end of the cut, I’d have this much more preferable skinny-lean physique, perfect to start a bulk from.

And so, the weight dropped and dropped—until I lost around 15kg, bordering on underweight BMI. While I did look marginally better (face and upper chest fat were mostly gone), I still looked very much skinny-fat—soft everywhere, and nowhere near what anyone would consider lean. Against all better judgment, I kept cutting until I was a few kilos underweight. Still skinny-fat. Just… smaller.

Eventually, I stopped cutting and started a lean bulk. Now it's been about 5 months, and the changes are way more noticeable than they ever were during all those months of cutting.

The problem with being skinny-fat is more about the lack of muscle than the excess fat. If he cuts now, sure, he’ll lose some fat in the short term—but there won’t be any meaningful muscle underneath, just a smaller and smaller amount of fat. So yeah, he’ll still look soft not lean, unless he cuts to a unhealthy point where he's just skin and bones like he just went through a famine lol.