Corporate Blog

Those of us who start and run our own companies have many decisions to consider. A key question that we may be inclined to put off asking ourselves is “when and how will I retire?” But putting this off indefinitely will not be good for you or your company. Over the next twelve months I plan to give you my thoughts on this subject in a series of newsletters …

Our last two blogs have considered points you should consider when drawing up a contract of employment for a senior/key employee. This month we look at the issues that can arise when one of your employees hands in their notice or has left and you are concerned that they may be acting in a way that could damage your business …

What do you do if an employee-shareholder is leaving your company and you want to buy back their shares? The first point to make is that before any employee acquires shares you should first have clearly set out the rules for the buy-back should they leave …

For many of you the decision to set up your own business will not have been driven by the desire to maximise your income or build a company that you can eventually sell at a profit. Perhaps you were …

Drafting the Articles of Association is one of the most important legal issues when setting up a company, but there is a way you can make it easier for yourself. When you brief your legal adviser, you are likely to have the same key objectives in mind that most business owners do…

The most common arrangements are;

Life policies that pay proceeds to surviving business owner(s) on death (and perhaps on critical illness).
Cross option agreements that give the surviving business owner(s) the right to buy the shares from the deceased’s family using the policy proceeds – a ‘Call Option’…

What makes a successful business? A great concept definitely, an entrepreneur with passion and energy almost certainly, but perhaps most important of all – a highly focused and motivated management team to drive it forward.

You don’t have to be a Dragon’s Den entrepreneur to conclude that an important way to achieve this is likely to be by providing equity incentives to key team members…

Articles of Association can be long or short form. Until recently, the norm was the latter – 5 or 6 pages setting out key issues and incorporating the statutory ‘Table A’ – a set of standard default Articles. For companies incorporated after October 2009, Table A was replaced by a simplified set of default Articles known as the Model Articles…

If you own a business carried on through a company and decide to sell, should you sell the shares in the company, or just sell the business assets? The right answer will often be dictated by tax considerations, but there are also legal and administrative issues…

Buying a private company can seem deceptively simple: you can do it by completing a single-page form! But don’t be seduced by the idea of that ‘simple’ one-page form: because of the potential liabilities, private companies are rarely bought and sold on the basis of this alone. One of the first things to consider if you are thinking about acquiring a company is ‘due diligence’: investigating …