Company Law
The mainstay of the practice is to advise shareholders and directors on the purchase and sale of private companies, with a value of up to about £10m. We advise on structuring the transactions, corporate finance and fund raising, and preparing and negotiating the necessary agreements and other paperwork.
We also advise on joint ventures, restructuring, investment and shareholder agreements, partnerships, and LLPs (and the preperation of partnership and LLP agreements). We have particular expertise in employee incentive arrangements, including preparing EMI option agreements and schemes, and “shares for employee rights” schemes.
Although legal documents by their nature have a certain structure and contain legal language, we endeavour to draft documents in a straightforward way so that they are readily understandable. We always try to take a practical approach – if documents can be shorter, or the approach can be simpler, so much the better.
Examples of recent work include
- advising on the sale of a London based specialist mobile phone advertising agency to Omnicom Group
- advising the exiting shareholders in a Gatwick based market research company in a management buy out
- advising the management team in the management buy out of a Kent based international conference organiser
- advising a Midlands based accountancy practice on it sale to national practice Haines Watts
- advising the shareholders of Waviatech Limited, a Gatwick based company specialising in the management and scanning of aircraft records, on the sale of a majority shareholding to Dutch Group AerData BV
- advising an East Sussex based manufacturing company on its acquisition of a home counties based wholesaler and distributor
- advising on a s110 Insolvency Act reconstruction to effect the demerger of two South East based based manufacturing and wholesaling companies
- advising the shareholders on the merger of a London based digital marketing agency with a media buying agency
- advising on numerous shareholders agreements for companies including a recently formed advertising agency, and a company developing mobile phone technology
- advising a London based recruitment business on its acquisition of, first, a specialist police recruitment company and, secondly, a specialist security recruitment company
- advising the board of a retailing company on the company’s refinancing and private equity investment
- advising the shareholders of Avisa Aviation Safety Systems Limited, a Sussex based airworthiness management and safety company, on the sale of the company to Swiss based private equity company, Enex Group SA
- preparing “shares for employee rights” schemes for two national retailers, and for a renewable energy company
- advising shareholders in the reverse AIM takeover of an advertising agency
- advising an internet retailer on its initial and second stage fundraising
- preparing EMI options schemes and agreement for retail, manufacturing and other companies
- advising the shareholders in the merger of two Sussex baser computer retailers