The Corporate Team here at Gorvins have a wealth of experience in advising companies and their shareholders on employee share option schemes.

Share option schemes, and other employee incentive plans, can provide a great way to incentivise key members of staff going forward in the following scenarios :

  • To retain staff pending a specifically defined target at some point in the future such as a financial or performance target
  • A sale to a third party or a listing on a recognised investment exchange,
  • To reward long-standing and key employees for their past loyalty when a business owner exits and sells to a third party
  • To simply provide a tax-efficient manner for employees to share in the value of the business going forward.

Contact our specialist Corporate Law team on 0161 930 5151, e-mail corporateteam@gorvins.com or complete the online form.

Gorvins Approach to Employee Share Option Schemes

The starting point for providing comprehensive, practical and pro-active advice to shareholders is to sit down and understand the current structure and how that structure is envisaged to change going forward and importantly whether you want employees to simply benefit from shares on a sale or listing or whether you are happy to have them as shareholders alongside you sharing in dividends and decision making.

From there we can discuss we you the various options going forward and which type of employee share option scheme or incentive plan would be suitable with a variety of different schemes available from Employee Share Schemes, EMI Share Option Schemes, Company Share Option Plans, SAYE schemes to name a few.

Depending on the type of employee scheme you chose, it is imperative that future events are considered with safeguards built into either the share option documentation or the company’s corporate structure documentation. For example, if an employee who acquires shares in the near future ceases to be an employee at a later date then what should happen to those shares and should they be made to sell them back to the other shareholders?

We can then put pen to paper and prepare, and where applicable negotiate, the relevant documentation both proactively managing the process and delivering comprehensive and easy to understand advice on the documentation concerned and its implications as the matter progresses.

How Can Gorvins Help?

Our aim is to make sure the advice we deliver is comprehensive, practical, proactive and easy to understand whilst guiding you through a transaction that is often vitally important for safeguarding the future of the company concerned. We are experienced in advising businesses on corporate structures ranging from a simple decision on whether to operate as a limited company or as a partnership or sole trader for a start-up business through to complex corporate structure working involving demergers, capital reductions or structures suitable for raising seed capital in a tax-efficient manner.

Contact our specialist team today on 0161 930 5151, e-mail corporateteam@gorvins.com or complete the online form on the right and we will call you back at a time convenient for you.

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