Company structuring and restructuring

Whatever your motivation for restructuring your business, we’ll support you with practical advice and solutions

There are many reasons to review the structure of your business. Those drivers may be commercial, financial, tax or succession related, or some combination.

Reasons to restructure

Our Corporate team have long practical experience of helping businesses to restructure. We regularly guide them through scenarios such as:

• Combining companies into a group structure for commercial and/or financial reasons
• Demerging companies from within a group as part of business or family succession planning
• Transferring assets between group companies and/or forming subsidiaries to ringfence specific business activities
• Group simplification projects to permit the striking off of dormant companies
• Separating matrimonial interests upon separation or divorce where a couple have owned or run a business together
• Buying shares back to allow the exit of a shareholder or as part of a succession plan.

How we help

In all these situations we can explore what you’re hoping to achieve and work with your accounting and tax advisers to develop a plan that works for your business.

We’ll then assist with the practical legal steps including the formation of new companies, the hive up or down of assets and liabilities, share capital reductions, voluntary liquidations and other statutory processes to achieve the planned structure. Crucially, we’ll always look at the bigger picture of why you’re restructuring and any wider considerations associated with that – for example:

• Will your proposals constitute a “change of control” under any of your existing contracts?
• Will you require any third-party consent or licence?
• Will you require your funder’s consent to the changes?
• Will the changes require new shareholder arrangements?

As a full-service firm, we can bring in solicitors from other teams to advise on related legal aspects.

We also work regularly with accountants, financial advisers, and business consultants to create joined-up solutions.