Topical discussions about employee ownership and employee share plans
In time honoured tradition, we hereby stick out our necks and make five bold predictions for what might happen in our world of employee share ownership in 2019. Employee Ownership Trusts (“EOT”) will graduate from niche to mainstream, five years after their introduction in the...
The big story of the year has been the increasing number of companies converting to employee ownership by selling to an employee ownership trust (“EOT”). Here’s a run down of what went down this year in the world of employee share schemes and employee ownership: January: Trust...
A recent case about entrepreneurs’ relief is jammed with tedious legal jargon about equitable remedies and the like. Luckily, most of the salient points in Dieno George v HMRC ([2018] UKFTT 0509 (TC)) have already been covered by a number of the greatest 80s popular...
There was a flurry of excitement in relation to the Budget announcements about changes to entrepreneurs’ relief (“ER”), which impacts on Enterprise Management Incentive (“EMI”) options.We summarised these in our Budget blog. Some grumpiness arose because up till now, EMI option holders only had to...
Well, there is no real surprise. The largest employee-owned company in the UK is still the John Lewis Partnership, as it has been since records began. But ranking behind this much-admired behemoth in the annual league table is a dynamic group of companies, and changes...
Fantastic news that Aardman Animations, creators of Wallace & Gromit, have made the jump to employee ownership by way of an Employee Ownership Trust ("EOT") . Many congratulations to all involved! For many years, John Lewis Partnership has been the go-to name when you need to...
It goes without saying that, when share prices are low, that’s a good time to grant options, if only because it creates the possibility of greater gains for employees when the share price rises. For private company owners thinking about granting Enterprise Management Incentive options ("EMI"),...
Mr Hammond’s budget on 29 October didn’t look on the face of it to have very much in the way of excitement for share schemes, but there was certainly food for thought in particular for seekers of Entrepreneurs’ Relief (“ER”). The changes mean that Enterprise...
Recently (in the context of tax legislation) we published a blog on a couple who were able to benefit from entrepreneurs’ relief because their preference shares (with a fixed rate dividend of zero) were deemed to be part of the company’s ordinary share capital. “Ordinary share capital”...
In businesses the best incentives create behaviours which benefit the company. Would you like to enhance performance, productivity and personnel development whilst by achieving your Company’s strategic plan? Employee ownership across all employees which is implemented correctly and communicated strongly, can really make a difference. We...
What does the Labour Party’s announcement on “inclusive ownership funds” mean for employee ownership? At the moment, there’s not a huge amount of detail about Labour’s recently announced policy for 10% of shares in larger companies to be awarded to employees, with additional employee representation on...
Don't get caught out and unintentionally disqualify your Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) share scheme. If you think that any of the following issues may arise in your Company, please contact us immediately and where possible before any changes are made. To continue to qualify for EMI, the...
So, you’re a business owner and you’ve set up an employee share scheme such as an Employee Management Incentive Plan (EMI), with pay-outs conditional on a sale of the company. You might ask yourself – what should I be saying about my plans to sell? The...
If you’re just starting to think about putting in place a share scheme for employees, such as an Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI), a good starting point is our checklist . We’ve published some more detailed blogs on Step 1 (design questions) and Step 2 (how...
The law may be an ass but when it comes to employee share schemes, there are certain legal requirements that company directors, in particular, need to know about. Probably the biggest practical risk is that the share option arrangements may be questioned at a later...
