Baxendale Employee Ownership are expert advisors on employee ownership in all its forms; we have been helping businesses become employee owned for over twenty years. We understand the importance of learning about your business and finding the solutions that are right for all stakeholders.
We are able to offer an unrivalled combination of legal, financial and practical experience and expertise, and will work with you not only to ensure that the transition delivers what the current owners require in terms of the sale of their business, but also that the new employee owned business has the best possible chance of future success.
We can project manage your employee ownership transition from beginning to end; advising on legal, financial and governance structures and working with you on engagement and employee communication to ensure everyone in the business understands the changes taking place.
In addition to advising on Employee Ownership Trusts (EOT), we can also advise and implement employee share schemes for direct share ownership.
For more information please contact Emily Alston to find out more emily.alston@baxendale-eo.co.uk, or click here to find out more.
In addition to trust based employee ownership structures, we can also advise on and implement employee share schemes for direct share ownership. These can take many forms, including Enterprise Management Incentive share schemes and Share Incentive Plans:
Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) share schemes
EMI share options, aimed at incentivising key employees, have a number of tax advantages. EMI options can be implemented alongside an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT); to provide incentives and/or direct share ownership for key employees.
In a business owned by an EOT, the EOT is a potential future buyer for the EMI shares, so realising share value does not have to be dependent on a sale of the business. EMI options can be a useful way of incentivising senior staff who are vital to the company’s successful independent future.
To read more about EMI schemes click here.
Share Incentive Plans (SIPs)
For some businesses it is important that all employees have the opportunity to benefit from individual share ownership, and can use a SIP alongside an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) to achieve this aim.
The EOT usually retains a majority of the shares, to ensure stability of ownership of the business; while the SIP allows tax efficient acquisition of shares by employees. Shares can be purchased via salary sacrifice, and SIPs can be structured to be accessible to all employees, allowing everyone to have the opportunity to own an individual stake in the business.
To read more about SIPs click here.
For more information please contact Ewan Hall at Ewan.hall@baxendale-eo.co.uk.
We run half-day workshops for business owners and leadership teams, exploring Employee Ownership as an option for the future of their business.
Following an initial conversation with a member of our team, there is often the need to explore further detail about how a transition to employee ownership might work in practice for your business and the different options available to you – in terms of the employee owned structures available, the terms of any potential sale, and the future governance of the business going forwards.
The use of employee share schemes can be explored / focused on as part of the workshop if appropriate.
For more information or to book your workshop please contact contact Simon Everingham to find out more simon.everingham@baxendale-eo.co.uk
We understand that the transition of your business to Employee Ownership (often via the sale of your business to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT)) marks the beginning, not the end of your employee ownership journey. Although we hope to give the businesses we work with all the tools to move confidently into their employee owned future, we are always on hand to provide help and support whenever we are needed.
Typically we might provide support with the following:
For more information please contact Emily Alston to find out more emily.alston@baxendale-eo.co.uk
As businesses move into employee ownership, we often work with their employees to help them understand the changes taking place and to embrace their new role as employee owners. We can also work with leaders or managers within the business to help them understand both their place in the new employee owned structure and how with an understanding of employee ownership, they can create participative workplaces which foster innovation, talent, and high levels of productivity.
We have helped to implement employee forums and constitutions for employee owned businesses, and have worked with groups of employee owners to find their collective understanding of the culture and values of their organisations; for the future.
We work with both new and existing employee owned businesses to give advice and run workshop sessions, helping to build and maintain successful ownership cultures.
For more information please contact Emily Alston to find out more emily.alston@baxendale-eo.co.uk
We provide Trustee training sessions as a matter of course for all our clients transitioning to employee ownership as part of the process. However, we can also provide stand-alone Trustee training sessions, both for businesses that are already employee owned but want a refresher session potentially with a new group of trustees; and for business that are in the process of transitioning to employee ownership and want some external support for their trustees.
Sometimes businesses will take the opportunity at the point of ownership succession to make changes to the management and leadership of the business as well. This can often involve appointing new Directors to the Board of the business. We can offer training and support sessions for new Directors and Board members, particularly in the context of a transition to employee ownership and the governance structures that come along with this.
To get in touch about a training session contact Ewan Hall to find out more ewan.hall@baxendale-eo.co.uk.
We regularly work in partnership with other professional advisers, such as accountants and financial advisers, to deliver employee ownership transitions. Our experience has shown that we can add real value to the proposition advisers are able to offer their clients when exploring employee ownership.
We are experts in our field and have a highly experienced legal team with a long history of successfully delivering employee ownership transitions; including establishing over 150 employee owned structures. We can work alongside you to deliver specific elements of a transition to employee ownership, and are also able to offer employee workshops and communications to ensure the best chance of future success for your client’s business.
For more information please contact Ewan Hall to find out more ewan.hall@baxendale-eo.co.uk.
