Business Acquisitions and Disposals

Buying or selling a business can be both exciting and stressful. Your first concern will be finding the right business deal. The next stage is finding the best way of structuring the commercial deal: Would it be better to arrange a purchase or sale of shares or a disposal or acquisition of business assets? This is where your business lawyers come in.

Usually the agreements that buy or dispose of businesses or companies will have potential consequences for up to seven years after the deal is made so it is important to understand the legal ramifications of the business sale agreement. Keeping a planned business disposal, business startup or business acquisition confidential whilst maintain the momentum of the negotiations can be critically important.

Our Business Services team can help protect the confidentiality of your dealings by the preparation of confidentiality and exclusivity agreements, and then identify the key legal issues on the business disposal, or business acquisition and the documents that need to be prepared. The sale contracts will normally include warranties or indemnities about the business and tax. We will negotiate their terms and the limits to your liability as part of the contract negotiation.

If we are acting for you as the seller we will also look to find ways of minimizing your tax liability (for example by identifying available tax reliefs, such as entrepreneurs relief, to minimise capital gains tax) so that you keep as much of the sale proceeds as possible on disposing of your shares.

Business mergers and acquisitions happen for different reasons. An owner may be retiring or simply decide that he has taken the company as far as he can, or that by teaming up with a similar company or business, the sum of the parts will offer more business opportunities together than as separate operating units. In such cases, a business sale merger or acquisition may be one part of a larger corporate restructuring or joint venture investment arrangement or private equity investment agreement.

Getting a business or company ready for sale may involve dealing with unresolved issues such as minority shareholders or shareholder disputes or ensuring that all staff have signed employment contracts.

We believe that our rates are extremely competitive when compared to other firms of solicitors located in the West End or City of London and we ensure that we give reasonable estimates of the likely costs involved based on the information available to us.

Please feel free to contact our Business Law team to arrange a meeting: