If you are thinking about buying or selling a business, we can lead you through each step of the legal process. We can advise you on all of the legal issues that may arise in the context of the deal and ensure that the documentation is drafted in such a way that your interests are best protected.

We can also advise buyers and sellers of companies or shares in companies. Our wide contacts with other professionals and advisers in other fields, such as tax and property consultants, enable us to guide clients through difficult and complex business arrangements and to assist clients to make informed and appropriate business decisions.

Many businesses, particularly in the service industry, farming or small engineering or other types of family businesses, are owned by at least two or more people, who for various reasons, prefer not to incorporate a limited company, but to form a partnership instead. Such arrangements are best served by a written agreement between the parties concerned, which will set out their rights and obligations towards each other. We can advise partners on how best their business relationship should be structured and we can prepare the formal partnership agreement that will govern how the business is to be operated, the rights and responsibilities of the partners and the circumstances in which the partnership might end or be dissolved.

In the case of companies limited by shares, it is often very important for the owners of a company to have in place a Shareholders Agreement that governs how the business is to be operated, the rights and responsibilities of the shareholders and the circumstances in which the shares may be transferred or sold and the sometimes difficult issue of succession. Again, we can advise the shareholders on the matters to be included in the Shareholders Agreement and we can prepare that Agreement and any other ancillary documentation that may be relevant to the business concerned.