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Employee Ownership Trusts

Our experienced corporate lawyers help to secure the legacy and future of your business.

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Our corporate lawyers are experts in employee ownership trust (EOT) exits. We provide bespoke, specialist legal advice to guide your business succession strategy.

An employee ownership trust provides indirect employee ownership of a company. They're established by a company’s existing owners as an alternative to a traditional sale, typically as part of an exit or succession planning strategy.

Our solicitors work closely with you to solve any succession concerns and secure the legacy and future of your business through its sale to an employee ownership trust. Recognised as specialist advisors by the Employee Ownership Association, we’re perfectly placed to guide your entire exit strategy.

Expert legal advice and support for your EOT journey

We believe that our hands-on, ‘can do’ approach is the key to your success. We provide full support throughout your transition to employee ownership, while our streamlined and hassle-free transaction process ensures that you stay in control every step of the way.

Our experienced employee ownership legal team is backed-up by our significant breadth of legal expertise as a multidisciplinary and full-service law firm. With a wide range of corporate law experts, we can help to achieve your wider business and commercial goals.

Our team is led by experienced Partner Stephen Hadlow. Closely affiliated with the Employee Ownership Association, he has deep experience in structuring disposals to EOTs and has helped business owners across many domains to realise their succession ambitions and objectives.

As a law firm, we also offer fully transparent costs, giving you the financial certainty you need to be confident in delivering a successful employee ownership exit.

Lancashire marketing and logistics firm becomes employee owned

Read Granby's story

Client story — Granby Marketing

We helped Granby Marketing to become entirely employee-owned by advising on the creation of an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT).

The structure of the deal supported the senior management team while allowing the experience and expertise of its Directors to contribute towards the firm’s future growth. 

According to Granby's CEO, Joanne Kimber: "Becoming employee owned will allow our team to contribute more than ever before to Granby’s and our clients’ success, and ensure that we're as sustainable and innovative as we can be in the years ahead.

From the initial consultation to the finalisation of the transaction, your team demonstrated a deep understanding of EOT structures and the associated legal requirements. Your ability to clearly explain each step and provide strategic advice was invaluable."

Our clients include

AEY GROUP RED GREY
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Vermont BLK High Res original
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DAY
Fitfield 01
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Recognised by the EOA

Specalist Advisor EO BADGE

Christina Clarke — Founder of employee-owned C21 digital agency

"Make sure you find the legal team that understands where your business is coming from and is focused on making sure the transaction not only works for you but also your current and future employees.

Brabners understood that we couldn’t hold the agency back in any way — we needed to give the business wings to fly higher in the future. Find a team who will help you to stay true to your values and ambitions."

Read their story

Employee ownership trusts — what you need to know

Stephen Hadlow discusses Employee Ownership Trusts

From the initial consultation to the finalisation of the transaction, your team demonstrated a deep understanding of EOT structures and the associated legal requirements. Your ability to clearly explain each step and provide strategic advice was invaluable. We would highly recommend your team to any business seeking expert legal assistance with EOT transactions.

CEO, Granby Marketing

The EOT process was far more complex than we envisaged and at times we just didn’t understand it. This is when you really need experts with you — people who can be patient but also extremely supportive. We simply couldn’t have done this without Danielle Phillips by our side. Her knowledge is outstanding and yet she's able to communicate in a way that makes you truly understand. That’s super important and helped us enormously navigate the legal process.

Paul Sharpe

My thanks for all your work and guidance in getting our EOT set up. You made the process unbelievably straightforward for us and we completed in great time. I'm also very grateful for your advice and guidance around some of the more technical aspects and the care you took to explain these fully to us. It’s been a pleasure to work with such a knowledgeable and friendly team.

Owner, Miranda Double Glazing

We instructed Brabners on our transition to being employee owned in 2024 and it proved to be an excellent decision. Mairead Platt was so helpful and extremely competent from the start. We always felt looked after as clients. A great experience.

Director, trg. Recruitment

We transitioned our business to employee ownership to guarantee the stability of our company — safeguarding the interests of both our employees and valued clients. The EOT team at Brabners — led by Mairead Platt and assisted by Danielle Phillips — was truly outstanding, guiding us through whole process from beginning to end seamlessly and relatively stress free. We can’t thank them enough.

Managing Director, Optimum RX

When the Directors of Kitchequip were looking to sell the company — so that one them could retire — we turned to Mairead Platt of Brabners to handle the sale. Mairead expertly oversaw the sale and all the contractual details. I can’t stress enough how thorough and exemplary she was during this long process. Without her, I don’t think that we would ever have achieved our desired result. I would highly recommend Mairead for any assistance with corporate transactions.

Director, Kitchenequip

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