Had a reminder of how important it is for you and your business partner/co-shareholders to have a Shareholders Agreement.
This is effectively a ‘pre-nup’ for a Limited Company – it should be easier than the celebrity marriage pre-nup as it should lack the emotion! However so many businesses are not covered in this way.
This recent example was typical: a business started by two people when they were young who never thought it would grow as it has. Now one wants to leave for genuine reasons and they have no plan as to how shares will be disposed of, who can buy them, how to value them etc. It could easily lead to the unnecessary demise of a successful business.
Effectively they now need me to be a combination of RELATE and a divorce lawyer – and we’ll get through it! Hopefully the children (in this case the employees) will not suffer too much…
Never too late to put one of these in place