Employee share incentives

Our experience

Our team of employee incentive, company law, employment law and trust law specialists have many years of experience in this field.

We structure and implement a wide variety of share incentives, such as:

• Tax-favoured option plans, including EMI options and HMRC “approved” share plans – CSOP, Sharesave and SIP
• Long-term incentive plans and performance share plans
• Employee benefit trusts

For employees, non-executive directors and consultants, we have successfully implemented growth shares or nil-paid share plans, as well as phantom share schemes and bonus schemes.

We have helped overseas companies adapt their share plans to allow grants to UK employees, and supported UK businesses to expand their incentive arrangements overseas. 

We advise on “mutual” type ownership structures and employee ownership trusts, allowing major shareholders to realise gains tax effectively while ensuring the long-term future of the business for the benefit of its employees.

Our work doesn't stop when the arrangements are implemented. We help with new grants of awards and how best to treat leavers. We've worked on many sales of companies, helping with the due diligence process and structuring the treatment of share incentives to ensure employees share in the growth they have helped create.

Our clients

We work for a wide variety of companies, both quoted and unquoted, and based in the UK and overseas. We also act for a number of VC-backed companies where share incentives are a key part of the longer term exit strategy.