The client
We advised an entrepreneur on the disposal of her successful on-line parenting website and her new venture on a YouTube platform. The new venture required successive rounds of institutional investment to fund early years development and trading. We advised the founder shareholder on the design and implementation of management share incentive schemes alongside the institutional investors, with a focus on maintaining equity value for the founder shareholders throughout each round of external investment.

What we did
We designed an EMI share option scheme for senior management and issued a number of option rounds, each time agreeing a nominal value share valuation with HMRC despite the external investments at a higher value. We also advised the founder shareholder on the complex capital rights of the various share classes in issue and negotiation of additional rights to ensure that she maintained an appropriate capital interest.

The outcome
The company continue to trade and raise institutional finance with management incentivised with EMI share options