Bryan is a highly experienced corporate and commercial lawyer, handling the full range of corporate transactions including M&A, private equity, corporate restructures and joint ventures. He is also an employee share schemes specialist.
Expertise
Corporate
- Company secretarial
- Corporate finance including private equity financing
- Reorganisations, reconstructions,buybacks, capital reductions and demergers
- Shareholders’ agreement and joint venture agreements
- M&A – shares and assets
- Loan and security documentation
- Partnership and LLP
- General commercial agreements
Employee share schemes
- Tax advantaged enterprise management incentives (EMI) and company share ownership plans
- Non-tax advantaged company share ownership plans
- Design and production of all scheme documentation
- General tax advice on the various schemes
- Related company and shareholder rights
- Related advice for M&A and other transactions
- Related advice for exiting employees
- Obtaining HMRC clearances and approvals
Experience
- Energy & Power Ltd: Advised the sellers on the £7M sale of this energy and power consultancy group to the German owned Thyssen Krupp UK plc. The deal threw up a number of complex earn-out and share consideration challenges, all of which were successfully resolved.
- Tullo Marshall Warren Ltd: Advised the sellers on the £38M sale of this direct advertising company to Crestonplc. Negotiated all sale documentation and commercial issues and successfully completed the deal within clients’ budget and timescale.
- Target MCG Ltd: Advised on the formation of this media and communications group and the simultaneous acquisition of three sets of companies (Cooler King Ltd and subsidiaries,OTM (UK) Ltd and White Label Productions Ltd) for a mixture of cash and shares. Drafted and negotiated the huge set of documents required,including all financial assistance paperwork, all banking documents and all shareholder arrangements going forward.
- Quiller Associates Ltd: Acted as lead lawyer for Huntsworth plc (a leading listed PR group) on the £10.7M purchase of this communications company. Drafted and negotiated all deal documentation including complex consideration provisions.
- Spectrum Strategy Consultants Ltd:Formed a new holding company for this communications strategy company to buy out the shares of a departing founder. In the process, restructured the share capital and granted replacement share options.
- Ashtenne Residential Ltd: Acted for this property development company on the raising of over £7M of finance from 14 private investors through a mixture of equity and debt. Drafted and negotiated all deal documentation and advised on FSMA requirements.
- Acted on numerous demergers by way of dividend in specie, reduction of capital and section 110 insolvency act schemes: These demergers typically required numerous stages and documents within each stage to fully complete the related demerger. This required an organised and systematic approach to the generation and finalisation of the documents and their completion.
Please note: The experience list above may include examples of work completed prior to joining Keystone Law.
Career
Bryan qualified as a solicitor in 1995. Prior to joining Keystone Law in 2008, he worked at the following firms:
- Campbell Hooper
- Memery Crystal