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Creating the right employee share scheme for your company

We are an English law firm specialising in employee share schemes, including share options, share incentive plans and long term incentive plans (LTIPs).

Please talk to us if you want a share scheme in your company, whether for one key employee, all your staff or anything in between.

Tax changes were announced in the 2008 Budget which will affect several UK share schemes. Please view the attached note for a summary of those changes and please note that all other material on this website is subject to this note.

About share schemes

An employee share scheme has the potential to transform your business by spreading the rewards - and sometimes the risks - of entrepreneurship to members of your team.

In the UK, a share scheme can give both your company and your employees major tax incentives, making it a highly cost-effective way of providing long term reward.

Even where tax benefits aren't available, we believe a share scheme is often the most powerful way of encouraging an employee to think like an owner.

Different kinds of share scheme

What kind of share scheme you create is likely to depend on whether you want to reward your key people or all your employees.

Share schemes for your key people

There are two share schemes which give income tax relief for selected UK taxpaying employees. Both of these are share option schemes:

• The Company Share Plan (CSOP)
• Enterprise Management Incentives
  Aimed at smaller companies (£30 million gross assets or less), with certain businesses excluded. Tax reliefs under an Enterprise Management Incentive scheme are the best of any UK share scheme, and perhaps the best in Europe.

If CSOP or Enterprise Management Incentives are not the right solution, then we can suggest other share option schemes, long term incentive plans or related share schemes. [Download PDF Document]

Share schemes for all your employees

There are two all-employee share schemes which give income tax relief for UK taxpaying employees:

• Save As You Earn (SAYE) share options - often called Sharesave
• Share Incentive Plan (SIP)

The Share Incentive Plan gives a choice of different ways in which your employees may acquire shares. They may:
- buy Partnership Shares out of their gross pay
- be allocated Free Shares
- be allocated up to two Matching Shares free for every one Partnership Share they agree to buy.

If you want an all-employee share scheme but SAYE options or the SIP are not available, we can also suggest other share schemes.

About our firm

We believe that finding the right share scheme and making it deliver employee shares as efficiently as possible needs specialist professional advice. As the only UK solicitors firm focusing principally on share schemes, we are here to help you find the best solution. We want you to share the benefit of our many years of experience gained in City law firms.

As we sometimes need to consider wider corporate law or employment law questions, we also have expertise in those areas.

Find out more about how we can help you create your own employee share scheme (also known as stock options)