About
Employee ownership deserves specialist advice
Selling your business to your employees is a decision most owners make once. We have spent fifteen years helping owners make it well — and it is all we do.
About
Selling your business to your employees is a decision most owners make once. We have spent fifteen years helping owners make it well — and it is all we do.
Why we exist
In 2011 we made a decision most advisory firms would consider commercially reckless: to advise on employee ownership and nothing else. Not corporate finance with an employee ownership sideline. Not a law firm with an EOT team. Employee ownership, exclusively.
The reason is simple. Employee ownership sits at the junction of company law, trust law, tax, corporate finance and governance — and the interesting questions are rarely inside one of those disciplines. They sit between them. A generalist sees each piece. A specialist sees how they fit together, and where the tension will surface three years after completion.
Since then we have advised on more than 170 EOT and EBT transactions across the UK, for businesses from five employees to five hundred. That is not a sideline. It is the practice.
Our principles
Five things we hold to on every engagement. Each one exists because we have seen what happens without it.
Most of the difficulties in employee ownership are predictable — if you have seen them before. The valuation that stores up resentment. The trust deed that works on day one and fails at the first disagreement. We have seen them from every side: as advisers, as employee trustees, as independent chairs.
We do not sell Employee Ownership Trusts. No funding product, no valuation service to cross-sell, no interest in a transaction happening except that it should be the right one. If a trade sale would serve you better, we will say so — and we regularly do.
Trust deeds, tax clearances and governance are technical. Your understanding of them should not have to be. Clients tell us the clarity of the explanation is what they remember — it is a discipline that comes from explaining one subject for a very long time.
Employee ownership is a commercial decision before it is a legal one. Our advice starts from the business — its cash, its people, its plans — not from the statute book. Fixed fees wherever possible, agreed before we start.
Completion is a beginning, not an end. Many clients work with us for years after the transaction — on governance, trustee matters and the questions that only arrive with time. Specialists stay interested; that is rather the point.
How we work
Co-ownership Solutions LLP is not a regulated law firm, and that is by design. Some members of the team are solicitors; where reserved legal activities are required, we work alongside regulated law firms — including Spencer West LLP — who act on those matters.
In practice this works in your favour. You get advisers whose entire attention is on employee ownership, coordinating regulated specialists where the transaction needs them — rather than a single firm stretching one department across every discipline. You always know who is doing what, and why.
A significant part of our work now comes from businesses that became employee-owned with another adviser — and later found they needed someone who deals with these questions every day. We take that as the strongest endorsement of specialisation there is.
Our experience
The team
Not a rotating project team. Three people, one subject, several decades between them.
Managing Partner
Andrew is one of the UK's most experienced advisers on employee ownership, with more than 25 years' experience and over 170 successful transitions. Few advisers have experienced employee ownership from as many perspectives: as an employee, an employee-elected trustee, an independent trustee chair and a trusted adviser to business owners.
His experience began at the eaga Partnership, where he served as Chair of the Staff Council and an employee-elected trustee. Since then, he has advised businesses with between five and 500 employees through every stage of the employee ownership journey—from evaluating whether it is the right succession option to designing, implementing and supporting successful employee-owned businesses.
Today, Andrew acts as independent Chair of Trustees for a number of successful UK employee-owned businesses, helping boards and trustees navigate the opportunities and challenges that follow an employee ownership transition. He was a founder of Employee Ownership Ireland and remains actively involved in supporting the development of employee ownership across the UK, including Northern Ireland.
Andrew's advice is grounded in practical experience rather than theory. He combines deep technical expertise with first-hand insight into what makes employee ownership succeed—for owners, trustees, directors and employees alike.
Solicitor
David is one of the UK's most experienced employee ownership lawyers, having advised on employee buyouts, employee trusts and employee share ownership since the early 1990s. For more than three decades he has helped businesses, trustees and advisers navigate the legal, tax and governance issues that arise before, during and long after an employee ownership transition.
His expertise spans every aspect of employee ownership, from trust structures, company constitutions and employee share schemes to employment, tax and corporate governance. Known for his ability to untangle complex legal issues and provide clear, practical advice, David has helped clients solve problems that few advisers have encountered.
David has been involved in many of the landmark developments in the employee ownership sector, including employee buyouts arising from the privatisation of public services and industries, alongside numerous private company transactions. That breadth of experience enables him to combine deep technical knowledge with practical commercial judgement, making him a trusted adviser on even the most complex employee ownership matters.
Partner
Norman is one of the pioneers of employee ownership in the UK, having helped more than 60 businesses transition to employee-owned and worker co-operative structures. Throughout his career he has been recognised for his ability to develop innovative buyout solutions, secure funding and help organisations achieve ownership models that others considered impossible.
He led the landmark employee buyout of Tower Colliery in South Wales, one of the UK's most significant employee ownership transactions, and went on to advise on numerous employee buyouts, including a number of former bus companies. His work with the Wales Co-operative Centre (now Cwmpas) helped establish employee ownership as a credible succession and business ownership model across the UK.
Norman's commitment to shared ownership extends beyond his professional career. In his own community (Slaley in Northumberland) he has led successful community buyouts of both the village pub and the village shop, demonstrating the same practical approach to ownership and long-term stewardship that has defined his work for decades.
Although no longer involved in day-to-day advisory work, Norman remains a highly respected figure within the employee ownership sector, providing strategic insight drawn from a lifetime spent helping businesses and communities take ownership of their futures.
Solicitor
Niall is a solicitor at Spencer West LLP with extensive experience advising on complex corporate and finance transactions. His background spans private practice and in-house legal roles, where he has acted for domestic and international clients on a wide range of financing, corporate and commercial matters, including asset finance, leveraged finance, real estate finance and asset-backed lending.
Working closely with Andrew and David, Niall plays a key role in delivering employee ownership transactions, ensuring that complex legal structures are translated into clear, robust and commercially focused documentation. He supports clients throughout the transaction process and is responsible for the preparation and finalisation of the legal documents that underpin many successful employee ownership transitions.
Niall combines technical legal expertise with a practical, solution-focused approach, helping clients complete transactions efficiently while ensuring that the legal framework is built to support the business long after the deal has completed.
Whether you are weighing up succession or already employee-owned, the fastest way to find out if we can help is to ask. It is the only conversation we have.