Phillip Barnett

Background

Phillip is a very experienced corporate and commercial solicitor with nearly 40 years of experience in both the legal profession and in business. He has held a number of senior partnership positions at law firms, including being appointed the head of commercial services at one firm and founding his own boutique corporate and commercial firm where he was Head of Corporate and Managing Partner.

Phillip established a legal consultancy to provide support to a number of SME’s as consultant in house legal counsel, operating in various industries including financial services, property, defence and logistics. He also has experience working as General Counsel which brings the benefit of fully understanding the problems and requirements of corporate clients.

He is predominantly a transactional lawyer, acting for SME’s and investors with the additional benefit to his clients in advising on all aspects of corporate taxation. His various roles with companies advising in house and running his own businesses have given him a unique perspective on the requirements and objectives of his clients. Combining this with his technical ability, he is a highly practical, solutions based lawyer, who instinctively finds the path of least resistance to getting the deal done.

Experience

• Company mergers, sales and acquisitions
• Share buybacks
• Advice on all aspects of corporate taxation
• Advice on taxation aspects of sales, acquisitions and investments including tax clearances Investors’ Relief, Substantial Shareholding Exemption (SSE) and Business Asset Disposal Relief (BADR)
• Share schemes and incentives including EMI, CSOP, SIP, SAYE and Growth Shares
• Seed and early round funding for start-ups and SME’s including ASA’s and SAFE
• Acting for investors and business angels including SEIS and EIS investments
• Acquisition and investment finance, including all forms of private equity fundraising
• Reorganisations, de-mergers and capital reductions
• Share issues and conversions

Insights

• Share based incentives: partly paid shares, growth shares and joint ownership
• Preparing to sell your business
• Buying or selling a business in trouble
• Selling your IFA business – traps and roadblocks
• Review of articles of association
• Setting up an Employee Benefit Trust

Reviews

“Phillip Barnett expertly handled a sale of shares for me, going above and beyond to wrangle solicitors across the globe and close the deal. Whilst he did exceed the original estimate, he kept me informed along the way and clearly put in a lot more time than I was billed for. Thank you, Phillip, and Gannons!”

“I have just completed a company share buy back with Phillip Barnett who made the whole process clear from the outset. Excellent service I would highly recommend Gannonn’s service in the future.”

“I recently was looking for guidance around HMRC Clearance relating to Company Share Buy Backs and found a very useful article written by one of the Gannons Team, I contacted Gannons for support and found their knowledge, responsiveness and professionalism to be exceptional. After an initial review we agreed to proceed to gain HMRC Clearance and had an approval within days with no queries or issues – I believe this is due to the knowledge and professionalism demonstrated by Gannons whom I would have no hesitation in recommending. Thanks very much for your support.”