Have you got a shareholders’ agreement?
If you are starting a business with someone else or with a group of people, you need to make sure that you have a shareholders agreement in place.
Have you got a shareholders’ agreement?
If you are starting a business with someone else or with a group of people, you need to make sure that you have a shareholders agreement in place. This shareholders agreement will govern how the shareholders—not the directors—run the company. It might include provisions for what happens if one of the shareholders dies: do they have to sell to the other shareholders, or does their share pass to their estate? It might also address what happens if you want to sell the business: do all of the shareholders have to agree to sell, or just a percentage? Being a shareholder is very different from being a director. If you are a director, you are an employee of the business, and therefore you need a director’s contract, which will govern your obligations as a director. Very rarely would you include your director duties in the shareholders agreement because they are different roles. You are wearing two very different hats—one for running the company at a high level, and the other for running the company usually from a hands-on perspective.