Business Establishment, Structures and Reorganisations

A structure that protects what you’ve built and gives you room for what comes next.

Every business runs on a structure, whether anyone chose it deliberately or not. The right one protects what you have built, keeps tax and compliance manageable, and makes it easier to bring in partners, raise finance or eventually sell. The wrong one, or one that has not kept pace with the business, tends to surface at the worst possible time: during a sale, a dispute, or when a bank or investor asks a question nobody can answer.

We advise business owners, family groups, developers and corporate groups on choosing, establishing and restructuring companies, trusts, partnerships and group arrangements so the legal structure actually matches how the business operates.

Support for your business

Companies, trust, partnership and groups

There is no single right structure. Each option carries different implications for liability, tax, control, and how easily you can bring in others or exit later.

Companies separate the business from its owners, limit personal liability and are usually the vehicle of choice once a business is trading at scale, taking on debt, or bringing in outside investors or co-owners.
Trusts (discretionary or unit) are commonly used to hold assets, distribute income flexibly among family members, or separate valuable assets from operational risk.
Partnerships and joint ventures suit two or more parties combining resources for a specific business or project, particularly in construction and development, where each party’s role, funding and risk need to be documented clearly from the outset.
Corporate groups, typically a holding company with subsidiaries, become useful once a business runs multiple activities, brands or development projects with different risk profiles.

We work through the practical trade-offs with you and your accountant, then set up the entities, constitutions, trust deeds, shareholder or unitholder arrangements and group documentation that make the structure work day to day, not just on paper.

When it's time to review your structure

Structures set up years ago rarely still fit the business as it rows. The usual triggers are:

Bringing in a new partner, investor or co-director
Taking on debt or offering security to a lender
Separating trading operations from property or other valuable assets
Expanding into new activities, sites or development projects
Preparing for a sale, succession or generational transition
A change in the tax or regulatory environment affecting how the business is strutured

If any of these sound familiar and your structure has not been looked at in a few years, it is worth a review before the issue forces the question. A structure that made sense for a two-person trading person business often creates real problems once there is debt, other stakeholders or a development pipeline is involved.

Reorganisations and restructures

Sometimes the answer is not a new business, but a better shape for the one you already have. We regularly advise on:

Consolidating related entities into a clearer group structure
Separating trading risk from assets such as property, plant or intellectual property
Restructuring ownership ahead of a sale, capital raise or a new investor
Succession restructures that transition control to the next generation or a management team
Unwinding structures that have become unnecessarily complex or costly to run

Restructuring carries tax and stamp duty consequences that need to be worked through before anything is implemented. We coordinate directly with your accountant or financial advisor so the legal steps and tax outcome are addressed together, not as an afterthought.