A retail company held by three siblings, trading for nineteen years, with no shareholders agreement and no valuation anybody trusted. One of the three wanted out and the other two could not agree what the share was worth.
We were instructed by the company rather than by any of them, which is unusual and was the only workable arrangement: our client was the business that all three wanted to survive. We put a valuation method in front of them before we put a number in front of them, which is the step that stopped the argument being about money.
Eleven weeks later the shares were transferred, the outgoing shareholder was paid over eighteen months against a charge, and the two remaining shareholders signed the agreement that should have existed in 2006. No claim was ever filed.
