Module 3 · Chapter 9

People and Incentives

A buyer keeps a company's staff only if they choose to stay. The employment review finds the people who matter, the payments a sale sets off, and the right home for each risk.

≈ 11 min read 8-question test

In this chapter

  • How to find the people a business cannot afford to lose
  • Why the SPA cannot keep them, and what the buyer does instead
  • How bonuses triggered by the sale are found and priced

9.1The employment review in one paragraph

Much of what makes Solaris worth buying is what its staff have built and know how to run. None of that comes with the shares unless the people stay. The employment review finds out how firmly the staff are tied to the business, and what the sale itself will do to that tie. On Sunrise it produced three findings, in section 6 of the report: a risk the SPA cannot fix, a cost it can price, and a risk it already covers.

Key point

The SPA binds the seller, not the staff. Nobody can promise that a person will stay. So keeping key people is a project for the buyer, alongside the deal rather than inside it.

Also in this chapter

  1. Four questions the employment review asks
  2. Two key people on one month's notice
  3. Why the SPA cannot keep people
  4. Bonuses that a sale sets off
  5. Contractors, and when a low risk needs no special cover
  6. Why TUPE stays out of a share deal
  7. Where each finding ended up
  8. Your job

Preview

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