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European law firm Fieldfisher's market-leading Employee Ownership Solutions team has advised Attraction Tickets on its transition to employee trust ownership, making it the largest travel company in history to adopt this innovative ownership structure.
Attraction Tickets is the UK’s number one seller of theme park tickets and hotels for the likes of Disney World, Universal Studios and Disneyland Paris. Under the new structure, Attraction Tickets’ 128 employees will share in EOT bonuses worth over £1m from the outset.
The transition to an EOT is part of a strategic succession plan for Attraction Tickets, where the founders and other shareholders will sell their shares to the EOT, which will hold them on trust for all employees. This move will make the employees indirect owners of the company, preserving its independence and creating a new sustainable ownership structure that serves as a platform for additional growth.
Oliver Brendon, Founder and CEO of Attraction Tickets, commented "Fieldfisher have been our go to lawyers for many years, and we greatly appreciate the support they have given us in our transition to employee trust ownership. Their patient and invaluable assistance through what has been a complicated process has been an enormous bonus, as is their unrivalled knowledge and experience of this sector. A special thanks must go to Jess Kilkelly, a key member of the Fieldfisher legal team, who has calmly guided us through this momentous step from beginning to end."
This landmark deal demonstrates Fieldfisher's expertise not only in employee ownership succession solutions, but also in the ecommerce and travel sectors. The complexity of Attraction Tickets' share ownership structure, including share options to be exercised by employees, required the team to provide a range of specialist advice within a tight transaction timetable.
The Fieldfisher team involved in this transaction included Senior Partner David Wilkinson, partner Mark Gearing, partner Neil Palmer, associate Jess Kilkelly, associate Fran Lo, and solicitor Habibah Alao.
This is Fieldfisher's eighth employee ownership deal of this financial year as its practice continues to go from strength to strength, with notable recent deals including acting for legal recruitment agency Montresor Legal, UK-based marketing agency Gilroy Limited and Northern Ireland-based Ultra Building Products Limited on the transfer of 100% of their issued share capital to EOTs.
