VIDEO: The outlook for corporate transactions
In our latest “in conversation” webinar we discussed the outlook for the corporate transaction market. Whilst it would be a brave person to predict the future of anything at the moment given current circumstances, we were joined by two organisations who are very well placed to provide their views.
John Laud, Head of Corporate Banking for North and West Yorkshire for Barclays, his colleague Stephen Loureda from their Credit Analysis Team, and Jill Williams, Investment Director of Mercia Asset Management’s Growth Fund, were in conversation with Ward Hadaway corporate partners Adrian Ballam and Jonathan Pollard to share their thoughts about how the ‘new normal’ for the transactions market may look:
- With supply chain and forecast prediction challenges, how will banks and investors determine what represents a sound opportunity?
- How will distressed and opportunistic acquisition opportunities be funded, and what is investor appetite for such opportunities?
- How have seller and buyer pricing expectations been impacted as a result of the pandemic?
- How are funders reacting, and how should ambitious businesses respond to the very low, or even negative, interest rates?
We expect this video to be of real value to those businesses whose plans of buying, selling or investment may have been impacted by the current economic crisis, but who are looking at opportunities to determine how they may shape their futures – #gettingbacktobusiness.
Related FAQs
Many planning permissions contain a condition restricting the hours within which a developer can carry out construction work or are subject to an approved construction management plan setting out the permitted construction hours.
The Business and Planning Act 2020 entered the statute books on 22 July 2020. Section 16 of the Act incorporates a new S.74B into the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The effect is that any condition/approved document which limits construction hours on a site could be amended through an application to the local planning authority. The application to the local planning authority must set out the date on which the proposed extension to construction hours shall cease (such date being no later than 1 April 2021, after which the original conditions over construction hours will resume). The local planning authority must determine the application within 14 days (beginning with the day after the application was submitted) otherwise there is deemed approval.
New guidance has been published alongside the Act and is available here
The Flexible Furlough Scheme, ‘FFS’ an unfortunate acronym, allows employees to work for some of the week and be furloughed for the rest.
Employers had the ability to furlough extremely vulnerable employees who needed to shield.
If your employee is on sick leave or self-isolating as a result of Coronavirus, including as a result of track and trace, they’ll be able to get Statutory Sick Pay, subject to other eligibility conditions applying.
There is no special exemption for them, so they would need to meet the usual requirements to be placed on Flexible Furlough after 1 July 2020. i.e. They had to have been placed on furlough for at least 3 weeks before 1 July. Otherwise, they could not be furloughed.
The law says that if after assessing a risk and considering all the control measures available to you, you cannot undertake a task safely – then you should not undertake the task.
If that means taking BAME workers out of higher risk frontline work, that is what will have to be done.
Beware of workers saying “we’ll accept the risk” – it does not protect you against regulatory/enforcement action or civil claims.