Monthly Archives: August 2021

Hot Business News Today

Is an employee entitled to bereavement leave?

by Peter Done • August 31, 2021 • 0 Comments

By Peter Done on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
If a person is on a zero hours contract, are they entitled to bereavement leave?
Statutory bereavement leave is available to employees, but only in limited circumstances. If your employee has a child who dies, under the age of 18, or who is stillborn, they can take up to two weeks bereavement leave within 56 weeks of the death. What a week would be for them would be based on their average working week (one, two, three days etc).
Bear in mind, not all zero-hours staff are employees. Some can be workers, who don’t get the same rights as employees. If they are a worker, and not an employee, this statutory right will not apply to them.
>See also: Calculating holiday allowances for part-time staff
In other circumstances, there are some limited rights to time off, especially where your employee has to make arrangements for the funeral, etc. Your contract may set out the rules for this, including if that is paid (there is nothing to say it has to be, unless you normally do so). Do you give paid bereavement leave normally?
Look at the terms of your contract

Hot Business News Today

Raising finance to buy out a director

by Toby Cotton • August 31, 2021 • 0 Comments

By Toby Cotton on Small Business – Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
There may be instances where a shareholder might want to exit the company. This could be due to losing interest or retiring and would need the other shareholder to buy out their shares and take full control.
The first consideration if you want to buy out a fellow shareholder is to check the articles of association and shareholder agreement to make sure that both parties understand the process and any pre-existing terms for such shareholder exits or prohibitive clauses for share buybacks. You would need to place a reasonable value on the departing shareholder’s shares, and it is often advisable to ask your accountant to provide an independent valuation.
For ease in this article, we will use a simple trading company with 50:50 shares between two shareholders. The 50 shares are valued at £500,000 so the total value of the company is £1m.
>See also: Paying dividends to directors
There are a number of options available, each with different implications and tax consequences:
Company buyback of shares
In this case the company would pay the departing shareholder £500,000 to buy back their 50 shares, which would leave the remaining shareholder with