Ragavan Arunachalam

Ragavan's work highlights

Commercial advice for leading car manufacturer

Publications

Corporate Know-How Guides: Subsidiary v Branch
Establishing a business presence in the UK can be a transformative step for an overseas company. This guide explores the key differences between setting up a subsidiary or registering a branch, helping you navigate critical considerations like liability, financial reporting, and setup processes. Whether you’re looking to test the UK market or plan a long-term investment, this guide provides clarity on the most suitable structure for your needs.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Share Classes
Creating new share classes can be a useful way of attracting new participants, allowing a company to offer shares that are particularly focussed towards their desired investors. Whether you are considering re-organising the ownership of your business or are keen to understand the most suitable structure for a planned investment, this guide can help you with some common questions in relation to share classes.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Getting a Business Ready for Sale
Prior to approaching the market or agreeing terms with a prospective buyer, undertaking adequate preparations for sale can contribute to a smoother transaction for all parties. In this guide, we look at some key questions to consider in respect of the readiness of a business for a potential sale.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Share Buybacks
Put simply, a share buyback is where a company purchases its own shares from an existing shareholder. In this guide, we will look at some key aspects of share buybacks in relation to private limited companies incorporated in England & Wales.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Heads of Terms
In this guide we will look at heads of terms as they relate to the sale of a business or assets in England & Wales. Whether identified as “heads of terms”, a “letter of intent” or “heads of agreement”, these documents summarise the key terms of a proposed transaction.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Shareholder Rights
Whether you are a minority shareholder concerned about what influence you can exert over a company’s affairs, or a founding shareholder, considering the amount of equity you would be prepared to sell to investors without losing control – this guide is here to help you understand what shareholders can do and when.

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Employment and Immigration Expertise
An overview of our Employment and Immigration services.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Share v. Asset Sales
Share and asset purchases are the two methods of acquiring a business in the UK.

Do you know their differences? The business of a sole trader or unregistered partnership can only be acquired through an asset purchase as there is no owning entity for the assets which can be acquired, while a share purchase can be used for the acquisition of all or part of the shares in a company which owns and operates a business.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Shareholders’ Agreements: the Basics
Did you know that a shareholders’ agreement is a written agreement, between the shareholders of a company, as to the relationship between them and how the company should be managed. By including the company as a party, the shareholders can ensure that it is both bound by and able to enforce the terms of the agreement against contravening shareholders.

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Corporate Know-How Guides: Selling a Business
We look at the flip side of price structuring, instead focusing on how a seller could secure elements of the purchase price that are delayed – or at least obtain comfort around the buyer’s ability to pay them.

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Specialising in...

About

Ragavan is a Partner in our Corporate & commercial team with two decades’ experience of Company Law matters. He focuses on M&A and Private Equity, and chairs Collyer Bristow’s Private Equity Audience Group.

He acts for family offices, private companies, individual directors and shareholders.

Ragavan advises clients who are looking to buy or sell a company or business, raise the finance for such acquisition, or protect their majority or minority investment into a company or business. He also advises on general Corporate Governance and Commercial Law matters.

As well as advising on mergers and acquisitions and private equity matters, he also advises on insolvency turnaround and shareholder disputes.

He listens to what his clients want to achieve, and works back from that objective to put in place simple and effective solutions.

His clients range across a number of sectors including family offices, manufacturing, renewable energy, media, food, advisory and commercial property.

Recognition

"[Our VC backer] said it was the smoothest process they’d seen, and will be recommending you [in future]. On a personal note, it’s incredibly valuable to have support like this that we can trust, it makes a very stressful process only a quite stressful one!"
Client feedback
“Ragavan impressed us with his attention to detail, and ability to pull together all aspects of the transaction. We’d certainly work together again, and rate him highly.”
Rob Asplin, CastleMill Equity Partners

work highlights

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Ragavan Arunachalam

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