A huge thank you to Victoria Heugh from Crowe UK for leading another insightful Finance Focus session, helping our members understand how employee ownership and incentivisation can support recruitment, retention and long-term business growth.

It’s one thing to understand the legislation, but hearing how it works in practice makes all the difference.

Thank you also to Alan Beresford from Owen Daniels and Francesca Wild-Brown from The Ladder Group for sharing both the employer and employee perspectives. Hearing how employee ownership has helped attract, retain and motivate people within their business brought the technical aspects of the session to life.

Some of the key updates we explored included:

✔️ Businesses with up to 500 employees can now qualify for EMI schemes (previously 250)
✔️ The gross asset limit has increased from £30m to £120m
✔️ The company option limit has doubled from £3m to £6m
✔️ The 15-year exercise period gives employees greater flexibility over when to exercise options
✔️ The £250,000 individual limit remains unchanged, but growth shares can help businesses make better use of that allowance

As always, there were plenty of questions, discussion and practical examples, helping businesses understand how these changes might support succession planning, recruitment, employee engagement and future growth.

Our regular Finance Focus sessions, delivered in partnership with Crowe UK, are designed to keep business leaders informed about the issues that matter most, while providing an opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities businesses are facing today.