Bernhard Gilbey

Expertise

Bernhard (Bern) is highly experienced tax partner, advising on the tax issues that typically impact SMEs, their investors and managers as they grow from product development and seed funding through Series A and other growth rounds to the internationalisation of the business, ultimately supporting the tax needs of those stakeholders through an exit event.

Maximising the value of money raised, the use of those funds in product development, growing sales and the after-tax returns on those sales are fundamental to minimising dilution for everyone and maximising the return on investment for all stakeholders. Bern’s expertise in supporting SMEs through their lifecycle, and hands-on experience internationalising a company himself enable him to support clients in a particularly user friendly and supportive manner.

While Bern is a tax partner, he also has deep operational expertise having spent time as the Chief Executive Officer for a medical technology company that received investment from angel and venture investors. Although the company started in the UK it moved its operations to the US, enabling Bern to experience the opportunities and challenges of internationalising a business through the eyes of an entrepreneur.

How do you help clients?

I help clients with the legal and commercial issues that arise through the life cycle of their businesses, from early- and later-stage investment through scale up and growth, internationalisation, employee incentivisation and, ultimately, the exit. Throughout that journey, there will be tax issues to navigate to maximise the after-tax return that business owners work so hard to create. My role is to enable that maximum after-tax return to be realised.

Experience

1. Structuring an investment from a US private equity house into a UK parented, multinational group together with the post-acquisition integration and US expansion structure.
2. Advising the UK family of a multi-billion pound group on exiting a non-family member of part of the group and the introduction of a growth share plan for the new senior leadership.
3. Structuring a complex PE investment into a multinational travel group requiring a traditional PE stack and the roll up of loan notes and a roll down of equity from a VCT.
4. Structuring a complex investment by a new management team into a technology business raising EIS funds along with a freezing of value for two departed founders.
5. Advising an international PE group on its investment into a UK food hall group.