Thomas J. Reid is Managing Partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. This post is based on a Davis Polk memorandum. Additional posts on the legal and financial impact of Brexit are available here.
[As of] the second half of August, no substantial progress has been made towards finalising Britain’s objectives in the upcoming Brexit negotiations. The EU and the UK seem to have accepted that there will be no quick triggering of Article 50 before the end of the year. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that once the corridors of power in Westminster and Brussels fill again after the summer break, some picture of a plausible UK negotiating position might begin to emerge.
In this post, we consider Brexit’s implications for fiscal policy in the UK. Specifically, we examine how Brexit might impact the UK’s existing tax regime and the proposed changes to the UK’s tax regime arising out of various international and EU initiatives. We also discuss what Brexit might mean for the UK’s continued attractiveness as a corporate tax jurisdiction—and whether this may, in fact, be bolstered by Brexit. We conclude that Brexit presents an opportunity for the UK to enhance its credentials as a flexible and well-balanced corporate tax jurisdiction, but that the UK will need to balance healthy tax competition against preserving its reputation as a “good citizen” in the international tax world. It remains to be seen what approach the UK Government will take.
Private Equity Portfolio Company IPOs and SEC Review: What to Expect
More from: Benjamin Pedersen, Paul Rodel, Debevoise & Plimpton
Paul M. Rodel is a partner and Benjamin R. Pedersen is an associate in the New York office of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. This post is based on a Debevoise & Plimpton publication by Mr. Rodel and Mr. Pedersen.
Private-equity (“PE”) sponsored issuers are estimated to have represented nearly a quarter of all US-issuer IPOs in 2015, with that proportion being even higher in prior years. The relationship of PE sponsor to IPO issuer presents a core group of issues and a short list of recurring themes in the SEC review and comment process. [1] For certain of these issues, the SEC staff has issued substantially identical comments to multiple PE-backed issuers, suggesting that they have developed models for reviewing PE-backed IPOs. In advance of an initial IPO registration statement filing, and when structuring pre- and post-IPO relationships, PE sponsors and their counsel should consider these trending comments and likely areas of SEC scrutiny in order to avoid potential IPO disclosure difficulties and to guide the drafting of IPO registration statement disclosure.
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