Bridget is a Special Counsel in our Corporate & Commercial team and our Private Wealth team.
Bridget works with her clients to strengthen and grow their businesses, whilst protecting their personal wealth and assets for future generations. She is highly experienced in personal and business succession planning for clients of all sizes including families, high net-worth individuals, directors and officers, SMEs and family businesses, through to listed companies. Her expertise in corporate mergers and acquisitions, succession planning and restructures, along with personal estate planning and asset protection has given her a unique and comprehensive understanding of the risks and drivers of a business and those of its directors. This understanding is further enhanced by her time as in-house lawyer for a large Australian port and logistics services group.
Bridget’s recent expertise includes:
- Implementing a family succession plan for a large family business, including establishing an overarching family council, supported by legally binding documents tailored to each of the various entities in the group, whilst ensuring all family members had buy-in along the way.
- Working with a large, closely held family business to first develop a structure which significantly minimised their risk and decreased their tax obligations over a number of years by utilising various corporate and trust structures. Later, when the client received a favourable offer from a potential purchaser, Bridget worked with both our tax and corporate teams to restructure the various entities into a simple sale vehicle, using rollover relief to avoid triggering any taxing events throughout the restructure process.
- Developing and implementing a personal and corporate succession plan for a highly successful family business incorporating assets held in more than 30 trusts and corporate entities and across multiple jurisdictions.
- Working with the owner of a successful dental practice to assist his smooth transition to retirement via the restructure of his business, followed by a partial and then complete sale process.
- Advising on and preparing a personal asset protection structure for a high net worth client involving complex testamentary wills, powers of attorney, appointment of Medical Treatment Decision Makers, trusts, and equity transfer arrangements to separate assets from risks (family law, insolvency and bankruptcy).
Bridget’s unique expertise allows her to quickly and effectively work through complex corporate and personal structures to develop and implement an action plan for her clients that balances risk and achieves their goals, while also avoiding overly complex structures that can lead to conflict, turn away suppliers, customers and potential purchasers, or trigger negative tax impacts.
