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Business expansion into the UK for a US company

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Nick and I have always said that IT is the future. He and I have had time to work in different companies and have gained valuable experience, which has helped us to start our own business. We've already mastered the States, now it's time for Europe. For this we contacted Imperial & Legal, who took care of the complicated process of registering a company in another country. Nick and I were pleased with the result, so we plan to contact them again in the future.

Dean and Nick
Founders and directors of an IT firm from the US
Clients’ names and photos have been changed

Dean and Nick are typical representatives of Silicon Valley. They are both programmers with a huge amount of experience. They know not only how to write code, but also how to assemble a great team, find customers and organise processes correctly.

After working in several companies and taking into account all the mistakes of their management, the young people started their own business, having found investment in one of the business incubators. Not everything turned out to be as easy as it looked from the outside. They had to realise that their previous bosses had not been so stupid, but that the market rules set certain frameworks and templates, and it was costly to break them.

Having gone through many trials, they have made their company really professional, promising and profitable. During this time, they have worked with customers and partners from different countries. The most comfortable co-operation turned out to be with European customers. At first it was one-off projects, but gradually the client base began to grow and bring in more and more income.

Logically, the question of expanding the business and opening a subsidiary in Europe arose. This would allow us to think about a qualitative increase in cash turnover and the search for large clients, who were more willing to conclude contracts with European firms than with American ones.

The UK was chosen because it was the place where we could find the investment to launch the business. In addition, there were already certain connections there and several worthy candidates who could be approved for management positions.

Dean and Nick have travelled to London several times for personal negotiations. It was on one of these occasions that they approached us for a comprehensive service. It was necessary to take on all the work involved in liaising with the state authorities, from brand registration to tax procedures.

The young people did not intend to immigrate, they did not intend to move to England and planned to limit themselves to remote management and occasional business trips. But they did intend to eventually relocate some of their staff from India to the UK office. Of course, we solved that problem too.

Our heroes

Dean 32 years old and Nick 35 years old are founders and directors of an IT firm from the US.

Task

Comprehensive support for the opening of a subsidiary in London.

Algorithm of action

First of all, we decided on the organisational form, choosing LTD (Limited). It allows both individuals and legal entities to become shareholders. In this case, all 100% of the shares belonged to the American parent company. We prepared a standard form of the charter and constituent documents, chose a unique name and applied for opening the company. After that, we received a certificate from the Registration Chamber and the company was officially established!

There were also financial issues to be resolved. Firstly, to open a bank account with a payment system. This was not as straightforward as it might seem at first glance. After all, British banks are reluctant to cooperate with companies where the shareholders are non-residents, i.e. foreigners. But our specialists know how to cope with such a task. Secondly, it was necessary to register the company with the tax service as a VAT payer, which we did. And we also registered it with the PAYE system for social and tax deductions for employees.

However, cooperation with these clients was not limited to legal issues. We also helped them find premises for their work. Since most of their clients were located near Cambridge, we helped them rent an office in one of the business centres. We were also entrusted with managing them, as at first the entire staff consisted only of sales managers.

Our next set of challenges was related to this. The first two employees of the company had been hired from the local community, but once the company started operating it needed to obtain a sponsor licence under the Skilled Worker visa category, without which it was impossible to hire foreign employees. Worker visas were required for the American senior manager that Dean and Nick were going to appoint as head of the UK office, as well as for the Indian developers who were going to be invited to the European office.

We applied for a sponsorship licence and received it within a few weeks.

Dean and Nick opened a representative office in England and got it up and running in five and a half month

14 March
Applying to Imperial & Legal
+2 days
Registration of a subsidiary
+2 weeks
Opening a bank account with a payment system
+3 months
Setting up the UK office
+2 week
Preparation of documents and application for sponsor licence
+2 weeks — Expedited procedure
Obtaining a sponsor licence
+1 day
Applying for a UK Skilled Worker visa for an executive
+3 day
Biometric data submission
+3 weeks
Obtaining a UK Skilled Worker visa
28 August
A company with a bank account in England is set up

Result

During our cooperation with the client, an English subsidiary company was set up. We have completed all stages of the work — from the collection of documents to the physical launch of the office. We now handle the bookkeeping, including Payrol, regular VAT returns and annual financial statements.

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