Employee Ownership Ireland has expanded its Feasibility Study Panel for Northern Ireland with five specialist advisers, giving business owners exploring succession planning wider access to independent expertise on whether an employee ownership transition suits their company.

Employee Ownership Ireland is the representative body which aims to promote employee ownership as a succession model across Ireland and Northern Ireland, chaired by Karen Maguire.

New panel additions A&L Goodbody Northern Ireland LLP, Baxendale Employee Ownership and TLT LLP join existing advisers Co-ownership Solutions LLP and Belfast-based Maneely McCann Chartered Accountants, together covering valuation, succession planning, taxation, legal structuring, finance and governance, giving business owners a broader bench of specialists to draw on depending on the complexity of their transition.

The strategic logic removes cost as the primary barrier to considering employee ownership. Fully funded feasibility studies, delivered through the Department for the Economy, provide more than three days of specialist consultancy support with no obligation to proceed, shifting the binding constraint from affordability to advisory capacity.

Karen Maguire said the research shows a strong appetite for more information about employee ownership, with the adviser community responding to that demand. She said the addition of five experienced firms significantly strengthens the depth and breadth of expertise available through the feasibility study programme, and added that the studies give business owners an opportunity to properly explore the model, understand what it could mean for the business, its owners and employees, and reach an informed decision about the future without commitment.

The structural driver is a wave of succession-driven ownership decisions, as business owners nearing retirement increasingly weigh employee ownership against trade sale or private equity exit. Almost 60% of Northern Ireland business owners surveyed said they wanted to learn more about the model, pointing to demand that has outpaced advisory capacity until now, and prompting the panel's expansion across a wider range of specialisms rather than a single adviser type.

For the sector, the expansion signals employee ownership consolidating as a mainstream succession option rather than a niche alternative, with HR, legal and financial advisory functions increasingly converging around ownership transition planning as a distinct area of practice, likely to accelerate further as more business owners near retirement over the coming years.

Source: Belfast News Letter