If your firm is going through a merger, acquisition or other business change, then depending on how the transaction is structured, the firms involved may inadvertently become ineligible for the regulatory registrations currently held. However, if you give us sufficient notice of the business changes, we can explain what your firm needs to do to ensure continuity of its registrations, including ongoing anti-money-laundering supervision and eligibility to continue using the description, Chartered Accountants. Also, if changes are needed to the proposed ownership structure for the firm to remain eligible for regulatory registration, if it usually easier and simpler to do this pre-completion, rather than once the transaction has been executed.
We will therefore need full details of the transaction to make sure each firm’s record is updated, and to allow us to check the new structure complies with the eligibility criteria for each regulatory registration currently held.
Our mergers, acquisitions and other business changes form sets out the information we need to know whenever a firm’s ownership or structure changes. The completed form should be emailed to regulatory.support@icaew.com.
If your particular transaction does not easily fit into the questions on the form, please fill in as much of the form as possible and provide an accompanying letter of email explaining the transaction in full detail.
If a firm that is being acquired continues to trade for any period of time with changes to its structure, standing data change forms should also be submitted for that entity along with the mergers and acquisitions form.
If you have any questions about the information you need to provide, please call us on +44(0)1908 546 302.
Helpsheet: regulated firm restructures
If your firm is carrying out a business restructure, then you must notify ICAEW to ensure continuation of any regulatory registrations (ie, audit registration, Licenced Practice (ATOL), probate accreditation, and/or a DPB (Investment Business) licence).
Read the helpsheet to help you understand typical scenarios you need to tell us about.
Further information
Find out more
Maintain your firm's eligibility when making changes to firm structure.
Standing data change formsImportant eligibility considerations