South: Shoosmiths grows corporate tax team

Law firm Shoosmiths – with 13 UK locations including Solent and Thames Valley – has recruited tax partner Anika Chandra to grow its employee incentives offering as part of the firm’s corporate tax team.

Chandra joins from Stephenson Harwood, where she advised a range of FTSE and AIM listed public companies and private company clients on all aspects of employee incentives, including the design and implementation of share plans and cash bonus arrangements, the tax aspects of the termination of employment, corporate transactions and reporting and other compliance obligations.

Chandra trained at CMS Cameron McKenna, where she qualified in 2004. In 2006, she moved to join the Employment, Pensions and Incentives team at Allen & Overy before joining Stephenson Harwood in 2010. She has been described by clients in Chambers & Partners 2017 directory as being ‘responsive, direct and clear in her advice’.

In recent editions of Legal 500, she has been described by clients as ‘very thorough and precise’ and ‘excellent’. Chandra also enjoys a high profile in the share plan industry, regularly speaking at events like the ProShare Employee Share Plans conference and at ProShare focus groups. She also sits on the executive committee of the Share Plan Lawyers Group.

Thames Valley-based head of tax and partner, Tom Wilde said: “Our tax practice has recently enjoyed rapid growth and has an ambitious strategy to double its turnover over the next three years. Anika’s appointment as our fourth tax partner will help to drive this growth by supporting our expanding corporate and real estate teams, and increasing the breadth and quality of the share options and employee incentives work that comes direct from our clients.”

Shoosmiths’ tax practice provides the full range of tax services to clients, focusing particularly on venture capital trusts (VCT) and enterprise investment schemes (EIS), real estate tax, corporate tax and share schemes and employee incentives. We have one of the leading VCT/EIS tax practices in the country, with our team named ‘Best EIS/SEIS Tax Adviser’ at the most recent Enterprise Investment Scheme Association Awards, reflecting our growing reputation as one of the UK’s top specialist advisers at the technical cutting edge of EIS and Seed EIS (SEIS).

Chandra said: “I am excited by the opportunity to join a fast-growing and collegiate team and am looking forward to building a focused share incentives offering, which we expect to be a high-growth area for Shoosmiths.”