Hicksons’ brings together a wealth of experience from throughout our company divisions to offer unique business advisory services.
The trust of clients for more than 50 years, together with our respectful, committed, creative, grounded and energetic ethos, means divisions such as our Better Board service are able to add considerable value to companies and organisations.
We provide advice and recommendations to boards ranging from negotiating director conflicts to strategy development.
Many of our corporate lawyers are Harvard-trained negotiators, many hold a graduate diploma in applied corporate governance (Governance Institute of Australia) and some are associate members of the Governance Institute of Australia.
We provide tailored legal and governance advice to improve organisational performance, helping directors navigate unprecedented scrutiny, unsettled leadership resulting from constantly changing legislation, regulatory zeal and shareholder activism
Our Better Boards services include:
Governance
- advising on best practice corporate governance principles;
- governance reviews and governance development as well as preparation of policies, including code of conduct, diversity policy, disclosure policy, remuneration policy, trading policy;
- Australian Stock Exchange governance reporting; and
- cyber security and information governance risk.
Legal
- capital raising through debt finance, investor finance and venture capital
- initial public offering preparation, ensuring that company structures, policies and practices will satisfy all regulatory requirements, the scrutiny of investors and regulators and stock exchange listing requirements; and
- internal investigations, including conduct issues within organisations without compromising relationships with employees or unnecessarily damaging reputation.
Compliance
- legal risk assessments;
- development of risk registers; and
- coaching and training to support for establishing a compliance culture through policies, procedures, training, communications and virtual teams.
Many Hicksons lawyers have experience serving as the company secretary on the boards of Australian companies.
This has equipped them to provide pragmatic insight in addition to legal and regulatory advice on the Corporations Act and Australian Stock Exchange compliance, including advising on issues such as directors’ duties, corporate governance and continuous disclosure.
Specific services include:
- co-ordinating and organising meetings (e.g. issuing invitations, preparing and circulating board packs);
- preparing meeting materials (e.g. agendas and proposed resolutions); and
- maintenance of registers such as director minutes and member minutes.