Corporate Services

Helbraun Levey’s Corporate Law Group offers a team of lawyers with decades’ worth of experience working within and for the hospitality sector. From your initial corporate formation and financing to the expansion or sale of your business, we can handle it all. Our creative approach combines our practical knowledge of hospitality businesses with our honed legal expertise to help you build a business that is tailored to your vision and built to last.

Our corporate and transactional services are broad and encompassing. We can assist you in structuring, drafting, analyzing, negotiating, and executing the following:

Partnership, Operating, and Shareholder Agreements

Creating an appropriate legal framework for your company at the outset is crucial for its long-term success. We can advise you on choosing the legal entity that is most appropriate for your enterprise and can assist you in developing a robust corporate structure to govern your company. Depending on your company’s legal structure, we can help you prepare the following:

• Partnership Agreements
• Shareholder Agreements
• Operating Agreements
• Joint Venture Agreements
• Strategic Alliance Agreements

These agreements are critically important as they outline the way that your company will conduct its business. These agreements can include provisions on ownership structure, voting rights, intellectual property protection, distribution of profits, and sale of assets. Establishing a sturdy legal framework helps avoid confusion and disputes later, allowing you to predictably and confidently move forward with your venture. We will walk you through every step of this process and recommend structures for you that are practical, favorable, and tailor-made to your business and vision.

Investor Agreements

Companies of every type will typically need to raise money from outside sources in order to get off the ground. Whether your company is accepting loans, investments, or a combination of both, we offer our practical business and legal expertise as you develop your financing strategy. We can then help you structure, negotiate and execute the following:

• Investor Agreements
• Lien Agreements
• Equity Purchase Agreements

Ultimately, our team can assist you throughout every stage of your capital raising process, and have helped countless clients raise the money necessary to successfully open their bar or restaurant.

Purchase & Sale Agreements

At some point as a business owner, you may consider expanding your business or selling it. In the hospitality industry we refer to these types of transactions as Key Money Deals. You buy or sell a business for cash and in return, you get the advantage of the infrastructure of the existing business.

Whether you are a buyer or seller, we can help you structure, negotiate, and execute every element of that purchase or sale. Properly structured purchase and sale agreements help small companies become big, and help big companies expand. Because we serve as strategic business advisors, we help clients evaluate risks and rewards and decide which issues are paramount. With our straight talk approach and extensive experience with Key Money Deals, we give our clients a valuable competitive edge.

Key Money Deals are tricky as there are many moving parts. Our corporate, licensing and real estate groups are seamlessly integrated and we all work together to provide comprehensive service for your purchase or sale transaction. Specifically, our team can help you structure, negotiate and execute any of the following:

• Transaction Structuring
• Term Sheets
• Due Diligence Investigations
• Asset Purchase Agreements
• Stock Purchase Agreements
• Membership Purchase Agreements
• Roll-Up Agreements

Hotel Management & Licensing Agreements

Hotel operators have finally gotten the point that having a strong F&B operator for their hotel attracts customers. We have worked with our clients on various hotel management deals and we know the ins and outs of these often complicated deals. We have represented chefs and restaurant groups in all the major hotel chains including The Edition, The Standard, Ace, Marriott etc. We can help you negotiate:

• Management Agreements
• Licensing Agreements
• Hotel Leases
• Chef Consulting Agreements