KEO Films, which had recently won a contract to make an Australian adaptation of a UK TV series, was put in touch with Ecovis Sydney in November 2012 because they needed to establish their imprint quickly, before Christmas!

We quickly identified the best structure for combining asset protection, tax efficiency (in terms of their UK/Australia interaction), and management of their new Australian business.

This included a main trading company, a secondary company to hold a primary production property, and a third company to hold the intellectual property that they expected to develop in Australia.

We had all three companies registered with ASIC (with David Conley as resident director for each) and registered for all necessary taxes with the ATO and OSR within a few days.

We ensured that any necessary agreements between the three entities and the UK parent were considered, in order to satisfy Australian/UK laws and potential transfer pricing issues, by referring them to a local commercial lawyer.

We ensured that the client was advised on options for potential secondments of UK employees to Australia to assist in the local operations through a referral to a local immigration agent, and we enabled the client to quickly determine the best fit for their needs through a referral to several banks, and they were able to purchase.

KEO Films were benefitted for five years in Australian but due to commercial reasons ceased operations in 2017 and reverted to a license arrangement with local third-party producers.