Would a possible solution here be for the contract to say that, rather than cancelling the shares on repurchase, the company will hold the shares as treasury shares following completion of each tranche? Will this be sufficient to give an acquisition as well as a disposal?
[EDIT]
On further research, s195(4) FA 2003 says that the shares are treated as cancelled on acquisition, even if they are not actually cancelled, so my suggestion doesn't seem to work.
S195(2) also says that the acquistion of any of its own shares by the company is not to be treated as the acquisition of an asset.
My answers
Agreed that this all seems very unfair.
Would a possible solution here be for the contract to say that, rather than cancelling the shares on repurchase, the company will hold the shares as treasury shares following completion of each tranche? Will this be sufficient to give an acquisition as well as a disposal?
[EDIT]
On further research, s195(4) FA 2003 says that the shares are treated as cancelled on acquisition, even if they are not actually cancelled, so my suggestion doesn't seem to work.
S195(2) also says that the acquistion of any of its own shares by the company is not to be treated as the acquisition of an asset.