Van Reybrouck

Van Reybrouck is an independent advisory firm whose Bruges office is on Ten Briele in Sint-Michiels, south of Bruges, with a second office in Brussels. It specialises in accountancy, tax and legal advice and corporate finance. The firm has more than 50 experts, lawyers and economists, several of whom are registered with the ITAA as certified accountants or tax advisers. All of them treat ongoing training as a given.

The firm presents itself as a mid-sized structure combining the best of both worlds: a team large enough to guarantee flexibility, speed and quality, and small enough to avoid bureaucracy and hierarchy. Experts from the different fields consult each other constantly and look at each problem from several angles from the outset. Clients have a single contact who coordinates the project, and for larger assignments a tailored team is put together under the lead of a partner. Partners and senior advisers remain directly reachable.

Clients are entrepreneurs and companies, from start-ups to well-established businesses, supported from idea to exit and from first investment to strategic acquisition. The firm aims for a long-term financial vision for both the company and its owners. The legal team also advises associations and public bodies.

In accountancy, Van Reybrouck says it is not a bookkeeper recording the past: it delivers usable financial information for decisions about the future. It makes sure accounting and tax obligations are met on time and proactively maps out the tax consequences of decisions. It can keep the full books, support the in-house accountant or advise the CFO. It prepares the annual accounts and periodic financial reporting, by company or consolidated. One of the partners, Sacha Aerts, is a certified tax accountant and has been a trusted adviser to many clients since 2016.

The Tax & Legal department focuses on tax law and business law, in particular company and association law and support for mergers and acquisitions. It handles company formation, drafting articles of association and shareholder agreements, amendments to articles, capital increases, mergers and demergers, the issue of subscription rights or bonds, and dissolution and liquidation. It provides legal support for business acquisitions, on the seller's or buyer's side, for asset or share deals, and advises on loan, security, lease, sale, service or franchise agreements.

On tax, the legal team handles complex structuring, estate planning, optimising property transactions, international tax, ruling requests and disputes with the tax authorities, from objection to mediation, including registration and inheritance tax. It is led among others by Pieter, who studied law and philosophy and has been a certified accountant and tax adviser since 2004, and by Sander, a partner since 2020 after ten years as a lawyer and company law specialist at EY.