Alice Ina, Wonder Lean and Mat Hatta are qualified optomerists from the same "alma mater" and they have been practising together under a partnership agreement for more than ten years and currently operating two optical centres under the style Vision Wonderland Eye Care Centre in Kuala Lumpur. They are all now in their forties with families and feel they need to do something to protect their personal and family assets, At the same time, the partners plan to expand the number of outlet from two to ten in the next five years by admitting more partners into their partnership and apply for LEAP Market initial public offering (IPO) in due course.

An intern from your cohort suggested a limited liability partnership to them, but they have no idea what that is and whether it is good for them and fits into their objective of protecting personal assets and going for IPO in the foreseeable future.

Required

a)Critically evaluate in-depth, in the context of Vision Wonderland Eye Care Centre and from the viewpoint of being a party legal proceedings, the differences between a conventional partnership and a limited liability partnership (LLP).

b)What if Vision Wonderland Eve Care Centre is seeking listing in the LEAP Market of Bursa Malaysia in the later years? Will this LLP setup impedes the IPO dream as entities seeking listing in the Malaysian stock market must be incorporated companies?

( 8 + 2= 10 marks )