In late March, three ESOP companies announced that they would be acquired. Entertainment Partners will be acquired by a private equity group, TPG Capital; this comes in the midst of a wave of consolidation in both the entertainment industry and the payroll services industries, both of which apply to Entertainment Partners.

Another industry experiencing consolidation is book printing, and ESOP-owned book printer Thomson-Shore has an agreement to be acquired out of bankruptcy by CJK Group.

By contrast, the Vermont-based publisher Chelsea Green has finished an eight-year transition to 100% employee ownership. An article in Publishers Weekly quotes Chelsea Green production director Patricia Stone: "What would have happened otherwise if [company founders] Margo and Ian didn't want to continue running the company and wanted to sell their stocks? The other option would have been to sell the company to someone else and that wouldn't have been my first choice."

Finally, an ESOP acquired 100% of the shares of government services company Phacil, and in March Phacil was acquired by the systems integrator By Light.