Another 100% ESOP Buyout

Another very large company has been bought by a 100% ESOP. Nypro is a half-billion dollar contract manufacturer of plastics injection molding. It employs 5,500 people worldwide, including 2,500 in the U.S. who will be eligible for the ESOP. The company is looking at ways to include overseas employees as well. The privately held company could easily have gone public, but Gordon Lankton, the CEO and former majority shareholder, said that Nypro management wanted to preserve the company as a private enterprise that could avoid the "distraction of day-to-day stock price concerns." Nypro is the second employer of this size (Ferrell Companies is the other) to convert to an ESOP; both are leaders in their industries.