Manufacturing Still Dominates Majority ESOPs

Roughly half of the companies on the NCEO's list of 730 majority ESOP-owned closely held companies are in manufacturing. The next largest sectors are construction and contracting, with about 15%; engineering and architecture, with about 8%; wholesaling and distribution, with about 8%; and banking and insurance, with about 7%. The NCEO majority list is not a comprehensive list; such a list cannot be constructed with available data. Instead, it is a list of companies whose names have appeared in newspaper and magazine articles on employee ownership obtained through a clipping service or that showed up through an automated daily Google Internet news search tool.