Employee Ownership Blog
Corey Rosen

Corey Rosen

House Hearings Review ERISA Compliance Oversight and Transparency at the DOL

The US House of Representatives Education and Workforce Subcommittee held a hearing on July 22, 2025, on transparency and oversight at the Department of Labor (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). The hearing, titled “Restoring Trust: Enhancing Transparency and Oversight at EBSA,” focused on alleged EBSA overreach in enforcing the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). EBSA's enforcement includes audits, investigations, and litigation to ensure that companies comply with ERISA's requirements.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

ESOP-Owned Emprise Group Makes One of the Largest-Ever Acquisitions by an ESOP Company

Emprise, a 100% ESOP-owned holding company that acquires and invests in middle-market consumer product companies, has acquired Nice-Pak Products through its portfolio company Vivos Holdings, LLC, creating one of the largest companies in its field. Emprise, which the company says stands for "employee" and "enterprise," includes a number of personal care companies, including Consumer Product Partners, Surefil, UpLift Brands, and Vi-Jon, as well as INSPR Labs, which provides research and analytical services for the personal care industry. Nice-Pak is a manufacturer of sanitizing wipes for personal care, babies and toddlers, homes, hospitals, and other users.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

Patricia Hetter Kelso, 1927-2025

Patricia Hetter Kelso, a leading voice in the promotion of employee ownership and universal capitalism, died yesterday at 98. She was the intellectual and business partner, wife, and coauthor of numerous books on expanding capitalism with her husband, Louis Kelso. Louis Kelso developed the idea of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in 1956. Patricia met Louis in 1963, and they married in 1980.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

MA Bill Would Promote Transition to Worker Coops

A new Massachusetts bill, "An Act promoting entrepreneurship through employee ownership," appearing in identical versions in the Massachusetts House and Senate as H. 503 and S. 305, respectively, would encourage small business owners to transition their firms to worker cooperatives. Companies must have at least three employees and meet the definition of a small business under Small Business Administration (SBA) standards. The sale must be to a worker cooperative or to an LLC or partnership that otherwise meets the requirements for worker cooperatives, including equal voting power for all employees who are designated as owners under the company’s bylaws. Profits must be distributed based on “patronage," defined as hours worked for the company.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

EBSA Nominee Daniel Aronowitz Pledges to "End the War on ESOPs"

Daniel Aronowitz, the nominee to head the Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) in the Department of Labor (DOL), promised to “end the war on ESOPs.”

At Aronowitz’s June 5, 2025, confirmation hearing (the segment with Aronowitz starts at 35:30 in the video), Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski (who once worked for an ESOP company) noted that Aronowitz was “probably very familiar with the angst that has been expressed by some that ESOPs have been operating under a patchwork of litigation and there has been a need for a single clear regulatory definition of good-faith effort of valuation of ESOP stock.”

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

NCEO Paper Compares Employee Ownership Models in Five Countries

A new NCEO paper, Expanding Employee Ownership: Models in the US, UK, Canada, France, and Slovenia (PDF; also see the embedded version below), explores the five leading models for trust-based employee ownership. Research and experience show that holding employee ownership in a trust, rather than individually owning shares, tends to be the most sustainable form of employee ownership. Companies generally need tax or other incentives to create and fund the plans for employee ownership to grow. Also, employee ownership is more likely to be widely adopted in forms that are funded in whole or in part by the company, rather than just by employees. These five models are the only legislatively supported models that combine all these features.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

American Ownership and Resilience Act Introduced in Congress

Bill relaunches last Congress’s Employee Equity Investment Act under Commerce Department

Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) (press release) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) and U.S. Representatives Blake Moore (R-UT) and Lori Trahan (D-MA) have introduced the American Ownership and Resilience Act (Senate and House bill PDFs), a relaunch of the Employee Equity Investment Act of 2023 (EEIA) introduced in the last Congress. The legislation is cosponsored in the Senate by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Todd Young (R-IN), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and Peter Welch (D-VT). In the House, it is cosponsored by Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-SD) (press release) and Bill Foster (D-IL). It has not yet been assigned a bill number.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading