Employee Ownership Blog
Corey Rosen

Corey Rosen

Employee Ownership Prominent on Most Ethical Companies List

A new survey of more than 3,000 people by MarketBeat listed nine employee-owned companies on its list of the 118 most ethical companies in the US. The survey asked people to name the companies that most closely align with their personal and moral values. All but two of the employee-owned companies on the list (H-E-B and Wawa) are majority employee-owned, and all but two (H-E-B and Edward Jones) are employee-owned through ESOPs.

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Corey Rosen

House Small Business Committee Approves Bill to Expand SBA EO Outreach Program

The House Committee on Small Business unanimously passed H.R. 5778, the “Improving SBA Engagement on Employee Ownership Act,” which would expand the Small Business Administration's (SBA) outreach program on employee ownership under the Main Street Employee Ownership Act (MSEOA). That bill directed the SBA to conduct an outreach program through its Small Business Development Centers to “establish an employee-owned business promotion program to provide assistance on structure, business succession, and planning." It also directed the SBA to work with other agencies to implement the program. In 2021, the committee found that this was not happening and directed the SBA to “fully implement these requirements."

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Corey Rosen

Slovenian Parliament Passes Coop/ESOP Law

On October 23, 2025, the Slovenian Parliament passed the Employee Ownership Cooperative Act (in Slovenian; see this English-language explanation from the Institute for Economic Democracy in Slovenia), Europe's first law of its kind. The law combines elements of the US leveraged ESOP model with elements of European worker cooperatives, providing tax incentives for business owners to sell to a Coop/ESOP. In a Coop/ESOP, employees have capital accounts in the plan, as with a US ESOP. Unlike a US ESOP, employees must buy a membership in the cooperative to be covered by the plan, although the maximum amount that can be charged is €300.

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Corey Rosen

New Study Shows ESOP Company Stock Prices Outperformed Market Indices

In the first study of its kind, The Stout ESOP Index, the global advisory firm Stout found that between 2021 and 2024, the average annual share price growth in an index of private ESOP companies substantially outperformed the S&P 500 index and the broader Russell 2000 index. The index was composed of just over 350 of Stout's clients that had an ESOP for more than one year during the time period. Stout weighted and rebalanced its index annually in the same manner that the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 are weighted.

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Corey Rosen

Harvard Business School Releases Employee Ownership Report

Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society released a report, The Possibilities of Worker Ownership Engaging Employees, Boosting Profits and Combating Wealth Inequality, summarizing a two-day meeting on employee ownership held at the school in May. The meeting brought together leading scholars, practitioners, and nonprofits in the field to discuss the research on employee ownership, the various models for employee ownership, and what needs to be done to help employee ownership grow.

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Corey Rosen

Senate Unanimously Passes Two Bills to Encourage ESOPs

Members of Congress may not agree on a lot these days, but as they have for 51 years, they do unanimously agree on employee ownership. On October 10, the Senate unanimously passed two bills to promote ESOPs. The first, the Retire through Ownership Act (S. 2403), could make it easier for companies to avoid legal challenges to the valuation of shares the ESOP acquires. A parallel bill (H.R. 5169) has been introduced in the House but has not yet been acted on. The second, the Employee Ownership Representation Act of 2025 (S. 1728), would add ESOP representatives to the ERISA Advisory Council. A parallel bill has not yet been introduced in the House. Both bills will now move to the House.

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Corey Rosen

NCEO Paper Assesses ESOP Risks for Employees, Managers, and Business Owners

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) have widespread support from politicians and academics and can offer significant benefits for employees, business owners, and society. But there are those who argue that there are too many risks associated with these plans. Do they put too much of employee retirement assets at risk? Does the debt that an ESOP typically takes on to finance ownership transition put employee jobs and companies at risk? Do business owners and board members face a high risk of litigation? The new NCEO paper Assessing the Risks of ESOPs for Employees, Managers, and Business Owners (PDF; also see the embedded version below) by NCEO founder Corey Rosen summarizes in detail the extensive research on each aspect of ESOP risk.

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