Corey Rosen
Ken Baker, the CEO of Southampton, PA-based NewAge Industries, has donated $3 million to Montgomery County Community College to start the Baker Center of Excellence for Employee Ownership and Business Transformation. The Center will promote and provide resources on ESOPs and other employee-employer partnerships. It is the largest gift in the college’s 56-year history.
Corey Rosen
When I first read about ESOPs 43 years ago as a Capitol Hill staffer, I loved the concept but was discouraged by the complexity. Employee ownership was a cause I wanted to make my own, but I was intimidated by the concept and strange (to me) language. Eventually, I started to get it, but ever since have had a lot of empathy for business owners who, like me then, love the idea of employee ownership but find the process confusing.
Corey Rosen
We are excited about our upcoming virtual conference April 20-21, with preconference sessions on the 19th. This is our third (!) large virtual event in a year, and we have learned a lot about how to make it an interactive, cost-effective, and fun conference.
Corey Rosen
In a new report, Why Aren’t There More ESOPs: Assessing Barriers to ESOP Creation, Jared Bernstein, one of the three people Joe Biden named to the Council of Economic Advisers, urges the new administration to “set up a government office, housed perhaps in the Small Business Administration (SBA) or the Commerce Department, that provides direct assistance to small businesses that want to set up ESOPs or other shared ownership plans.”
Corey Rosen
President Biden’s nominees to key cabinet posts have favored employee ownership in the past. In 2019, the proposed new SBA administrator, Isabel Guzman, told the California Dream (a collaboration led by local PBS stations), that employee ownership was a good way to respond to the “silver tsunami.” "As these businesses in the silver tsunami start to retire, and look for options, we need to get this information [about employee ownership] out there," she said. NCEO staff later met with Guzman to discuss ways she could use her position as head of the California Office of the Small Business Advocate to promote the idea, and she affirmed her strong support.
Corey Rosen
The recent COVID-19 relief bill attached to the Consolidated Appropriations Act allows certain retirement plan sponsors who laid off or furloughed employees due to the pandemic to avoid a partial plan termination.
Corey Rosen
The $900 billion economic relief bill that just passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives includes a new round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), providing an additional $284 billion for the program.
Corey Rosen
The issue of whether trustees can and should override participant directions on offers to buy shares in a proposed acquisition of an ESOP company has been one of the most ambiguous areas of ESOP law and practice. New guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) (29 CFR 2550.404a-1) on proxy voting of shares in retirement plans, including on environmental, social, and governance metrics, includes a brief section addressing this issue, essentially putting into regulatory form what had been just guidance.
Corey Rosen
Many ESOP companies are looking to diversify their board membership but have a hard time knowing where to look. Board members tend to come from existing networks of CEOs, and tend to be older white males. Research shows that cognitive diversity on boards leads to better decisions. Board members who can think differently about issues and who are willing to challenge existing norms can help companies move forward. Demographic diversity does not guarantee cognitive diversity, but it may help. For many companies, of course, diversity is a goal in itself even if it does not lead to different decisions.
