Employee Ownership Blog
Corey Rosen

Corey Rosen

Colorado Legislature Passes Legislation to Expand Employee Ownership Incentives

Updated May 5, 2025 to reflect the most recent action

HB25-1021 has now passed both Houses of the Colorado legislature. The governor is expected to sign it.  The state already provides significant tax credits for companies to adopt ESOPs, worker cooperatives, employee ownership trusts, or other structures that provide employees with at least 20% of the company's equity. The bill was one of the few passed this year that increases state expenditures or tax incentives because of Colorado's current budget issues.

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Corey Rosen

ESOP Pioneer Robert Smiley Dies at 81

Robert Smiley, one of the pioneers of ESOPs, died at the age of 81 on November 13, 2024. Bob was a past president of the ESOP Association and was instrumental in its foundation. He was an early and generous supporter of the NCEO and served on our board for several years.

He was the founder and board chair of the Benefit Capital Group, an ESOP banking and advisory firm. He formed Benefit Capital, Inc., which provided advice to ESOP deals worth over $5 billion over 30 years.  He was also a contributing author to the NCEO’s Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance, which was published from 1989 to 2010, and was the managing editor of Employee Stock Ownership Plans: ESOP Planning, Financing, Implementation, Law and Taxation, a definitive publication on ESOP legal, financial, and administrative issues. It was updated annually until 2013.

Mr. Smiley also served on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Extension and was a trustee for the Reason Foundation, a free-market think tank, for nine years. He also served in the Navy. Bob was a key player in the development of the NCEO and ESOPs, and we will all miss him.

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Corey Rosen

Rep. Foxx Says DOL Abused Its Authority in Sharing Information with Plaintiffs’ Attorney

In a strongly worded letter,  Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-NC, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, says that the Department of Labor (DOL) abused its authority when it shared information from an ongoing investigation of Envision Radiology's ESOP with the law firm Cohen Milstein, which is acting as the counsel for the plaintiffs in an ESOP valuation lawsuit against the trustee, selling shareholders, and individuals at the company. Foxx called on the DOL’s Office of the Inspector General to investigate certain practices concerning “secretly sharing confidential information with a plaintiffs’ attorney for use against plan fiduciaries.”

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Corey Rosen

New Research and Employment Opportunities in Employee Ownership

New Fellowships Available in Employee Ownership Research

The Institute for Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University will offer approximately 10 competitive research fellowships for the 2025–2026 academic year. Several $50,000, $25,000, and $10,000 fellowships will be offered. The deadline for applications is March 31, 2025.

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Corey Rosen

What Will the Trump Administration Mean for ESOPs?

President-elect Donald Trump has not said anything we are aware of about employee ownership during his political career, so it is difficult to know what approach he will take to the issue. Many of his former advisors and other people with similar views were involved with Project 2025, however, although he and his campaign have distanced themselves from it. Project 2025's proposed 180-day transition playbook, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, states (pp. 610-11):

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Corey Rosen

Study Finds Employee Ownership Provides Best Worker Outcomes in Business Transitions

A new study by the Brookings Institution and Washington University’s Olin Business School finds that employees are significantly more likely to remain working for their employer and to be satisfied with their jobs in companies that transition ownership through ESOPs and other employee ownership models compared to other business transition models. The study also recommends that Congress pass the Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act of 2023 and support efforts of private equity firms, such as those involved with Ownership Works, to include employee ownership in business transitions.

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Corey Rosen

New NCEO Paper on Private Equity and Employee Ownership

In the last several years, there has been a growing trend for private equity firms to include broad-based employee ownership programs in their transactions. This trend has gained national attention, with stories on 60 Minutes, Freakonomics, the New York Times, and many other news outlets. The new paper Private Equity and Employee Ownership (PDF; also see the embedded version below) by NCEO founder Corey Rosen looks at the history of private equity and employee ownership in the 1980s and the current wave of interest among some large private equity firms in sharing ownership with employees.

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