Employee Ownership Blog
Timothy Garbinsky

Timothy Garbinsky

DAWI's Melissa Hoover to Keynote Upcoming Vermont Conference

Our friends at the Vermont Employee Ownership Center are hosting their 22nd annual conference in a few short weeks, on May 31 at the University of Vermont's Davis Center. The event, as usual, promises to be an enriching experience for employee-owned businesses of all types, with sessions on recruitment and retention, ESOP transactions, worker cooperative buyouts, mental health, board composition, and more. There will also be networking for worker coops, ESOP companies, and other employee-owned businesses.

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Timothy Garbinsky

Private Equity Continues to Make Inroads into the Employee Ownership Space

Since as far back as at least 2017, we've long been tracking the increased activity of private equity firms in the employee ownership space. Their foray into the world of ESOPs, broad-based equity, stock purchase plans, and the like, is, by now, somewhat old hat, but that doesn't stop it from being a frequent point of conversation, even contention, in employee ownership circles. But the fact remains that, no matter how you feel about their motivations or their methods, they are here, as evidenced by a feature on KKR, Pete Stavros, and Ownership Works on tonight's episode of 60 Minutes.

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Timothy Garbinsky

ESOP CEO Authors White Paper Encouraging EO in Healthcare Industry

Increasingly, private equity (PE) is becoming a bigger part of American life through its unceasing ability to acquire businesses across all sectors of American life. Operating on the principle of aggressive growth, PE firms often seek to maximize their investment by ruthlessly cutting costs wherever possible while trying to, at a minimum, sustain their revenue, meaning that companies often end up charging the same or more for their goods or services while their quality declines. The inevitable outcomes in these situations are concerning enough in the publishing and entertainment industries, but what happens when the service that's replaced is essential and life-saving healthcare?

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Timothy Garbinsky

Harvard Social Impact Review Publishes Article on EOTs and Purpose Trusts

On April 2, Harvard Social Impact Review published the article “Rethinking Ownership: Putting Purpose at the Center,” which explores trust ownership, including employee ownership trusts and perpetual purpose trusts (EOTs and PPTs respectively). The authors, Jenny Everett, Mark Hand, and Natalie Reitman-White, note the growth in the number of companies using this form and also suggest that given the still-small size of the field, "now is the time to invest in the field-building infrastructure necessary to develop and scale the purpose trust ownership legal form."

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Timothy Garbinsky

NJ Exploring Development of Statewide EO Program

Following the lead of Colorado and Washington State, New Jersey appears to be mulling a potential state program for employee ownership. Today, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) issued a formal Request for Information on developing a program, seeking insight from individuals and firms alike on what such a program might look like. The interest in employee ownership was spurred by the Governor's Wealth Disparity Task Force, which highlighted employee ownership as a potential initiative on which to focus.

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Timothy Garbinsky

Gina Schaefer to Headline OEOC Conference This Month

Last September, we had the privilege of seeing Gina Schaefer, the founder of ESOP-owned A Few Cool Hardware Stores, deliver the keynote address at our 2023 Fall Forum in Houston. Her story of how her company exceeded its promise of being a mere place of commerce, turning into a hub for the communities in which it resides, was inspiring. Even before becoming employee-owned, Gina's stores became essential fixtures for the locals and employees alike, and the ESOP only strengthened their impact. Her talk was vulnerable, witty, intelligent, and moving, and a great reminder of why we do the work that we do.

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Timothy Garbinsky

UK's John Lewis Partnership May Reduce Employee Ownership Percentage

Retailer and department chain the John Lewis Partnership is mulling a reduction of its employee ownership percentage. The company, currently 100% employee-owned via a perpetual trust (the UK's version of an employee ownership trust, or EOT), is considering the reduction to raise between 1 and 2 million pounds of investment capital. The plan, as it stands, would sell a minority stake, allowing the company to retain its status as the UK's largest majority employee-owned company.

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Timothy Garbinsky

Putting the Equity in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Around this time in late 2021, I wrote about the urgent need for DEI programs to address the myriad issues of racial and gender equity in the working world. At that point, the call to act felt clear not only to me but also to those who’d been previously deaf to it—significant portions of the population belonged to demographic groups long passed over, ignored, cast aside, or waved away. It felt (and excuse the clunky, on-the-nose metaphor) as though the issues of modern work were being seen no longer in drab and dichotomous black and white, but in technicolor, with all the vibrancy and nuance that that implies.

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