Corey Rosen
The NCEO has completed the most comprehensive review to date of publicly available information about ESOP companies purchasing non-ESOP companies. The review is consistent with anecdotal reports that buying other companies has become an important source of growth for closely held ESOP companies.
Corey Rosen
President Donald Trump selected fiduciary insurance company executive Daniel Aronowitz to head the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). Aronowitz currently is the head of Encore Fiduciary (formerly Euclid Fiduciary). The company provides fiduciary insurance, fidelity bonds, cybersecurity insurance, and fiduciary insurance consulting. He is the author of the Fiduciary Liability Insurance Handbook. The book’s only mention of ESOPs is to say that this kind of fiduciary insurance is more costly than that needed for other retirement plans.
If approved by the Senate, Aronowitz would succeed Lisa M. Gomez and work under Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Labor, who is also up for Senate approval. Chavez-DeRemer has been an ESOP advocate; Aronowitz does not appear to have taken any public position on ESOPs.
Eva Lianos
This past week, we kicked off the 2025 NCEO events year with Is an ESOP Right for You? in the heart of Austin, TX. With 40 passionate attendees, the event was a perfect blend of insights, networking, and forward-thinking conversations.
Madelyn Hammack
We’re excited to announce that the 2025 National Employee-Owner Summit will be happening on February 24–25, 2025, in Mesa, AZ.
Corey Rosen
Senate Bill 21 (PDF), a bipartisan bill introduced in both the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly, would create a tax credit of up to 70% of the costs of converting to a worker cooperative and 50% of the cost of adopting an ESOP, with a credit cap of $100,000. Up to a total of $5 million in credits could be allocated each year, and any unused allocation could be carried forward.
Loren Rodgers
The extensive coverage of President Trump’s executive order to halt payments for foreign aid has missed one of the order’s unintended consequences: the impact it will have on the thousands of people who work at U.S.-based employee-owned companies that implement many USAID projects. Companies that have employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are heavily represented among the contractors affected by the executive order.
Corey Rosen
Indiana state Senator Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington) has introduced S. Bill 175, a bill that would create and fund an Indiana Employee-Owned Business Resource Center. Yoder is the minority caucus leader in the Indiana Senate. The Center would:
Loren Rodgers
On January 29, the Trump administration appears to have rescinded its executive order freezing federal grant funding. A prior order freezing foreign aid is still in effect. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested, however, that the freeze might continue in some form in a post on X: “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court's injunction. The President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.” A separate executive action, still in effect, offers buyouts to over two million federal workers.
Loren Rodgers
At 8:45 am Eastern time on January 16, the Federal Register released the public inspection versions of two proposed rules, both of which would affect the determination of the value of shares in ESOP transactions. Both proposed rules are from the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) at the Department of Labor (DOL). (Original links below replaced with links to the DOL PDFs hosted on our site after the DOL took down the pages.)
