Employee Ownership Blog

Nathan Nicholson

ESOP Companies and the Paycheck Protection Program

Update: On April 16, the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that it has stopped accepting new applications for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) thanks to a lapse in appropriations. The PPP is a component of the CARES Act passed by Congress in March to address the economic damage caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak. The $350 billion appropriated for the PPP has been exhausted, and lawmakers are currently negotiating possible additional appropriations to continue the program.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

NCEO

Understanding the PPP: Application Date, ESOP Eligibility, Required Signatures, and More

Updated April 14, 7:12 am PT

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the CARES Act stimulus package appears to be starting this morning, with some banks accepting applications. Some ESOP experts feared that the PPP may have been drafted in a way that would effectively have delayed ESOP companies’ participation, but some ESOP companies are reporting success. On April 13, we began reporting results from our survey of ESOP companies, which show, for example, that among companies that had filed a loan application, just under half (43%) had received confirmation that their loan was approved by the SBA. Approval typically took just over three days.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Loren Rodgers

Resilience in Employee-Owned Companies

As I talk with members, the word that keeps coming to mind is “resilience.” Some of you reading this are facing terrible choices and no-win situations. Some of you are seeing trouble approaching. But all of the people I have talked with these last weeks – company leaders, employee-owners, advisers, members of the NCEO board, people in our allied organizations – are putting in the hours to create solutions and share them.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Loren Rodgers

The NCEO Hosts Public Webinars on Covid-19

The NCEO is hosting three webinars, open to the general public, this week on the coronavirus outbreak and its relationship to employee ownership. You can register for future webinars on Free Webinars: ESOP Issues During the Coronavirus, which will also be updated with follow-up information and recordings of the webinars.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

NCEO

CARES Act Provides Substantial Economic Assistance in an ESOP-Friendly Manner

Title 1 of the CARES Act directs the U.S. Small Business Administration to make certain loans to qualifying small businesses to cover payroll, costs related to continuing group health care benefits, salaries or commissions, payment of interest on any mortgage obligation, rent, utilities, and debt obligations incurred before the covered period. Generally, the law applies to companies with 500 or fewer employees, with some exceptions, most notably for multi-location restaurants and hospitality companies and for larger companies that meet the SBA size standards anyway. ESOP companies can apply for this assistance, and some of the normal barriers that they might face have been removed.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Loren Rodgers

The NCEO's commitments to you

We at the NCEO have always seen ourselves as your partners. We exist to make employee ownership thrive, and that mission determines what we do: serve the needs of you who are reading this.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading

Corey Rosen

On Changing the Format of Our Annual Conference

Thirty-nine years ago, we held our first annual conference. We had 175 attendees, including my uncle Bernie. Last year we sold out at over 1,900; this year, we were on track to sell out even sooner at over 2,000. The conference is one of the most important ways we help make employee ownership grow and thrive. It is also over one-third of our annual revenue and provides most of the profit we use to support all the other work we do, such as research and outreach, that is essential to employee ownership but does not generate revenue. We devote approximately the equivalent of three full-time staff people per year to the event. I know many of you really look forward to the conference every year, just as I do. One of my favorite spring rituals is checking in each day on how many new registrations we are getting and looking forward to reconnecting with all the inspiring people I have gotten to know over the years, as well as meeting so many new ones. I come back reenergized for another year, and it is part of why I count my ongoing role as a pretty much full-time volunteer for the NCEO as an extraordinary blessing.

Right-pointing arrow Continue Reading