Employee Ownership Blog

The "Employee Ownership 100" list will be published in the July-August 2006 issue of the NCEO's newsletter for members.

A new worldwide study of 86,000 employees by Towers Perrin finds that only 14% of the respondents were highly engaged, defined as "the willingness and ability to contribute to the organization's success." In most counties, most employees were "moderately engaged," but a quarter or more were not e

South Africa is taking initial steps to promote broader employee ownership, but in a largely unplanned and haphazard way. Under recent changes to the Black Economic Empowerment Program, companies are given points when black ownership amounts to at least 26% of all shares.

IRS officials told the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA Pension & Benefits Reporter, Feb. 21, 2006) that they will be issuing more specific guidelines on valuation requirements to meet the rules of Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code on deferred compensation arrangements.

The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has issued an exposure draft for amendments to its share-based accounting rules (IFRS 2 Share-Based Accounting). The amendments would restrict vesting conditions to service periods or performance.

A House-Senate conference committee is likely to be held soon to try to iron out differences between versions of pension plan reforms passed by both houses.

According to speakers at a recent conference held by the ESOP Centre in London, the requirements of the recent Prospectus Directive from the European Union may discourage some non-EU companies from running employee stock purchase plans.

In Fox v. Herzog, Heine, and Geduld, Inc., No. 01-CV-1827 (D.N.J., 12/27/05), a district court ruled that employees of Merrill Lynch could participate in the allocation of suspense account shares previously held in the Herzog, Heine, and Gedlud (HHG) ESOP after Merrill Lynch acquired HHG.

More than half of the for-profit corporations on the Great Place to Work Institute's "100 Best Companies to Work For in America" list have broad-based employee ownership, a trait that frequently distinguishes the companies that appear on the San Francisco-based firm's annual list.

Since the implosion of Enron, more than 60 lawsuits have been filed against trustees, fiduciaries, boards, companies, plan committees, and corporate officers (all of whom may have overlapping roles) for violating ERISA by failing to protect participants in the company's 401(k) plan and/or ESOP fr

The NCEO is again cosponsoring the National Gathering of Games Conference, to be held this year March 15-17 at the St. Louis Pavilion Hotel Downtown in St. Louis, MO. The Gathering of Games is the only national conference focused on open-book management and the Great Game of Business.

The winners of the 2006 board elections are Rick Amering (Paychex), Vistor Aspengren (RSM McGladrey), Ed Carberry (Cornell University), Bill Carris (Carris Reels), Dan Marcue (Woodward Communications), John MIscione (Duff & Phelps), and Tim Regnitz (Crow Chizek).