Corey Rosen
The vast majority of companies owned broadly by employees have an ESOP. We recently released our yearly update to the Employee Ownership 100, the 100 largest companies owned by an ESOP or a worker cooperative. By the nature of these plans, most or usually all employees meeting a basic service requirement can become owners.
Corey Rosen
A new survey of more than 3,000 people by MarketBeat listed nine employee-owned companies on its list of the 118 most ethical companies in the US. The survey asked people to name the companies that most closely align with their personal and moral values. All but two of the employee-owned companies on the list (H-E-B and Wawa) are majority employee-owned, and all but two (H-E-B and Edward Jones) are employee-owned through ESOPs.
Liza Shifrin
The 2025 ESOP Executive and Board Compensation Survey report is now available. Thank you to all of the survey respondents for making this survey possible. All respondents received the full report as a thank you.
Corey Rosen
The House Committee on Small Business unanimously passed H.R. 5778, the “Improving SBA Engagement on Employee Ownership Act,” which would expand the Small Business Administration's (SBA) outreach program on employee ownership under the Main Street Employee Ownership Act (MSEOA). That bill directed the SBA to conduct an outreach program through its Small Business Development Centers to “establish an employee-owned business promotion program to provide assistance on structure, business succession, and planning." It also directed the SBA to work with other agencies to implement the program. In 2021, the committee found that this was not happening and directed the SBA to “fully implement these requirements."
Scott Rodrick
On November 13, the IRS announced its annual cost-of-living (COLA) increases to plan limits for 2026, which are detailed in Notice 2025-67 (PDF). The most important figures for ESOPs and related plans are:
Corey Rosen
On October 23, 2025, the Slovenian Parliament passed the Employee Ownership Cooperative Act (in Slovenian; see this English-language explanation from the Institute for Economic Democracy in Slovenia), Europe's first law of its kind. The law combines elements of the US leveraged ESOP model with elements of European worker cooperatives, providing tax incentives for business owners to sell to a Coop/ESOP. In a Coop/ESOP, employees have capital accounts in the plan, as with a US ESOP. Unlike a US ESOP, employees must buy a membership in the cooperative to be covered by the plan, although the maximum amount that can be charged is €300.
Corey Rosen
In the first study of its kind, The Stout ESOP Index, the global advisory firm Stout found that between 2021 and 2024, the average annual share price growth in an index of private ESOP companies substantially outperformed the S&P 500 index and the broader Russell 2000 index. The index was composed of just over 350 of Stout's clients that had an ESOP for more than one year during the time period. Stout weighted and rebalanced its index annually in the same manner that the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 are weighted.
Corey Rosen
Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society released a report, The Possibilities of Worker Ownership Engaging Employees, Boosting Profits and Combating Wealth Inequality, summarizing a two-day meeting on employee ownership held at the school in May. The meeting brought together leading scholars, practitioners, and nonprofits in the field to discuss the research on employee ownership, the various models for employee ownership, and what needs to be done to help employee ownership grow.
Megan Bonwell
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The NCEO's Weekly Webinar Series continues to be one of the most popular member benefits due to its consistency and accessibility. Our webinars consistently attract significant attendance within the employee ownership community, while remaining an important member resource long after the session concludes.
