Employee Ownership Blog

Twenty-five of the largest private companies as ranked by Forbes are employee-owned. There are 219 companies on the list, each with $2 billion in sales or more. Twenty-one of these have ESOPs, two have profit sharing plans that work like ESOPs, one is owned by a trust for employees, and one provides phantom stock to all employees.

The Texas House of Representatives has set up a hearing on H.B. 2246, “An act relating to companies in which employees have ownership interests through employee stock ownership plans.”

Our online document library for members now features a sample ESOP plan administration charter.

The Trudeau government has proposed a new budget that contains an important provision to look at ways for Canada to set up employee ownership trusts following the models of US ESOPs and UK Employee Ownership Trusts.

Change is hard even when it's necessary. Just because you have “always done it that way” doesn’t mean it is the right way or even works very well. Sometimes you need to reflect and do a gut check. Does this feel good?  Am I getting the value I need or want from the effort?

A new report by the Aspen Institute, Race and Gender Wealth Equity and the Role of Employee Share Ownership, urges the adoption of a series of initiatives to use employee ownership to address race and gender inequality.

On March 31, the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership (EFES) reported on the state of employee ownership in Europe in 2020 in its annual report on employee ownership in European countries. Author Marc Mathieu notes that “the upward trend in the number of employee shareholders continues,” but also that it may be in danger in Europe as it becomes “less and less democratic.”

On April 16, the NCEO’s preconference sessions will give you a chance to dig in and make headway on one single employee ownership issue. You can go into more depth than in a conference sessions without devoting a whole workday.

We are pleased to announce the opening of our spring 2021 CEPI Exam Prep Course and the NCEO's participation in the upcoming 17th Annual CEPI and Silicon Valley NASPP Symposium.

On February 25th, I sat down with Onex, Inc. President Ashleigh Walters, who shared her ESOP story.

In its report "A Job Quality Agenda for the Next Administration," the Aspen Institute, a leading nonpartisan think tank, joined the Center for American Progress, Council of Economic Advisors member Jared Bernstein, and others to “Promote employee ownership and worker cooperative models, which have been shown to have a positive association with quality jobs, by offering technical assistance and access to appropriate financing to support transitions to employee ownership, as well as new business development that includes some form of employee ownership."

Forty-six of the 78 companies that have stock on the recently released Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2020 have some form of broad-based employee ownership plan, the highest percentage yet.