2019 Fall ESOP Forum
2020 Fall ESOP Forum

2020 Fall ESOP Forum

September 15-16, 2020 (preconference September 14)

Get the information, ideas, and advice you need to take the next step in your ESOP.

Join more than 500 employee-owners and ESOP experts for the Fall ESOP Forum, a two-day seminar featuring hands-on workshop learning with your peers, practical advice from experts, and sessions on the latest updates in legislation, research, and communication and culture. With more than 40 sessions, networking events, and consulting opportunities to choose from, this experience brings the educational value of our annual conference to a more intimate and focused setting.

Webinar

Re-Thinking Your ESOP Plan Design and Operations

July 7, 2020
As ESOPs mature, the rules they started out with for distributions, allocations, vesting, participation, rebalancing shares, account segregation, and other issues may no longer be optimal. You may also want to change plan providers, including appraisers or hiring an institutional trustee. This webinar will explore what the law allows and requires you to do when making plan changes.
Webinar

ESOP Audits and Investigations

July 14, 2020
ESOPs are complicated and it is inevitable that some companies will make mistakes. Finding and correcting those mistakes yourself can save time and trouble, and the experts in this webinar will help you prevent any audits from becoming complicated, to find errors, and to decide the best way to address those errors yourself before the regulators get involved.
Webinar

Don't Do That With Your ESOP

July 21, 2020
ESOPs benefit employees, sellers, and the organization's bottom line - in most companies. From time to time, mistakes with an ESOP have caused legal problems for the company, personal loss to plan fiduciaries, and damaged morale. This session will cover a variety of "anti-case studies" and discuss different ways companies can avoid problems before they arise.
Webinar

Lessons from Recent Litigation

July 28, 2020
An understanding of recent developments in litigation brought by ESOP participants and the DOL, and in DOL investigations and IRS audits, can help to avoid problems with regulators and to be prepared to deal with trouble if it comes. Join members of the McDermott Will & Emery ESOP Litigation team for a discussion of the lessons all ESOP owned companies, fiduciaries and advisors should be focusing on in 2020.
Webinar

Equity Compensation for LLCs

August 4, 2020
LLCs require specific forms of equity compensation. This webinar looks at the forms of equity available for LLCs, including capital interests, profits interests, unit rights plans, and unit appreciation rights plans.
Webinar

Using Employee Surveys to Improve Your Ownership Culture

August 11, 2020
ESOPs can transform businesses into high-performance organizations. But to do that, companies need to find ways to fully engage employee owners and develop an effective ownership culture. Employee surveys are a good way to engage employees and gauge their perspectives on the fundamental aspect of your ownership culture and what needs to be done to move forward. 
Webinar

ESOP Overview: An Introduction to ESOPs

August 18, 2020
This session is an overview of the main features of employee stock ownership plans. It is appropriate for people familiar with basic business and finance topics  but new to ESOPs and for those responsible for ESOP Communication.
Webinar

The Repurchase Obligation: Forecasting

August 25, 2020
This webinar provides a basic understanding of the process of completing a repurchase forecast and the factors and assumptions that affect the outcome of forecast, including the impact of specific plan provisions (such as distribution timing and segregating accounts), the impact of the distribution mechanics (recycling vs. redeeming), and interplay between the stock value and the repurchase obligation.
Webinar

The Repurchase Obligation: Financing

September 1, 2020
There are several ways to finance the repurchase obligation, including "pay-as-you-go" funding, pre-funding, paying dividends/S corporation distributions, corporate-owned life insurance, and incurring debt, i.e., releveraging the ESOP. The methods for handling repurchased shares, i.e., redeeming or recycling, will also be discussed. This webinar will cover the mechanics as well as the pros and cons of each.
Webinar

The Repurchase Obligation: Legal Issues

September 8, 2020
Closely held ESOP companies have a specific legal obligation to buy back stock from departing and diversifying employees. This webinar will describe these requirements and explore than various alternative approaches you can use on such issues as the timing, form, and requirements for distributions, including lump-sum versus installment payments, account segregation at termination, changing when the distribution occurs, diversification requirements, what valuation to use, and more.