Business owners who want to generate liquidity for their ownership interests often look at selling to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) as the most attractive mechanism.
A commonly distressing experience for owners in a company with an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is that the price of the business as a whole is not the price the ESOP will actually pay.
Back in 1982, the National Center for Employee Ownership was in its second year. Our staff consisted of three people: Karen Young, myself, and an intern, Mike Yoffee. We thought it would be a good idea to have an employee ownership week.
According to the latest data available from the Department of Labor, there were 6,669 ESOPs covering 14.4 million participants and holding close to $1.3 trillion in plan assets as of the end of 2015.