Employee Ownership

Saalex Becomes Employee-Owned Company

Saalex Corp. has announced that the company is now owned by its employees through an employee stock ownership plan.

Employees of the Camarillo engineering and information technology services company will receive stock allocations annually that will vest over a period of time and increase in value as the company grows.

Chief Executive Travis Mack said that an

How employee ownership can prevent loss of beloved businesses and local jobs

As baby boomers age, the nearly 25 million jobs they have created nationwide are at risk. In Santa Clara County alone, roughly 15,000 boomer-owned businesses account for nearly 50% of private businesses that have employees, according to research by Project Equity. Only 15% will successfully pass to the second generation, and there will not be

Is employee ownership about to have a moment?

The move to advance employee ownership is gaining momentum. As employee-owned businesses have grown steadily over the last decade, demographic trends and a surge of interest in a more equitable economy have helped put these business structures on the national agenda.

One key factor is a phenomenon known as the ‘silver tsunami.’ An unprecedented number of

Sharing profits and ownership with workers not only make them happier, it benefits the bottom line too

Near-record low unemployment has companies fumbling to find the best ways to recruit and retain workers. Our research suggests a sure-fire way to do just that: give them a real stake.

By that we simply mean sharing some of the profits and even ownership with the men and women who are fundamental to their companies’ success.

Most Americans

Making it in Vermont: $140 million firm takes employee ownership seriously

You know the entrepreneur who can fix anything on the place with the materials at hand? That’s Proctor-based Carris Reels Inc., only on a different scale. Although the premise of the reel company is simple (“we make squares into circles,” as CEO Dave Ferraro puts it) there are parts involved, and most of those parts

The business of the future is ethical, sustainable, and employee-owned

You may not know it, but when you’re buying clothes from Eileen Fisher, you’re buying from an employee-owned company. Fisher founded the company in the early 1980s, but instead of going public, she sold 30% of the company to her own employees in 2006 (they now own 40%). That’s helped her keep the brand’s principles

Study: Employee Ownership Narrows Gender and Racial Wealth Gaps

In the first-ever national study of low-income and moderate-income workers at employee-owned companies, researchers discovered employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) enable families to significantly increase their assets, shrinking—though not eliminating—gender and racial wealth gaps. The research by the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing suggests employee ownership can reduce wealth

Huawei’s claim of 100% employee ownership false, may be state-owned

A recent research paper examining Huawei’s ownership structure published Monday refutes the company’s claim of being wholly owned by employees and says that the identity of the actual owners is unknown, and may potentially include the Chinese government. Authored by Donald Clarke of George Washington University and Christopher Balding of Fulbright University Vietnam, the report states

Using Employee Ownership to Build a More Equitable Future for Work

When the trash collectors of the 1930s (then known as “scavengers”) formed cooperatives to organize their work, they did so to meet an immediate and pressing need for better jobs. Their intervention in the labor market was a crisis response to market gaps. But they also laid out a vision and a set of principles

How Massachusetts is working to get retiring business owners to let their employees take over

Like every state in the U.S., Massachusetts is worried about what will happen when the baby boomer owners of thousands of small to midsize businesses reach retirement age, in what is being called the “silver tsunami.” Fewer and fewer small business owner now expect to pass their enterprise onto their children and many older entrepreneurs,

How Companies Survive And Thrive After The Founder Retires

We’re both planning to attend the annual conference of the National Center for Employee Ownership in Pittsburgh next week. The prospect got us thinking about employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs, which are even now one of the most misunderstood and underutilized devices in an entrepreneur’s toolkit.

Let’s review the bidding.

How An ESOP Made All The Difference For An Early Entrant Into The Craft Beer Business

Before there was a craft brewery on every corner, there was Mass Bay Brewing Company. Founded on Boston’s waterfront by Dan Kenary, Richard Doyle and George Ligeti, Mass Bay was in the vanguard of the current craft beer movement. A postgraduation trip to Europe in 1982 had introduced college friends Kenary and Doyle to

Uber’s Great Idea to Offer their Drivers Equity at IPO Price

Uber and Lyft, the two ride-hailing giants, both are planning initial public offerings of their stock. And both of them are doing something interesting: offering their most valuable drivers cash bonuses that can be exchanged for equity at the IPO price — giving them the opportunity to buy in on the same terms as the

From the big stage to the political arena: It’s time for employee ownership to get its closeup

Liberalism is ascendant, at least in the Democratic Party. New Gallup polling just out shows that for the first time, more than half of Democrats identify as “liberal” as opposed to “moderate” or “conservative.” The left’s newly minted hero Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is becoming the right’s new favorite foil.

How King Arthur Flour’s Unusual Leadership Structure Is Key To Its Success

In 2004, the leadership of King Arthur Flour gathered to formally sign over control from longtime owners Frank and Brinna Sands to the company’s employee stock ownership program (ESOP). The two had been gradually transferring shares in the Norwich, Vermont, flour maker to the ESOP since 1996 as part of a long-planned exit. Opposed

Why The Boss At HB McClure Sold The Company To His Employees

When Bob Whalen became president and CEO of HB McClure back in 2008, the employees were nervous. He was taking over from the grandson of Herbert Bassett McClure, who had founded the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning firm in 1914. The company, which serves both commercial and residential customers, had been profitable for

Making a Case (and Chairs, and Desks) for Employee Ownership

Employee-owned businesses tend to outperform their competitors, a growing body of research shows. According to the National Center of Employee Ownership, businesses with employee ownership models grow sales and employment at a faster rate than businesses without such programs. Employee-owned firms also perform better than their counterparts during recessions, per research from Georgetown University.

For companies

Support for Employee Ownership Climbs Nationally

Last year’s Main Street Employee Ownership Act, which authorized firms seeking to convert to employee ownership to access Small Business Administration partially-guaranteed loans of up to $5 million, was the first pro-employee ownership law passed by Congress in more than two decades. But, according to Rachel Cohen of the Intercept, the law may presage

Could Expanding Employee Ownership Be The Next Big Economy Policy?

TWO LIKELY DEMOCRATIC presidential contenders in 2020 have made quiet strides in recent years to bring into vogue a little-known policy that could reduce economic inequality — one that harnesses current law to expand workers’ ability to become owners in their place of employment.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., have worked to advance legislation on

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