Corey Rosen
Employee Ownership Blog
Timothy Garbinsky
Apis & Heritage Receives 2025 Skoll Award for Social Innovation
Apis & Heritage Capital Partners has been named the recipient of a Skoll Foundation Award for Social Innovation. The award, which includes a $2 million prize, "shines a light on the extraordinary leaders and organizations advancing transformational social change to create a more sustainable, peaceful, and prosperous world for all," according to a recent press release for the award.
Kimberly McCourtney
Why Financial Literacy Matters More Than Ever
Financial literacy isn’t a luxury—it’s an essential. It gives people the tools to make smart decisions, build independence, and move toward the goals that matter most to them. As the saying goes, without knowing, there can be no doing.
Corey Rosen
New Report Details Employee Ownership in Europe
The Annual Economic Survey of Employee Share Ownership in European Countries, 2024 (PDF) from the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership shows that while the number of employee share plans has increased, the percentage of employees participating in these plans has decreased somewhat. The report is primarily focused on large publicly traded companies in Europe. Most of the plans that are broad-based are some form of stock purchase plan. The report says that 6.7 million employees participate in employee ownership plans in Europe, or about one in five employees in all large public companies. Nonmanagement employees own an average of 1.7% of the shares in these companies.
The report notes that since 2014, when the European Parliament passed legislation that provided a tax exclusion for sales to employee ownership trusts (EOTs), 2,100 EOTs have been set up, including 600 in 2024 alone. These companies employ about 150,000 employees. That means the rate of EOT formation in the UK is growing several times as fast as ESOPs are in the US when the relative sizes of the two countries are taken into account. The UK EOT model has simpler rules than the US ESOP model. Employees participating in EOTs are not owners in the conventional sense of the term, however. Instead the trust is designed to be a permanent owner, with employees getting dividends or profit sharing from the company.
The report also finds that there are 762 privately held companies that have more than 100 employees and are employee-owned, 261 of which are UK EOTs and most of the rest of which are worker cooperatives across the continent.
Megan Bonwell
Is an ESOP Right for You? Brings Top Employee Ownership Experts to San Diego
This July, the NCEO will host Is an ESOP Right for You? in San Diego, bringing together leading experts to explore ESOPs as a succession strategy. The two-day event (July 14–15, 2025) at Hotel Republic features an impressive lineup of speakers with diverse backgrounds in employee ownership.
Corey Rosen
Matthew Licina
WA Bill Would Eliminate State’s Employee Ownership Program
Facing a budget deficit, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson is looking to potentially eliminate the state’s employee ownership program, which just got underway in 2024 and is similar to one in Colorado. Representative Adison Richards, a Democrat, has introduced HB 2407, a bill that would eliminate the program and its funding.
Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks
New ESOP B2BPlatform Launched
My colleagues and I at the NCEO are often asked to help connect companies to each other. Whether connecting business owners to ESOP sellers; connecting HR directors, CFAs, or ESOP communication committees to their peers; or identifying potential ESOP company-made holiday gifts, we've tried to help bridge those gaps wherever possible.
Kimberly McCourtney
Recent Insights from the NCEO HR Peer Network Survey
Employee-owned companies offer a unique workplace experience in which benefits extend beyond just salary and traditional perks. Because employee-owners have a stake in the company’s success, businesses structured this way often prioritize employee well-being, financial security, and professional growth.
Corey Rosen
EBSA Nominee Previously Urged ERISA Litigation Reform
In Why Does the Department of Labor Allow ERISA Regulation Through Litigation By Plaintiff Lawyers?, a September 2024 post on his private blog FID Guru, Daniel Aronowitz, the nominee to head the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), urged Congress to reform ERISA litigation rules. He wrote, “Congress must act with ERISA litigation reform. In the 1990s, the trial bar was filing frivolous securities fraud cases against public companies, using investors with as little as one share of stock. Congress acted with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (PSLRA), creating a higher pleading standard to combat securities fraud abuse. It has not been a perfect solution, but at least Congress tried to reduce frivolous litigation.”