European Employee Ownership Rebounds

The European Federation of Employed Shareholders (EFES) reported on March 8 that 2017 "was a new record year for employee share ownership in Europe, with nearly €400 billion [$500 USD] held by employees in their company or 3.2%."

The author, Marc Mathieu, wrote that "86.6% of all large European companies have employee share plans. Their number increased by 3 to 4% on average each year since 2006, a solid growth. The rise is back for the number of employee shareholders, with 7.5 million people in large European companies. If we add one million employee shareholders in SMEs [small and medium enterprises], the total figure reaches 8.5 million." Most plans are share purchase plans, often with a match or discount and, in some cases, tax benefits.

EFES also reports that 51.7% of the plans are broad-based, with an average holding of €51,800 for non-executive employees in plans. All these data are from public companies except the estimated 1 million in SMEs.

The report also notes that after a period from 2009 to 2013 during which policy support for employee ownership weakened in several European countries, "policy decisions are positive again in most European countries," including a rebound in France, where 37% of employees at large companies now own shares in those companies, up from 35% in 2015.

The full report is available online (PDF).