Huawei Now the Second-Largest Employee-Owned Company in the World

The second-largest employee-owned company in the world is China's Huawei, a global provider of telecommunications networks. The 95,000-employee company is entirely owned by its Chinese employees, over 61,000 of whom hold a kind of restricted stock that must be sold back to the company at departure. Shares are held in a holding company and are awarded based on performance and position. The company says legal issues make it difficult to provide ownership to non-Chinese employees. Employee ownership is common in China, although good data on its exact extent is not available.