NCEO Releases Updated Count of ESOP and ESOP-Like Plans
Executive Director
The number of ESOPs as of the end of 2013 was 6,795, with 10.6 million active plan participants and $1.23 trillion in plan assets. The estimated number of plans is 1.6% lower than the NCEO's official count for the end of 2012, but there is a slight uptick in the number of active participants, and the value of plan assets has been trending up.
Public companies, including lightly traded companies, represent 8% of ESOPs and around 79% of plan participants.
ESOP-like plans include profit sharing plans invested primarily in company stock and stock bonus plans that include substantial holdings of company stock. Both need to have at least five active participants to be counted. The number of these plans is 2,528 as of year-end 2013, covering 1.2 million total participants and $64 billion in plan assets.
Many of these numbers are in our newly updated Statistical Profile of Employee Ownership online, and more tables will be our January-February newsletter newsletter for members, the Employee Ownership Report.