Employee Ownership Blog
Corey Rosen

Corey Rosen

Wisconsin Bill Would Provide Tax Incentives for Employee Ownership Feasibility and Conversion

Wisconsin Assembly Bill 1217 would have provided that the “Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation may certify a business to claim a nonrefundable income tax credit for an amount equal to 70 percent of costs related to converting the business to a worker-owned cooperative or 50 percent of the costs related to converting the business to an employee ownership trust or an employee stock ownership plan. The credit is limited to a maximum amount of $100,000.” The bill would also have provided a state capital gains tax exemption for sales to ESOPs, worker cooperatives, or employee ownership trusts.

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Corey Rosen

Bipartisan Bill Extends ESOP Company DoD Procurement Program to All Agencies

In 2022, the National Defense Authorization Act created the first-ever government contracting program to specifically encourage ESOPs. Section 874 of the new law created a Department of Defense (DoD) pilot program to allow companies that are or become 100% ESOP-owned to receive noncompete follow-on contracts for their work. The award is contingent on finding that the contractor’s performance is satisfactory or better. The program will run for five years, and the Government Accountability Office is required to provide an assessment of it within three years of the program’s enactment.

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Corey Rosen

Twenty-Eight of the Largest 200 Private Companies Have EO or Similar Plans

By my estimation, twenty-eight of the Forbes 200 largest private companies (by revenue) appear to be partially or wholly employee-owned or have employee ownership-like plans. Two are companies with profit-sharing plans invested in company stock, one is a broad-based partnership, one offers phantom stock to all employees, one is an ownership trust, one grants stock awards, eight are minority-owned by ESOPs, and fourteen are majority-owned by ESOPs:

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Corey Rosen

Bob Moore, Iconic Founder of Bob's Red Mill, Passes Away at Age 94

Bob Moore, the familiar face on the growing line of Bob’s Red Mill products, passed away at age 94. His death received national news coverage, including in the New York Times, USA Today, People, and many others. Moore sold the company to an ESOP in 2010, with the ESOP reaching 100% ownership in 2020. It has grown spectacularly since becoming ESOP-owned, with over 700 employees and over $100 million in sales from 200-plus products in over 70 countries. Many stores have Bob’s Red Mill sections. Along with equally iconic King Arthur Baking, the two 100% ESOP companies have become major players in their markets, with loyal customer bases.

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Corey Rosen

What If Amazon Shared Ownership the Way Sears Did?

For those of a certain age (like me), Sears was the Amazon of its day. You could get almost anything but food in a Sears catalogue, and its stores were ubiquitous. My first house in the San Francisco Bay area was built in 1906 with plans from Sears. Early in his life my dad sold shoes for Sears. Back then, Sears put in 10% of pay into a profit-sharing plan that owned Sears stock. Contributions were based on years of service. If a salesman worked for Sears for decades, they could walk away with what would be worth over $1 million today. My dad didn’t stay long, but he sometimes mused about what might have happened. Sears ended the plan in the 1970’s, although it briefly had an ESOP in the 1980s as it was trying to find its way back in a changing retail landscape.

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Corey Rosen

Oxfam Report Recommends Support for Employee Ownership

Oxfam, a nonprofit focusing on hunger and other poverty-rated issues, issued a report that includes a number of recommendations, one of which is “providing financial support to employee-owned businesses, including worker cooperatives. This includes the implementation of ILO [International Labour Organization] Recommendation no.193 on promoting cooperatives and relevant regional instruments.” That recommendation, which is specific to cooperatives, "provides non-binding guidelines in drafting and/or revising national policy and legislation."

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Corey Rosen

Court Says Plan Remedies Must Be Exhausted Before Lawsuit Can Be Filed

In a potentially important ruling, a district court has dismissed a case against the defendants at Inland Fresh Seafood Company because the plaintiffs did not first exhaust the administrative remedies for complaints provided by the plan. In Bolton v. Inland Fresh Seafood Employee Stock Ownership Plan, No. 1:22-cv-04602-AT (N.D. Ga. Dec. 5, 2023), the plaintiffs contended that a 2016 $92 million sale to the ESOP was overpriced. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants (including the independent trustee) and sellers to the ESOP (all of whom were executives of the company) and the executives each were acting as fiduciaries. The suit alleged the executives had already received multiple bids for the company at lower prices. The plaintiffs alleged that management provided the appraiser with highly unrealistic projections about significant increases in revenues and profits, which they alleged were accepted to provide a higher than fair value. The plaintiffs said the defendants sought multiple valuations for the stock and accepted the highest one.

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