Employee Ownership Blog

We are starting to compile a list of companies that ESOP companies have acquired in recent years. The list will eventually be used to give people who are doing this examples and for research on how ESOP acquisitions fare compared to acquisitions in general.

A second large staffing company has become almost 100% ESOP-owned. Burnett Staffing has almost 7,100 employees. The Houston-based company decided to become an ESOP after hearing about Penmac Staffing in Springfield, Mo., which has about 14,000 employees.

Principal Financial has produced a very useful booklet reviewing some of the best ideas of the 10 winners of the 2010 Principal Financial Ten Best Small and Mid-Sized Companies for Employee Financial Security. ESOP companies Clif Bar and RLI were winners this year.

Early signs are that our 2011 annual conference in Denver on April 13-15 will be one of the biggest we have had but, more important, I think it will also be one of the best.

One of the most comprehensive and convincing studies to date on the effect of broad-based option plans on company performance was released in November. Yael V. Hochberg of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and Laura Lindsey at the W. P.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) will hold a public hearing on March 1, 2011 and if necessary, March 2, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

The Web site mystockoptions.com has published a valuable analysis of how the new tax law will affect equity compensation practices and administration.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (often referred to as the president's deficit commission) has suggested as an "illustrative" tax reform that Congress should "consolidate retirement accounts; cap tax-preferred contributions to the lower of $20,000 or 20% of income, [and

The National Center for Employee Ownership has posted a response to the Department of Labor proposal to define ESOP appraisers as plan fiduciaries. The response can be found at this link.

One of the most popular articles on our Web site is Twelve Bogus Reasons Not to Do an ESOP (and Seven Good Ones).

There is a lot of buzz in the equity world these days about "performance awards," a term of art, not law, that usually means that either an equity award (typically restricted stock or a stock option) is vested, or sometimes granted, only if certain performance targets are met.