Employee Ownership Blog

For the 2011-2012 academic year, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations will host three sets of fellowships for doctoral students; recent Ph.D.

Over the last few years, one-third of the winners of the Winning Workplaces awards have gone to NCEO members and employee ownership companies (all the winning employee ownership companies have been members, it turns out). The process for self-nomination is open again.

We are very pleased to announce that the NCEO will be growing by adding a new staff position sometime this spring. We are looking for someone who can do research, writing, and project management. Good presentation skills would be a plus.

The NCEO has published its annual update of employee ownership in large public companies, the most detailed analysis of its kind. Of the companies included in the Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500 index of the largest U.S.

We get a lot of questions here about all sorts of technical issues, and occasionally one stumps not just us but even some of the experts we ask.

Institutional Shareowner Services (ISS), which provides widely followed advice to institutional investors on corporate governance matters, has issued its 2011 policy guidelines, including a new policy encouraging companies to hold annual say-on-pay votes for management.

We have heard of more ESOP companies using "kaizen" management. It can be a great fit for employee ownership companies. For those of you who have been afraid to ask just what someone means by this at the latest cocktail party you attended, here is a brief explanation:

In Neil v. Zell, GreatBanc Trust, and EGI-TRB, No. 08 C 6833 (N.D. Ill., Eastern Division, Nov.

The IRS has announced that there was not enough inflation to trigger changes in the various limits on annual contributions and annual additions in defined contribution plans, and that definitions for highly compensated employees and the amount over which ESOP distributions can be paid out in more

Many companies with qualified retirement plans, including ESOPs, have nonqualified retirement plans for certain employees as well, usually because the contribution limits for qualified plans may exclude some of their compensation.

An ESOP has purchased all but a fractional percentage of Penmac Staffing Services in Springfield, Mo. The company employs over 15,700 people, has 26 branch locations in various states, and provides administrative and professional staffing for a wide variety of companies.

Monika Templeton, director of employee plans examination, told an IRS phone forum that about half of all 401(k) plans that have been audited have errors in calculating compensation and that stock option and ESPP exercises cause one of the most common problems.