Employee Ownership Blog

In Binita L. Cook et. al. v. Boyd F. Campbell, No. 2:01cv1425-ID (M.D. Ala., May 5, 2008), a district court ruled that a previously decided ESOP case could not be reopened in light of the new legal standard set out in LaRue v.

On May 1, after many years of uncertainty, final rules were issued by the U.S. Cost Accounting Standards Board for reimbursing ESOP companies for contributions to their plans. The final rules are very favorable to companies.

The New York Times (May 29, 2008) ran a detailed front-page look at a lawsuit by workers at U.S. Sugar.

The NCEO is one of the cosponsors of the Second Annual "Ownership Thinking" conference, hosted by Brad Hams, an NCEO board member and founder of the consulting firm Ownership Thinking.

Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock has introduced a program to encourage banks to loan to ESOPs. The state will buy certificates of deposit from those institutions at reduced rates, increasing their funds available to loan.

Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) have introduced House Concurrent Resolution 333, which states, "Congress expresses its continued support for employee stock ownership plans." The resolution notes that "there have been ample data collected by objective research indicating that th

A frequently repeated and never-documented claim by many compensation professionals is that broad-based equity plans don't work.

The NCEO is conducting a survey of equity compensation practices in closely held companies. If your company provides stock options, phantom stock, stock appreciation rights, restricted stock, or similar awards to one or more employees, we hope you can take our new, brief survey on this issue.

Winning Workplaces is a nonprofit organization that, along with the Wall Street Journal, names the top 15 workplaces for companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Five of the 2007 winners are employee-owned (all NCEO members), and some of the remaining 10 are considering setting up plans.

The National Center for Employee Ownership is conducting a survey of equity practices in private companies. It will be the only survey that looks at this issue in a broad group of companies, rather than just high-tech companies or the clients of compensation consultants.

A great book to help your internal communications process is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. The book posits six key principles of sticky messages. They should be:

Should the ESOP repurchase obligation affect stock value? More and more trustees believe it should. Not to reflect this value means the ESOP is arguably overpaying for shares of departing employees because the company's projected earnings do not reflect the emerging obligation.