Ramona Rodriguez-Brooks
As a proud UC San Diego alumna, I’m excited that NCEO is partnering with Beyster Initiatives at the Rady School of Management to conduct three separate courses for ESOP company leaders and professional advisors. UC San Diego, known equally for its academic rigor as its beautiful coastal campus, is an excellent fit for education in our employee ownership community.
Corey Rosen
The Rhode Island Senate unanimously passed S. 2922, which would create the Rhode Island Center for Employee Ownership (RICEO). According to the bill text, “the purpose of the RICEO will be to secure resources, provide technical assistance, and serve generally as a concierge service both to legacy business owners and worker owners interested in transitioning a small business to an appropriate employee-owned business model.” Worker cooperatives, ESOPs, and companies where a majority of the stock is owned by an employee ownership trust are all explicitly mentioned as examples of employee ownership, but the RICEO could provide assistance for other models.
Maria Lianos
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If one question can anchor a whole room for a 1.5-day workshop, it must be a pretty complex question.
Eva Lianos
We are thrilled to announce Shannon Litton as the keynote speaker for the 2026 NCEO Forum.
Corey Rosen
According to an analysis posted on X by Hill.com founder and CEO Andrew Benson, widely cited in the New York Times and other news outlets, more than 4,000 current and former employees of SpaceX now have more than $1 million in stock (400-plus having $100 million or more), and many others among SpaceX's 22,000 employees have large amounts of stock as well after the company’s record-breaking IPO.
Nancy Wiefek
All businesses face challenges in recruiting and retaining employees; however, there are very few sources focused solely on how ESOPs deal with these issues and how they use employee ownership specifically as leverage.
Corey Rosen
In 2024, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, funded by $2 million from the State Fiscal Year 2024 Appropriations Act, created a technical assistance program and outreach initiative led by Rutgers' Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing to promote employee ownership as a tool for business transition. Governor Phil Murphy proposed a $6 million fund for feasibility assistance grants for the program, but it was not approved. The $2 million program has been available to help defray the costs of feasibility studies.
Corey Rosen
A new NCEO paper, Why Selling to an ESOP Costs Less than Selling to Another Buyer: Breaking Down the Cost Differences (PDF; also see the embedded version below) takes a detailed look at the various cost components of selling to an ESOP versus selling to another buyer. The paper was based on conversations with multiple people involved in ESOPs and in exit planning generally. The bottom line is that selling to an ESOP usually costs between 2% and 4% of the transaction price, while selling to another buyer usually costs between 4% and 9%. Of course, these are general findings, and some deals cost less, while others cost more. The cost as a percentage of the transaction value is smaller in larger deals and in deals with less complex structures and financing.
Corey Rosen
The 2018 Main Street Employee Ownership Act made it much more practical for the SBA to guarantee bank loans under its 7(a) program for companies seeking to borrow money to buy out owners through an ESOP. After the law was passed, the SBA issued standard operating procedures that directly contradicted the law; however, by 2022 these issues were largely resolved, and banks started making loans under the 7(a) program.
