Find Your Resource

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has reopened the question of whether shares held by an ESOP that are mandatorily redeemable upon the occurrence of an event certain to occur, such as death, termination, or retirement, should be accounted for as a liability rather than equity.

Members of the Financial Services Forum, a group of large financial services companies, have announced they will all expense options.

The editorial board of The Financial Times, the British equivalent of The Wall Street Journal, gave a ringing endorsement of employee ownership.

Many ESOP companies are looking to diversify their board membership but have a hard time knowing where to look. Board members tend to come from existing networks of CEOs, and tend to be older white males.

According to Erkki Helaniemi of Alexander Corporate Financing in Finland, 127 Finnish companies now offer stock options to most or all employees. Employees are taxed on the options only upon exercise, when they pay ordinary income tax rates. The company, however, does not get a tax deduction.

The annual Innovations in Employee Ownership Award is a new program jointly developed by the NCEO and the Beyster Institute to recognize outstanding achievement in innovative employee ownership practices.

In Acosta v. First Bankers Tr. Servs., Inc., No. 3:12-cv-04450-MAS-DES (D.N.J., consent order November 19, 2017), First Bankers Trust agreed to an $8 million settlement in a case alleging overvaluation of shares purchased by an ESOP at SJP Group.

In the wake of its loss in the federal District Court of New Jersey, First Bankers Trust announced in a May 8 open letter that it had "decided to suspend the engagement of our services for transactions related to new ESOPs," although it will "continue to provide our full compliment of services to

The first privatization of a federal agency to its employees will soon be completed. The newly formed US Investigations Services, Inc., will employ about 700 people currently working for the Office of Personnel Management's background investigation unit.

The Clinton administration promised to give a high priority to privatizing government operations through employee ownership. The first such effort is now underway for the Office of Federal Investigations (OFI) in the Office of Personnel Management.