Find Your Resource

Maybe employee ownership is catching on, at least as a way to help finance troubled companies. Financier Kirk Kerkorian has proposed sharing ownership with union workers at Chrysler in return for their agreeing to changes in health care costs. The UAW did not respond.

Knight Kiplinger, editor in chief of the widely read Kiplinger letters, has urged that to fix excessive CEO pay, companies should start spreading ownership to all employees. Kiplinger says his "personal favorite" approach is the ESOP, but he would also favor granting options to all employees.

Kiwi International Airlines is the only major airline started as an employee-owned firm.

Pete Stavros, a partner and co-head of private equity for the Americas at KKR, the third-largest private equity fund in the world, told the Wall Street Journal that he and his wife plan to contribute $10 million to launch the Center for Shared Ownership.

How can you find out if employee-owners understand the technical aspects of your ESOP? The NCEO has developed the Know Your ESOP Quiz, a 10-item questionnaire that measures employees' understanding of important aspects of how ESOPs work.

Participants in Kodak's 401(k) and ESOP filed a class action lawsuit in 2012 after the Kodak stock in their accounts became worthless due to Kodak's bankruptcy, and on April 27 a federal district court judge approved a $9.7 million settlement.

Korea has long had laws that provide incentives for companies and employees to buy shares in their companies, but a recent article in the Korea Times notes that the government recently a

Korea has created the framework for a new employee ownership law. Under existing law, Korea has an employee stock purchase program not unlike those in the U.S. Take-up on the plan, however, is light.

T.

Some expenses of ERISA plans, including ESOPs and 401(k) plans, can be paid for by the plan. In Advisory Opinion 2001-01A, the Pension Welfare Benefit Administration (PWBA) has issued new guidance on when the plan can pay for various tax qualification and other plan functions.