Find Your Resource

This article is based on a recent NCEO webinar by Ted Becker and Allison Egan of McDermott, Will & Emery.

A common theme we hear from members is the difficulty of hiring and retaining great employees. At the NCEO Fall Forum in September, I had the opportunity to work with Jesse Tyler from Hypertherm on a workshop designed to address some of the challenges.

The Main Street Employee Ownership Act is very likely to become law soon (and may already be by the time you read this). It would be the first pro-employee ownership law in 21 years.

This year’s NCEO Fall Forum provided learning opportunities for the employee ownership community in a virtual setting, and learn we did.

During the global COVID-19 crisis, employee-owned Litehouse, Inc.

In November of 1980, I went down to a 10 x 10 room with a typewriter and desk (there were no PCs then) and said “this is the National Center for Employee Ownership.” Earlier that month, I lost my job on the Senate Small Business Committee staff because the committee chair lost his election and hi

Most ESOP companies are openbook to one extent or another. Leadership knows that sharing, tracking, and using the numbers is essential to any ownership culture. It’s not enough, though, just to share top-line results.

While many employee-owned companies with great workplace cultures achieve tremen

The Main Street Employee Ownership Act of 2018 was intended to make it easier for companies wanting to use an ESOP for a business transition loan to get SBA financing through the SBA’s preferred lender program (the “7(a) program” that allows qualifying banks to make SBA guaranteed loans). The SBA, unfortunately, issued standard operating procedures that directly subverted the law. The guidance said loans could not be made through the 7(a) program but had to navigate the more cumbersome process of going through the SBA itself. It required a 10% equity stake to be held outside the ESOP, a personal guarantee from the seller, a valuation done separately for the SBA, and a letter of determination. In short, the rules made the program almost unusable—and hardly any loans were made.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, an omnibus spending bill with many parts, contains major wins for employee ownership as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. (The original SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement] Act was passed in 2019.)