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When a company uses debt to finance an ESOP, there is a loan to the company (the external loan) and a loan from the company to the ESOP trust (the internal loan).

At its recent convention, the Massachusetts Democratic Party gave an overwhelming endorsement of employee ownership, joining with the platforms of the Texas Republican Party and the Republican National Committee Party Platform.

The pandemic and shutdowns provided an opportunity to examine how businesses dealt with a once-in-a-generation economic shock. There is strong reason to believe that employee ownership is a key factor in how businesses and employees fared in this turbulent time.

Employee ownership in medical, dental, and veterinary practices is rare, but three companies are pointing to ways that can change.

ESOP companies are often on the lookout for helpful communication and education resources to support onboarding, training and development, and building an ownership culture. This may be true for companies newly on their ESOP journey, more than 20 years in, or somewhere in between. What do you communicate, when do you communicate, and how do you communicate? These are common questions that arise for ESOPs throughout their life cycles.

By Doug Eisenbrandt, Merrick Corporate Treasurer Merrick’s employee ownership journey started at the beginning of our company, with founder Sears Merrick. Merrick is a Colorado-based engineering company with over 700 employees.

New data from the Department of Labor shows 6,482 ESOPs operating in the U.S., covering 13.9 million participants. The number of unique companies with an ESOP is 6,257 (a company may sponsor multiple plans).

The Department of Labor has posted the latest filing data, which covers plan year 2021. The data includes a total of 6,533 ESOPs filing for 2021 covering 14.7 million participants holding over $2.1 trillion in total assets.

For lots of companies, it can be frustrating to announce an ESOP, or periodically remind people what a great benefit this is, and seemingly get little response from some significant part of the workforce.

If your company is not sharing ownership widely with employee ownership, it should. Don’t just take my word for it.