Before there was a craft brewery on every corner, there was Mass Bay Brewing Company. Founded on Boston's waterfront by Dan Kenary, Richard Doyle and George Ligeti, Mass Bay was in the vanguard of the current craft beer movement. A postgraduation trip to Europe in 1982 had introduced college friends Kenary and Doyle to the range of beer available outside the American market. Artisanal coffee and ice cream were surging in popularity back home, and the two thought they could do something similar with beer. After brief detours—Kenary tried his hand at banking in Chicago, and Doyle went to business school, where he met Ligeti—they reunited in Boston in 1986 to open Mass Bay.
Read MoreWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Parsons Corporation, a construction and engineering company known for building airports and subways, has filed paperwork for an initial public offering that would value the company at around $3 billion, three people familiar with the plan said.
Read MoreThe namesake founder and owner will be retired, but the Richard L. Bowen + Associates architecture and engineering firm will keep the name as employees conclude their purchase through an employee stock ownership plan.
Read MoreChuck & Don's, a pet-food retail chain with stores in four states, has been sold to a private equity-backed firm. New York City-based Independent Pet Partners (IPP) said it will create a co-headquarters location in the Twin Cities with members of the current Chuck & Don's team to help grow the other pet-store brands in its portfolio.
Read MoreLorain, Ohio-based Absolute Machine Tools announces that the company has been sold and is now owned by an Employee Stock Ownership Trust (ESOP), effective immediately. In the transaction, owners Steve and Courtney Ortner sold 100 percent of their ownership interest to a newly created ESOP, allowing current and future employees to gain a beneficial ownership interest in the company without any personal monetary investment.
Read MoreLed by industry veteran Andy MacGregor, 100% employee-owned general contracting firm to operate out of the West Loop
Read MoreEmployee ownership can boost workplace benefits and collaboration
Read MoreLiberalism is ascendant, at least in the Democratic Party. New Gallup polling just out shows that for the first time, more than half of Democrats identify as "liberal" as opposed to "moderate" or "conservative." The left's newly minted hero Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is becoming the right's new favorite foil. Her Green New Deal and amplification of Bernie Sanders' cry for Medicare for All are gaining a great deal of attention for their boldness as much as for their potential to bust the federal budget. Obama aide Jon Favreau argues that people "want ideas that are commensurate with the size of the challenges we're facing" rather than the incrementalism of compromise.
Read MoreThe ESOP Association (TEA) announced that James J. Bonham will assume the role of President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on March 1. Founded in 1978, TEA is America's largest national trade association focused on advancing employee ownership through the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) model.
Read MoreUnder a specific set of facts, a C-corporation sale to an ESOP may be able to utilize the tax provision benefits of combining Section 1202 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the "Code") and Code Section 1042. If those facts are present, a seller of stock in a leveraged ESOP transaction may be able to receive some proceeds tax-free while deferring the remaining tax on the sale.
Read MoreHILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – The Greenery was named the 2018 Employee Owned Company of the Year by the Carolinas Chapter of the national Employee Stock Ownership Plan Association for meeting the award's criteria.
Read MoreUnity of purpose is something most business owners strive for but ultimately struggle with. It can be difficult to bring people together without shared ideals and common goals, especially if most of the parties involved are primarily interested in a paycheck and little else.
Read MoreWhen Bob Whalen became president and CEO of HB McClure back in 2008, the employees were nervous. He was taking over from the grandson of Herbert Bassett McClure, who had founded the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning firm in 1914. The company, which serves both commercial and residential customers, had been profitable for a century. But Whalen says it wasn't running as well as it could. "At the time, our culture could best be described as focusing on the customer first," he says.
Read MoreWASHINGTON, Jan. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The ESOP Association, the only organization that advocates on behalf of all ESOP companies, applauds Senators Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) for introducing S. 177, titled The Promotion and Expansion of Private Employee Ownership Act. The bill is identical to S. 1589, which was introduced in the last session of Congress and which gained the support of 40 percent of the Senate.
Read MoreIn 2005, Mandy Cabot was set to sell Dansko, known for its closed-back wooden clogs, to Timberland for $150 million. She and her Danish husband, Peter Kjellerup, had built the company from scratch starting in 1990, importing clogs from Denmark and marketing them to customers in the U.S. who appreciated the shoes' comfort, durable construction and distinctive style.
Read MoreThe Nebraska legislature passed a bill, LB 49, that would authorize the ownership of public accounting firms by ESOPs. The ESOP could own up to 49% of the firm. The bill, introduced by John Stinner (R—Gering), passed Final Reading on Feb. 28 by a vote of 47-0 and was signed into law by Governor Pete Ricketts (R) on March 6. Most states already allow minority ESOP-owned CPA firms, and Minnesota allows majority ownership.
Read MoreThe South Tempe campus of the electrical contracting industry's largest employee-owned firm, Rosendin, rang in the new year by celebrating a milestone: 100 years in business.
Read MoreTwo likely Democratic presidential contenders in 2020 have made quiet strides in recent years to bring into vogue a little-known policy that could reduce economic inequality — one that harnesses current law to expand workers' ability to become owners in their place of employment.
Read MoreSteve Smith has a special place in his heart for the art of vacuuming. When he was cutting his teeth in the grocery store business in Virginia and Kentucky, Smith took solace in the fact that "going to the grocery store" was the only family task that ranked above vacuuming.
Read More