Billionaire tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban has proposed a solution for income inequality that doesn't involve dismantling capitalism: Business owners should give all their employees equity.
Read MoreWealth inequality is gearing up to be a major issue in the 2020 election and one possible solution growing in popularity is the idea of employee ownership.
Read MoreJoseph Blasi, Rutgers University; Douglas L. Kruse, Rutgers University, and Maureen Conway, Rutgers University
Read MoreVermont Business Magazine Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), along with Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced two pieces of legislation to help workers around the country form employee-owned businesses. The WORK Act – modeled on the success of the Vermont Employee Ownership Center – would provide more than $45 million in funding to states to establish and expand employee ownership centers, which provide training and technical support for programs promoting employee ownership. The bill is also co-sponsored by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and was introduced in the House by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
Read MoreDaily Herald's parent company diversifies to offset print declines.
Read MoreAlloy Engineering, founded in 1943 in a Rocky River home, fabricates alloy parts for high-temperature and corrosive-resistant industrial applications. It also boasts Ohio's first Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, established in 1974. The plan is recognized as the first for an Ohio company by the Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC). At 45 years old, it's also the long- est-running ESOP in the state.
Read MoreWASHINGTON, May 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Miklos Systems Inc. (MSI) of Fairfax, VA has won The ESOP Association's highest corporate honor—the ESOP Company of the Year Award. The award honors a company that actively participates in the employee ownership community and that demonstrates a dedication to The ESOP Association's vision of employee participation, wealth creation, and individual dignity and worth.
Read MoreRutgers analysis finds workers in firms with employee share ownership build greater wealth and they are six times less likely to be laid off
Read MoreWASHINGTON, May 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Janet Edmunson, founder of JME Insights in South Portland, ME, has been named the 2019 Life Service Award winner by The ESOP Association. The Life Service Award honors individuals who've made a significant, long-term contribution to employee ownership and the ESOP community.
Read MoreAdvanced Drainage Systems, Inc. (NYSE: WMS) ("ADS" or the "Company"), a leading global manufacturer of water management products and solutions for commercial, residential, infrastructure and agricultural applications, today announced its Board of Directors has approved a special cash dividend of $1.00 per share as well as a quarterly cash dividend on ADS common stock of $0.09 per share.
Read MoreTaking cues from Colorado, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Iowa, New Jersey, and Virginia, all of which have recently enacted legislation supporting and encouraging the establishment of ESOPs, the states of Texas, Indiana, and Nebraska are now moving forward with their own pro-ESOP initiatives.
Nebraska Law Allows ESOPs to Own CPA Firms
A new study from Rutgers University's Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, funded by the WK Kellogg Foundation, titled Building the Assets of Low and Moderate Income Workers and their Families: The Role of Employee Ownership, was released last month. Authored by Janet Boguslaw of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis and Lisa Schur at Rutgers, the study finds that being an employee-owner in an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)-owned company can have life-changing effects.
Read MoreCanfield & Tack and Cohber Press have announced their intentions to merge their Rochester, N.Y.-based printing companies effective June 1, offering clients commercial printing, collateral management, direct mail and digital marketing solutions. Employees of Cohber will become employee-owners at Canfield & Tack and all operations will be consolidated into Cohber's existing 84,000-sq.-ft. production facility located at 1000 John St. in Henrietta, N.Y.
Read MoreKeHE Distributors (KeHE) announced today that it has completed comprehensive review to find a strategic capital partner for growth, replacing a longtime minority shareholder. TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P. (TowerBrook), an international investment management firm, has become a shareholder in KeHE and has committed additional capital for future growth.
Read MoreDOL Enforcement Actions Fewer Since 2013 due to "Much" Better Industry Compliance
Read MoreGovernment contractor Parsons ( PSN ) plans to raise $500 million in the week's second-largest offering. The company has solid growth, a large market opportunity, an outstanding governance structure. Parsons is owned by its more than 15,000 employees through an employee stock ownership plan; the ESOP actually took the company private in 1984. The last government contractor was a micro-cap in 2014 (Sysorex), and before that Booz Allen in 2010.
Read MoreRutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing Completes Three-Year Research Project Supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Read MoreMatt Wienke started his professional-services consulting company Infoverity from scratch, building it into a company with clients around the world.
Read MoreStewart's Shops Partners have received their profit sharing statements. Existing ESOP accounts received approximately 13% growth on their existing accounts including over 6% in dividends.
Read MoreESOP fiduciaries did not breach their duty to prudently manage plan assets by failing to attempt to persuade officers of the plan sponsor from making affirmative misrepresentations that they knew, based on inside information, artificially inflated the value of the company stock, according to a federal trial court in Texas. The corrective course of action suggested by the plan participants, the court determined was not so clearly beneficial that a prudent fiduciary could not conclude that it would be more likely to harm the fund than to help it. The court affirmed the strict pleading standard followed in the Fifth Circuit, while distinguishing a contrary ruling from the Second Circuit.
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