- July 27, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
More than half of our country’s small businesses are owned by people over 55. Many are thinking of succession planning. If you’re in that group, you may have a built-in buyer: your employees. If so, your enterprise may be a good fit for an employee stock ownership plan.
These are more common than you may realize. According to the latest figures from the National Center for Employee Ownership, such plans, known as ESOPs, were at more than 6,300 companies in the United States, holding total assets of more than $1.4 trillion and covering 14 million employee-owners.
One is New Age Industries, a manufacturer of plastic and rubber tubing in Southampton, Bucks County. The company began setting up its ESOP plan back in 2006, with subsequent contributions of stock made over the next few years.
By 2019, Ken Baker, the company’s CEO, had decided to sell the entire firm to his workers.
“I asked myself if I should sell it to private equity, to my competitor, or…
