From Next City: Philadelphia and other cities across the U.S. face an impending wave of small business upheaval as Baby Boomer-era owners reach and pass retirement age. The majority of those owners have no clear succession plan, nor do they have a new generation ready and willing to assume ownership. As this “silver tsunami” approaches, […]
From Fast Company: Massachusetts wants to nudge these business owners toward another option: selling their companies to their employees. The state hired two nonprofits with expertise in shifting to employee ownership models–Working World and ICA Group–to revive its Office for Employee Involvement and Ownership (EIO), which was initially established in the late 1980s but faded […]
From Nonprofit Quarterly: Vartikar says that most small businesses choose one of three options when their owner retires: 1) sell to a competitor or institutional buyer, 2) pass the company on to their children, or 3) shut down entirely. Vartikar estimates that two-thirds of businesses end up closing down. Now, however, state and business officials […]
From the Boston Globe: he news: The Massachusetts Office of Business Development last month hired two consultants, ICA Group and Working Wealth, to revive the Massachusetts Office for Employee Involvement and Ownership. ICA and Working Wealth will be paid $150,000 to travel the state and preach the gospel of employee ownership — at events and in meetings with potential candidates […]
Davis Home Pros is a 15-person residential remodeling cooperative in Walnut Creek California. The selling owners had worked hard with employees to create a positive workplace culture centered around quality craftsmanship, customer service, and reasonable prices. About three years from retirement, they were looking for an innovative succession plan and committed to worker ownership. The […]
From Fifty by Fifty: Since 2012, CFNE has financed 15 co-op conversions including providing nine loans for business acquisitions and twelve working capital lines of credit to recently converted businesses. Some of our borrowers include: A Yard & A Half Landscaping Co-op, a largely immigrant co-op serving residences throughout the greater Boston area; Island Employee […]
From Home Health Care News: Home care agencies continue to grow in number as the population of older adults increases. However, as home care owners decide to retire themselves, they are sometimes permanently shutting down their operations, leaving a gap in the local economy and forcing workers who are happy in their roles to seek different […]
From NPQ: Typically, when US businesses think of employee ownership, the form that ownership takes is an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) company. The most up-to-date data (from 2015) finds that 10.8 million Americans work at an estimated 6,669 companies in which an ESOP owns all or part of the company. Because an ESOP is a federally regulated […]
Industry: Solar Location: California Number of employees: 80 Became employee owned: 2018 Assistance: ICA Group, Beyster Institute Learn more Sun Light & Power – California solar solutions provider, Sun Light & Power, becomes 100% employee owned Staubus – The Cooperative / ESOP Hybrid: The Best of Both (slides) North Bay Business Journal – Employee ownership embraced by […]
From Next City: Roughly 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day in the United States. They don’t all own small businesses, but their aging presents an opportunity for more workers to get the chance to own businesses and even build some wealth. Baby Boomers own the majority of small businesses, but only 17 percent of […]