From Minn Post:

A decade ago, John Schock of Pasadena, Md., reached his mid-50s and a crossroads. He could fund his retirement by selling off his financial-services firm to another company. But he wanted to assure the future of FMS, the firm he’d founded in 1974.

“If there isn’t a solid succession plan for key management and staff, then a company can fail after the founder leaves,” Mr. Schock says.

So he took the unconventional route: He sold FMS to his workers, all 35 of them, by creating a tax-advantaged Employee Stock Ownership Plan. They got 30 percent of the company in 2000 and the rest last year. “We picked the ESOP option because over time it does create more of an entrepreneurial environment than the employer-employee environment,” says Schock, who remains the CEO.

It’s a pattern that could ripple throughout the economy as baby-boomer business owners near retirement. Since 1975, the number of employee-owned companies in the United States has grown from 1,600 to more than 11,000; they now represent about 12 percent of the private-sector workforce

Get the full story here:

https://www.minnpost.com/business-agenda/2010/03/esops-employee-ownership-companies-rise/