Rob Schatz said, "With the rapidly increasing use of the
employee stock ownership plan to facilitate the transfer of companies to their employees, it is important for corporate boards and ESOP trustees to understand the obligations that they owe to the employee owners of the business."
Employee stock ownership plans open the door to multiple opportunities for financial advisors.
In that case, participants in an
employee stock ownership plan alleged that the plan fiduciaries breached their duties when they continued to invest in the employer's stock after the discovery of errors in the company's pricing of stock options and accounting deficiencies that led to a large drop in the stock price, resulting in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in retirement savings to employees and retirees.
Although
employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) have been in existence since 1974, they are still not widely understood to be an attractive option for many companies.
BLS: Bureau of Labor Statistics ESOP:
Employee Stock Ownership Plan NCEO: National Center for Employee Ownership PAYSOPs: Payroll-based Stock Ownership Plan
Employee stock ownership plans added 865,000 employees to new and existing plans last year, according to an estimate by the National Center for Employee Ownership.
Glassman said, "I hope that this legislation will encourage the creation of
Employee Stock Ownership Plans throughout Connecticut to benefit the Connecticut economy, the Connecticut business environment and, most importantly, the employees that work at these ESOP owned companies."
The number of
employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), as of the end of 2013, was 6,795, with 10.6 million active plan participants and $1.23 trillion in plan assets, according to an analysis by the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), released in December 2015.
Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) typically secure large blocks of life insurance on key executives and owners to protect the ESOP from a loss due to the premature death of a selling shareholder.
Technically, the first phase of this project addresses accounting for equity-based compensation transactions with employees other than
employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs).
To qualify for nonrecognition treatment, transfers must meet the requirements of IRC section 1042, Sales of Stock to
Employee Stock Ownership Plans or Certain Corporations.