One Billion-Dollar Exit + Two States with Three EO Bills
EO+WD Weekend Newsletter Vol. 88
📝 Welcome Back! What We’re Writing:
Evan explores Anthropic’s long-term benefit trust and where it stands
Over on Di5W, Dr. Hand wrote up last week’s presentation: Can You Build a Company That Won’t Break Your Heart?
UT-Arlington student Danielle Myers wrote a cool follow-up: Machiavelli 2.0: Why Playing Nice Might Just Save Democracy
📢 News to Know
Anne Wallace Allen reports on the billion-dollar sale of employee-owned firm Vermont Information Processing
Project Equity shares its top 11 employee-ownership trends for 2025, including some recent EO-related legislation:
HB25-1021 in Colorado is a bipartisan bill that introduces a capital gains tax exclusion for sellers to EO-related plans and a tax deduction for cooperatives
In Indiana, Senate Bill 175 would establish a loan program and funding for transitions to employee ownership models. House Bill 1038 would require the state treasurer to establish a financing plan for companies
Two books were awarded for the advancement of economic democracy at the Rutgers Institute. Check them out here!
🔍 Research & Analysis
Harvey Koh and Laura Amaya of Dalberg examine how alternative ownership enterprises (AOEs) have been successful in the Global South
Rina Agarwala and Ahmed Mori examine union-cooperative collaborations, using the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India to analyze their benefits, challenges, and scale
Tej Gonza publishes research examining the US ESOP model and proposes the Slovenian ESOP model to address existing structural issues
Branislav Urosevic explores the transition of Grantbook, Canada’s first employee ownership trust (EOT), and why new capital gains tax laws may increase EOTs
Santhosh Ramdoss utilizes OpenAI’s new Deep Research tool to generate a report on employee ownership in small and medium-sized businesses
The Employee Federation of Employee Share Ownership addresses the difficulties European countries have in introducing concepts surrounding employee ownership
🌇 What’s Coming Up
February 24-25: The NCEO hosts the “2025 National Employee-Owner Summit” in Mesa, Arizona
February 26: The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program’s “Re-Entry and Good Jobs: Building the Second Chances We All Believe In”
February 26: Project Equity’s “Employee Ownership for B Corps: A More Sustainable Future,” in Chicago
February 27: Join the National Center for Employee Ownership for a bilingual webinar, “Community Conversations: The Power of Shared Ownership | El Poder de la Propiedad Compartida”
March 4: Transform Finance’s webinar on “Opportunities in Community-Owned Real Estate: Focus on Funds”
March 6: The Croatan Institute’s “In Purpose, We Trust: How to Transition to Alternative Ownership Models & Perpetual Purpose Trusts”
March 11: A SXSW panel discussion “This is Not Woke Capitalism, this is the Future of Business,” in Austin
March 27-28: The Rocky Mountain and Texas/Oklahoma chapters of the ESOP Association host their 2025 regional conference in Phoenix, Arizona
April 9-10: The Aspen+Rutgers Employee Ownership Ideas Forum in Washington, DC. Tickets will be released via the Aspen EOP mailing list
April 14-17: NCEO’s 2025 Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah
May 6-8: Community Spaces Network and Community Vision’s Social Purpose Real Estate Summit (h/t Gretchen B)
May 13-16: The “TEA National Conference 2025” focused on ESOP advocacy and education, in Washington, D.C.
June 22-24: The Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing hosts its second 2025 Future of Equity Symposium in Palo Alto
July 8-11: The 5th Global Research Conference of the International Cooperative Alliance in Montreal
August 30: The 3rd annual Rutgers-Oxford Employee Ownership Research Symposium in the UK
October 23: The 3rd Annual Employee Ownership Conference in Ankeny, Iowa
⏪ In Case You Missed It
The Garrison Institute hosted “A Transformative Conversation on Moral Economics. Watch the full event here
The Employee Ownership Center at Kent State University authored “Business Succession Planning” to provide exit solutions to business owners
Founders of employee-owned company Text-Em-All highlight their journey in transitioning to employee ownership