By: Gregory K. Brown and Louis L. Joseph HIGHLIGHTS: • Some retirement plans, including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), have in the past few years included terms and provisions that require participant breach of fiduciary claims to be resolved in arbitration...
The repurchase obligation (or repurchase liability) is the legal obligation of a privately-held ESOP company to buy back shares of company stock from participants upon a Distributable Event. Unlike other retirement plans, which invest in a diversified portfolio of...
Congratulations are in order for the team of Butterfield Schechter LLP. On November 2, 2017, the firm announced that they had received a San Diego Tier 1 ranking in the 2018 Edition of U.S. News – Best Lawyers "Best Law Firms" for the Employee Benefits (ERISA) Law...
If you've spent most (or all) of your professional career building a small- to mid-size business, and you've reached the point where you need to consider the "exit," then you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you failed to consider an Employee Stock Ownership Plan,...
To build an ownership mindset, we must engage employees. How to do it? Employee engagement is about honoring, recognizing, and uplifting people. It’s about showing them they are valued and connected to something bigger than themselves that really matters. It’s about...
It is no surprise the baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are looking to retire as they turn age 65 at a rate of 10,000 a day for nearly the next two decades. Sixty-two percent of U.S. companies are planning to sell all or some of their stock within the next fi...
By: Daniel M. Zugell, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF and Samuel A. Landman J.D., LL.M. With 10,000 baby boomers (those born between 1946-1964) turning 65 each day for the next two decades, it is no surprise that most are looking to retire. According to a recent Price Waterhouse...
History of ESOPs in S Corporations Daniel M. Zugell, CLU, ChFC, LUTCF Pete Shuler Fred H. Thomas History of ESOPs in S Corporations In 1996, Congress passed the Small Business Job Protection Act,[1] which allowed a trust associated with an employee benefit plan to...
Two bills have been recently introduced in the United States Congress to promote employee ownership to perpetuate American businesses and provide retirement security to the American workforce. Both H.R. 2096 and S. 1212 bills are titled “Promotion and Expansion of...
One of the most important fiduciary responsibilities of an ESOP trustee is to establish the annual stock price. This can be accomplished by seeking an independent valuation firm for purposes of establishing the fair market value of the sponsor's stock, since a...