Employee-stock-ownership-plan Books

This text is a good overview of ESOPs, when one makes sense for a business owner, how an ESOP can help motivate a company's employees, legal issues, and share valuation (required by law). It is a readable and practical text that should be of value to business advisors, business owners, and valuation specialists. ESOPs are highly regulated by the government and must follow the requirements both at formation and on a continuing basis. There is a cost to setting up and maintaining an ESOP but there can be significant benefits for the business owner. Some are financial and other benefits are non-financial such as business succession.

Even though the book's title suggests it is primarily about valuation, it has a lot of coverage on practical aspects of whether it makes sense for a business to establish an ESOP and the regulatory environment. This should be of interest to business advisors and business owners.

For the valuation specialist, the book covers factors in valuing the company's shares that are unique to ESOPs - primarily due to government regulation. Those factors include: the impact of ESOP leverage, minority/control attributes of the shares, repurchase obligations, adequate consideration, and tax issues.

Financial Valuation of Employee Stock Ownership Plan Shares is a great resource for anyone looking to learn about ESOPS. The book takes a business owner's perspective in walking the reader through the elements of a good plan. Often overlooked when establishing an ESOP is the question of whether an ESOP even makes sense. This book devotes an entire chapter to that very question of who makes a good ESOP candidate. But the heart of the book is the focus on determining the value of ESOP shares. In this area, Cook goes into great detail on every aspect of ESOP valuation from independence issues and governing case law to control vs. minority positions. He covers repurchase obligations, adequate consideration, and phantom equity. One thing that really sets the book apart from other valuation tomes is the great supporting material like the great 70 page Appendix containing the IRS training guide to examining ESOPS. No business valuation library will be complete without Financial Valuation of Employee Stock Ownership Plan Shares.

Larry Cook has done a wonderful job in writing a book on ESOPs that is practical, readable and understandable. He accomplishes this feat even though the formation, valuation and maintenance of ESOPs can be a difficult endeavor given the complexities and nuances surrounding this area. Although titled "Financial Valuation of Employee Stock Ownership Plan Shares," it includes good insight into the decisions that go into whether to form an ESOP and whether an ESOP is feasible for a given company. For example, chapter 2 includes a very interesting story of a CFO that went through the process with two companies. He also presents his thoughts on the controversial areas of the actual valuation of a company for ESOP purposes as well as the DOL, tax and financial reporting requirements. The two appendices include the DOL proposed regs and the IRS training class materials regarding examination of ESOPs. In summary, Mr. Cook's book is an important read for business owners, Plan Trustees, CPAs, Appraisers and Financial Advisers and should be a part of any business library.

ESOPs are a boon or a boondoggle to a company. This book is thorough in the research involved in considering, completing and sustaining an ESOP. It is must reading for the owner considering an ESOP and for ESOP employee/owners. It clearly defines the pros and cons for the pre-ESOP owners, for the post ESOP majority owners and for the post ESOP minority employee/owners. Well researched, well written book. Very dry and technical, however, that is the nature of the subject.

Collaboratively written by Ron Bernstein, David Binns, Marshal Hyman, and deftly edited by Martin Staubus, Transitioning Ownership in the Private Company: The ESOP Solution examines leveraged employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) as a means of allowing employees to purchase and own a corporate divestiture or a production plant or facility chosen for closing by the parent company. Examining the tax benefits, empowerment benefits for employees, usefulness, and facilitation of ESOPs, Transitioning Ownership In The Private Company is a carefully researched, superbly presented, and thoroughly "user friendly" information guide and reference. Simply put, Transitioning Ownership In The Private Company is a "must-read" for anyone involved in or considering an ESOP solution in acquiring a private company, plant, or facility.

This was a good, concise overview of stock options, but most of the detail concerned tax treatment of various situations. Not being a tax person or accountant, I could still get some good information about my company's stock option plan but I would recommend this book only to people with a good basic understanding of accounting and tax rules.

Excellent book. Though the title doesn't sound as hot as "Ectrepreneu's guide to equity", it covers much more and in depth with the same price. It covers all the pros and cons and tax issues for stock option and empolyee stock ownership plan and other incentive plans. The bottom line, after reading the book, you won't be any more confused about each plan. To an employee, it is very helpful in deciding if you want to stay with present employer or change to another one with a better incentive plan. To an entreprenur, this is the Bible. It will benefit your business and your staff enoumously. I wish I had bought this book first. It could have saved me time and money in shipping $ handling fees and returing back to Amazon the "Entrepreneu's Guide to Equity"

The book is of very limited value for any company outside the US. All explanations are given with regard to US laws and regulations.

This book is an invaluable reference for any business owner or advisor contemplating the use of stock options to improve a company's performance, motivate employees and create an ownership culture. The National Center for Employee Ownership, the impetus behind this book, is a national treasure, as far as I'm concerned. Their mandate is to democratize the workplace to best reflect the demands and dynamics of the 21st Century Global Economy. This book uniquely addresses everything a company needs to consider regarding stock options: the business, financial, accounting, legal, securities and human resources/organizational development aspects. You cannot find a better resource or more accessible book in the stock options arena.

The Stock Option Book is a valuable source of authoritative current knowledge and thinking about stock options for readers whose background may be business, professional, academia, or government. To be effective, a book of this nature should offer a broad perspective. The experiences of a broad range of experts is more important than that of a single expert. Editor Scott Rodrick of the National Center for Employee Ownership has chosen some of the best known stock option experts to contribute to this book. All have been actively involved in the evolution of employee stock option plans. Each chapter in the book stands alone and is complete in itself. While this produces some overlap in certain of the chapters, it eliminates the need for the reader to refer to other chapters, and it provides valuable reinforcement of important concepts. This book is another excellent publication about employee ownership and participation published by the National Center for Employee Ownership.

this compilation of data is unlikely to be useful to only but a very few who want a specific piece of data, there are many other stock option books out there that are far more informative....

This book masquerades as a comprehensive guide to developing a stock option plan. In truth, it is a very basic overview of some of the topics surrounding stock option plans. When it attempts to walk through how one would actually go about creating a plan, it uses a hypothetical company and an executive named "Charlie". Sadly, whenever Charlie comes to difficult questions, no answer is given. For example, when discussing the question of valuing stock in a private company, the author's answer is to hire an outside consultant....Gee thanks! Beyond the single basic example give, no discussion of how or why certain decisions are to be made and rationalized. Another great example of this is in determining the number of shares to grant to employees and management. The answer given in the case study is that Charlie had "no process to determine these numbers"....wow, really insightful advice.....No plan at all, so when the executives ask you how you came up with the grant allocations, you can just tell them that you winged it, just like Charlie.

As you can tell, the authors couldnt even tackle simple issues like how many shares to grant, or the appropriate strike price,
and this is not even to mention REAL issues like compensating employees whose options are underwater. I guess Charlie didn't have this problem. I am totally embarassed to have bought this book, save your money and search the web for real-world advice.