Employee Share Ownership

The John Lewis partnership is often held up as a shining example of successful Employee Share ownership – but does it always lead to greater success for the underlying business? How do the exiting owners feel about losing equity and control? What are the main challenges and difficulties that face smaller private companies looking to emulate the model?

No easy answers in this blog – but it is a debate that we would like to stimulate as we believe that employee ownership models are going to become increasingly important during the next decade – particularly following last years Nuttall Review of Employee Ownership and the recent political noise on the subject.

At WSM, we have worked closely with experts from The Baxi Partnership as well as experts in all forms of share schemes at RM2 to help clients include employee ownership structures in their strategic plans.

We hope that the forthcoming Employee Ownership Day on 4^th July 2013 increases awareness of the Employee Ownership sector at all levels in the UK and will be used to stimulate further interest from our client base.