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Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOP) For Australia Announcement By Minister

Tuesday, 03 December 2019 11:00 PM

Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOP) For Australia lead to increased productivity, improved engagement, better retention of staff and higher financial performance.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA / ACCESSWIRE / December 3, 2019 / Australia - Succession Plus, one of the fastest-growing companies focused on business succession planning and exit planning, are delighted by the announcement from Christian Porter, Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations that Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOP) is a potential solution to productivity and wages growth. The discussion document also states that research suggests that organisation with higher employee engagement are also the ones doing well in terms of labour productivity and financial performance.

Succession Plus, Tuesday, December 3, 2019, Press release picture

The academic research - https://successionplus.com.au/white-paper/academic-research-esops/ strongly support all of these improvements and more. The research, from Succession Plus CEO & founder Craig West, as part of his doctoral studies in ESOP's in Australia, clearly shows substantial improvements when properly implemented and coupled with improved engagement and involvement of key employees.

"The succession issue is also relevant to the government's focus - 5,000 baby boomers are turning 65 per week in Australia - those that own businesses are struggling to exit - tight finance, slow economy and oversupply all dampen the market" said Mr West. He continues by saying "There are always several reasons for exit - family not willing to continue the business, need to cash in on the investment or simply getting older and tired."

Financial harvest refers to the ability of the owners to "harvest" the equity value in the business and successfully extract that value upon exit, such as by sale to an independent external buyer (including private equity strategic buyers or IPO). On the other hand, stewardship does not involve any harvesting of value, but instead focuses on an ongoing role for the owners to have influence over the future and long-term viability of the firm, often via family succession or employee buyout.

According to the available literature, for the majority of owners who fail to consider their exit strategy until they decide to actually exit, the strategic phase is likely to be hastily engaged. As a result, these owners limit their potential or available exit options, and also lessen the opportunity to maximise wealth and legacy; at worst, some owners will fail to move through the strategic phase altogether.

Craig West said "A recent survey of family businesses noted that 72% of respondents measured success in more than just economic terms. Research also defines a stewardship-based exit strategy in which a selling owner recognises an ongoing sense of obligation or duty to others and noted that exiting owners under the stewardship-based exit strategy are willing to sacrifice financial gains for the welfare of other stakeholders."

Enter the ESOP model - a unique combination of stewardship (legacy) and harvest - a win-win-win. The business continues on successfully, the owners get to extract value and retire, and the employees get to own equity in the business they work for - enjoying higher reward, including capital gains. In the UK approx. 30 % of all business exits use the management buy-out model, in Australia this is currently less than 5 %

West's recently published book Build It - https://successionplus.com.au/qantas-business-rewards-ebook/ outlines the practical application, the tax and technical issues and the underlying research. Showing business owners how new thinking on employee share ownership plans can not only increase staff engagement and performance but safeguard the future succession of your business.

More information can be found at https://successionplus.com.au

Contact Info:

Name: Craig West
Email: Send Email
Organization: Succession Plus
Address: Level 6/50 York Street, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
Phone: +61-1300-665-473
Website: https://successionplus.com.au/

SOURCE: Succession Plus

Topic:
Company Update
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