In this episode, we sit down with Kevin Birch, Regional Manager at CNA Surety, to explore best practices for contractor ESOPs. A key theme throughout our conversation is communication—and lots of it. One of the biggest mistakes a contractor can make is surprising their surety with news of an ESOP transaction. Kevin strongly recommends that contractors—whether general or specialty—get their surety agent and company involved early in the process. Doing so allows the proposed ESOP structure to be reviewed and vetted, ensuring buy-in from your surety partner. Throughout the podcast we discuss how critical it is to present models that illustrate valuation, cash flow projections, debt structure, and pro forma balance sheets. These elements are essential for the surety to properly underwrite the transition and help avoid issues with your bonding line after the ESOP is in place.

The show “Band of Brothers” offers a perfect example of leadership from the character of Captain Sobel and provides examples of overcoming obstacles to establish a strong culture. Specifically, the show provides an example of an employee-centric culture: a culture that embodies a solid group of employees ultimately banding together. This episode covers the 5 c’s of an employee-centric culture: Commitment; Care; Celebration; Communication and Community. The topic might be helpful to assess wherever you are in your journey to an ESOP as you build, improve, or sustain the culture of your business.

In this episode the podcast discusses the recent uncertainty with the economy and how this effects the ESOP world. Considering this, the podcast interviews senior level banker Chris Cucci with Climate First Bank. Chris’ bank does financing for ESOP deals all over the United States, providing valuable perspective on ESOP financing credit decisions in light of the first quarter of 2025. While the future of recent economic events in unpredictable, the important take away from this episode is to build your ESOP around the ability to flex with any changes in the economy.

This episode provides the background on both Warrants and SARs in an ESOP transaction. The typical usage of synthetic equity structured within a deal can create a solid win-win for the shareholders and the company. Within the topic, the podcast uses the Nicolas Cage film “Knowing” as an example to explain how a warrant and SAR model help to predict the future just like so that we can create a lasting legacy for the company and a successful reward for those that are taking on the future risk of the enterprise.

On this podcast episode we interview Jason Ireland, President of Industrial Supply Company (ISCO), a distributor of manufacturing parts who went 100 percent ESOP last year. Jason explains the step by step process their 100-year-old company went through to transition to an ESOP process. The company was part union and part non-union, providing some background for some companies dealing with that reality. There is even a ghost in this story…but he cannot be part of the ESOP (it’s an ERISA thing). We discuss the consensus building process with multiple shareholders and Jason’s future generation as part of the leadership to steer the company into the future of employee ownership making the employees part of this family.

The Mad World of ESOPs! This episode reviews the roles ESOP professionals play and the reality of variance in one transaction to another. We discuss the differences in costs, approaches to structure, closings, and other areas given the backgrounds, perspectives and objectives in leading the transaction. This episode is intended to help orient the listener to questions they may want to ask on their journey to an ESOP.

In some cases an ESOP company can choose to sell to an outside buyer after they transition to an employee-owned company. In this episode Greg Daugherty, Porter Wright and, I discuss the factors related to selling your company after it has become an employee-owned company. Greg does a great job of discussing how this process works and what business owners should know as it relates to the board of directors, trustees and, support related to selling the business.

Arguably one of the best James Bond 007 movies - “Casino Royale” - is it time to get some chips off the table? This episode focuses on the motivations of why some companies look at doing a partial ESOP which is going to be accompanied by risk/reward decisions. Not as risky as going all in and hoping for the high hand. But a partial ESOP can still be the right strategy a lot of companies to determine if an ESOP works in both the short and long term, and for shareholders and employees. This may be your next step on the journey to an ESOP!