There are many ways to exit a business, the Partner or Employee Buy-Outs are options for some business owners. We work with many business owners that want to keep their team members engaged in the business, so we will handle the buy-out process. A Partner Buy-Out occurs when there are more ownership partners in a business decide to offer a partner a share of profits or cash in exchange for all or part of his or her interest in the business.
An Employee Buy-Out or employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is an employee benefit plan that gives workers ownership interest in the company. Larger companies often use ESOPs as a corporate-finance strategy to align the interests of their employees with those of their shareholders – because the employees become shareholders through an ESOP. Many publicly traded companies offer ESOPs to their employees. For private, closely-held companies – particularly those in the lower to mid-Middle Market – ESOPs give the owners a way to gradually shift the ownership to the employees over time.