I’ve been wondering when the craft beer market would begin consolidating. A few years ago, shockwaves went through the Cascadia craft beer community when 10 Barrels sold to Anheuser-Busch Inv Bev and worse, Full Sail sold to an investment company. Around the same time, another ESOP brewery in Oregon sold as well; it was notable […]
Continue ReadingLast Call: A forum on the end of employee ownership at New Belgium
Hazel Corcoran: What If We Had an Antidote to Worker Co-ops Selling Out?
Indivisble reserves are one way for worker cooperatives to prevent demutualization.
Continue ReadingChristopher Mackin: New Belgium Brewing and the Future of American ESOPs
There is movement afoot in the ESOP marketplace to create scaled capital institutions that can drive the conversion of privately held businesses into employee owned companies and compete with conventional financing sources.
Continue ReadingMichael Palmieri and Chris Cooper Respond: What Are We Asking of Employee Ownership?
How one interprets the sale of New Belgium depends on how one answers the ends vs. means question.
Continue ReadingCamille Kerr Responds: Don’t lose sight—the point is systems change
What should we be doing today to lay the foundation for future generations to have a democratic, equitable economic system?
Continue ReadingKaren Kahn: Is Your Beer Funding Human Rights Abuses?
Kirin, it appears, has blood on its hands. Whether New Belgium can bring its ethical and moral leadership to bear on its new corporate parent remains to be seen.
Continue ReadingChristopher Michael: Could the Employee Ownership Trust Better Sustain Perpetual Employee Ownership?
The next step in broadening access to this simpler, less expensive, and perpetual form of employee ownership is public policy.
Continue ReadingLast call: A forum on the end of employee ownership at New Belgium
What does it say about the viability of market-based strategies that even the most integral moral commitment to worker equity ultimately could not stand up to economic and market pressures?
Continue ReadingNathan Schneider: Discarded Mutualisms
We should resist the temptation to mistake what is for what could or should be.
Continue ReadingMartin Staubus: New Belgium—A Success by Any Measure
Rumors of the death of employee ownership are greatly exaggerated.
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