Blue Ridge ESOP Associates Industry News

Blue Ridge is proud to be an exhibitor next week at NIPA's 2019 NAFE in San Diego, CA. Marie Sherlock and Bev Schoonover look forward to seeing you at our booth to show you the best services we offer for your ESOP & 401(k) Plans. The 2019 NIPA Annual Forum & Expo (2019NAFE), April 28 - May 1 in San Diego, is an event designed exclusively for retirement plan professionals. The 2019NAFE offers enriching, relevant, world-class education to enhance the services you provide to your organization's clients. Every year, this four day event helps attendees discover innovative solutions for strengthening and expanding their businesses.

ESCA has launched a grassroots email campaign to build support, and cosponsors, for Senate and House S ESOP legislation. The Senate bill (S.177) was introduced in late-January by Sens. Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) and the House version (H.R. 2258) was introduced a few weeks ago by a bipartisan group of Ways and Means Members led by Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Jason Smith (R-MO).

• Anthony Brunsvold and Chad Guzinski will be attending the Heart of America 2019 Spring Conference in St. Louis, MO on April 23^rd. Chad will also be attending the Heart of America 2019 Spring Conference in Kansas City, MO on April 24^th.
• Renee Stadmueller and Tom Roback will be attending the annual Ohio Employee Ownership Center's 33rd Annual Conference in Akron, OH on April 25^th. Renee will be presenting on the topic of "ABC's for ESOPs for Employee Owners".

Establishing and maintaining a qualified retirement plan for employees can be expensive. It is important for plan sponsors to understand all the costs involved, if those costs can be classified as plan expenses that can be paid from plan assets, and how to allocate those expenses.

Blue Ridge ESOP Associates was proud to be represented again at the Mid-Year Fellows Workshop in Honor of Louis O. Kelso in January. This workshop was organized by Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing of the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations. The program is named after Louis Kelso who was a political economist, corporate and financial lawyer, author, and merchant banker. He is widely credited as the inventor and pioneer of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), enabling workers without savings to own stock in their employer company. The purpose of the annual workshop is to study broad-based forms of capital ownership and capital income such as employee stock ownership, equity compensation, profit sharing, gain sharing, and worker cooperatives in the corporation.  The workshop also explores approaches to broadened citizen capital ownership, “second income”, and dividend funds for citizens in the society in the United States.  The workshop provides an opportunity for scholars to present research in progress, receive mutual mentoring and feedback, work on joint research projects and publications, and meet foundation officials and publishers interested in this scholarship.  The workshop convenes members of the research Fellowship Program of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing from around the globe.

As your ESOP matures, you may feel that you and your employees are starting to better understand your plan provisions and the benefits an ESOP provides. It is important for participants to feel engaged and knowledgeable about their plan. One item that can be difficult to communicate to your employees and comes later in the ESOP’s development is diversification. Your participants will want to know when they can diversify, how much they can diversify, and what their diversification withdrawal options are. 

Blue Ridge ESOP Associates is committed to staying active in the ESOP Community.  Several of our employees will be doing presentations and attending upcoming conferences this spring.

• Jon Williams and Tom Roback will be attending the New England 2019 Spring Conference in Burlington, MA on March 29^th. Jon will be presenting on the topic of “ESOP 101”. 
• Tom Roback will be attending the Pennsylvania/Delaware Spring ESOP Conference in Sate College, PA on March 27th-28th.

• Kevin Rusch and Chad Guzinski will be attending the Southwest Chapters 2019 Spring Conference in Grapevine, TX on March 29^th. Kevin will be presenting on the topic of “Repurchase Obligation Studies: How to Avoid Garbage In/Garbage Out”.

Our Blue Ridge professionals will be attending multiple conferences this week.

On Monday, Jon Williams and Tom Roback are attending The New England Chapter Spring Conference in Burlington, MA. Jon shared more about ESOP 101 to help those who are new to the whole ESOP world and to give guidance to those who needed a refresher about the basics. The session highlighted how an ESOP works, why ESOP companies are so great, and what a company can do to make theirs better.

At the Wisconsin ESOP Spring Conference this week, our Blue Ridge professionals, Beth Bauer and Pam Themar, will be speaking together about the "Administrative Top 10 Reasons your TPA gets Called". In this session, a discussion will be led on a list of hot topis that can occur through the life of an ESOP.