Boston, MA 09/24/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Diversified financial services provider, Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), has hired former official of another financial institution, JPMogan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Kim Abello to head its Employee Stock Ownership Plans or ESOP for its Commercial Banking segment in North America. The company expressed its intention to tap the growing demand for ESOPs and picked up a separate person to take advantage of the situation.
Addressing The Demand
Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) stated that retiring owners of baby boomer business have preferred to adopt tax-advantaged employee benefits in the recent years, its statement said. The plans were established by the Congress four decades ago to promote the acquisition of private company shares by its employees.
Wells Fargo said that Abello would head a team of relationship managers nationally, who have specialized in ESOPs, and would assist privately-held businesses to move towards an ESOP. She would also partner with the company’s experts and advisors in the other line of Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC)’s business towards extending the ESOPs.
Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) believes that the exceptional alliance would offer ESOP expertise in many areas, including refinancing of seller notes, initial ESOP stock acquisition, second-stage transaction financing, and merger and acquisitions apart from extending operations of business for ESOP companies.
ESOP Market
Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) indicated that based on the reports of National Center for Employee Ownership or NCEO, there were only about 1,500 ESOPs managing approximately 250,000 employees in 1975, i.e. a year after the Congress established a plan of ESOPs as part of its Employee Retirement Income Security Act. This has jumped to 8,900 ESOPs managing about 13.5 million employees.
Interestingly, the company pointed out that it has been part of five of the top ten companies on the list of NCEO’s 100 U.S. biggest majority employee-owned firms. Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC) would expect Abello to take it closer towards middle-market business owners to convince them of ESOPs as a retirement or an exit tactics.
For about two decades, Abello was involved in corporate finance and most recently managed ESOPs at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) for its Midwest division. Before that, she was a Managing Director of a valuation and financial consulting firm, Duff & Phelps, where she assisted transition of businesses ownership through ESOPs.
