How was your experience being an employee-owner at either one of these companies? Did you receive any transparency of the ESOP plan (distributions, allocations, etc.)?
For both companies, how did you receive the funds once the companies were sold to the larger corp companies (cheques, direct, etc.)?
It may have been culture brainwashing, but we definitely felt more of an ownership vibe. We awaited the periodic valuations that the ESOP share price was based on and the process seemed relatively transparent.
An accounting and legal firm handled the dismantling of the ESOPs. We received a letter itemizing our shares and the value based on the company sales price. Then a few months later, we got a check (which you could have made out to your IRA management or whoever or to yourself if you were ready to pay taxes on it.
In the case of the company I’d left, I had to wait 6 years to get paid out (turned out to be about 4.5 because of their sale).