Draft Report
EFES BOARD
EXPERTS SEMINAR
PARIS 8 – 9 December 2000
ORGANIZING THE INTERNATIONAL
EXCHANGES
OF INFORMATION
ON EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP AND
PARTICIPATION
PREPARATORY EXPERTS SEMINAR FOR THE
THIRD EUROPEAN MEETING OF EMPLOYEE
SHAREOWNERSHIP
(The Hague 26-27-28 April 2001)
Report
EFES BOARD
EXPERTS SEMINAR, PARIS 8 – 9
December 2000
1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................
3
Programme..............................................................................................................................
3
Background..............................................................................................................................
3
EFES.....................................................................................................................................3
2001 Work programme............................................................................................................3
European Commission’s initiatives...........................................................................................
3
Participants..............................................................................................................................
4
Objectives and expected outcome of the seminar.........................................................................
5
2. Presentations.........................................................................................................................
5
NCEO - National Center for Employee Ownership (USA),
Ryan Weeden.........................................
5
GEO - Global Equity Organization, Ryan Weeden......................................................................... 6
COG - Capital Ownership Group, John LOGUE and Deborah
Groban OLSON..................................
7
IAFP - International Association for Financial
Participation, David Hildebrandt and Raymond Allouf.... 8
3. Defining working themes groups............................................................................................
9
Theme 1 : International exchanges of Information on EO................................................................
9
Theme 2 : International cooperation involving EFES.......................................................................
9
Theme 3 : Other important topics.................................................................................................
9
Priority themes.........................................................................................................................
10
4. Working out themes..............................................................................................................
10
1. Defining audiences................................................................................................................
10
2. Research + best practices.....................................................................................................
11
3. Legislation............................................................................................................................
12
4. Cooperation between information providers...............................................................................
13
5. Action planning...................................................................................................................... 14
1. What EFES should do next year..............................................................................................
14
2. Content of the next third european meeting................................................................................ 15
6. Closing....................................................................................................................................
15
(See the detailed
programme in appendix 1).
Friday 8 December :
1. Introduction
2. Presentations
3. Defining working themes
groups
Saturday 9 December :
4. Working out themes
5. Action planning
Marc Mathieu introduced the
seminar, as Secretary General of EFES, by recalling the history of the European
Federation of Employee Share Ownership. The Federation all started in 1998 with
the organization of the First European Meeting of Employee Shareholders in May
98. Many discussions took place and a conflict already arose : did we want to
be an open organization or an organization with very specific objectives and
limited target groups?.
A choice was made for
openness : EFES is to promote EO and gather all people interested in promoting
EO in Europe, as an umbrella organization.
EFES is a meeting place, a
place for dialogue.
This
seminar is the first stage of a one-year work programme which consists in:
organizing the international exchanges of information on employee ownership and
participation. This work programme includes the Third European Meeting of
Employee Share Ownership in April 2001. It is co-financed by the European
Commission.
A particular
attention will be given to the social partners : trade unions as well as
employers.
We’ll organize
these international exchanges particularly by means of creating a large
internet portal offering access to information databases and links with
corresponding sites in various European countries and throughout the world, as
well as with all those persons concerned.
Exchanging
information on legislation and best practices :
1. Is the best way
to promote EO
2. Is a way to add
value to our organization.
Organizing these
exchanges of information is also a means to boost EFES by promoting services. A
lot of people call us to ask for information.
The Commission is planning to
make a Third Communication on financial participation and an action plan:
This action plan will have 2
pillars :
1. International exchanges of
information
2. Experiments and pilot
projects.
In the next few weeks, the
Commission will publish the PEPPER III Report. This report has mainly been
written by Erik Poutsma for the European Foundation for the Improvement of
Living and Working Conditions. The draft report has been available on EFES
website for a long time.
This seminar convenes the
main actors at international level, who are playing a role in the organization
of international exchanges of information.
- Ryan WEEDEN : NCEO
(National Center for Employee Ownership - USA) and GEO (Global Equity
Organization)
- John LOGUE and Deborah
OLSON : COG (Capital Ownership Group)
- David HILDEBRANDT and
Raymond ALLOUF: IAFP (International Association for Financial Participation).
Some people could not be
present today :
- Virginie PEROTIN of the
International Labour Office just fell ill and could not come.
- Erik POUTSMA is also part
of EFES : he could not come for planning reasons. His message is included in
the file of participants; Erik POUTSMA is the author of the PEPPER II Report.
- Also the European
Commission could not be represented here but it provides funding for this
seminar.
- The European Foundation for
the improvement of living and working conditions is also an important actor and
will be represented at the Third European Meeting in The Hague.
Amongst the actors to convince are trade unions and social partners. In EFES programme 2001, the involvement of trade unions is essential: for example, Mauro BOSSOLA (UNI) and Giulia BARBUCCI, for the CGIL (the larger trade union in Europe) are present in this seminar. Stephen Mc CARTHY, linked to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, proposes to coordinate on EFES behalf a project to begin a process of developing best practices and models for employee owners in Europe (see document).
The seminar was facilitated
by Ilona EROS, Hungary.
List of participants:
|
INVITED EXPERTS |
|
1.
USA :
Ryan WEEDEN, NCEO / GEO |
|
2.
USA :
John LOGUE, COG |
|
3.
USA: David HILDEBRANDT, representative of the
IAFP |
|
4.
FRANCE: Raymond ALLOUF, representative of the
IAFP |
|
5.
CZECH REPUBLIC : Libor LUKASEK, Czech
Government |
|
6.
UNITED KINGDOM: Emma CHESTERMAN, JOL |
|
7.
POLAND: Mrs TOMASZEWSKA, UWP |
|
EFES EXPERTS |
|
8. BelgiUM: Pierre VANRIJKEL |
|
9. DENMARK:
Erik MAALOE |
|
10.
DENMARK:
Gorm WINTHER |
|
11.
FRANCE:
Serge CIMMATI |
|
12. FRANCE: Raymond GUILLAUME |
|
13.
FRANCE :
Patrick GUIOL |
|
14.
HUNGARY :
Janos LUKACS |
|
15.
ItalY : Giulia BARBUCCI |
|
16. ItalY : Mauro BOSSOLA |
|
17. NETHERLANDS : Henk KOOL |
|
18. POLAND :
Jacek LIPINSKI |
|
19. POLAND :
Krzysztof LUDWINIAK |
|
20.
Portugal : Armenio SIMOES MATIAS |
|
21. SLOVENIA : Bozidar LEDNIK |
|
22. SLOVENIA : Gojko STANIC |
|
23. FINLAND: Erkki HELANIEMI |
|
24. UNITED KINGDOM : David ERDAL |
|
25. UNITED KINGDOM :
David WHEATCROFT |
|
26. USA : Deborah Groban OLSON |
|
27.
EUROPE : Marc MATHIEU |
|
28. EUROPE : Laurence WATTIER |
|
29. EUROPE: Myriam BIOT |
|
30. HUNGARY: Ilona EROS |
The seminar was hosted by
LINEDATA SERVICES. This French company is number 1 in Europe in data-processing
services for employee share ownership.
Yves Stucki, Michael de Verteuil and Gérald Daniel made a presentation on Linedata’s activities, with 3 main areas:
credit finance,
assets management, managing employee savings plans and employee share ownership
plans.
80% of the employees of
Linedata Services are employee shareholders. They control the company.
1. The next Third European
Meeting of Employee Share Ownership should be conceptually prepared.
2. Have a shared picture
about the present situation for international exchanges of information :
players, projects, needs.
3. First stage for the
internet site : concept, contents, etc…
1. NCEO, Ryan Weeden
2. GEO, Ryan Weeden
3. COG, John Logue + Deborah
Olson
4. IAFP, David Hildebrandt +
Raymond Allouf
First, Corey Rosen, the
Director of NCEO sends his regrets for not being present. Ryan is responsible
for NCEO’s international equity compensation database project.
What the NCEO
does.
NCEO draws all of its income
from conference, seminars, membership fees and sometimes grants to do research.
Most come from corporate sponsors. NCEO tends to avoid foundations and public
money. It tends to do its research in a time limit of 8 to 10 months. Public
money can take the same time just to get the money!?
At international level, NCEO
has links with specific interest groups and for some work.
And there is the
international equity compensation database project.
(See the detailed
presentation of the database project in appendix 2).
There are other forms of EO
that are not ESOP related. The database project (DB) is based on the belief
that EO is more likely to take the form of non-ESOP plans. ESOP had a limited
appeal across the world. So NCEO is focusing on non-ESOP EO world.
NCEO realised that simply
there is no information available for companies when they want to know whether
it’s worth to introduce EO plans in their overseas plants.
So the DB should help US
companies abroad to find out :
- what the legislation is
- the cultural background
- etc
The target groups are the
consultants and employers, not the employee owners or trade unions.
Generally speaking the target
group of NCEO’s DB is the multinational company. It can be a small company with
only a few employees in different countries. They will need this DB to check
whether it is appropriate to extend their plans overseas.
A big multinational company
spent over 1 million dollar just to communicate about the plans (not even to
implement them). These large multinational companies are not the target
group of the DB : they do not need it.
The contributors to the
database will be service providers (consultants).
The idea is that you could
find in the database comparable information about each country, in the same
format.
Why is it a need for this
while there already is so much information available on the internet?
The answer to that is that
even though Inland Revenue might have interesting information for UK, or
Fondact for France, if people want more information on other countries than the
UK, for example Spain; they will not find it in the same format.
This DB project is a very
expensive and difficult task : not only to launch it but also to keep it
updated. It is not worth to develop it if it is not updated. NCEO has been working
on that for about 18 months.
About 12 countries have
contributed now. NCEO does the editorial work. It is hoped that the first five
countries will be on line at the end of February 2001.
Website address :
http://www.nceo.org/Library/around the world.html
Under the library section,
you have also legislation of Canada, Hungary, Corea, and some of the French
rules.
(See leaflet in appendix 3).
Ryan has 2 jobs :
1. NCEO
-
to develop stock options in the US
-
head of database project
2. GEO : Executive Director
GEO has asked Ryan to come on
Board 6 months ago and he wanted to work with the 2 organizations. The only
relation between the 2 is him really.
GEO members are not involved
in ESOPs.
GEO has members in 22 countries.
The board is actually made of service providers, mainly in the US.
The organization was
established with a mandate than 1 country could not have more than 20% in the
board of directors. Now 5 or 6 members out of 12 are from the US. But this will
change. It is a new organization so it is difficult to match these linkages.
The DB would be distributed
and marketed through GEO membership. So the DB project has that instant
audience. Also GEO members will feed information into this DB.
-
Annual fees
-
Annual conference (this year in the Hague)
-
Sponsoring
GEO has an original aspect :
it has chapters throughout the world, for example in Hong Honk, Japan; in the
UK. These chapters have been very successful. For example in the London chapter
there was a meeting of 25 people talking about accounting rules in Equity
plans.
The concept behind GEO and
EFES have the same goal: to create more attractive, better working mechanism to
develop EO in companies. But, Ryan said, we are climbing the other side of the
mountain.
Both NCEO and GEO come to
this table with a co-operative spirit.
Question : Can you explain
the difference between the 2 organizations : NCEO and GEO
Answer : GEO is an
organization of consultants, practitioners working in the field. It is a forum
for people to share information on this type of EO.
NCEO : to provide reliable
and affordable information in the companies. NCEO has 45 members and 1 or 2 at
international level. But it is not a membership organization. NCEO does not
have that same community like the ESOP association have. EFES has probably more
members here than the NCEO.
The common think is
objectivity, which allows to have access to all information.
Question :
1. Budget
2. Best practices : how do
you identify?
Answer :
1. GEO : corporate sponsors
and membership fees.
The NCEO is one of the better
founded organization in the world. NCEO does not rely on a single concept of EO
so it has different sources.
The GEO is different : no
publications for example. It has about 20.000 potential members. If 10% of
these are actual members, the GEO can live and develop.
Q: Do you join GEO
as an individual or company?
A: As an individual..
Q: Languages of the
DB ?
A: English with automatic
translation of pages into different languages.
Q: How can EFES
cooperate into this DB :
A: I think that this
information in the DB can be shared. But I don’t think it will be important to
have that information for employed shareholders. It is important info for
employers but here shareholders are more interested on how it works for them
that how to manage these plans.
I am not sure that having 1
organization linking them together would be interesting : Would 1 organization
of employers be interested in working together with employees?
Q: What about
workers having access to that information.?
A: It is not the same
information for these different interest groups.
Deborah Olson (she is the Chair
of NCEO, and member of the Board of EFES): In many instances, the issue of the DB
is what kind of access for the DB ; you can have different conditions for
access to the DB; for instance, the European umbrella organizations or trade
unions could have an access for their members. Ex : EFES would have access to
the technical info, but every of its members might not be interested. Umbrella
organization need the higher level of data.
Q: Are you paying
the people for their contribution?
A: Consultants agree to
provide that information for free.
Deborah Olson:
COG is an international
network. (See leaflet for presentation in appendix 4.)
It receives funding from the
Ford Foundation for an on-line Forum.
The management is shared.
John Logue provides the Ford Foundation perspective. Deborah and John work from
different offices.