The founders and vendors of the company, Craig and Ruth Morrison, chose Employee Ownership as their preferred succession route for several reasons:

• A trade sale, particularly to an overseas buyer, would have put jobs at risk – secure employment for staff was a key goal.

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• The management team and staff were well placed to  successfully move the business forward, hence the vendors were confident the EO option would succeed.

• EO allowed the vendors to control the process including both the timing of their exit and terms of the share purchase by the Employee Ownership Trust.

Employee ownership is a term for any arrangement in which a company's employees own shares in the company's stock. This concept can take many forms in practice, ranging from simple grants of shares to highly structured plans, and it can serve many different goals.