Grocer, 70, gives stores to his employees — for free, transferring ownership as a thank you
Grocer, 70, gives stores to his employees — for free
Retiring Minnesotan is transferring ownership of his three stores as a thank you
Just in time for Christmas, a retiring Minnesota grocery store owner is giving his roughly 400 employees quite a gift — ownership of his three stores.
Instead of accepting any of the multiple offers he received from large national chains to purchase his stores, Joe Lueken, 70, will transfer ownership of his two Lueken’s Village Foods in Bemidji, Minn., and another one in Wahpeton, N.D., to his employees as part of an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). The transfer of ownership from the Lueken family to the employees will begin on Jan. 1, and will not cost the employees any money.
The amount of shares each employee receives will be based on length of service and salary. The program is expected to pay the Lueken family off for the sale in three to five years, according to a report by the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
“My employees are largely responsible for any success I've had, and they deserve to get some of the benefits of that," Lueken told the Star Tribune. "You can't always take. You also have to give back."
After being informed by his two sons that they were not interested in taking over the business, Lueken and his family came up with the employee stock ownership plan to transfer ownership.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/49984095/ns/today-good_news/#.ULkgwmfT1iM
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I'm sure everyone loves them. 
Every time I manage to finally, completely lose faith in humanity, some wonderful person has to come along, do something fantastically kind and generous, and screw it all up. Dangit, people! Stop being so gosh darned nice! Have a little respect for us cynical curmudgeons! 
This made my day. What a great thing to do.
And their pensions or 401K's are very likely to be collateral, and very, very likely to be underfunded, and thus another liability.
How about an analogy?
"Hey mom, I am giving you my house that I can't sell. I took out a new mortgage and took all the cash, but I am GIVING you the home, and the mortgage for you to pay. You should be able to sell it for a profit in a few years. Because they never go down, the Bernanke said so. Regardless, I got money, and it's gonna be a GREAT Christmas".
From a financial perspective he gave an asset, attached to several liabilities, got paid, and it may or may not work out for them. He and his family walk away with a few million, but it will be years before most of the employees know whether they get anything but a paycheck from this, except for, perhaps, a few that retire earlier.
And despite what was said, there is nothing out there that indicates there was ever any offer for the business from anyone else, which is very likely in such a competitive and likely to fail arena. So he and the family took the out that would give them some serious cash, and left whatever happens in the future with others.
You can drive down the street in just the town I am in and I can show you four major groceries sitting empty, all different names, all with more resources than this gentleman had, all failed. And they are all over the country, just takes a little web searching.
Again, not dissing the deal, but people are leaving out a bunch of really important reality to fluff up a story. And that's bullshit.
But nothing new. People see saints in the impressions in their taco sauce, so it doesn't surprise me that people make up their own reality about this deal either. Hey, 47% voted for RobMe - if that doesn't support a theory of mass delusion, I don't know what does.
I hope it works out for them, but all the hoopla about how it was "given" was a bit much, I think.THe ex-owner has significant cash in his pocket, they get ?, and we won't know until they get the cash.
Bob's Red Mill did an ESOP a couple years ago iirc, and last I looked theirs was doing well, no debt. Perhaps this one will work out too. Not all do, but in this case the guy that is "giving" the store away, and the family who he feels deserves a share too, without more work, is most likely getting millions if there is much value there.
So the family's Christmas is certain to be merry. We won't know about the others until they cash out, which is no sure thing in today's market. They could be gone in the flash of a Walmart. And it probably won't be millions for each worker either.
This is aong the lines of things I am interested in, so I may keep a lookout.
I wish them well, but that's what I call re-gifting.
Psst...I think he/she meant Sam Walton.
And an even better person. 
I love when people like him do something like this as it highlights even more how someone can be a success without stepping all over the workers.
He deserves to have a wonderful rest of his life! 
"workers shall own the means of production and distribution of what they produce".
that or Marxism isn't so bad after all.
And yes, I AM SHOUTING! But it's the happy kind.
This is exactly the kind of thing I like to see from business people.
