In April 2018, William Franklin, Partner at Pett, Franklin & Co. LLP, will be visiting Mondragon, in his capacity as Honorary Research Fellow for the Esop Centre, to investigate the parallels that may be drawn between Mondragon and Employee-Ownership Trusts (“EOTs”).

Headquartered in Gipuzkoa in the autonomous community of the Basque Country, Mondragon Corporation is a corporation and federation of worker cooperatives that was founded in 1956. It has since grown to become the foremost Basque business group, the tenth largest organisation in Spain and a case study in the success and prosperity that may be achieved via employee-ownership models.

Similarly, the EOT model requires at least the majority of shares in a company to be owned and controlled by a trust which holds the shares for the long-term benefit of all employees. With the increasing popularity of this business structure in the UK, key lessons in corporate governance are likely to be garnered from Mondragon that may be implemented within EOT companies in the UK.

Pett, Franklin & Co. LLP are experts in employee share schemes, executive incentives and share valuation.