Tag: David Narro Associates

Memorable year for co-operative working

Sarah Deas resized2014 has been a busy year for Co-operative Development Scotland (CDS), with interest in co-operative working higher than ever.

Here, CDS chief executive Sarah Deas reflects on the year and looks ahead to what 2015 may bring.

As we hurtle towards the end of 2014, it is a natural time to look back on the past 12 months. Last December, I remember fondly writing how the eyes of the world would be on Scotland throughout the year – and that certainly proved to be the case!

One shining moment was the XX Commonwealth Games, held in the always-friendly city of Glasgow. I was proud to serve as a Host City Volunteer at this spectacular event which will live long in the memory as an example of what can be achieved when we work together. CDS was delighted to contribute to Glasgow City Council’s (GCC) business event held during the Games. In fact, one of the highlights of the year was seeing GCC and its counterpart in the capital progress their commitment to be Co-operative Councils.Sarah Deas

This is a significant endorsement of co-operative working, which CDS is supporting through the provision of specialist advice. Co-operative working is now recognised as a means of achieving competitive advantage by businesses in a wide range of sectors and there is also growing interest in employee ownership – specifically as a succession solution – helped by the new tax incentives.

To tap further into that growing interest, we held five ‘successful succession’ events during the year. Kindly hosted by employee-owned companies – Aquascot, Galloway & MacLeod, Page\Park, Stewart Buchanan Gauges and Scott & Fyfe – these sessions gave those interested in the ownership model the opportunity to see how it works in practice.

We also engaged with Scotland’s professional advisers through our expert briefing sessions, tackling subjects including funding the employee buyout and employee share ownership.

David Narro Assoc 09

David Narro Associates celebrated becoming employee owned in August.

CDS helped a wide range of businesses across the year, including Fitwise and David Narro Associates, both of which made the transition to employee ownership. Scotland has a host of new employee owners, and hopefully they will find the newly-formed EOA Network Scotland useful – one to watch in 2015.

I was also grateful for the opportunity to visit Quebec for the International Summit of Cooperatives, a truly insightful conference. We heard from the Mondragon Corporation, often seen as an example of best practice when it comes to co-operative working. It is worth noting that the Basque region, where Mondragon is headquartered, is now looking to learn from the UK. Just last month, I welcomed a delegation from the Gipuzkoa province who visited some of our well-established employee-owned companies.

Finally, we once again offered companies in Scotland the chance to win £5,000 in cash and £5,000 in support to make their collaborative ideas a reality. The standard of entries to the Collaboration Prize this year was high, and all of us at CDS are excited to see who will follow in the footsteps of past winners the Scottish Mountain Bike Consortium and The Wee Agency.

In 2015 we anticipate interest in co-operative working to continue to grow as the benefits for staff, business and the economy are further demonstrated. While awareness is most definitely increasing, our job is to keep that momentum going. The growing desire for fairer, more inclusive approaches to working is an opportunity to further underline the virtues of the models – and we will continue to shout about it.

The year began with Kim Lowe, a managing director at John Lewis, calling for more businesses to consider a co-operative approach. I think it is clear that many have done just that, but more can and will be done in 2015.

2014 has been a memorable year in many ways, and I wish you all a happy, healthy and successfully prosperous 2015.

Scottish success stories at employee ownership conference

????????????The Employee Ownership Association held its annual conference in Nottingham last month, with over 500 delegates attending.

Here, CDS specialist adviser Glen Dott takes a look back at the event and recounts some of the highlights.

This year CDS took seven clients to the Employee Ownership Association Conference. No sightings of Robin Hood – or even a forest – but it was a great learning experience for those considering employee ownership. Who better to ask than those who have ‘been there done that’? With over 500 delegates in attendance there were plenty of ‘doers’ and our contingent had a number of networking possibilities.

On the Monday evening we attended the Philip Baxendale Awards, where ‘the best employee-owned organisations are recognised in a tremendous celebration of excellence’. From a Scottish perspective, Page\Park Architects was Highly Commended as an Employee Ownership Rising Star while Fred Bowden Snr, chairman of Tullis Russell was awarded the The Philip Baxendale Fellowship for his outstanding contribution to employee ownership.

Employee Ownership AssociationIain Hasdell, chief executive of the EOA, welcomed us to the conference and illustrated how far employee ownership has come in a relatively short time. The icing on the cake for ‘Team EO’ in 2014 has been the tax breaks afforded to owners selling into Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) and the tax-free bonuses now payable to employees of EOT-controlled businesses. In Scotland we are already seeing the fruits of this legislation with EOTs in operation at Mike Stoane Lighting and David Narro Associates and more deals in the pipeline.

Two strands of sessions followed for ‘newbies’ and those already in employee ownership.  In between, we took the opportunity to link up our guests with relevant advisers and like-minded businesses, before keynote speaker Mike Thompson of Childbase explained why his company is moving to a Trust-only model. Surprisingly, external investors currently share most of the profits but a deal has been struck where an employee trust will buy out external investors and also the founding family. The primary advantage will be that future profits will be shared exclusively by employee owners via the recently introduced tax-free bonus.

The conference came to an end with John Lupton of 150-year old Tayport firm Scott & Fyfe telling us of their remarkable transition from family-owned jute business to a modern, outward looking, innovation led employee-owned industrial textile manufacturer.

This story illustrates that Scotland has much to be proud of and we certainly lead the UK charge in adoption of the EO model. We have every reason to believe our clients will join the employee ownership fold and we aim to bring an even bigger contingent next year.

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