ESOPs and Stock Prices

This book is the first to fully examine the many recent financial innovations that have blended the traits of debt and equity and created the hybrid security known as dequity. Chen and Kensinger detail the various forms of dequity, describing its characteristics, how it evolved, how it's being used, and what the future may hold for it. They point to three revolutionary changes that have accompanied dequity: increased equity ownership by employees, the transfer of control of corporate resources from managers to lenders, and a shift toward direct ownership of productive assets by investors.

This book, written by the leading experts in the field, offers a comprehensive look at the factors behind the remarkable growth in employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in public companies over the past few years. The contributors discuss the legal and financial structure, actual uses, and practical implications of ESOPs in publicly held companies, demonstrating how ESOPs can be an effective means of both improving corporate performance and discouraging hostile takeovers. Particular attention is given to the actual impact of ESOPs on companies, shareholders, employees, and taxpayers.