I am trying to be discrete about how our Company's ESOP was terminated, two years ago and I have some new information and I need some answers and advisement. Here are the facts:
1. 110 employees of my company held ESOP shares resulting in ownership of 49% of the company
2. We incurred valuation every year for the share value. The last valuation we received was for total for $3.1 million dollars for the 49% of the company
3. The President of the Company bought out the owner's 51% of the company. We attempted to find out what the purchase price price was and we were told that it was confidential. We believe the owner received between $18 - 25 $million dollars for his 51% of the company.
4. In the industry that we work in company's are sold typically for 2 x the sales revenue. At the time of owners buyout, we were at $30 million in sales revenue, current sales revenue is $45 million dollars.
5. Soon after the owner was bought out, we were told by the President of the Company the ESOP was being terminated and told we had to sell the stock back to him for the $3.1 million dollars for the 49%
6. We had no lawyer represent us
We had no independent valuation done to represent fair market value at the
time of the stock buy back from the President / Owner.
If the owner received $18 million dollars for his 51% shares how is it we received $3.1 million dollars for our ESOP 49% shares?
Can someone clarify this. Is this legal and does this follow ESOP guidelines??
NEED HELP / ALOT OF US ARE HURTING IN OUR RETIREMENT.
