"ESOP sponsors need to appreciate the extent of the financial strain imposed on their company by a simultaneous layoff of a sizeable portion of their workforce. Each one of these terminated employees will receive a distribution of shares from the Plan at the same time and therefore will become eligible to 'cash-out' all or part of those shares concurrently. It is this spike of simultaneous cash out requests by a significant number of employees -- at a time when the company is least able to afford to make these payments -- that may put a catastrophic financial strain upon an ESOP sponsor."  MORE >>