An Employee Ownership Trust (or EOT) enables a company to become owned by its employees. It is a trust, set up by existing company owners, for the benefit of all employees.
This trust then becomes the majority owner of the business as part of an exit or succession planning strategy.
Employee Ownership Trust is a relatively new type of employee benefit trust, which was introduced by the UK Government in 2014. The intended purpose of Employee Ownership Trusts is to encourage business owners to set up ownership structures like the “John Lewis model”.