ILO has good words for employee-owned businesses - London
18 Feb '06
3 min read
The number of employee-owned businesses such as John Lewis in the United Kingdom where the share capital is held for the benefit of the workforce remains relatively small.
However, a recent ILO publication/advises that this form of company structure is both successful in business terms and more widely applicable. Andrew Bibby reports for ILO Online from London.
ILO informs that Oxford Street, London's premier shopping area, acts as a magnet for locals and tourists alike, particularly in the key retail period just before the Christmas holidays.
This is the street where British and international retailers have their prestige flagship stores and one of the largest of these is the department store belonging to the company John Lewis.
John Lewis is, however, a rather different sort of business from its neighbouring retailers in Oxford Street. With 27 department stores in British cities and almost 170 supermarkets, it is the largest business in the UK to operate as a fully employee-owned company.
All 63,000 permanent staff are known as 'partners', and together they ultimately control the business. There are no external shareholders, all the company's shares being held in a specially created employee benefit trust.
John Lewis has traded in Britain for almost 150 years, and has been a fully worker co-ownership business since 1950 when the son of the founder transferred ownership of the firm to the employee trust at far below the market value.
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