In an innovative transaction, the employees of publisher Chelsea Green have become the controlling owners of close to 80 percent of the company’s shares. They bought out the company’s outside investors, with president and publisher Margo Baldwin along with Ian Baldwin (who founded the press together in 1984) retaining their minority stake. Chelsea Green’s employee stock ownership plan–which is a pension plan–bought the shares on behalf of the employees. Baldwin notes “the company had to have an outside valuation and the board of directors decided on the share offering price,” which could not exceed the valuation. Baldwin undersores to us, […]