Why We Created Repurchase Ready
Every ESOP company has a repurchase obligation to manage. There are no exceptions. The RO is a structural feature of every ESOP, and planning for it is a fiduciary and corporate finance imperative.
Almost every ESOP company performs some form of RO planning internally. Some companies rely on spreadsheets built in house. They cover some calculations – but offer no analytics or tools to plan. Others periodically engage consultants to prepare repurchase obligation studies. Each has limitations that become more consequential as an ESOP matures and its participant population grows.
For more than three decades, the professionals behind Repurchase Ready worked directly with ESOP companies that were trying to answer the same fundamental questions:
- How much will we need to pay out?
- When will those obligations arise?
- Are there future liability spikes we should be preparing for now?
- How will changes in stock value affect future obligations?
- What happens if we accelerate distributions, open a distribution window, redeem shares, recycle shares, or re-leverage the ESOP?
- Will our current funding strategy keep pace with future obligations?
The pattern was consistent across industries, company sizes, and geographies. ESOP companies were doing their best to plan, but the tools available to them were not designed for the job.
Repurchase Ready was created to address that problem.
Repurchase Ready was built from the boardroom down, not plan administration up. We evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of numerous RO tools, studies, and forecasting methodologies. We identified the key analytics, reports, and planning outputs that ESOP companies use to make decisions — engaging professional software developers to build a forecasting application designed specifically around those corporate decision makers’ needs.
ESOP companies can now maintain an in-house ongoing, dynamic view of their RO and test the impact of future decisions before those decisions are made.
Companies can update assumptions after each valuation, adjust plan parameters as their workforce evolves, test distribution policy alternatives and run alternative scenarios whenever business, or ownership planning decisions arise. The result is a living tool rather than a periodic deliverable. The C Suite and the Board will always be on top of it.
Straightforward design, powerful planning
Using annual or more frequently adjusted participant census information and company-specific assumptions, Repurchase Ready enables companies to project future repurchase obligations, evaluate funding requirements, and compare alternative planning strategies over a multi-year horizon. It allows companies to update assumptions, test alternatives, and maintain a current forecast as circumstances change — all in house.
It includes functionality for:
- Repurchase obligation forecasting
- Corporate cash requirement analysis
- Multi-scenario modeling and comparison
- Distribution policy testing
- Share recycling and redemption analysis
- Re-leveraging evaluations
- Diversification and termination projections
- Monte Carlo simulation of participant elections
- Board-ready and advisor-ready reporting
The Repurchase Ready Difference
Whether an ESOP is newly established or decades old, Repurchase Ready helps decision-makers better understand the financial implications of future participant distributions and most importantly provide planning alternatives for creative ESOP benefit management before issues become immediate challenges.
Our Team
Kevin Long, Founder & Developer
Kevin Long is the President of Employee Benefits Law Group, PC and has spent over 35 years advising ESOP companies, fiduciaries, trustees, and plan sponsors on ESOP transactions, compliance, governance, repurchase obligation planning, and employer securities matters.
Kevin’s experience working with ESOP companies across a wide range of industries provided much of the practical insight that led him to found Repurchase Ready LLC to develop the Repurchase Ready program. Through years of advising clients on repurchase obligation challenges, he observed recurring planning issues that ultimately became the foundation for the strategies and concepts incorporated into the application.
Kim Rineer, Director of Technical Consulting
Kim Rineer is an ASPPA Certified Pension Consultant with over 25 years of consulting experience advising ESOP companies on plan administration, employee benefit consulting, demographic analysis, and repurchase obligation planning.
Kim works directly with ESOP companies to help them understand participant data, forecasting assumptions, planning operations, and funding considerations. As our Director of Technical Consulting, Kim helped shape the functionality, reporting, and usability objectives incorporated into Repurchase Ready.
Sheryl Bayani-Alzona, Director
Sheryl Bayani-Alzona is an ESOP attorney with over 15 years of legal experience and more than 25 years of experience working with employee benefit plans. Her practice covers all aspects of ESOPs that affect repurchase obligation planning, including transactions, mature ESOP strategy and compliance, governance, fiduciary matters, employer securities issues, and strategic ownership succession planning.
Sheryl’s deep ESOP expertise is due to her experience as both an attorney and former ESOP third-party administrator. Sheryl provides guidance to ESOP companies, boards, trustees, and fiduciaries on ownership transitions and long-term ESOP sustainability. Her experience evaluating alternatives legally and from a repurchase obligation driven perspective is invaluable in helping clients navigate complex planning decisions. Sheryl was instrumental in helping shape the strategic approaches incorporated into Repurchase Ready.
How Repurchase Ready Is Available
Repurchase Ready is available to ESOP companies as a standalone planning tool as well as in conjunction with consulting services provided by Repurchase Ready LLC. Companies can use the application independently to maintain and update their own forecasts or they can engage consulting support to assist with setup, assumption-setting, scenario development, and ongoing analysis.
This flexibility is intentional. Some companies have the internal capacity to manage their repurchase obligation forecasting with the right tool in hand. Others prefer the added support of an experienced ESOP consultant who can help them interpret results, stress-test assumptions, and present findings to boards and advisors. Repurchase Ready is designed to serve both.
Important Notice Regarding Professional Services
Repurchase Ready LLC is a consulting company, which is affiliated with Employee Benefits Law Group, PC and provides consulting services only. The availability of Repurchase Ready does not establish an attorney-client relationship with Employee Benefits Law Group, PC or create an engagement for legal services. Legal advice and other professional services are provided only pursuant to separate engagements with company counsel or Employee Benefits Law Group, PC.
