Steve Voigt talks about unexpected benefits of King Arthur Flour’s switch to an ESOP

I thought we'd play a little game I used to write a column called cheers and jeers where I had to say some good things and some bad things that happened every week and so many of you have hinted at some of the good aspects of an esop but I thought we'd force you all to say maybe to one or two things that were positive that you didn't expect beyond preventing hostile takeovers or getting a clear succession and then one thing that maybe didn't go as well or is still a little bit more of a struggle with the ESOP well I hate to turn to you first but you're right here so we'll go back to you yeah so just the unexpected pleasures were the kind of funny things that came up from the employees that were related to being shareholders so kind of coming up with the idea of when you earn rights to the stock that's in your ESOP over time I call that vesting and it was a really big deal that everybody actually got a vest when they were fully invested so King Arthur vests worn very proudly and everybody knew when I get to be here seven years I have control over all the stock that's in my account I get a vest negatives weren't many I think the the only one was early days it was it wasn't understood as well you know it was it was kind of a it's on a piece of paper they're talking about this and it was really just over time and when people retired and took significant value with them that it made sense but early days it was a little a little bit of an unknown I love that best example did it help with employee retention colors one of the things yeah