INDUSTRY NEWS Sepetmber 17, 2013
The company is slotted at number 18 on the NCEO’s top 100 list.
The Davey Tree Expert Co. is among the top 20 largest employee-owned company in the U.S., according to data from the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO). Furthermore, the NCEO estimates that Davey Tree is the fifth largest 100 percent employee-owned company in the U.S. on the Employee Ownership 100 list.
The list is compiled annually by the non-profit NCEO and requires a company have a majority of its stock owned by an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) or another qualified employee ownership plan in which at least 50 percent of full-time employees are eligible to participate.
The Davey Tree Expert Co. was founded in 1880 by John Davey and ownership remained in the family until the late 1970s, when employees purchased the company. Today, Davey has more than 7,000 employees and is number 18 on the list on the NCEO’s top 100 list.
“We believe employee ownership encourages us to be more innovative, collaborative and customer-focused,” said Karl Warnke, Davey’s chairman, president and CEO. “We are the owners, and we care deeply about the health and future of our company and are invested in its success.”
Currently, there are approximately 10,900 ESOPs or other broad-based employee ownership plans in the United States, an estimated 40 percent of which own a majority of their companies’ stock. ESOP companies have $900 billion in assets.
Companies on the list now employ more than 673,000 people and are ranked by the total number of employees. The smallest company on the list has 1,100 employees. Publix Supermarkets, the largest company on this year’s list, has 159,000 employees. Details on this research, as well as the full Employee Ownership 100 list, can be found at NCEO’s website at www.nceo.org.
