Dear supporter,

Happy new year to all our EOA subscribers. EOA has an exciting agenda of advocacy and education and we hope that 2014 brings much needed improvements to the Employee Ownership environment as a result.

Our Annual Conference will be held on Thursday 22 May 2014 in Sydney. Early bird specials will be available early February for a 2 week period only. If you sign up to the Annual Conference you will also be eligible for reduced member rates.

We are very excited that this year’s award nominations have now opened. View the Award Nomination Forms

As part of our ongoing work connecting with other peak bodies around the world, our Chair, Angela Perry, met with International Association of Financial Participation (IAFP) and ifs ProShare in London last November.

Find more details about the meeting. IAFP have recently created an overview of the laws in 23 countries.

EOA meet with Andrew Pendleton, from York University in the UK. Andrew has been researching employee ownership for many years. Andrew will be in Australia in June to share his research and recent findings with our members.

We are delighted to have formed an experts panel made up of specialists in the employee share and ownership area, including:

1. Adrian O’Shannessy (Greenwoods & Freehills)
2. Andrew Clements (King & Wood Mallesons)
3. Angela Perry (Link Market Services)
4. Karen Quinsey (PWC)
5. Matthew Garvan (Computershare)
6. Paul Ellis (Ernst & Young)

The experts panel were responsible for our initial report published this year, our reply to the initial start-up discussion and also the reply to the ASIC Class Order consultation process. There are a number of initiatives intended for this year including starting the conversation about what a start-up or succession plan model could look like.

Graeme Nuttall who many of you would have heard from at last year’s EOA conference has been instrumental in driving reform and assisting the UK Government with reforms in this area. Watch an interview we conducted with Graeme. Also read Graeme’s review of Employee Ownership provided to the UK Government. You can also hear what Graeme said at our conference last year: Graeme Nuttall keynote address 2013 EOA Conference.

EOA has put forward seven key reform agenda items for the Government to consider and is exploring these changes with political representatives.

More recently the EOA responded to the consultation around employee share plans in start-ups.

You can stay in touch between newsletters on our blog.