Marsh, Berry & Co. Inc., a Cleveland-area consulting and investment banking firm focused on the insurance industry, announced that the firm has become 100 percent employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) Trust.
The ESOP announcement was made to MarshBerry employees during a quarterly staff meeting held at the company’s headquarters in Woodmere, Ohio.
An ESOP is an employee benefit plan, which provides company stock to employees as part of their retirement benefits. As a 100 percent ESOP-owned company, all MarshBerry stock is now held in trust by the ESOP.
“For 35 years MarshBerry has consistently broadened ownership in order to use wealth creation as a way to attract and retain talent,” said John Wepler, chairman and CEO of MarshBerry. The move to full employee-ownership takes it one step further. “Our employees have been the secret to our success, working tirelessly to help our clients. We feel that rewarding our staff by sharing ownership through an ESOP is a great move for our company, as it can be beneficial to our employees monetarily and through a more rewarding work experience.”
As an employee-owned company, MarshBerry will continue to operate under the same business model and management structure.
Founded in 1981, MarshBerry provides consulting services (financial, operational, sales management, and merger/acquisition advisory) in the financial services industry to independent insurance agents/brokers and carriers. The firm has advised on 531 transactions since 1999 and completed more than 250 diagnostic and confirmatory due diligence projects over the past 12 years.
Source: MarshBerry
