IainMaciver

I get that there is a once in a generation opportunity to radically shift ownership with the coming retirement of the baby boomers I can't help but feel this will at best see a rebalancing of ownership in SME companies and still leaves the elephant in the room... Namely large corporations who arguably do the most harm to society and in many regards represent a class of institution that supports / maintains the 1%'s hegemony. Do you have any views on how ownership of large corporations might be challenged?

Hi Gar,

While I understand one of the strengths of the cooperative / new economy movement is the absence of leaders (i.e. no one specific person for the establishment to target) do you think there are any downsides to this?

Thanks. I was worried you were going to say that... It seems like a much bigger ask than the other aspects of the new economy because a successful outcome will of course rest in the hands of politicians who seem to reside for the most part in the pockets of corporations.

On point 2... I'm a former investment banker (I wasn't very senior and fell into it) who worked in Private Equity. Convention has it that PE shops will support management buy outs of SME firms, however, there is a reluctance to underwrite worker buy outs. Primarily as a result of the credit models they employ looking unfavourably on the arrangement.

I'm currently investigating with some former colleagues whether there is an opportunity to challenge this view and set-up an ethical PE shop that can support / finance worker buy-outs.

Other orgs such as Working World are looking at how to support the financing requirements for co-ops in the US and Argentina.