The next government should incentivise Irish business owners to ‘sell-in’ to their employees rather than selling off to overseas companies if they want to grow the domestic economy, the founder of an employee-owned digital marketing agency has said.
Alan Coleman, founder and CEO of Wolfgang Digital, believes there is a need to rebalance the economy and reduce Ireland’s reliance on multinationals.
However, he added, that is not happening because private equity firms and foreign companies are buying up an increasing number of the most successful Irish-owned businesses.
Coleman has joined with the Irish ProShare Association (IPSA) to call on all political parties to commit to increasing support for employee ownership as an economic model to support homegrown businesses.
IPSA wants the next government to prioritise introducing Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs), as was recently recommended by the Indecon Review commissioned by the Department of Finance.
“Successive governments have done a remarkable job over many decades making Ireland a …