The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) is a benefit scheme that gives employees ownership interest in companies. It's a corporate finance strategy that aligns the interest of employees with those of shareholders. The company usually holds the shares provided to employees in a trust for safety and growth, until the employee resigns or retires from the company.
When establishing an ESOP, it's typical to use the services of an independent third party. At Vistra, we can support any entity or corporate that's keen to set up such a scheme.
Similar in intent, Employee Welfare Trusts (EWT) are established to cater to employee welfare needs, such as funding child education, medical costs and extraordinary expenses not covered under compensation.
We offer a suite of customised services in this area, which include:
- Review of transaction documents
- Executing of trust documents and obtaining PAN/TAN
- Opening and operating trust bank/depository/broker accounts
- Undertaking purchase and sale of securities, through an appointed broker, in line with a pre-approved investment policy
- Implementing the benefits application policy
- Recording approvals and maintaining trust accounts
- Filing tax returns and ensuring tax compliance
- Reporting and MIS