Christopher K. Buch

Christopher Buch is a recognized leader who represents both employers and fiduciaries in all aspects of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), as well as executive compensation and employee benefits matters.

Based on years of experience, he anticipates the challenges his clients may face and offers them efficient solutions. Chris assists his clients with ownership succession transactions, going-private transactions, management buyouts, corporate conversions, releveragings, ESOP company sales and transactions involving private equity. Chris’s clients are plan sponsors, ESOP trustees, selling shareholders, ESOP committees, lending institutions and private equity firms across all types of ESOP transactions. He represents several of the biggest employee-owned companies in the United States.

His executive compensation and employee benefits work includes designing compensation and equity arrangements, negotiating employment agreements, compliance with compensation and benefits tax laws, and establishing and maintaining qualified plans and health and welfare arrangements. He also routinely handles Department of Labor and Internal Revenue Service investigations for his clients.

Chris regularly speaks and publishes on ESOP and executive compensation topics. He sits on the Advisory Committee of the Employee Owned-S Corporation of America, a small group of ESOP professionals, and he is a member of the Legislative and Regulatory Committee of the ESOP Association and the National Center for Employee Ownership. He is an original coalition member of Expanding ESOPs, a group aimed at increasing more employee ownership in the U.S. economy.

Experience

*includes, in some cases, Chris’s previous experience

• Represented company in connection with the sale of 30 percent of its shares to an ESOP for approximately $380 million.
• Represented an ESOP trustee in connection with the purchase of 30 percent of a company for approximately $300 million.
• Represented a contracting company in connection with the sale of 75 percent of its stock to an ESOP for approximately $300 million.
• Represented a consulting company in connection with the sale of 100 percent of its stock to an ESOP in which the company’s 401(k) plan participants were able to invest in the purchase through a rollover of a portion of their 401(k) plan assets.
• Represented a private equity firm as special ESOP counsel in connection with a significant investment in, and restructuring of, a 100 percent employee-owned consulting company.
• Represented a private equity firm as special ESOP counsel in connection with its purchase of a specialty manufacturing company.
• Represented an ESOP trustee in connection with the ESOP formation and subsequent sale of a food services manufacturer to a strategic purchaser, which was also an ESOP-owned company.
• Represented an ESOP company in connection with its sale to a private equity firm for approximately $325 million.
• Acted as special ESOP counsel to a North American security integrator in connection with its sale to a strategic investor for approximately $275 million.
• Represented an electrical company in connection with the sale of 100 percent of its stock to an ESOP for approximately $160 million.
• Represented an information technology services company owned by an ESOP in connection with the sale of 100 percent of its capital stock to a private equity firm for approximately $50 million.