INSIDE: DEAR ABBY, HOROSCOPE, PUZZLES & FEATURES
C1
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2021
bendbulletin.com/business
Employee-owned businesses
FOSTERING
LOYALTY & PRIDE
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin
ABOVE: Diana Gonzalez stock s produce while working at Newport Market in Bend on Wednesday. Gonzalez said she has been an employee with the supermarket for two years and is excited to
take part in the employee stock ownership plan that she now qualifies for with the company. BELOW: Jess Jenkins straightens a display of cheese while working at Newport Avenue Market on
Wednesday. Jenkins said she has been working at the supermarket for over three years and is taking part in the employee stock ownership plan.
WinCo, Newport Avenue Market, among ESOPs helping workers reach retirement
comfortable retirement.
“We have some people already retire, at
full retirement age they are fully vested,”
said Lauren Johnson, chief executive of
Newport Avenue Market, which has 180
employees in Bend and related stores in
Terrebonne and Sisters. “It has really been
a game-changer for a few of our folks ; it is
pretty exciting.”
The compensation is made through an
employee stock ownership plan, commonly
referred to as an ESOP. Company profits
are funneled into the ESOP to be shared
among employees based on their salary and
time with the company.
Unlike the sometimes volatile share
price of stocks on a stock exchange like the
NYSE, share prices for employee-owner
stores are largely static. They change peri-
odically after a review of company perfor-
mance by a third-party evaluator.
BY MICHAEL KOHN
The Bulletin
T
he opening of the new WinCo
store in Bend has offered
more than just a new option
for grocery shopping, for the
140 people working there, it’s
a chance to own a slice of the company.
WinCo is not the first or only employ-
ee-owned store in Bend. Bi-Mart, Newport
Avenue Market and Deschutes Brewery all
have employee-ownership programs. But
the arrival of WinCo in Central Oregon
puts a spotlight on a little-known business
model.
What are the benefits of converting to
an employee-ownership program and is it
worth working for one? The benefits are
pretty simple, really. It offers financial se-
curity for employees who stick with the
company for the long haul. The potential
is there for six-figure payouts and even a
See ESOPs / C7
The truth about how politicians affect the markets
I
t was November of 2016,
and I could hear the dis-
tress in the sound of her
voice over the phone.
“I think our new president,
Mr. Trump, is going to be bad
for the country, and the stock
market is going to crash! How
are we invested to handle
that?”
It wasn’t the only call like
that I took around then. They
reminded me of several dis-
cussions, eight years prior, that
sounded something like this:
FACTS ON
N
FINANCE
By William Valentine
tine
“I think our new president,
Mr. Obama, is going to be
bad for the country, and the
stock market is going to crash!
How are we invested to handle
that?”
As it happened, stocks did
well under both Presidents
Obama and Trump, but it’s
no surprise that I’m starting
to take more than a few calls
about the new command-
er-in- chief.
Over my 33-year investing
career, I don’t recall these sug-
gestions not coming up when
the White House changed
hands or power shifted be-
tween the parties in Congress.
This begs the question as to
how important federal politi-
cians are in shaping investment
returns. The answer may sur-
prise you.
The fact is that politics has
almost no discernible effect on
the markets. Full stop.
In fact, I would cite this con-
cern as among the most widely
held, but false, assumptions
among investors. At best, news
of material changes in Federal
policy, directly targeted at busi-
nesses or tax rates, have a mar-
ginal impact on stock prices,
and those reactions tend to be
very short-lived.
Investors have been tilting at
this windmill going back to the
dawn of stock trading in the
United States. The truth is that
stock prices are driven by the
future direction of earnings,
which are powered by the eco-
nomic cycle, independent of
who is running the country.
Now, this is not to say that
Fiscal and Monetary policy ex-
ist in a vacuum and don’t im-
pact the economy. They do —
but you cannot associate those
changes with any one party or
mix of elected representatives.
Some will claim that one
political party is “better” for
the economy or markets than
the other. Often, they cite the
average-stock-returns-by-ad-
ministration as support for
this argument. But I was one of
those weird kids that loved sta-
tistics in school, and I can flatly
state that we don’t have enough
data points to arrive at an em-
pirical conclusion as it relates
to party versus market return.
Forty-six presidents do not a
valid-sample-set make.
See Valentine / C7