There are estimated to be about 14,000 companies in the US with an
Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Ideally, I'd like a complete
list of ALL these companies (both public and private) with contact
names, addresses, and phone numbers. A complete list would, presumably
have to come from a federal government source. Next best would be
numerous specific sources containing significant pieces of the entire
list, e.g. all the ESOPs in several states. I'm most interested in
Midwest and Eastern states.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 18 Oct 2002 11:20 PDT

AMS --

I've seen slightly different numbers: 8,466 according to Department of
Labor 1997 numbers and 11,500 according to association numbers.  I'm
told by the Department of Labor that a list can be obtained by writing
to them.

On-line there are lists of the 100 largest ESOPs.

I'd be glad to provide on-line resource links and the DOL office to
which you should write, if that's adequate for you.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by ams-ga on 18 Oct 2002 12:24 PDT

davidsar-ga commented "Commercial sources are available
faster, for about $1200 for the entire list." Do you have a specific
source for that list?

Whether the total count is 11,000, 14,000 or what doesn't matter much.
All are presumably estimates. I'm trying to access a comprehensive,
high quality list of that magnitude.

Writing the DOL might turn up something, eventually. But I was really
hoping for a more sure-fire, "here's the exact source of the list and
here's how you get it and what it costs" kind of answer.

From the National Center for Employee Ownership comes this little
cautionary (but possibly helpful)tidbit:

"The Department of Labor collects data on ESOPs and 401(k) plans
through its "5500" form. Large (over 100 employee) companies file
annually and small companies file every three years. These data can
tell you the name of the plan, the size of its assets, the number of
participants, when the plan was started, and if the company is public.
The data are available, but at a cost per record. They also take a
long time to obtain (usually months). Commercial sources are available
faster, for about $1200 for the entire list."

You can see the full article at: 
http://www.nceo.org/library/research.html

There's also a group called the ESOPAssociation that has an on-line
list of its members sortable by state, industry, etc.  Now, just
because a company is a member of the group, that's no guarantee that
they have an ESOP.  However, it seems a fair bet that most of the
companies listed either are ESOP companies, or else provide
ESOP-related services.  Your call as to whether it's of use to you or
not:

http://www.esopassociation.org/pubs/yellow.html

The ESOPAssociation site gives the option of downloading a .pdf file
of all members. By my **rough** calculation, there are around 1,500
businesses listed; roughly only 10-15% of the total number of ESOPs.

Still, it's free, and it's better than a kick in the teeth.