An Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) is a specific type of trust which enables a company to become owned by its employees.
EOTs act as a form of indirect employee ownership. This means that, rather than the employees directly owning shares in the company, the shares are owned by the trust, of which the employees are the beneficiaries.
They have their origin in a political desire to introduce more diversity and engagement into the UK economy by encouraging employee ownership. This led to the Finance Act 2014 which introduced certain tax reliefs relating to companies owned by an EOT as well as to individuals who sell a controlling interest to an EOT.
There are now over 2,000 EOTs in the UK and this number is growing every year.