Transferring Ownership to Employees
What Could Be
Working people not only generate income but also build wealth and benefit from the productivity of the companies they work for every day
Should Be
An investment in Apis & Heritage Capital Partners helps privately held companies with large hourly workforces transition into 100% employee‐owned businesses
Despite Colorado’s growing prosperity, too many families — especially Black, Indigenous and Latino families — lack the opportunity to build wealth. Nearly 60% of Black and 75% of Latino workers have no retirement savings, leaving families without the assets needed to achieve long-term security. Without intervention, these gaps reinforce cycles of intergenerational poverty and racial inequity.
Employee ownership offers one of the most powerful tools to help families build wealth. Traditional leveraged buyouts have long enriched private equity firms, but at Gary we see an opportunity to flip that model by transferring ownership and equity upside to workers themselves.
Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H) is pioneering this approach with its Legacy Fund I, which raised $30 million in 2021 from investors including Gary, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation’s Zero Gap Fund, the Skoll Foundation and its advisor Capricorn Investments, Ascension Investment Management and others.
A&H uses employee-led buyouts to transition closely held businesses into 100% employee-owned enterprises, prioritizing companies in which a significant portion of the workforce makes hourly wages. A&H also capitalizes on the national need for closely held business owners to exit their businesses upon retirement, where no succession plan or formal sale process exists. As employees pay down debt used to transition ownership through company cash flows, they build equity for themselves and their families.
Gary’s $2 million investment in A&H supported the conversion of Apex Plumbing (now Apex Underground) in Arvada into a fully employee-owned business.
Gary is also committed to A&H’s subsequent Legacy Fund II because this impactful partnership reflects our broader strategy of reimagining capital structures to benefit ordinary families and to build generational wealth. By helping Colorado become a national model for employee ownership, we are expanding opportunities for families to achieve economic security, mobility and long-term prosperity. In fact, nationally, A&H has also supported the conversion of four other closely held private companies into employee-owned companies.
“You can feel really good walking away, knowing that your employees have a lot to look forward to and are gonna continue to get rewarded for their efforts.”
Brian WilkieFormer Owner of Apex Plumbing, reflecting on transferring ownership of his company to employees
Making the Case for Employee Ownership
While there’s plenty of research on ownership investing — including a report co-authored by Gary and our partners — stories that bring these models to life are rare. To showcase how A&H helps businesses transition to employee-owned enterprises, Gary’s storytelling team created “Restoring an American Ideal”, a short film about a small-town, employee-owned shop in Colorado that has created 20 millionaires — and another company now aiming to do the same with A&H’s help. Watch the trailer below and then watch the full CO.created film here.
Our work to
Build fAMILY Wealth
Because building wealth across a household balance sheet requires more than one approach, we invest in opportunities that expand access to homeownership, employee ownership, shared real estate and financial accounts that grow in value over time.
