Dave Loughran to sign Planet X business over to employee ownership

Planet X boss Dave Loughran has penned a blog outlining his plans to shortly make good on a promise to turn the business over to employee ownership.

Recalling an interview in Rouleur five years ago, Loughran at the time was on record as having a certain respect for entrepreneur Hugh Facey, a boss that earned idolisation for signing co-ownership of his company over to around 300 employees.

The Rouleur extract of the time read: “Loughran’s biggest hero, however, is the entrepreneur Hugh Facey, founder of Gripple, the Sheffield company with 300 employees that makes tiny widgets for joining and tensioning wire. Once described by the Daily Mail as ‘the best boss in Britain’, Facey has put in place a revolutionary employee share ownership system that will eventually mean the company is co-owned by staff and an independent trust set up to safeguard the interests of the workforce. I check in with him a few weeks later to ask whether such a radical idea wasn’t just another flight of fancy. He confirmed he was still committed to the plan, “yes, definitely.”

Loughran says that the time has now come to make good on the promise and that “barring last minute hiccups we (Planet X) become an Employee Owned Company.”

The decision is made on the belief that the business may very well do better with this formula.

Loughran cites YouGov polling (2,160 people) on the subject of employee ownership, flagging data that suggests that 53% believe it would be better for the UK economy if more employee-owned businesses existed. Furthermore, the blog post adds 44% are more likely to apply for a job at an employee-owned firm, while 41% are more likely to purchase from such a business.

In the post Loughran does not shy away from Planet X’s recent history where the business underwent heavy restructuring. This was, according to Loughran’s post, a bid to reshape the business to meet industry transformation, something that he describes as “barely recognisable from the early years.”

“I’ve been ‘the man’ for too long,” Loughran signs off.