In 2010, Dick Hanzel, co-founder of TVF began thinking about the best approach for the company as he neared his retirement. With the help of TVF’s Chief Financial Officer, Chris Fredericks, an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) was born. As an employee-owned company, TVF went from good to great. Now, it looks forward to helping other companies go from good to great through employee ownership.
In 2020, TVF launched Empowered Ventures, an Employee-Owned Acquisition Holding Company. To put it simply, a holding company is a company that holds other companies as independent businesses. Its goal: to acquire closely held businesses with track records of success. EV aims to invest long term without any intention of selling, and welcomes employees to its ownership program, accruing value over time based on the combined performance of the operating companies.
“Empowered Ventures is 100% owned by the ESOP plan that all TVF employees participate in,” says Chris Fredericks, CEO of TVF and Empowered Ventures. “It’s a pretty exciting and unique opportunity for TVF as an ESOP to be able to go out and acquire more businesses to create value for all our employees.”
We at TVF look forward to growing our company and supporting other ESOP companies through this new adventure. If you are interested in learning more about Empowered Ventures, please sign up for its newsletter on the website, empowered.ventures. Stay in touch with all of TVF’s updates at tvfinc.com.
