James McRitchie, CorpGov.netInnovations in Cooperative Ownership: Converted and Hybrid Listed Cooperatives at http://www.uwcc.wisc.edu/pdf/innovationownership.pdf Reviews 50 cases. All involved co-ops moving toward publicly traded companies, most to avoid capital constraints. Some interesting partial spin-offs where co-ops retained control. Nothing going the other way. Still looking for those examples. Closest are those refiling as B-corps. Others?
Matt Cropp 🌲🌲@corpgovnet partial spin off of a #coop from a for-profit, you mean?
@mattcropp Yes, or using different classes of shares to offer board seats to workers or consumers. So far, I am only seeing cases of dual-class shares being used to entrench control, not spread it. There needs to be a middle ground between co-ops constrained by member financing and public companies where you either have property or you are property, in the form of rented slavery.
Stefanie Schulte@mattcropp @corpgovnet Not entirely comparable, but German wind park developer #Prokon was turned into a #cooperative in 2015: http://www.dw.com/en/investors-rescue-wind-developer-prokon/a-18558732
Last year, Prokon eG (which is a member of the cooperative auditing association RWGV, my employer) issued a publicly listed corporate bond.
@corpgovnet @mattcropp Prokon was a GmbH (company with limited liability) before, which became insolvent in 2014. EnBW, a large publicly traded electric utilities company in Germany, wanted to buy the company for €550 million, but the creditors of Prokon decided to turn it into a cooperative instead.