Hishem AzzouzHost Of Recruitment Mentors Podcast

Why We Sold the Business to a Trust

Name: Why We Sold the Business to a Trust
Uploaded: 2026-02-06T17:39:38+00:00
Duration: 11 s
Channel: Hishem Azzouz
Description: In this segment of the YouTube video, Hishem Azzouz asks for a simple explanation of an employee‑owned trust (EOT). The speaker outlines the strategic…

6 Feb 2026 · 0 min

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In this segment of the YouTube video, Hishem Azzouz asks for a simple explanation of an employee‑owned trust (EOT). The speaker outlines the strategic options the company considered when preparing to go to market in 2021—private equity, venture capital, family funds, and trade sales—before “stumbling across” the EOT model. An EOT is described as a trust composed of employees who have been with the business for at least twelve months. The company can sell the business to this trust, and instead of the trust using its own cash, it raises debt from a bank to finance the purchase. The trust therefore serves as the legal vehicle for the transaction, allowing the business to transition to employee ownership while leveraging external financing.

for us all to understand what this means. Like, how would you explain an employee-owned trust to like a 10-year-old? Like, how would you give us a go at that? Like, so we can all be on the same page and what that actually means.
Sure, I'll give it a go. So, um, when we were looking to go to market in 2021, we were exploring all the different options. So you've got like your private equity or your VC route, you've got your family funds, you've got trade sales where you can go through. And we basically stumbled across the EOT. Which in essence means that you can sell the business to a trust. The trust is formed by basically anyone that's been in the business for longer than 12 months. So you can sell the business to the trust, and instead of the trust having to dig into their own pockets to pay for it, you can raise debt with a partner. So it could be a bank, which is the route that we went down.
So you ultimately raise debt with a bank, you buy the business, and then we use EOT as basically the vehicle to do that financial transaction.