Workers’ Buyouts (WBOs), defined as the acquisition of a company by its own employees to prevent closure, save jobs, and preserve company know-how, are increasingly seen as an effective tool for addressing challenges within the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) sector, particularly concerning business ownership succession, which affects an estimated 150,000 enterprises annually in the EU.
The European Commission's Social Economy Action Plan (2021) explicitly calls for financial and non-financial support for WBOs, and the Council of the EU also recognized the need for an enabling framework in its 2023 Recommendation on developing social economy framework conditions. This ESF+ study provides a comprehensive analysis of WBOs in a European context, focusing on countries with established WBO traditions such as France, Italy, Slovenia, and Spain .
