On any given weekday morning at its Sheffield headquarters, Gripple’s factory floors hum with the sound of advanced machinery that most people would struggle to name, much less build. Pressing, die casting, roll forming, laser cutting, all a triumph of advanced engineering and automated processes. But what makes these spaces unusual isn’t what’s made here – wire tensioners and joining systems used across agriculture, construction, and infrastructure, among others – but who owns the place.
Unlike most of the advanced engineering and manufacturing industries, Gripple is 100% employee owned. But where it also differs from almost all of its employee owned peers is in pioneering a direct model rather than going down the Employee Owned Trust (EOT) route that accounts for 90+% of EO transitions.
At Gripple, the people who oversee the machines, manage supply chains, and sell into global markets are stakeholders in their own right. That means that as well as receiving a bonus when the business does well, they build meaningful capital over time.
It's this difference, between sharing in success and truly owning a stake and a say, that sits at the centre at Gripple’s story. And it’s part of a key conversation playing out across the sector about the future of employee ownership itself.
Beyond the EOT
Since it was first signed into law in 2014, the EOT has become the dominant route into employee ownership in the UK. Over a ten-year period, it empowered a nascent sector of a few hundred businesses into well in excess of 2,000. And it’s gained plenty of international recognition as economies around the globe – including the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, Canada, and others – look to replicate its success. Even with the recent changes to Capital Gains Tax relief on the EOT, it still provides an excellent succession option for founders.
But for Ed Stubbs, Group Managing Director for Gripple, the model has a fundamental limitation.
“Through a trust, employee ownership can deliver better jobs and more sustainable businesses,” he says. “But it doesn’t create long-term wealth or independence for employees in the same way, because it isn’t direct.”
On paper, it might seem like a simple distinction, but the differences – especially for employee owners themselves – is significant. In a trust-only model, Gripple pay a minimum 1/3 of post-tax profit in dividend to shareholders. Of course, they’re welcome and, as you’d expect, they get spent but, crucially, they don’t accumulate.
This contrast was showcased at the 2025 Robert Oakeshott Lecture where visiting US academic, Professor Joseph Blasi, compared EOTs with Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that are widespread among US-based employee owned businesses. The conclusion can perhaps best be summed up as a bonus improving today whereas share ownership changes tomorrow.
At Gripple, this becomes most evident in outcomes. Employees who’ve spent twenty years in the business – often in operational or manufacturing roles – can retire with £500,000 of share value. That capital becomes a pension substitute, a buffer against risks, or the foundation for generational wealth. Or, as Ed succinctly puts it, “This model creates wealth, not just income.”
Born in Yorkshire
Like its namesake product, Gripple is analogous to tension wire. Strong, reliable, and unyielding. Underpinning all this is a moral dilemma faced decades before by company founder, Hugh Facey OBE.
Before founding Gripple in the late eighties, Hugh ran Estate Wire. Here’s where the origins of the original Gripple – a contraction of its two principal attributes of ‘gripping’ and ‘pulling’ – was developed after inspiring conversations with farmers.
When the full potential and applicable scale of his new product became clear, Hugh decided Gripple needed to be a standalone business. But to do so, it required Estate Wire to be sold. Commercially, the move was a straightforward transaction. Ethically, it was another matter entirely.
The people who’d helped build the business had no ownership stake. If the business was sold, they’d get nothing despite their contribution to its success. Hugh therefore elected to give 10% of the sale proceeds back to staff. By no means a requirement, but a recognition of shared effort and a hedge against uncertainty if jobs didn’t transfer. Against the sell-sell-sell maximalism of the eighties, it was certainly a bold move.
“Everyone should have the opportunity for capital growth,” says Ed, summarising Hugh’s thinking. “Not just the founder.”
Taking this decision through to its logical conclusion, Hugh founded Gripple in 1989 and hardcoded ownership in early on. The first share offer came in 1995 and, while optional, was widely taken up. By 2011, when GLIDE (Growth Led Innovation Driven Employee Company) was formalised as the holding structure, buying shares became mandatory.
Simply put, after twelve months, new starters purchase £1,000 shares as a minimum within the business. An intentionally Yorkshire approach. You don’t get something for nothing and, if you put your own brass in, you care more. But it’s as much about what comes out as what comes in.
Ownership as a Social Change Engine
The first year of employment at Gripple is critical. New starters are given time to decide whether a fast-paced environment with high expectations and a strong ownership culture is right for them. If they decide to stay, they invest.
To make that possible, the company offers loans to purchase shares, repaid directly from wages over up to five years. Shares can’t be sold for two years, reinforcing the long-term nature of the commitment being made.
The result is a workforce that understands the business in unusually concrete terms and has literally bought into its culture, mission, and approach. It’s a culture where dividends, share price, and tax are all tangible things that affect household decisions.
“There are some incredibly savvy employee owners here,” says Michael Hodgson, Chair of GLIDE and co-chair of the eoa Membership Council.
“People understand how this works because it’s their money.”
Through direct share ownership, employees have been able to buy their first homes, make more informed decisions about starting families, even become landlords. For workers at Gripple’s international sites – especially those where share ownership is uncommon – the effect can be truly transformative. In parts of India, Ed notes, it’s a “mechanism out of poverty”.
Without direct ownership, this kind of capital accumulation simply doesn’t happen across an entire workforce. Going further, Ed says, “If the UK sticks with trusts alone, we’re missing a huge opportunity to close the poverty gap.”
Governance That Develops People
Employee voice is the connective tissue of EO. At Gripple, it’s a voice that’s truly representative of its workforce. GLIDE itself is governed by a board of more than forty elected employee representatives, drawn from across its various businesses and geographies. Regional subsidiaries with at least five shareholders will each send two reps.
Although the board doesn’t run the business day to day, it does hold leadership to account, whilst safeguarding culture and ensuring employee voice is embedded in strategic decisions. But it also develops people with reps receiving training as much in finance and governance as presentation and public speaking.
Many who pass through the board as reps go on to occupy senior leadership roles. Around half of Gripple’s commercial board are comprised of former GLIDE reps while across the wider business, 120-130 alumni have progressed into expanded or higher-level roles. The effect goes beyond the business with many former reps applying to become school governors, trustees, and community leaders. Employee ownership, Ed argues, creates better citizens.
Growth Without Losing the Plot
Gripple is now a £135 million business, exporting 85% of its products to an international marketplace of eighty countries. The key driver here is innovation. The Custodian Charter – founder Hugh Facey’s written statement of how the business should be run – stipulates a fifth of revenue must be invested into new product development. 25% of turnover must come from products that didn’t exist four years earlier.
Although acquisition isn’t strictly forbidden, it’s viewed with caution in favour of organic growth to avoid cultural dilution. Vertical integration plays a major role in business growth. Wherever possible, Gripple asks three questions: can we make it ourselves? At the right cost and quality? It not, can we buy it locally? Only as a last resort does the supply chain stretch further afield.
The result is a manufacturing base capable of producing almost every component that goes into its 30,000-strong product range. As well as creating jobs in local communities, it also strengthens resilience and reinforces long-term thinking.
For employee owners, it also makes manufacturing an exciting place to work. Apprentices compete to join, while the business maintains deep ties with local schools, colleges, and universities. Employee ambassadors are often found visiting classrooms and EO is taught as part of employability programmes, boosting knowledge of better business models.
The Case for Hybrid
None of this case study is intended as an argument against EOTs. Both Ed and Michael are explicit on this point. Trusts have enabled a remarkable wave of transitions that would have otherwise likely not happened and helped create a sector that’s in a position to target 7,500 businesses by 2030.
As Ed points out, EOTs are simple, well-understood, and highly effective, but they’re not enough on their own. To further draw the distinction, EOTs create the market, providing the mechanism that allows ownership to transfer, but direct ownership creates the wealth.