근로자기업인수(EBO)에 관한 법적 고찰

Originally Leveraged Buyout(hereinafter LBO) is defined to buy a target company by some acquire company with funds to take out a loan for offering assets of the target company as a security. Employee Buyout(hereinafter EBO) is generally defined that EBO is a sort of LBO with changing main leading group from acquire company to employee or group of employee. Usually EBO is related with ESOP(Employee Stock Ownership Plan, hereisafter ESOP) in U.S.A. Main leading group of EBO is typically consist of director of target company, outside specialist(Investment Bank etc) and ESOP. A successful EBO is one of alternative in case of corporation have possibility of insolvency. EBO can save jobs and reduce the effect of unemployment on the displaced employees and their communities. EBO can strengthen the economic base of the country if employee ownership results in higher productivity. Even though frequency of utilize EBO is little bit low in Korea, there is sure of possibility of utilizing EBO as a option of saving company in insolvency. I discuss here problems related with using EBO in M&A market. Also I studied several examples of EBO in U.S.A. & Korea to show matters of processing EBO. Additionally as I described before, Employee Welfare Act article 49 provide government could give financial assistance to Korean ESOP to acquire stock of corporation in case of insolvency. But there is no detailed regulation to support Employee Welfare Act article 49. Legislative supplement will be needed in this matter.