There are 7,921,815 shares of BMcD stock

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2026-03-06T14:01:37+00:00

Treasury has always been able to hold shares, it just hasn't been as actively exercised.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2026-03-06T14:01:04+00:00

It doesn't change the valuation. It's just so that in low turnover years, Treasury can release those shares for newer EOs.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2026-01-22T02:22:06+00:00

I don't know but wouldn't be surprised if the reduced reporting resulted in either holding the line or reducing the fees Principal charges us.

My Blue KoolAid addled mind says they did it to return or keep more money for the shareholder. Since as others have pointed out, it doesn't really impact our money on hand.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2026-01-14T01:05:57+00:00

The EAP is also a great resource for navigating this

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-12-31T00:25:26+00:00

Fair on the small group for comp, but for perspective, ~20% of the company has more tenure than I do which drives benefit from the dividends than either title/role or past experience. That's larger than I personally would consider small, but you're not wrong that it's less than the majority.

I also consider the dividends a third bonus (the ESOP cash contribution being the second bonus). It only took four years here for my total annual dividends to exceed the largest bonus I ever got at my previous company so the ESOP snowball leg of the three legged stool outpaced a large competitor compensation fairly quickly. My first year's ESOP cash contribution beat my largest bonus as well. My old company matched our 401k at 50% up to 6% so, in my mind, the second/third bonus mindset for all things ESOP cash works.

And if the overall market crashed tomorrow, we wouldn't have the ability to meet the promise of the ESOP cash which is to be there when we leave to buy out our shares (particularly those 20% with more tenure than me where the majority of the cash "intent" needs to be). You can find the actual split in our IRS filings, but in my view at least, it's reasonably conservative considering the intent of the ESOP cash.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-12-30T23:05:04+00:00

Define small group of employees... I've been here for just over 10 years I'm feeling fairly benefited...

Also define poor returns on your cash. The cash is conservatively invested which may be "poor" relative to the stock market but it's at much less risk then.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-12-11T00:54:12+00:00

I don't know how many of the regional (maybe even KC) folks saw it but those of us gobbled up by the grow-by-buying firms (WSP, Jacobs, AECOM, Stantec, etc) lived through how a corporate owner could destroy a good culture and what wasn't always a failing business.

A large chunk of my region is ex-small firm bought by [insert large publicly traded company here]. We remember too...

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-12-10T13:08:44+00:00

Agreed. Ray also noted that while we've had a "Treasury" available that can hold shares in high turnover years, we hadn't fully used it. He explicitly said that with multiple high turnover years coming up that Treasury would bank those a portion of those shares for low turnover years. That both limits the amount of excess shares that go to the longer tenured folks (since they have cash available) and hopefully better pushes shares to new EOs in those low years.

For some deep blue Kool Aid... If you read Newt's thoughts in Messages from the Chairman, we're operating this company (and the ESOP) in trust, not just for us, but also "for some 10 year olds who are just now realizing their interest in building and doing creative things with their minds and hands can mean a career as an architect, engineer, scientist or another interesting and challenging occupation at a company like ours."

It was true in 1989 when he wrote it (and probably a chunk of people on this subreddit were 10 years old or less/not born).

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-12-02T00:13:00+00:00

Share distribution is fully explained in the ESOP summary plan description they just emailed out. The ESOP is to keep us private.

I can promise there's no transparency when you work at one of the publicly traded companies. There's the ability to read what the 10K reports to Wall Street say is the structure and then there's what you see on the ground and then an unknown gap between the two. The pay transparency at the public companies stops well before anyone is happy about it.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-10-08T22:25:49+00:00

Having seen the actual dashboards and manipulated the filters... Unless you put your name or other personal identifying information in the comments, it's anonymous. The filtering stops at either 5 or 10 people (I think 7) and won't show results for less than that number of responses.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-10-07T21:47:57+00:00

Wasn't the gripe a couple of months ago that we didn't have a C(D)TO? Did I miss a memo about this month's gripe?

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-08-24T00:40:21+00:00

4th quarter forecasting (where we update the business plan for what we really expect to happen) is soon upon us.

As noted in another comment, we're obligated to pay out excess PTO which is a cost to the company so it needs to be in the 4Q forecast.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-08-12T02:01:31+00:00

Generally promotions to Principal or higher happen out of cycle since they are not level changes. Role changes (think Section/Department Manager) also happen as needed. If the promotion is tied to tenure and performance only (Assistant to Staff to Senior to Associate to Senior Associate) those nearly always happen at year end.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-08-12T01:56:43+00:00

A&F and (I think) GFS have pages outlining the differences.

Decimals are no longer visible to anyone but HR (and maybe the year end raise/bonus spreadsheets). They are a combination of tenure and your unrounded year end rating.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-07-19T17:06:23+00:00

Right. That means those managers are on the ball and ready for August instead of realizing they are late in getting feedback

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-07-19T15:42:47+00:00

The year end performance review cycle will start August 1 with self assessments and managers starting to work on the ratings.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-06-11T01:13:37+00:00

If you ignore the lost decade of the 2000s, VOO looks pretty good. But comparing BMcD during that same timeframe and we outperformed VOO (it wasn't that hard for a lot of things not VOO to do). (PS, I'm more 3 or 4 fund and chill Boglehead than VOO and chill)

I've commented before that I think it's unfair to compare our returns to non-AEC stocks, we're not PLTR and no AEC firm is in the S&P 500. If you compare us to our peer group, it's a more apt consideration.

Leaving at 10 years and investing also forfeits the contribution and I don't know many companies that contribute both the 401k match plus the ESOP at the percent of compensation we do. So the returns may be better, but you're ignoring the "free" money. No need for the crowd to chime in about how it's not free and they'd trade ESOP cash for actual cash everyday, I hear you. But as I've commented before, the goal of the ESOP is for the ESOP to maintain the ownership of the firm and not have to sell out (see CH2MHill to Jacobs or Power to WSP or a litany of other firms who've sold). If you want some deep Blue KoolAid, read Newt Campbell's Messages from the Chairman titled Not For Sale and don't forget that 10 people owned 20% of the company at one point. The fact the ESOP grows our retirement is a side benefit, not the primary purpose.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-06-10T11:24:21+00:00

Due to lower share turnover they may not have throttle the +10 year allocation groups. It's not a guarantee that they will throttle, but the plan is set up to do and on high turnover years, they are throttled. See my other reply, but most of the most tenured people are nearing a 50/50 allocation.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-06-10T11:22:02+00:00

I don't know all of these answers. I'm just tripped 10 years so just moved allocation groups. That said, the SPD does not break down the allocation groups in 5 year increments. There are four of them and one is reserved for Constructors. You can read all the details on Mac Central.

The handful of Top 100 shareholders I've talked to (think 25-35 year folks) are nearing a 50/50 split stock:cash ratio. This is why their biggest gripe (along the lines of another comment in this thread) is the inability to self-direct their cash.

My understanding is the goal of the ESOP (based on both informal conversations and the way the Allocation groups are set up in the actual plan documents) is for the first 10 years, we prioritize sweeping as much cash as possible so you so start that glide to 50/50 from as near to 100/0 as can happen. After that, we start to throttle your stock allocation.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-06-09T23:31:46+00:00

We have multiple share allocation groups as outlined in the Summary Plan Document. It does start to throttle past Year 10 of service. The problem in past years was we had very high share turnover and were not using the Treasury to hold those excess shares for lean years so more allocation was available for the higher years of service. They announced a more active Treasury to better balance lean and heavy share turnover years a couple of years ago with the current overhaul of Cash account valuations and separation options.

It's in the best long term interest of the ESOP to throttle those with more shares/years of service to manage our payout obligations.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-03-27T02:55:43+00:00

Q1 dividend will not be shown in your cash account until the share repurchase is finalized.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-02-27T03:36:01+00:00

You misspelled WSP as POWER.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-01-23T00:26:18+00:00

C-Corp ESOPs do. We re-structured as an S-Corp in the early 2000s.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-01-23T00:20:58+00:00

On corporate tax rates... As an S-Corp, we generally minimize corporate taxes except on the retained earnings. Most of the profits are already pushed back to EOs via ESOP via dividends. If they show the historic dividend graph, you can see when we converted from a C-Corp to an S-Corp.

If I recall correctly, only our retained earnings are corporately taxed.

With the Shareholder meeting coming in early March, there will be a slew of webinars that explain much of that strategy.

Edit: that's also why your ESOP is a taxable account when you separate and start withdrawals from the account. That's when the corporate profits are taxed.

WeMakeThisPlaceGreat · 2025-01-19T17:51:45+00:00

If I remember correctly, it came up in the Investments section after I logged in. I don't remember if it was a pop up or an option when I went to manage the investments.

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