What started as a one-man operation in a tiny garage in Esquimalt in 2001 and evolved into the Island’s largest brewer is becoming partly employee-owned.
Matt Phillips, owner of Phillips Brewing, headquartered just north of Victoria’s downtown, is offering his employees the opportunity to own a slice of the company.
“It’s kind of cool. It’s been something I’ve been trying to figure out how to do for a while and the last couple of years have made it kind of clearer that this is an approach that is going to work for everybody,” Phillips said. “I’m pretty excited to get to this point and have it change its structure.
“It’s nice to go from being a one-man show on the ownership side to having a hundred people thinking about it.”
Led by an investment from Vancouver-based Yellow Point Partners, Phillips Brewing is about to broaden its ownership group to include eligible employees.
The company has 105 employees and Matt Phillips said just over 50 per cent of them qualify to buy into the firm. At this point any employee who has been with the company for three years qualifies.
Phillips said he will keep a large position in the company and remain involved, though as more employees qualify he hopes more will buy in.
He said the new ownership structure is not an exit strategy for himself.
“I’m certainly going to be pretty involved here in the near-term, but the honest truth is as a company grows no one person can make all the decisions,” he said. “It’s been a long progression to having all sorts of people with lots of responsibility and I think this is a model that helps to reward and incentivize all of those people that really make it happen here.
“This provides a lot of opportunities for me. It provides a lot of opportunities for staff and I think it provides a lot of great opportunities for the brewery.”
The new owners will be part of decision making and receive dividends.
“They participate, they become invested in the long-term success of the brewery,” said Phillips. The staff have always been creative and innovative, he said. “We certainly see that every day here, but anything we can do to kind of turbocharge that is a great approach from my perspective.”
Phillips said he’s feeling good about this decision and very comfortable with the new structure. “Now ask me that again when there’s a 100 people trying to make a decision,” he said with a laugh.
aduffy@timescolonist.com
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