BPAS Acquires ESOP One, Expanding Employee Ownership and ESOP Capabilities

Acquisition strengthens the BPAS ability to support employers, advisors and employee-owners through an integrated ESOP and retirement plan solution

UTICA, N.Y., Sept. 8, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- BPAS, a leading national provider of retirement plans, employee benefits and institutional trust services, today announced the acquisition of ESOP One, an employee ownership technology platform designed to educate and engage participants in Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs).

The acquisition expands the BPAS specialized ESOP practice and adds participant education and engagement technology to its existing capabilities in ESOP and 401(k) administration, recordkeeping, trust, and custody services. The combined offer is designed to give employers and their advisors a more integrated approach to managing employee ownership programs while helping participants understand the possible future value they may experience through ongoing employee ownership.

BPAS serves more than 110 ESOP and kSOP plans with over 19,000 participants and $2.2 billion in assets. This specialized expertise is supported by the scale and resources of BPAS, which serves more than one million participants across all retirement and benefit plan offerings.

The acquisition comes as business owners and advisors face a growing need for succession strategies that can preserve business value, maintain company culture and provide employees with a meaningful stake in their company's future. Many owners are looking at other options in lieu of selling to private equity or other buyers, especially considering the possible tax advantages of an ESOP transaction. The McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility estimates that approximately six million small and midsize businesses will face ownership transitions by 2035, representing as much as $5 trillion in enterprise value.

Employee ownership is an increasingly important part of the landscape. The latest available data indicates that there are 8,500 ESOP or kSOP plans in operation nationally, covering approximately 15.1 million participants and more than $2 trillion in assets. The US Department of Labor has also established an Employee Ownership Initiative focused on promoting employee ownership, increasing workers' financial security and strengthening employee participation.

"Employee ownership can be a powerful succession strategy," said Paul Neveu, BPAS CEO. "However, successfully managing an ESOP requires more than establishing and administering a plan. With ESOP One, BPAS provides a one-stop solution to the administrative, technology and participant experience needs of these plans, while adding the participant portal, employer repurchase obligation portal, and the ability to administer synthetic equity programs. This provides a complete experience that clients are looking for--where their ESOP program is central to the employer/employee relationship--enabling employees to build wealth for the future."

In these engagements, employers typically partner with an investment banking firm that specializes in ESOPs and kSOPs and brings extensive expertise in ERISA regulations and the Internal Revenue Code. The firm works closely with the employer to develop financial illustrations, design the plan structure, and prepare the plan document. Once the plan framework is established, the employer and BPAS collaborate to implement and administer the plan. Most plans also engage an investment advisor to oversee the broader retirement program, along with specialized service providers such as an ESOP trustee (or trustee committee), an independent valuation firm, and a plan auditor.

ESOP One was developed specifically to help employee-owners understand their ESOP benefits and engage with their ownership experience. As a service of BPAS, its technology will complement the company's existing ESOP and retirement plan administration capabilities. However, the services of ESOP One will continue to be available on a standalone basis to clients and partners—including competitors of BPAS—to augment the services that BPAS brings to the marketplace. This will be accomplished through a special, firewalled approach that BPAS has used in certain other practices.

For plan sponsors, the combined offering is designed to reduce administrative complexity by bringing ESOP and 401(k) services together through a dedicated team, serviced by a primary Plan Consultant, who handles the combined plan or both plans—not two separate service teams. Sponsors can access expanded technology and service capabilities while reducing the number of providers they need to coordinate, making it easier to operate an ESOP and 401(k) or kSOP arrangement.

For registered investment advisors and corporate trustees in the retirement space, the open architecture solution of BPAS allows advisors to continue working with their clients while accessing an expanded ESOP or kSOP service model. Advisors maintain their existing relationships and investment approach while BPAS provides administration, technology and participant call-center support. BPAS has extensive experience working with advisors and corporate trustees and understands this business model.

For employee-owners, the combined experience provides access to ESOP account information, statements, and educational resources through an integrated participant experience designed to make the complexities of employee ownership easier to understand.

"ESOP One was built around a simple idea: employee-owners should be able to understand not only what they own, but why that ownership matters," said John Bencosme, founder of ESOP One. "Joining BPAS gives us the opportunity to bring that participant-focused experience together with the depth of ESOP administration and retirement plan expertise BPAS has built."

ESOP One provides its services to more than 70 clients on a national basis as of today. This will expand dramatically through the BPAS partnership.

BPAS supports a broad range of ESOP and kSOP structures, from traditional share allocation plans to sophisticated arrangements involving 100% S corporations all the way to publicly-traded clients. Through its network of highly qualified ESOP counsel and other professional partners, BPAS supports organizations across the employee ownership lifecycle, from plan design and implementation through mature plans with significant assets.

The addition of ESOP One further expands that lifecycle support by bringing participant education and engagement into the BPAS integrated delivery model. ESOP One will continue to be available as a stand-alone service for companies working with their own third-party administrator or as part of a bundled ESOP and 401(k) administration solution through BPAS.

About BPAS

BPAS, a subsidiary of Community Financial System, Inc. (NYSE: CBU), is a national provider of enterprise retirement plans, employee benefits and institutional trust services. Now encompassing 500 employees across 18 US offices, BPAS supports nearly one million plan participants, making it one of the 22 largest retirement service firms in the US. Dedicated to simplifying complex retirement programs through an integrated, technology-driven operational framework, BPAS supports thousands of plans and hundreds of thousands of participants in partnership with advisors, trustees and financial professionals across the nation. For more information, visit bpas.com.

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SOURCE BPAS, Inc.