Employees Buy Florida HME Provider

Nov 1, 2000 12:00 PM, Susanne Hopkins

New Port Richey, Fla.

Bayonet Point Oxygen Services, an 18-year-old home medical equipment and respiratory company, has new owners: its employees.

Rather than selling to another company, Bayonet founder, Mitchell Weiner, M.D., and his wife, Paula, set up an employee stock ownership plan that allows the couple to be paid for its share of the company and gives each of the employees a portion of the business.

While sale figures were not divulged, chief operating officer Carol Acevedo, R.N., said employees paid nothing for the business. They were a bit skeptical about the plan at first, she said, "because they worried that the money was going to come out of their pockets. But they have no outlay, no liability. All they have to do is work, and they're going to benefit. They're going to have a future and a retirement."

The loan taken out to pay the Weiners will be paid off with profits from the business, Acevedo said. The employees hold 60 percent of the shares in the corporation and plan to acquire 100 percent, she added. The company operates Bayonet Point Oxygen & Medical Supplies in Hudson and Hernando Medical Supply in Brooksville.

Bayonet Point is one of 2,000 ESOP companies and the first HME business to be a member of the Washington-based ESOP Association, officials said.