WEBIT Services says it became employee-owned in 2022 and reached 100% employee ownership in 2026 through a partnership with Buildkin. The transition followed founder Eric Rieger’s decision to step away to focus on his health, with Buildkin CEO Delcie Bean taking over as CEO and WEBIT COO Aarin Bailey continuing to lead day-to-day operations.
WEBIT’s ownership transition happened in two stages
WEBIT Services is a managed IT provider based in Naperville, Illinois, serving the Chicago area. Eric Rieger founded the company in 1996. Its history says WEBIT became employee-owned in 2022; the company’s September 29, 2026 announcement describes the later Buildkin partnership as fulfilling Rieger’s vision of making the business 100% employee-owned. These are separate milestones, not a single transaction announced in 2022. WEBIT’s company history WEBIT’s September 29, 2026 announcement
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Buildkin describes itself as an employee-owned family of IT companies. ChannelPro reported that the partnership transferred ownership to WEBIT employees. The available accounts do not explain the legal mechanism, so it would be inaccurate to describe the deal as an ESOP or assume how employees hold their interests. ChannelPro’s September 30, 2026 report
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Why Rieger chose this route
WEBIT said Rieger was stepping away to focus on his health. ChannelPro’s account presents the succession as a decision about more than a founder’s exit value: continuity for employees and customers, and preservation of the company’s culture, also mattered. The report says 3rd Element Consulting identified internal employees interested in eventually taking over. The sources do not establish that employee ownership is inherently better than a sale to an outside buyer, a management buyout, or family succession; each route raises different questions about people, customers, leadership readiness, financing, and the founder’s goals. ChannelPro’s report
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WEBIT’s history attributes this view of people to Rieger: “You can always find a way to replace bad revenue. It’s incredibly difficult to replace good people.” That helps explain the emphasis on employee continuity, but it is a statement of the founder’s priorities, not evidence that any particular succession model guarantees better results. WEBIT’s company history
Who leads WEBIT now
In its announcement, WEBIT said Buildkin CEO Delcie Bean assumed WEBIT’s CEO role. Aarin Bailey remained COO and continued leading daily operations. Bean described his responsibility this way: “My job is to be a careful custodian of what he built and to keep the promises he made.” He also said, “Eric could have handed this company to a lot of people. That he chose to hand it to his own employees tells you what he cared about.” Both quotations are Bean’s account of the transition, as reported by ChannelPro. ChannelPro’s report
What WEBIT told customers would stay the same
At the time of the September 29 announcement, WEBIT said customers would continue working with the same vCIOs, engineers, and support contacts. It also said it had no changes planned to pricing, service agreements, support processes, or ticketing as part of the transition. These were the company’s statements at announcement time, not a guarantee about future service or pricing. Bailey said, “When the people serving you own the business, the incentive lines up with long-term relationships and long-term reputation.” That is his rationale for the ownership model, not an independently measured customer outcome. WEBIT’s September 29, 2026 announcement ChannelPro’s report
What the public accounts do not disclose
The company announcement and trade coverage do not state the transaction’s legal structure, purchase price or valuation, financing terms, tax treatment, or how ownership is allocated among employees. They also do not say whether employees own shares directly or through a trust. Those details matter for understanding the financial rights and obligations attached to the change; the phrase “100% employee-owned” alone does not answer them. WEBIT’s announcement ChannelPro’s report
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WEBIT’s company history also lists a 99% client-satisfaction figure, but gives no measurement period or method. It should be treated as a company-published claim, not independent evidence of how customers fared after the transition. WEBIT’s company history
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