Retirement and Benefit Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Our plans consist of noncontributory defined benefit pension plans, contributory defined contribution savings plans, a deferred compensation plan, and a multiemployer health and welfare plan. On September 30, 2019, we transferred $19.8 million of our qualified defined benefit pension plan (Pension Plan) assets to The Prudential Insurance Company of America (Prudential) for the purchase of a group annuity contract. Under the arrangement, Prudential assumed ongoing responsibility for administration and benefit payments for approximately 10% of our U.S. qualified pension plan projected benefit obligations at the time of the transaction. As a result of the transaction, we recognized a non-cash settlement charge of $1.3 million in third quarter 2019.

On April 25, 2018, and August 10, 2018, we transferred $151.8 million and $124.8 million, respectively, of our Pension Plan assets to Prudential for the purchase of group annuity contracts. Under the arrangements, Prudential assumed ongoing responsibility for administration and benefit payments of the related transferred Pension Plan obligations. As a result of the transactions, we recognized non-cash pension settlement charges of $12.0 million and $11.3 million, respectively, in second and third quarters 2018.

The following table presents the pension benefit costs:



	Three Months Ended September 30						Nine Months Ended September 30
	2019			2018			2019			2018
	(thousands)
Service cost	$	163		$	196		$	485		$	598
Interest cost	1,792			2,278			5,417			9,602
Expected return on plan assets	(1,477		)	(1,903		)	(4,426		)	(9,783		)
Amortization of actuarial (gain) loss	(44		)	151			(131		)	1,328
Plan settlement loss	1,342			11,252			1,342			23,255
Net periodic benefit expense	$	1,776		$	11,974		$	2,687		$	25,000

Service cost is recorded in the same income statement line items as other employee compensation costs arising from services rendered, and the other components of net periodic benefit expense are recorded in "Pension expense (excluding service costs)" in our Consolidated Statements of Operations.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2019, we contributed $1.3 million in cash to the pension plans. For the remainder of 2019, we expect to make approximately $4.0 million in cash contributions to the pension plans, most of which is to repurchase one of the real property locations we previously contributed to our qualified defined benefit pension plan. For information related to the contribution of properties to our qualified defined benefit pension plan, see Note 12, Retirement and Benefit Plans, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in "Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" in our 2018 Form 10-K.