Employee Thrift and Defined Benefit Plan

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

Employee Thrift and Defined Benefit Plan

Note 17 – Employee Thrift and Defined Benefit Plan

The Employee Thrift Plan (“Plan”) provides that all employees of Horizon with the requisite hours of service are eligible for the Plan. The Plan permits voluntary employee contributions and Horizon may make discretionary matching and profit sharing contributions. Each eligible employee is vested according to a schedule based upon years of service. Employee voluntary contributions are vested at all times. The Bank’s expense related to the Plan totaled approximately $942,000 in 2017, $785,000 in 2016 and $848,000 in 2015.

The Plan owns a total of 497,948 shares of Horizon’s stock or 1.9% of the outstanding shares.

The Company acquired a pension fund known as the Pentegra Defined Benefit Plan (“Pentegra Plan”) in the Peoples acquisition. Prior to August 1, 2007, Peoples provided pension benefits for substantially all of its employees through its participation in the Pentegra Plan. Peoples chose to freeze the Pentegra Plan effective August 1, 2007. The trustees of the Financial Institutions Retirement Fund administer the Pentegra Plan, employer identification number 13-5645888 and plan number 333. This plan operates as a multi-employer plan for accounting purposes and as a multiple-employer plan under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and the Internal Revenue Code. There are no collective bargaining agreements in place that require contributions to the Pentegra Plan. The Pentegra Plan is a single plan under Internal Revenue Code 413(c) and, as a result, all of the assets stand behind all of the liabilities.

The risks of participating in these multiemployer plans are different from single-employer plans in the following aspects:

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Assets contributed to the multiemployer plan by one employer may be used to provide benefits to employees of other participating employers.

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If a participating employer stops contributing to the plan, the unfunded obligations of the plan may be borne by the remaining participating employers.

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If the Company chooses to stop participating in the multiemployer plan, the Company may be required to pay the plan an amount based on the underfunded status of the plan, referred to as a withdrawal liability.

There was no expense to the Company in 2017 and 2016 for this Pentegra Plan. The Company intends on terminating this Pentegra Plan during 2018 and has recorded a $3.4 million withdrawal liability for the termination of the Pentegra Plan.