Share-Based Compensation Plans

9 Months Ended

Nov. 30, 2015

Note 15 – Share-Based Compensation Plans

We have share-based awards outstanding under several share-based compensation plans. During the fiscal quarter and year-to-date periods ended November 30, 2015, the Company had the following share-based compensation activity:

We granted options to purchase 4,500 and 167,000 shares of common stock, respectively, to certain officers and employees. For the fiscal year-to-date, the fair values of these options were estimated using the Black-Scholes option pricing model to estimate fair values ranging from $24.34 to $31.41 for grants with terms of four and five years. The following assumptions were used for the grants issued during the fiscal year-to-date: expected lives ranging from 4.05 to 4.35 years; risk-free interest rates ranging from 0.86 to 1.46 percent; zero dividend yield; and expected volatilities ranging from 36.77 to 39.72 percent.

We issued 1,498 and 4,459 restricted shares, respectively, to non-employee Board members with total grant date fair values of $0.12 and $0.37 million, respectively, and average share prices of $82.04 and $82.64, respectively.

During the fiscal quarter ended May 31, 2015, we issued 2,000 shares of common stock to our CEO at a fair value of $89.12 per share.

Employees exercised stock options to purchase 29,602 and 175,056 shares of common stock, respectively.

During the fiscal quarter ended August 31, 2015, employees purchased 12,155 shares of common stock for $0.79 million through our employee stock purchase plan.

We recorded the following share-based compensation expense in SG&A for the periods covered below:

SHARE-BASED PAYMENT EXPENSE

(in thousands, except per share data)


	Three Months Ended November 30,				Nine Months Ended November 30,
	2015		2014		2015		2014
Stock options	$	718	$	869	$	2,055	$	2,483
Directors stock compensation		175		175		525		641
Performance based and other stock awards		1,368		336		3,500		1,441
Employee stock purchase plan		-		-		223		167
Share-based payment expense		2,261		1,380		6,303		4,732
Less income tax benefits		(396)		(141)		(989)		(514)
Share-based payment expense, net of income tax benefits	$	1,865	$	1,239	$	5,314	$	4,218

Earnings per share impact of share based payment expense:
Basic	$	0.07	$	0.04	$	0.19	$	0.15
Diluted	$	0.07	$	0.04	$	0.18	$	0.15