12. Employee Savings and Stock Purchase Plans, Collective Bargaining Agreements and Executive Benefit Agreement

We were party to a death benefit agreement (“2005 Agreement”) with Jack E. Golsen (“J. Golsen”), who retired effective December 31, 2017.

The 2005 Agreement provided that, upon J. Golsen’s death, we would pay to the designated beneficiary, a lump-sum payment of $2.5 million. J. Golsen passed away in April 2022. Further, we maintained and owned a life insurance policy with a face value of $3.0 million for which we were the beneficiary. The policy did not have any cash surrender value, premium payments were current, and the policy was in force at the time of J. Golsen’s death. We received the settlement payment of $3.0 million and paid the death benefit of $2.5 million in July 2022. We have recorded $3.0 million in a settlement of life insurance presented within non-operating other expense (income), net within our consolidated statements of operations for the twelve months ended December 31, 2022. The settlement of life insurance is included in our consolidated statement of cash flows in “Other” investing activities.

The following table includes information about this agreement:


	December 31,
	2022		2021
	(In Thousands)
Total undiscounted death benefit	$	—	$	2,500
Total accrued death benefit	$	—	$	2,514

To assist us in funding the 2005 Agreement and for other business reasons, we purchased life insurance policies on various individuals in which we are the beneficiary. Some of these life insurance policies have cash surrender values that we have borrowed against. The net cash surrender values of these policies are included in other assets.

The following table summarizes certain information about these life insurance policies.


	December 31,
	2022			2021
	(In Thousands)
Total face value of life insurance policies	$	1,500		$	4,500

Total cash surrender values of life insurance policies	$	1,936		$	1,863
Loans on cash surrender values		(1,642	)		(1,642	)
Net cash surrender values	$	294		$	221


	2022			2021			2020
	(In Thousands)
Cost of life insurance premiums	$	54		$	215		$	215
Increase in cash surrender values		(73	)		(69	)		(69	)
Net cost of life insurance premiums included in SG&A	$	(19	)	$	146		$	146

Employee Savings Plans - We sponsor a savings plan under Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code under which participation is available to substantially all full-time employees. We match 50% of an employee’s contribution, up to 8% which was increased during 2022 from 6%, for substantially all full-time employees. For 2022, 2021 and 2020, the amounts contributed to this plan were approximately $1.3 million, $1.0 million, and $1.0 million respectively.

Employee Stock Purchase Plan - During 2022 our Board adopted our 2022 Employee Stock Purchase Plan (“ESPP”), which plan was approved by our shareholders at our annual meeting of shareholders held May 12, 2022. The ESPP is administered by the compensation committee of the Board. The maximum number of shares reserved and available for issuance under the ESPP shall not exceed 4,500,000 shares. Eligibility in the ESPP is limited to our employees and employees of our subsidiaries who have been continuously employed for a period of at least 30 days as of the first day of an offering and satisfy other requirements set forth in the ESPP. The ESPP offering period under the ESPP will be 6 months in duration and commence on the first business day of January and July of each year. ESPP participants may elect to authorize payroll deductions between 1 to 10 percent of eligible compensation each payroll period. Participants may purchase a maximum of 4,500 shares with respect to any offering period. The ESPP limits purchases not to exceed $25,000 in fair market value for each calendar year during which any option granted to the participant is outstanding. The purchase price of each share will be 90 percent of the closing price of a share of our common stock on the exercise date. Shares purchased by the participant are issued from our treasury stock. During 2022, we had one offering and approximately 9,000 shares were issued from our treasury stock to participants at a closing price of $13.30.

Collective Bargaining Agreements - As of December 31, 2022, we employed 571 persons, 180 whom are represented by unions under collective bargaining agreements. We have three 3-year union contracts which were successfully ratified in 2022.