NOTE L — RETIREMENT PLANS

401(k) plan

The Company maintains a defined contribution retirement plan for eligible employees under Section 401(k) of the Internal Revenue Code. Participants can make voluntary contributions up to the Internal Revenue Service limit of $17,500 ($23,000 for employees 50 years or over) for 2014. Effective January 1, 2009, the Company suspended its matching contribution as an expense savings measure. The Company’s U.K.-based subsidiaries also maintain defined contribution pension plans.

Retirement benefit obligations

The Company assumed retirement benefit obligations, which are paid to certain former executives of an acquired business in 2006. These obligations under these agreements are unfunded and amounted to $6.9 million at December 31, 2014 and $5.4 million at December 31, 2013.

The discount rate used to calculate the retirement benefit obligations was 3.65% at December 31, 2014 and 4.50% at December 31, 2013. The retirement benefit obligations are included in accrued expenses and deferred rent and other long-term liabilities.

The Company expects to recognize $132,000 of actuarial losses included in accumulated other comprehensive loss in net periodic benefit cost in 2015.

Expected benefit payments for each of the next five fiscal years and in aggregate for the five fiscal years thereafter are as follows (in thousands):


Year ending December 31,
2015	$	144
2016		137
2017		264
2018		388
2019		377
2020 through 2024		1,909

Kitchen Craft pension plan

Kitchen Craft is the sponsor of a defined benefit pension plan (the “Plan”) for which service costs accrual ceased prior to the acquisition in January 2014. In October 2014, the Plan trustees secured, in full, all benefits payable or contingently payable under the Plan (subject to adjustment as determined by the UK pension authority in connection with its approval of the Plan’s termination) through the purchase of a group annuity contract from a major UK-based insurance company. The share purchase agreement, pursuant to which the Company acquired Kitchen Craft, provides that any additional contributions required in connection with the settlement and termination of the Plan shall be offset by future amounts owed to the sellers or, if those amounts are insufficient, reimbursed to the Company by the sellers. Accordingly, there was no impact, nor is there any expected future impact, to the Company’s statement of operations in connection with the settlement and planned termination of the Plan, which is expected to occur in 2015.

The following table summarizes the changes in the projected benefit obligations and plan assets for the year ended December 31, 2014:


	December 31, 2014
	(in thousands)
Change in projected benefit obligations
Projected benefit obligations, acquisition	$	11,678
Interest cost		364
Actuarial losses		2,887
Benefits paid		(216	)
Currency adjustment		(917	)

Projected benefit obligations, end of year	$	13,796

Change in plan assets
Fair value of plan assets, acquisition	$	11,678
Actual return on plan assets		2,618
Employer contributions		2,471
Benefits paid		(216	)
Currency adjustment		(1,018	)

Fair value of plan assets, end of year	$	15,533

Net Plan funding, end of year	$	1,738

The following table summarizes the components of net period pension costs:


	Year Ended December 31, 2014
	(in thousands)
Components of net periodic pension cost
Expected return on plan assets	$	(390	)
Interest cost on projected benefit obligations		364

Net periodic pension cost	$	(26	)

The accumulated benefit obligations at December 31, 2014 are $13.8 million. The amount in accumulated Other comprehensive income at December 31, 2014 is $623,000.

The following are assumptions used to determine the actuarial present value of the projected benefit obligations and net periodic pension benefit cost as of and for the year ended December 31, 2014:


	December 31, 2014
Discount rate		2.19	%
Expected long-term rate of return on plan assets		2.43	%

Expected Benefit Payments – Expected benefit payments for each of the next five fiscal years and in the aggregate for the five fiscal years thereafter are as follows (in thousands):


Year ending December 31,
2015	$	232
2016		252
2017		258
2018		274
2019		288
2020 through 2024		1,706

Plan Assets- As described above, the Plan trustees invested the Plan assets in a deferred annuity contract in October 2014. As of December 31, 2014, the fair value of this insurance contract was $15.5 million. The fair value of the insurance contract was obtained using Level 3 unobservable inputs. Assets of the Plan also include less than $0.1 million of cash and cash equivalents with a Level 1 observable fair value. The net Plan assets are included within Other Assets on the Company’s Consolidated Balance Sheet.