Stock-Based Compensation

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2023

Share-Based Payment Arrangement [Abstract]

The Company may grant stock options and restricted stock under its stock-based compensation plans to certain officers, employees and directors. These plans are administered by a committee of the Board of Directors, and at September 30, 2023, approximately 0.7 million shares were available for grant under these stock-based compensation plans.

A Black-Scholes model is utilized to estimate the fair value of stock option grants, while the market price of the Company’s stock at the date of grant is used to estimate the fair value of restricted stock awards. The weighted average assumptions used in the Black-Scholes model for valuing stock option grants were as follows.


	Nine Months Ended September 30,
	2023			2022
Dividend yield	1.6		%	—		%
Expected volatility	30		%	30		%
Risk-free interest rate	3.74		%	3.03		%
Expected average life	7 years			7 years
Weighted average per share fair value of options	$	20.94		$	30.99

A summary of the Company’s stock option activity is summarized below.


Stock Options	Option Shares Outstanding	Weighted Average Exercise Price		Weighted Average Remaining Life (Years)	Aggregate Intrinsic Value (in thousands)
Outstanding - December 31, 2022	1,853,064	$	59.79
Granted	7,000	64.36
Exercise of stock options *	(115,179)	40.02
Forfeited	(25,000)	84.98
Outstanding - September 30, 2023	1,719,885	$	60.76	5.3	$	20,354
Exercisable - September 30, 2023	1,260,942	$	55.09	4.5	$	20,217

* The terms of the stock option agreements permit having a number of shares of stock withheld, the fair market value of which as of the date of exercise is sufficient to satisfy the exercise price and/or tax withholding requirements. For the nine months ended September 30, 2023, 54,517 such shares were withheld by the Company.

Intrinsic value represents the amount by which the fair market value of the underlying stock exceeds the exercise price of the stock options. The intrinsic value of options exercised for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022 was approximately $3.7 million and $3.3 million, respectively.

A summary of the Company’s restricted stock activity is summarized below.


Restricted Stock	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value		Restricted Shares Outstanding
Outstanding - December 31, 2022	$	76.49	73,490
Granted	55.65		11,674
Vested	66.40		(24,574)

Outstanding - September 30, 2023	$	76.57	60,590

The Company recognized approximately $4.2 million and $4.6 million of stock-based compensation expense (included in personnel on the consolidated statements of income) for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, associated with its common stock awards granted to officers and employees. In addition, for the nine months ended September 30, 2023, the Company recognized approximately $0.6 million of director expense (included in other expense on the consolidated statements of income) for restricted stock grants totaling 11,674 shares with immediate vesting to directors, while for the nine months ended September 30, 2022, the Company recognized approximately $0.7 million of director expense for restricted stock grants totaling 8,852 shares with immediate vesting to directors, in each case representing the annual stock retainer fee paid to external board members for that year. As of September 30, 2023, there was approximately $14.0 million of unrecognized compensation cost related to equity award grants, which is expected to be recognized over the remaining vesting period of approximately three years. The Company recognized a tax benefit of approximately $0.5 million and $0.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, for the tax impact of stock option exercises and vesting of restricted stock.