Retirement and Postretirement Plans

3 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Retirement and Postretirement Benefit Plans

We sponsor five defined benefit retirement plans. Those plans include a master defined benefit retirement plan in the United States, a nonqualified supplemental executive defined benefit retirement plan, and three defined benefit retirement plans covering employees in Germany and France. Benefits for such plans are based primarily on years of service and the employee’s level of compensation in specific periods of employment. We contribute funds to trusts as necessary to provide for current service and for any unfunded projected future benefit obligation over a reasonable period of time. All of our plans have a September 30 measurement date. The following table provides the components of net pension expense for our defined benefit retirement plans.


	Three Months Ended December 31				Consolidated Statements of Income Item
	2020		2019
Service cost	$	0.5	$	0.4		Cost of goods sold
Service cost	0.8		0.8			Selling and administrative expenses
Interest cost	1.9		2.5			Investment income (expense) and other, net
Expected return on plan assets	(3.0)		(3.7)			Investment income (expense) and other, net
Amortization of unrecognized prior service cost, net	—		0.1			Investment income (expense) and other, net
Amortization of net loss	1.5		1.5			Investment income (expense) and other, net
Net periodic benefit cost	1.7		1.6
Special termination benefits1	3.3		—			Special charges
Net pension expense	$	5.0	$	1.6
1 In September 2020, we offered certain employees in the United States the option to participate in a voluntary early retirement plan. The employees who accepted the offer received special termination benefits during the three months ended December 31, 2020, which were recorded as a component of Special charges in the Consolidated Statements of Income. See Note 8. Special Charges for further information.

In addition to defined benefit retirement plans, we also offer two postretirement health care plans in the United States that provide health care benefits to qualified retirees and their dependents. The plans are closed to new participants and include retiree cost sharing provisions and generally extend retiree coverage for medical and prescription benefits beyond the COBRA continuation period to the date of Medicare eligibility. Annual costs related to these plans are not significant. In connection with the voluntary early retirement plan offered in September 2020, we incurred $0.2 million of special termination benefits related to our postretirement health care plan. The amount was recorded as a recorded as a component of Special charges in the Consolidated Statements of Income. See Note 8. Special Charges for further information.

We have defined contribution savings plans that cover substantially all U.S. employees and certain non-U.S. employees. The general purpose of these plans is to provide additional financial security in retirement by providing employees with an incentive to regularly save a portion of their earnings. Our contributions to the plans are based on eligibility and, in some cases, employee contributions. Expense under these plans was $7.8 million and $6.2 million for the quarterly periods ended December 31, 2020 and 2019.