Employee Benefits (Tables)

12 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2013

Disclosure Of Compensation Related Costs Sharebased Payments [Abstract]

Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model to Determine Grant-date Fair Value for Stock Options

We have elected to use the Black-Scholes option pricing model to determine grant-date fair value for stock options, with the following assumptions: (i) expected share price volatility based on the average of Meridian’s historical volatility over the options’ expected lives and implied volatility based on the value of tradable call options; (ii) expected life of options based on contractual lives, employees’ historical exercise behavior and employees’ historical post-vesting employment termination behavior; (iii) risk-free interest rates based on treasury rates that correspond to the expected lives of the options; and (iv) dividend yield based on the expected yield on underlying Meridian common stock.

Year ended September 30,	2013	2012	2011
Risk-free interest rates	0.88%	1.24%	1.91%
Dividend yield	4.1%	3.42%	3.74%
Life of option	6.23 yrs.	6.22 yrs.	5.93 yrs.
Share price volatility	36%	39%	34%
Forfeitures (by employee group)	0%-10%	0%-10%	0%-10%

Summary of Stock Option Plans

A summary of the status of our stock option plans at September 30, 2013 and changes during the year is presented in the table and narrative below:

	Options			Wtd Avg Exercise Price		Wtd Avg Remaining Life (Yrs)		Aggregate Intrinsic Value
Outstanding beginning of period		2,026		$	16.93
Grants		66			21.08
Exercises		(225	)		10.03
Forfeitures		(8	)		20.68
Cancellations		(351	)		17.74
Outstanding end of period		1,508		$	17.93		6.11	$	9,486
Exercisable end of period		721		$	17.90		3.87	$	5,017

Summary of Nonvested Options

A summary of the status of our nonvested options as of September 30, 2013, and changes during the year ended September 30, 2013, is presented below:

	Options			Weighted- Average Grant Date Fair Value
Nonvested beginning of period		1,162		$	4.95
Granted		66			4.19
Vested		(88	)		8.07
Forfeitures		(8	)		5.11
Cancelled		(351	)		4.66
Nonvested end of period		781		$	4.66