Share-Based Employee Compensation

3 Months Ended

Mar. 22, 2014

Disclosure of Compensation Related Costs, Share-based Payments [Abstract]

SHARE-BASED EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION

The Company recognized share-based compensation expense of $12.6 million and $13.2 million in the first quarter of 2014 and 2013, respectively, as a component of operating and administrative expense.

The Company determines fair value of stock option awards using the Black-Scholes option pricing model. The weighted-average assumptions used to value Safeway’s grants of stock options through the first quarter, by year, are as follows:



	2014	2013
Expected life (in years)	6.25	6.25	-	6.50
Expected stock volatility	27.9%	33.0%
Risk-free interest rate	2.0%	1.3%
Expected dividend yield during the expected term	2.8%	3.8%

- Definition

The entire disclosure for compensation-related costs for equity-based compensation, which may include disclosure of policies, compensation plan details, allocation of equity compensation, incentive distributions, equity-based arrangements to obtain goods and services, deferred compensation arrangements, employee stock ownership plan details and employee stock purchase plan details.

+ References+ Details