STOCK-BASED COMPENSATION

All stock-based awards are subject to the terms of the CareTrust REIT, Inc. and CTR Partnership, L.P. Incentive Award Plan (the “Plan”). The Plan provides for the granting of stock-based compensation, including stock options, restricted stock, performance awards, restricted stock units and other incentive awards to officers, employees and directors in connection with their employment with or services provided to the Company.

Restricted Stock Awards — In connection with the separation of Ensign’s healthcare business and its real estate business into two separate and independently publicly traded companies (the “Spin-Off”), employees of Ensign who had unvested shares of restricted stock were given one share of CareTrust REIT unvested restricted stock totaling 207,580 shares at the Spin-Off. These restricted shares are subject to a time vesting provision only and the Company does not recognize any stock compensation expense associated with these awards. As of March 31, 2019, there were 1,760 unvested restricted stock awards outstanding that were issued in connection with the Spin-Off.

In February 2019, the Compensation Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors granted 91,440 shares of restricted stock to officers and employees. Each share had a fair market value on the date of grant of $22.00 per share, based on the market price of the Company’s common stock on that date, and the shares vest in four equal annual installments beginning on the first anniversary of the grant date. Additionally, in February 2019, the Compensation Committee granted 71,440 performance stock awards to officers and employees. Each share had a fair market value on the date of grant of $22.00 per share, based on the market price of the Company’s common stock on that date. Performance stock awards are subject to both time and performance based conditions and vest over a one- to four-year period. The amount of performance awards that will ultimately vest is dependent on the Company meeting or exceeding fiscal year over year Normalized Funds from Operations (“NFFO”), as defined by the Compensation Committee, per share growth of 5.0% or greater.

The following table summarizes the stock-based compensation expense recognized (dollars in thousands):



	For the Three Months Ended March 31,
	2019		2018
Stock-based compensation expense	$	994	$	904

As of March 31, 2019, there was $6.9 million of unamortized stock-based compensation expense related to unvested awards and the weighted-average remaining vesting period of such awards was 2.4 years.