Compensation Plans

We reserved 5.0 million shares for issuance to key management personnel and directors under the 2011 amended and restated long-term incentive and equity award plan. As of December 31, 2017, 1.9 million shares remain available for future issuance under this plan. The plan permits the issuance of restricted stock and stock units, as well as options, stock appreciation rights, and performance stock and performance stock unit awards. Awards under the plan can be satisfied in cash or shares at the discretion of the Board of Directors. According to the plan provisions, the stock units provide the holders the right to receive one share of our Common Stock upon vesting (and distribution) of one stock unit. The plan requires the exercise price of any option granted to equal the closing market price of our Common Stock on the date of grant.

Stock Options

On March 1, 2010, we formalized the Second Union Employee Option Plan that provided for a grant of up to 31,000 options, including the effect of the reverse stock split, to purchase our Common Stock at an exercise price equal to $3,600.00 per share, of which all have been granted. As a part of the union wage reduction, we agreed to award a certain equity interest to all effected union employees. These options vested immediately, will expire 10 years from the grant date, and were exercisable upon shareholder approval, which was received on June 29, 2010, at our annual shareholder meeting. There has been no activity in these stock options and these options had no intrinsic value as of December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Performance Based Awards

In 2015, the Company granted performance stock unit awards to employees under its 2015 long-term incentive plan. The awards provide a target number of stock units that vest equally over three years.

A summary of performance-based unvested stock unit activity is as follows:



(stock units in thousands)	Units (in thousands)		Weighted Average Grant-Date Fair Value
Unvested at December 31, 2015	421		$	18.09
Vested	(140	)	17.90
Forfeited	(20	)	16.83
Unvested at December 31, 2016	261		17.98
Vested	(141	)	17.90
Forfeited	(6	)	18.23
Unvested at December 31, 2017	114		$	18.06

The Company expenses the grant date fair value of the awards earned in the performance period over the respective service periods. The intrinsic value of unvested units as of December 31, 2017 was $1.6 million. For the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, the Company recognized compensation expense of $0.9 million and $2.3 million, respectively. Unrecognized compensation expense related to performance based awards of $0.1 million is expected to be fully expensed by February 2018.

The fair value of the nonvested units is determined based on the closing trading price of our shares on the grant date. The fair value of shares vested and distributed during the year ended December 31, 2017 was $2.5 million.

In March 2016, the Company granted performance-based stock unit awards to employees that were to be settled in cash upon the achievement of specified performance criteria for 2016. No awards were earned as the 2016 performance criteria were not achieved.

Restricted Stock

A summary of the activity of our unvested restricted stock and stock unit awards are presented in the following table:



	Shares/units (in thousands)		Weighted Average Grant-Date Fair Value
Unvested at December 31, 2014	1,289		$	12.86
Granted	342		17.29
Vested and distributed	(835	)	11.34
Forfeited	(29	)	10.25
Unvested at December 31, 2015	767		$	14.34
Granted	730		8.76
Vested and distributed	(269	)	12.90
Forfeited	(53	)	11.60
Unvested at December 31, 2016	1,175		$	11.30
Granted	496		12.43
Vested and distributed	(306	)	11.91
Forfeited	(58	)	12.28
Unvested at December 31, 2017	1,307		$	11.55

All of the members of the Board of Directors have deferred receipt of the Common Stock underlying some or all of the restricted stock units they have been awarded until each such director ceases to serve on the Board or, under certain circumstances, upon a change of control. Thus, while some of these restricted stock units have vested, the directors have not yet received the underlying Common Stock. For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016, and 2015, the total number of restricted stock units that are vested but for which the underlying Common Stock has not been distributed was 528,000, 410,000, and 275,000, respectively; these shares are shown as unvested in the above table.

The intrinsic value of unvested shares as of December 31, 2017 was $18.8 million. The Company records expense on a straight-line basis over the vesting term. For the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, the Company recorded compensation expense for restricted stock awards of $5.6 million, $5.0 million, and $4.8 million, respectively. Unrecognized compensation expense related to restricted stock awards of $5.2 million at December 31, 2017 is expected to be recognized over a weighted-average period of 0.9 years.

The vesting provisions for the restricted stock and stock unit awards and the related number of shares granted during the year ended December 31 are as follows:



	Shares/units (in thousands)
Vesting Terms	2017	2016	2015
25% per year for four years	—	8	4
100% immediately	106	123	69
33.3% per year for three years	85	599	269
100% on February 14, 2020	305	—	—
Total restricted stock and stock units granted	496	730	342

The fair value of nonvested shares is determined based on the closing trading price of our shares on the grant date. The fair value of shares vested and distributed during the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 was $3.6 million, $3.5 million, and $9.5 million, respectively.

The outstanding awards under our stock compensation plans provide dividend participation features and are considered participating securities in our earnings per share calculation.