Benefit Plans

We have retirement plans covering substantially all employees. The principal plans are the multi-employer defined benefit pension plans of our operations in the Netherlands and France, the multi-employer plan for hourly union employees in Pennsylvania and our defined contribution plan that covers substantially all of our employees in the United States. The multi-employer plans in the United States and France as well as the defined contribution plan are insignificant.

Pensions – Our employees in The Netherlands, 123 at September 30, 2017, participate in a multi-employer pension plan Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek (“PMT”), determined in accordance with the collective bargaining agreements effective for the industry in the Netherlands. The collective bargaining agreement has no expiration date. This multi-employer pension plan covers approximately 33,000 companies and 1.2 million participants. Amtech’s contribution to the multi-employer pension plan is less than 5.0% of the total contributions to the plan. The plan monitors its risks on a global basis, not by company or employee, and is subject to regulation by Dutch governmental authorities. By law (the Dutch Pension Act), a multi-employer pension plan must be monitored against specific criteria, including the coverage ratio of the plan assets to its obligations. This coverage ratio must exceed 105% for the total plan. Every company participating in a Dutch multi-employer union plan contributes a premium calculated as a percentage of its total pensionable salaries, with each company subject to the same percentage contribution rate. The premium can fluctuate yearly based on the coverage ratio of the multi-employer union plan. The pension rights of each employee are based upon the employee’s average salary during employment, the years of service, and the participant’s age at the time of retirement.

Our net periodic pension cost for this multi-employer pension plan for any period is the amount of the required contribution for that period. A contingent liability may arise from, for example, possible actuarial losses relating to other participating entities because each entity that participates in a multi-employer union plan shares in the actuarial risks of every other participating entity or any responsibility under the terms of a plan to finance any shortfall in the plan if other entities cease to participate

The coverage ratio of the Dutch multi-employer union plan is 102.2% as of September 30, 2017. In 2013, PMT prepared and executed a “Recovery Plan” which was approved by De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, which is the supervisor of all pension companies in the Netherlands. As a result of the Recovery Plan, the pension rights decreased 6.3% in April 2013 and the employer’s premium percentage increased to 16.6% of pensionable wages. The coverage ratio is calculated by dividing the plan assets by the total sum of pension liabilities and is based on actual market interest. The coverage ratio of PMT fluctuates during a year due to the changes in the value of the assets and the present value of the liabilities. During the fiscal year 2017, the coverage ratio was as high as 102.2% in the fourth quarter and as low as 93.6% in the first quarter. The fluctuations are due to the reduction in the ultimate forward rate (which increases the present value of the liabilities) and a decrease in the value of global equities. As of September 30, 2017, PMT’s total plan assets were $80.7 billion and the actuarial present value of accumulated plan benefits was $78.9 billion.

Below is a table of our contributions to multi-employer pension plans:



	Years Ended September 30,
	2017		2016		2015
	(dollars in thousands)
Pensioenfonds Metaal en Techniek (PMT)	$	805	$	796	$	805
Other plans	188		187		158
Total	$	993	$	983	$	963

Defined Contribution Plans – We match employee contributions to our defined contribution plans on a discretionary basis. The match was $0.3 million, $0.2 million and $0.2 million in 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.