The Company offers its employees a comprehensive compensation and benefits package, which includes a broad range of benefits, including medical, dental and vision healthcare insurance and paid parental leave. In addition to base pay, eligible employees may participate in the Company’s 401(k) plan, employee stock purchase plan, short-term incentive bonus program and/or its stock compensation plans, as described below.

The Company has a 401(k) plan for all employees who have been with the Company for a period of six months or more. The Company matches portions of employees’ voluntary contributions. The Company recorded $40.2 million, $35.4 million and $30.3 million of expense for matching contributions in fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

The Company’s Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (SERP) is a non-qualified deferred compensation program that provides benefits payable to certain management employees upon retirement, death or termination of employment. Under the SERP, the Company accrues an unfunded benefit based on a percentage of the eligible employees’ salaries, as well as an interest factor based upon a predetermined formula. The Company’s liabilities related to the SERP were $58.9 million and $52.1 million at September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The Company recorded $8.3 million, $7.7 million and $7.0 million of expense for this plan in fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

The Company has a deferred compensation plan available to a select group of employees which allows participating employees to contribute compensation into the plan on a before tax basis and defer income taxation on the contributions until the funds are withdrawn from the plan. The participating employees designate investments for their contributions; however, the Company is not required to invest the contributions in the designated investments. The Company’s net liabilities related to the deferred compensation plan were $148.2 million and $119.5 million at September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively. The Company records as SG&A expense the amount that the employee contributions would have earned had the funds been invested in the designated investments. Related to this plan, the Company recorded a charge to expense of $17.0 million in fiscal 2023, a credit to expense of $24.0 million in fiscal 2022 and a charge to expense of $21.7 million in fiscal 2021.

The Company’s Employee Stock Purchase Plan provides eligible employees the opportunity to purchase common stock of the Company at a discounted price of 85% of the fair market value of the stock on the designated dates of purchase. The price to eligible employees may be further discounted depending on the average fair market value of the stock during the period and certain other criteria. Under the terms of the plan, the total fair market value of common stock that an eligible employee may purchase each year is limited to the lesser of 15% of the employee’s annual compensation or $25,000. Under the plan, employees purchased 143,960 shares for $11.0 million in fiscal 2023, 164,193 shares for $10.7 million in fiscal 2022 and 112,995 shares for $7.5 million in fiscal 2021. At September 30, 2023, the Company had 2.4 million shares of common stock reserved for issuance pursuant to the Employee Stock Purchase Plan.

The Company’s Incentive Bonus Plan provides for the Compensation Committee to award short-term performance bonuses to senior management based upon the level of achievement of certain criteria. For fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, the Compensation Committee approved awards whereby certain executive officers could earn performance bonuses based upon percentages of the Company’s pre-tax income. Compensation expense related to these plans was $35.4 million, $40.5 million and $61.6 million in fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

The Company’s Stock Incentive Plan provides for the granting of stock options and restricted stock units to executive officers, other key employees and non-management directors. Restricted stock unit (RSU) awards may be based on service over a requisite time period (time-based) or on performance (performance-based). RSU equity awards represent the contingent right to receive one share of the Company’s common stock per RSU if the vesting conditions and/or performance criteria are satisfied. The RSUs have no dividend or voting rights until vested. At September 30, 2023, the Company had 4.4 million shares of common stock reserved for issuance and 1.2 million shares available for future grants under the Stock Incentive Plan.

During fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, time-based RSUs were granted to the Company’s executive officers, other key employees and non-management directors (collectively, approximately 1,380, 1,200 and 1,030 recipients, respectively). These awards vest annually in equal installments over periods of three to five years.

The following table provides additional information related to time-based RSU activity during fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021. The number of RSUs vested includes shares of common stock withheld by the Company on behalf of employees to satisfy the tax withholding requirements.


	Year Ended September 30,
	2023			2022			2021
	Number of Restricted Stock Units	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value		Number of Restricted Stock Units	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value		Number of Restricted Stock Units	Weighted Average Grant Date Fair Value
Outstanding at beginning of year	3,466,094	$	57.50	3,817,265	$	46.16	4,725,701	$	34.79
Granted	877,131	93.44		1,153,124	74.96		856,615	83.13
Vested	(1,251,785)	50.61		(1,402,642)	41.44		(1,644,263)	33.26
Cancelled	(124,515)	61.95		(101,653)	51.22		(120,788)	39.16
Outstanding at end of year	2,966,925	$	70.85	3,466,094	$	57.50	3,817,265	$	46.16

The total fair value of shares vested on the vesting date during fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021 was $115.2 million, $120.1 million and $131.3 million, respectively. For fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, compensation expense related to time-based RSUs was $65.7 million, $63.6 million and $56.5 million, respectively. At September 30, 2023, there was $156.4 million of unrecognized compensation expense related to unvested time-based RSU awards. This expense is expected to be recognized over a weighted average period of 2.6 years.

During fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021, performance-based RSU equity awards that vest at the end of three-year performance periods were granted to the Company’s executive officers. The number of units that ultimately vest depends on the Company’s relative position as compared to its peers in achieving certain performance criteria and can range from 0% to 200% of the number of units granted. The performance criteria are total shareholder return, return on investment, SG&A expense containment and gross profit. Compensation expense related to these grants is based on the Company’s performance against its peer group, the elapsed portion of the performance period and the grant date fair value of the award.


Grant Date	Vesting Date	Target Number of Performance Units	Grant Date Fair Value per Unit		Compensation Expense Year Ended September 30,
					2023		2022		2021
					(In millions)
November 2020	September 2023	360,000	$	70.60	$	11.0	$	12.5	$	12.5
October 2021 (1)	September 2024	430,000	80.58		14.3		14.3		—
October 2022	September 2025	600,000	79.97		11.6		—		—
					$	36.9	$	26.8	$	12.5

(1)The performance RSUs granted in October 2021 totaled 390,000; however, in March 2022, the Compensation Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors approved an amendment and restatement of this award to increase the RSUs granted from 390,000 to 430,000. Concurrent with this change, the Compensation Committee amended the executive officer short-term performance bonus plan to reduce the amount of the award that could be earned.

In October 2023, the Compensation Committee approved the issuance of the performance-based RSUs that vested in September 2023 in the form of 607,500 shares of common stock to satisfy the awards.

Stock options are granted at exercise prices which equal the market value of the Company’s common stock at the date of the grant. The options outstanding at September 30, 2023 are all exercisable and expire 10 years after the dates on which they were granted.


	Year Ended September 30,
	2023			2022			2021
	Stock Options	Weighted Average Exercise Price		Stock Options	Weighted Average Exercise Price		Stock Options	Weighted Average Exercise Price
Outstanding at beginning of year	823,486	$	23.84	1,115,776	$	23.84	2,224,415	$	19.94
Exercised	(603,823)	23.83		(292,290)	23.83		(1,108,639)	16.02
Cancelled or expired	—	—		—	—		—	—
Outstanding at end of year	219,663	$	23.86	823,486	$	23.84	1,115,776	$	23.84
Exercisable at end of year	219,663	$	23.86	823,486	$	23.84	1,115,776	$	23.84

The aggregate intrinsic value of options exercised during fiscal 2023, 2022 and 2021 was $47.2 million, $23.0 million and $82.5 million, respectively. The intrinsic value of a stock option is the amount by which the market value of the underlying stock exceeds the option exercise price.

The aggregate intrinsic value of options outstanding and exercisable at September 30, 2023 was $18.4 million. Exercise prices for options outstanding at September 30, 2023 ranged from $23.57 to $23.86. The weighted average remaining contractual lives of options outstanding and exercisable at September 30, 2023 is 0.4 years.