Notes to Financial Statements

NOTE 17—Retirement Benefits

The Company has defined benefit pension plans available to substantially all employees that are either fully paid for by the Company or provide for mandatory employee contributions as a condition of participation. Under the cash balance plan in the United States, a participating employee accumulates a cash balance account which is credited monthly with a 3.5% of compensation allocation and interest. The Company’s funding policy is to contribute annually the statutorily required minimum amount as actuarially determined.

The Company, generally at its own discretion, provides a postretirement health care program that is administered by the Company to employees who elect to and are eligible to participate. Fisher funds a portion of the costs of this program on a self-insured and insured-premium basis and, for the years ended December 31, 2000, 1999, and 1998, made payments totaling $2.1 million, $1.7 million and $1.7 million, respectively.

The changes in benefit obligations and plan assets were as follows at December 31 (in millions):





The funded status of the Company’s pension and postretirement programs was as follows at December 31 (in millions):



The net periodic pension costs and postretirement health care benefit income includes the following components for the years ended December 31 (in millions):



In 1993, the Company amended certain of its existing postretirement health care programs creating an unrecognized prior service benefit. The unrecognized prior service benefit is being amortized over approximately 13 years.

The development of the net periodic pension cost and the projected benefit obligation was based upon the following assumptions:



The date used to measure plan assets and liabilities was October 31 in each year. Plan assets are invested primarily in stocks, bonds, short-term securities and cash equivalents.

The weighted average discount rate used in determining the accumulated postretirement health care benefit obligation was 7.5% for December 31, 2000 and 1999, and 6.75% for December 31, 1998. A 7.75% annual rate of increase in per capita cost of covered health care benefits was assumed for 2000 which gradually decreases to an average ultimate rate of 7.25%. Because of limitations on the Company’s contributions under the amended health care program, changes in the health care trend rate assumption do not have a significant effect on the amounts reported. To illustrate, a change in the assumed health care cost trend rate by 1 percentage point effective January 2000 would change the accumulated postretirement benefit obligation as of December 31, 2000 by approximately $0.6 million and the aggregate of the service and interest cost components of net periodic postretirement benefit cost for the year ended December 31, 2000 by approximately $0.1 million.

The Company also maintains a defined contribution savings and profit sharing plan (the "Plan"). The Plan allows eligible employees to participate after six months and 500 hours of service. Participants may elect to contribute between 1% and 15% of their annual compensation as defined in the Plan. The Company is obligated to contribute an amount equal to 25% of each employee’s basic contribution, as defined, and may, at the discretion of the Company, contribute additional amounts. For the years ended December 31, 2000, 1999, and 1998 the Company’s contributions to the Plan were $4.1 million, $4.2 million, and $2.5 million, respectively.