Exhibit
4.5
WMS INDUSTRIES
INC.
NONQUALIFIED DEFERRED
COMPENSATION PLAN
Effective December 1,
2003
ARTICLE I
INTRODUCTION
1.1
Name and
Purpose . WMS
Industries Inc. (the “Company”) hereby establishes the
WMS Industries Inc. Nonqualified Deferred Compensation Plan, as set
forth herein (the “Plan”), for the benefit of Eligible
Individuals. The purpose of the Plan is to provide Eligible
Individuals with the opportunity to defer compensation on a pre-tax
basis and to receive Company contributions. The Plan is not
intended to be “qualified” under section 401(a) of the
Code; rather, the Plan is intended to be a deferred compensation
plan for non-employee directors and a select group of management
and highly compensated employees, as described in Sections 201(2),
301(a)(3) and 401(a)(1) of ERISA. The Company intends that the Plan
(and any grantor trust described in Article VI) shall be treated as
unfunded for tax purposes and for purposes of Title I of ERISA. An
Employer’s obligations hereunder, if any, to a Participant
(or to a Participant’s Beneficiary) shall be unsecured and
shall be a mere promise by the Company to make payments hereunder
in the future. A Participant (or the Participant’s
Beneficiary) shall be treated as a general, unsecured creditor of
the Company.
1.2
Effective Date and Plan
Year . The
Effective Date of the Plan is December 1, 2003. The Plan will be
administered on the basis of a Plan Year. The first Plan Year
begins on December 1, 2003 and ends on December 31, 2003. All
subsequent Plan Years will be the 12-month period beginning on each
January 1 and ending on each December 31.
ARTICLE
II
DEFINITIONS
2.1
“ Accounting
Date ” means each date that the New York Stock Exchange
is open for business.
2.2
“ Beneficiary
” means any
person, entity, or any combination thereof the Participant names in
a Participation Agreement as his or her beneficiary to receive
benefits under this Plan in the event of the Participant’s
death, or in the absence of any such designation, the
Participant’s estate. A Participant may amend his or her
Participation Agreement to name a new Beneficiary at any
time.
2.3
“ Board
” means the
Board of Directors of the Company.
2.4
“ Cause
” means that
the Participant has engaged in an act of willful misconduct, gross
negligence, fraud or moral turpitude, as determined by the Company
in its sole discretion.
2.5
“ Change in
Control ” means the occurrence of any of the following
events: (i) during any period of two consecutive years, individuals
who at the beginning of such period constitute the entire Board
shall cease for any reason to constitute a majority thereof unless
the election, or nomination for election by the Company’s
stockholders, of each new director was approved by a vote of at
least two-thirds of the directors then still in office who were
directors at the beginning of such period; (ii) the shareholders of
the Company approve any liquidation of the Company or any sale or
disposition of 50% or more of the assets of the Company; or (iii)
the shareholders of the Company approve any merger or consolidation
to which the Company is a party (other than a merger with a
wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company) as a result of which the
persons who were shareholders of the Company immediately prior to
the effective date of the merger or consolidation shall have
beneficial ownership of less than 50% of the combined voting power
for election of directors of the surviving corporation following
the effective date of such merger or consolidation.
2.6
“ Code
” means the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended.
2.7
“ Committee
” means the
Committee appointed by the Board to administer the Plan pursuant to
Article VIII.
2.8
“ Company
” means WMS
Industries Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its
successors.
2.9 “ Company
Contributions ” means the matching and/or profit
sharing contributions made by the Company on behalf of a
Participant pursuant to Article V.
2.10
“ Compensation
” means the
total cash compensation paid to a Participant for services rendered
to an Employer as an employee (as reported on Form W-2)
or as a Director (as reported on Form 1099)
for a Plan Year, with any exclusions or inclusions that the
Committee may determine in its discretion.
2.11
“ Deferral
Account ” means the account maintained by the Committee to
record a Participants’ accrued benefit under the
Plan.
2.12
“ Director
” means a
non-employee member of the Company’s Board.
2.13
“ Disability
” means that a
Participant has been determined to be “disabled” under
the Company’s long-term disability plan maintained for
employees generally; provided, however, that if there is no such
plan at the time, the Participant shall be considered
“disabled” if he or she is entitled to collect
disability benefits from the Social Security
Administration.
2.14
“ Earnings
” means the
amount of earnings or losses credited or debited to each
Participant’s Deferral Account pursuant to Section 4.3 of the
Plan.
2.15 “ Effective Date
” means December 1, 2003.
2.16
“ Eligible
Individual ” means an Employee or a Director who has been
selected to participate in the Plan in accordance with Section
3.1.
2.17
“ Employee
” means a
management or highly compensated employee of an Employer who is
scheduled to receive Compensation of at least $200,000 during a
Plan Year (assuming targeted bonuses are earned).
2.18
“ Employer
” means the
Company and any subsidiary or affiliate of that Company that, with
the consent of the Company, adopts the Plan for the benefit of its
Eligible Employees.
2.19
“ ERISA
” means the
Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as
amended.
2.20
“ Participant
” means an
Eligible Individual who has executed a Participation
Agreement.
2.21
“ Participation
Agreement ” means the agreement executed by an Eligible
Individual that includes provisions for the Eligible
Individual’s election to defer, the Eligible
Individual’s Beneficiary designation, and the Eligible
Individual’s investment designation.
2.22
“ Plan Year
” means the
calendar year.
2.23
“ Qualified
Plan ” means the WMS Industries Inc. 401(k) Retirement
Savings Plan for Non-Union Employees, or its successor.
ARTICLE III
ELIGIBILITY AND PARTICIPATION
3.1
Eligibility. Before the beginning of each Plan Year, the
Committee will designate the Directors and Employees who are
eligible to participate in the Plan during such Plan Year.
An Eligible Individual’s eligibility
to make a deferral to the Plan in any given Plan Year does not
guarantee that individual the right to make a deferral in any
subsequent Plan Year.
3.2
Participation and
Cessation of Participation. An Eligible Individual for any Plan Year may
make a deferral election on a timely basis as described in Section
4.1, and if the Eligible Individual makes such a deferral election,
he or she shall become a Participant and shall remain a Participant
until he or she has received a distribution of his or her entire
Deferral Account. A Participant in the Plan who separates from
service with the Company and all of its subsidiaries and affiliates
for any reason will cease to be eligible to defer Compensation
under this Plan and will become entitled to distributions in
accordance with Article VII.
ARTICLE IV
ENROLLMENT AND DEFERRAL ELECTIONS
4.1
Participant Elections to
Defer . Each
Eligible Individual who intends to make an election to defer shall
indicate on a Participation Agreement that portion of his or her
Compensation (if any) that shall be deferred hereunder, in
accordance with the following:
(a)
Limits Established By
Committee : All deferrals
under the Plan shall be subject to limits established from time to
time by the Committee in its discretion, including (but not limited
to): (i) limitations on the amounts permitted to be deferred; (ii)
limitations on the sources and timing and form of deferrals for all
or particular Participants; and (iii) other terms and conditions
regarding deferrals under the Plan. Any such limits may be set
forth in election forms, instructions or other policies established
by the Committee, which may be, but need not be, set forth in
writing.
(b)
Timing of Elections.
No later than December 1 of the
preceding Plan Year, an Eligible Individual may make an election to
defer a portion of his or her Compensation that otherwise would be
payable in the following Plan Year; provided, however, that a
deferral election made in the 2003 Plan Year applicable to
Compensation payable in the 2004 Plan Year may be made by December
15, 2003. In the event a Director or Employee first becomes an
Eligible Individual after the first day of a Plan Year, such
Eligible Individual may make an election within thirty (30) days
after the date on which he or she first became an Eligible
Individual in order to defer Compensation for such Plan Year. An
Eligible Individual may make an election to defer by completing a
Participation Agreement and filing it with the Committee. An
election to defer shall remain in effect only for the Plan Year
specified in the Participation Agreement. Once filed, the
Participation Agreement is irrevocable, subject only to the
one-time redeferral provision of Section 7.2. An election to defer
shall only be effective with respect to Compensation earned after
the date the Participation Agreement is filed with the
Committee.
(c)
Period of Deferral
. Each election to defer made by an
Eligible Individual shall include an election of the date on which
the amount of such deferral (together with Earnings thereon) will
be distributed. Such date shall be no earlier than January 1 of the
third Plan Year following the Plan Year to which the election to
defer relates.
4.2
Deferral
Account . The
Committee shall maintain a Deferral Account for each Participant. A
Participant’s Deferral Account shall include a subaccount for
each deferral made under the Plan and any Company Contributions
made to the Participant under Article V of the Plan. Each such
subaccount shall reflect: (i) any amount deferred or contributed
during a Plan Year, (ii) any amounts distributed during a Plan
Year, and (iii) the total Earnings on the Deferral Account
described in Section 4.3 for a Plan Year. Deferred Compensation
shall be credited to Participant’s subaccounts as soon as
practicable following the date the Compensation would otherwise
have been paid to the Participant but for his or her deferral
election. A Participant’s Deferral Account shall be
nonforfeitable at all times (except as otherwise provided in
Section 5.3).
4.3
Investment of Deferral
Account . A
Participant may direct the deemed investment of his or her Deferral
Account among investment alternatives determined by the Committee
from time to time (collectively, the “Measurement
Funds”). Investment elections may be changed by the
Participant (but only among such Measurement Funds) on such date
and in such manner as determined by the Committee in its sole
discretion. A Participant’s Deferral Account shall be
credited or debited daily based on the performance of each
Measurement Fund selected by the Participant, as though (i) the
Participant’s Compensation deferrals were invested in the
Measurement Fund(s) as of the date that they are credited to the
Participant’s Deferral Account; and (ii) any distributions
made to the Participant that decrease the Participant’s
Deferral Account balance ceased being invested in the Measurement
Fund(s) on the date the