Company: MSEX
Filing Date: 2025-04-10
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001174947-25-000561
Chunk: 27

Company: MIDDLESEX WATER CO
Filing Date: 2025-04-10
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 27
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 growth and other non-financial metrics. The CEO’s incentive awards are based 80% on achieving the financial metric and 20% on operational, service, growth and other non-financial metrics.

| ☑ | Focus on Long-Term Goals |

We believe our incentive compensation program should be simple, transparent and easily understood by shareholders, analysts, regulators and other interested parties. Our incentive compensation program is in the form of a long-term benefit through restricted shares of Common Stock with a three- or five-year cliff-vesting schedule. A modest short-term benefit is provided through the dividends on the awarded restricted Common Stock for the three- or five-year period during which the shares are unvested.

| ☑ | Require Stock Ownership |

We require our named Executive Officers to beneficially own shares of Common Stock equal in value to a multiple of their base salary. The multiple for our Chief Executive Officer, our Chief Financial Officer, and all our other named Executive Officers, is 3.0, 1.5, and 1.0, respectively. Each named Executive Officer, and director has until the fifth anniversary of their appointment as an Executive Officer to satisfy the applicable stock ownership requirement.

| ☑ | Regularly Review our Comparator Group |

We regularly review our designated comparator group to ensure our compensation program is properly aligned with the peers whose relative size, operations, regulatory requirements and other relevant characteristics are reasonably comparable to ours. What We Do Not Do

| ⊘ | No Risky or Complicated Programs |

We do not engage in compensation programs that create undue risk or are difficult to assess how effectively incentive targets were achieved.

| ⊘ | No Hedges of, or Liens on, our Common Stock |

We prohibit the pledging of, or hypothecating, or otherwise placing a lien on, any common stock or other equity interest of the company.

| ⊘ | No Definitive Retention of Restricted Stock Award – Subject to Clawback |

Under our “clawback” policy, we do not allow any recipient of previously-awarded restricted Common Stock to retain the amount of such awards, which were based on achievement of financial metrics, that would have been invalidated by a restatement of financial statements..

| ⊘ | No Repricing or Cash Buyouts of Restricted Stock Awards |

We do not reprice or buy out unvested restricted Common Stock awards. Middlesex Water Company 22 2025 Proxy Statement EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION Compensation Committee Report The Compensation Committee has reviewed and approved the Compensation Discussion