Company: ZEUS
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001437749-25-009843
Chunk: 20

Company: OLYMPIC STEEL INC
Filing Date: 2025-03-28
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 20
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 data regarding actual performance.

Role of Compensation Consultant

Pearl Meyer serves as our compensation consultant and its role in the executive compensation program is to compare the base salaries, annual cash incentive awards and long-term compensation of our named executive officers to the compensation paid to executives in similar positions both within and outside the metal service center industry in order to provide market “benchmarks” for the Compensation Committee to consider when evaluating and determining the compensation of our named executive officers. We don’t target a specific percentile within the peer group but instead the Compensation Committee uses the peer group data as a reference point and one factor in making its compensation decisions. In late 2022, Pearl Meyer compiled this compensation data for the group of metal and metal-related companies shown below which we utilize as our peer group for benchmarking beginning in 2023. The same peer group was used for purposes of 2024 compensation decisions.

| Ryerson Holding Corp.        | Masonite International Corp.         | SunCoke Energy, Inc.     |
| Worthington Industries       | Griffon Corporation                  | Warrior Met Coal, Inc.   |
| Mueller Industries           | The Greenbier Companies, Inc.        | Park-Ohio Holdings Corp. |
| Kaiser Aluminum Corporation  | Wabash National Corporation          | TimkenSteel Corporation  |
| Schnitzer Steel Industries   | The Manitowoc Company, Inc.          | Gibraltar Industries     |
| Allegheny Technologies, Inc. | Carpenter Technology Corporation     | Kennametal, Inc.         |
| Century Aluminum Company     | Quanex Building Products Corporation |                          |

Compensation Allocation

Our executive compensation program consists of three primary components: base salary, annual cash incentive payouts and long-term compensation, both in the form of equity and cash incentives. We also provide our executives with the opportunity to participate in a 401(k) retirement and profit-sharing plan and a non-qualified defined contribution plan. Certain health, disability and life insurance and other customary fringe benefits also are available to our named executive officers, who participate in these fringe benefits on substantially the same basis as our other employees. Except for Ms. Christen, in 2024, each named executive officer was also party to an agreement with us that provides for certain benefits upon certain terminations in connection with a change in control, as described below under “Potential Payments upon Termination or Change in Control.”

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In determining the relative allocation of these elements of compensation, the Compensation Committee seeks to provide an amount of long-term