Company: NECB
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001104659-25-034190
Chunk: 26

Company: NorthEast Community Bancorp, Inc./MD/
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 26
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 of employment following a change in control) and require the executives to maintain confidential information. NorthEast Community Bank will pay or reimburse the executives for all reasonable costs and legal fees paid or incurred by the executives in any dispute or question of interpretation relating to the employment agreement if the executive is successful on the merits in a legal judgment, arbitration or settlement. The employment agreements also provide that NorthEast Community Bancorp, Inc. and NorthEast Community Bank will indemnify the executives to the fullest extent legally allowable. To the extent that a payment is made, or a benefit is received from NorthEast Community Bank, the same payment or benefit will not be paid or received from NorthEast Community Bancorp, Inc. Retirement Benefits NorthEast Community Bank Employee Stock Ownership Plan.The ESOP is a tax-qualified defined contribution plan for all employees of NorthEast Community Bank who are 18 years of age or older and have completed one year of service with NorthEast Community Bank. Eligible employees can begin participation in the ESOP on the entry date (January 1 or July 1) that coincides or immediately follows their satisfaction of the ESOP eligibility requirements. All named executive officers participate in the ESOP. In 2006, in connection with the Company’s public minority stock offering, the ESOP borrowed funds from NorthEast Community Bancorp pursuant to a loan and used those funds to purchase 518,420 shares of common stock for the ESOP in connection with the offering (the “2006 ESOP Loan”), which has an interest rate of 8.25%, a term that ends in 2025 and which had a balance of $478,000 at December 31, 2024. In connection with the completion of the second-step conversion offering on July 12, 2021, the ESOP purchased an additional 782,726 shares of NorthEast Community Bancorp’s common stock. The ESOP funded its purchase with a loan from the Company in the amount of $7.8 million (“2021 ESOP Loan”). The loan will be repaid principally through NorthEast Community Bank’s contribution to the Employee Stock Ownership Plan and dividends payable on common stock held by the Employee Stock Ownership Plan over the 15-year term of the loan. The interest rate for the 2021 ESOP loan is 3.25% and the balance of that loan was $6.0 million at December 31, 2024. All shares of the Company’s common stock held by the ESOP prior to the completion of the second step offering