Company: FRME
Filing Date: 2025-04-01
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0000712534-25-000077
Chunk: 58

Company: FIRST MERCHANTS CORP
Filing Date: 2025-04-01
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 58
---
 | Severance Benefit Amount ($) |     | Bargain Element Values of Outstanding Stock Options |     | Estimated Values of Insurance Coverages for Two Years ($) |
| Mark K. Hardwick    |     | 299%       |     |                    3,719,793 |     | —                                                   |     |                                                    32,478 |
| Michael J. Stewart  |     | 299%       |     |                    2,859,147 |     | —                                                   |     |                                                    25,094 |
| Michele M. Kawiecki |     | 299%       |     |                    2,074,152 |     | —                                                   |     |                                                    34,090 |
| John J. Martin      |     | 299%       |     |                    1,865,565 |     | —                                                   |     |                                                    34,592 |
| Joseph C. Peterson  |     | 200%       |     |                    1,231,332 |     | —                                                   |     |                                                    36,732 |

The change of control agreements were not entered into in response to any effort to acquire control of the Company, and the Board is not aware of any such effort.

RATIO OF ANNUAL TOTAL COMPENSATION OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER TO MEDIAN EMPLOYEE

We are providing the following information about the relationship of the annual total compensation of our median employee and the annual total compensation of Mark K. Hardwick, our Chief Executive Officer ( “CEO” ) in 2024.

We have identified a new median employee for purposes of calculating the ratio of our CEO’s total annual compensation to that of the median employee. To determine the new median employee, we reviewed our entire employee population as of December 20, 2024. The employee population totaled 2,046 employees after omitting the CEO. We have no employees outside of the U.S., so no adjustments were made to the employee population on that basis.

We used the combination of base salary, overtime, and annual incentive compensation as our consistently applied compensation measure. Compensation was annualized to the end of the fiscal year, including annualizing the pay of permanent employees hired in 2024, as allowed under the ratio rule. Using this methodology, we directly identified our median employee and then determined the median employee’s total compensation at the end of our fiscal year using the Summary Compensation Table items as reflected on page 37. The amount of that compensation was $59,144.