The vesting should be on the company contribution alone. If you contribute additional funds to your 401(k) you would(should) still be entitled to your contributions and all returns. That is, unless y'all hired the same guys that write our contract language.

If company put in $48,000 and you were 40% vested you’d walk away with 40% of 48k. That’s it. You are always 100% vested in your own contributions. After all it’s your own money you put in. Spirit is 6 years to be 100 % vested . Meaning you keep 100% of all spirits monies they contributed .

Yes. And remember, the company does not put in “money” they buy “shares”. So they own rights to a percentage of the shares, not the money at the time of transaction.

So you need to think of it as: If you leave after 3 years, you keep 40% of the total shares and the company keeps 60% of the total shares. Not “the company put in $20k, so they get 60% back of the $20k”

So IF the market increases, the company will be taking back shares which have increased in value over that time. Conversely if they decline in value, they take back 60% of the shares they bought which are worth less than when purchased.

Otherwise you get a scenario where:

Bob works for a company that has a 5 year vesting schedule. 20% a year to 100% after 5years. At 3 years Bob has $80k in total company contributions but the Market takes a nose dive and his total value is now $50k. The company let’s Bob go. Bob is 60% vested in the company contributions, company still owns 40%. The company can not say “ok, we gave you $80k, we get 40% back, so that’s $32k for us”. Leaving Bob with $50k market value minus company snagging 40% of contributions, so Bob gets $50k-$32k= $18k for Bob.

Instead, the company takes back their percentage of shares purchased with their contribution in relation to their vesting plan. So instead of the company snagging $32k worth of shares, they will get 40% of the shares of the new value of the fund which is $50k, so they get $20k and Bob keeps his vested 60% of shares which is $30k. This is all based on Bob contributes nothing, since he clearly keeps 100% of his contributions.

This is an extremely long winded example of saying the company will take a percentage of the non vested gains back, as well as they take a hit on any non vested losses as well

Correct. They will take the 40% and the earnings from that investment, whatever the dollar amount is. Or they will
Take 40% and absorb the amount of
The loses
Whatever amount that is . Basically work here 6 years and you got a lot of free money from spirit .. and since we are in a bull market (presently) some decent earnings as well

After a little confirmation research I can say, "that doesn't seem right, but I guess it's how things work."

Where are you getting a “conservative” 15% return rate?

It seems clear he meant 15% over 3 years.

Doh, quick read on the hotel shuttle strikes again!