Real Estate Charges

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2015

Restructuring and Related Activities [Abstract]

During 2010, we performed a comprehensive review of our real estate requirements in New York in connection with our workforce reductions, which commenced in 2008. As a result, during 2010 we decided to sub-lease over 380,000 square feet in New York (all of this space has been sublet) and consolidate our New York-based employees into two office locations from three. During the third quarter of 2012, in an effort to further reduce our global real estate footprint, we completed a comprehensive review of our worldwide office locations and began implementing a global space consolidation plan. As a result, our intention is to sub-lease approximately 510,000 square feet of office space (in excess of 90% of this space has been sublet), more than 70% of which is New York office space (in addition to the 380,000 square feet space reduction in 2010), with the remainder consisting of office space in England, Australia and various U.S. locations.

During 2013, we recorded pre-tax real estate charges of $28.4 million, comprising $17.4 million from a change in estimates related to previously recorded real estate charges ($17.0 million related to the 2010 and 2012 plans and $0.4 million related to other real estate charges), new real estate charges of $6.6 million ($1.3 million related to the 2012 plan and $5.3 million related to other real estate charges) and $4.4 million for the write-off of leasehold improvements, furniture and equipment.

During 2014, we recorded pre-tax real estate charges of $0.1 million, comprising $5.5 million for the write-off of leasehold improvements, furniture and equipment ($5.0 million related to the 2012 plan and $0.5 million related to other real estate charges), offset by $4.7 million from a change in estimates related to previously recorded real estate charges (primarily relating to the 2010 and 2012 plans) and $0.7 million in credits related to other items.

During 2015, we recorded pre-tax real estate charges of $1.0 million, resulting from a change in estimates related to previously recorded real estate charges.

The activity in the liability account relating to our 2010 and 2012 office space consolidation initiatives for the following periods is as follows:



	Year Ended December 31,
	2015			2014
	(in thousands)
Balance as of January 1,	$	148,429		$	199,527
Expense (credit) incurred	2,258			(4,755		)
Payments made	(38,920		)	(50,893		)
Interest accretion	4,297			4,550
Balance as of end of period	$	116,064		$	148,429