Asset Retirement Obligations

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2013

Asset Retirement Obligations [Abstract]

Asset Retirement Obligations

(10) Asset Retirement Obligations

Asset retirement obligations consist primarily of costs to deinstall the Company's ATMs and costs to restore the ATM sites to their original condition, which are estimated based on current market rates. In most cases, the Company is contractually required to perform this deinstallation and restoration work. For each group of ATMs, the Company has recognized the fair value of the asset retirement obligation as a liability on its balance sheet and capitalized that cost as part of the cost basis of the related asset. The related assets are depreciated on a straight-line basis over five years, which is the estimated average time period that an ATM is installed in a location before being deinstalled, and the related liabilities are accreted to their full value over the same period of time. As reflected in the table below, during the quarter ended March 31, 2013, the Company revised its estimated future liabilities based on recent actual experience, changes in certain customer-specific estimates and other cost estimate changes. The changes in estimated future costs were recorded as a reduction in the carrying amount of the remaining unamortized asset and will reduce the Company’s depreciation and accretion expense amounts in future periods.

The following table is a summary of the changes in the Company's asset retirement obligation liability for the three months ended March 31, 2013(in thousands):

Asset retirement obligation as of January 1, 2013	$	44,696
Additional obligations		867
Accretion expense		660
Change in estimates		(5,245)
Payments		(621)
Foreign currency translation adjustments		(1,146)
Asset retirement obligation as of March 31, 2013	$	39,211

See Note 13, Fair Value Measurements for additional disclosures on the Company's asset retirement obligations with respect to its fair value measurements.