Asset Retirement Obligations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2013

Asset Retirement Obligations [Abstract]

(11) 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 year ended December 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 reduce the Company’s depreciation and accretion expense amounts prospectively. Additionally, as of December 31, 2013, the Company reclassified a portion of the liabilities as current, which is included in the Current portion of other long-term liabilities line item in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets. A portion of the liabilities as of December 31, 2012 was also reclassified as current, although the total amount of liabilities was unchanged.

The following table is a summary of the changes in the Company's asset retirement obligation liability for the years ended December 31, 2013 and 2012:



	2013		2012
	(In thousands)
Asset retirement obligation as of beginning of period	$	44,696	$	34,517
Additional obligations		6,399		10,303
Estimated obligations assumed in Cardpoint acquisition		18,494		—
Accretion expense		2,777		2,602
Change in estimates		(6,477)		—
Payments		(2,495)		(3,510)
Foreign currency translation adjustments		437		784
Total asset retirement obligation at end of period		63,831		44,696
Less: current portion		3,166		2,834
Asset retirement obligation, excluding current portion	$	60,665	$	41,862

See Note 16, Fair Value Measurements for additional disclosures on the Company's asset retirement obligations with respect to its fair value measurements.