Asset Retirement Obligations

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2017

(9) Asset Retirement Obligations

Asset retirement obligations (“AROs”) consist primarily of costs to deinstall the Company’s ATMs and 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 in some cases, site restoration work. For each group of similar ATM type, the Company has recognized the estimated fair value of the ARO as a liability in the accompanying Consolidated Balance Sheets 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.

The changes in the Company’s ARO liability consisted of the following:


	(In thousands)
Asset retirement obligations as of January 1, 2017	$	54,907
Additional obligations		2,792
Estimated obligations assumed in acquisitions		6,083
Accretion expense		540
Payments		(1,884)
Foreign currency translation adjustments		277
Asset retirement obligations as of March 31, 2017		62,715
Less: current portion of asset retirement obligations		9,452
Asset retirement obligations, excluding current portion, as of March 31, 2017	$	53,263

For additional information related to the Company’s ARO with respect to its fair value measurements, see Note 12. Fair Value Measurements.