Asset Retirement Obligations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

(11) Asset Retirement Obligations

Asset retirement obligations (“ARO”) 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 of its owned ATMs 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:


	December 31, 2017		December 31, 2016

	(In thousands)
Asset retirement obligations as of the beginning of the period	$	54,907	$	54,727
Additional obligations		11,727		8,720
Estimated obligations assumed in acquisitions		9,343		—
Accretion expense		1,856		1,803
Change in estimates		(108)		(1,638)
Payments		(9,788)		(4,351)
Foreign currency translation adjustments		1,820		(4,354)
Asset retirement obligations at the end of the period		69,757		54,907
Less: current portion of asset retirement obligations		9,837		9,821
Asset retirement obligations, excluding current portion, at the end of the period	$	59,920	$	45,086

For additional information related to the Company’s AROs with respect to its fair value measurements, see Note 16. Fair Value Measurements.