Severance and Leased Real Estate

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2019

Restructuring and Related Activities [Abstract]

Severance and Leased Real Estate

Severance and Leased Real Estate

Periodically, we reduce our workforce and accrue liabilities for the related severance costs. These workforce reductions result primarily from the progression or completion of our post-acquisition integration plans, increased competitive pressures, cost reduction initiatives, process improvements through automation and reduced workload demands due to the loss of customers purchasing certain services.

We report severance liabilities within accrued expenses and other liabilities - salaries and benefits in our consolidated balance sheets and report severance expenses in selling, general and administrative expenses in our consolidated statements of operations.

Changes in our accrued liabilities for severance expenses were as follows:

	Severance
	(Dollars in millions)
Balance at December 31, 2017 (Successor)	$	5
Accrued to expense	33
Payments, net	(19		)
Balance at December 31, 2018	$	19
Accrued to expense	6
Payments, net	(16		)
Balance at December 31, 2019	$	9

We recognized liabilities to reflect our estimates of the fair values of the existing lease obligations for real estate which we have ceased using, net of estimated sublease rentals. In accordance with transitional guidance under the new lease standard (ASC 842), the existing lease obligation of $47 million as of January 1, 2019 has been netted against the operating lease right of use assets at adoption. For additional information, see Note 5—Leases to our consolidated financial statements in Item 8 of Part II of this report.