2005 Financial Review
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF RESULTS OF OPERATIONS AND FINANCIAL CONDITION
APPLICATION OF CRITICAL ACCOUNTING POLICIES
The application of accounting principles requires the use of assumptions, estimates and judgments which are the responsibility of management. Management makes estimates and judgments based on, among other things, knowledge of operations, markets, historical trends and likely future changes, similarly situated businesses and, when appropriate, the opinions of advisors with relevant knowledge and experience. Many assumptions, estimates and judgments are straightforward; others are not. Reported results could have been materially different had the Company used a different set of assumptions, estimates and judgments.
Deferred Tax Asset Valuation Allowance
It is common for companies to record expenses and accruals before the related payments are actually made. In the U.S., and most other countries and tax jurisdictions, many deductions for tax return purposes cannot be taken until the expenses are paid. Similarly, some tax credits and tax loss carryforwards cannot be used until future periods when sufficient taxable income is generated. In these circumstances, under GAAP, companies accrue for the tax benefit expected to be received in future years if, in the judgment of management, it is “more likely than not” that the company will receive the tax benefits. These benefits (deferred tax assets) are often offset, in whole or in part, by the effects of deferred tax liabilities which relate primarily to deductions available for tax return purposes under existing tax laws and regulations before such costs are reported as expenses under GAAP.
As of December 31, 2005, the Company had approximately $349 million of net deferred tax assets on its consolidated balance sheet. A significant amount of the Company’s deferred tax assets relates to expected future tax deductions arising from retiree medical and other coal-related expenses the Company has already recorded in its financial statements. For more details associated with this net balance, see note 17 to the accompanying consolidated financial statements.
Since there is no absolute assurance that these assets will be ultimately realized, management annually reviews the Company’s deferred tax positions to determine if it is more likely than not that the assets will be realized. Periodic reviews include, among other things, the nature and amount of the taxable income and expense items, the expected timing when assets will be used or liabilities will be required to be reported and the reliability of historical profitability of businesses expected to provide future earnings. Furthermore, management considers tax-planning strategies it can use to increase the likelihood that the tax assets will be realized. If after conducting the periodic review, management determines that the realization of the tax asset does not meet the “more-likely-than-not” criteria, an offsetting valuation allowance is recorded thereby reducing net earnings and the deferred tax asset in that period. For these reasons and since changes in estimates can materially affect net earnings, management believes the accounting estimate related to deferred tax asset valuation allowances is a “critical accounting estimate.”
Approximately 84% of the deferred tax assets before valuation allowance at December 31, 2005 relates to the U.S. federal tax jurisdiction. Due to its expectation that the historical profitability of the Company’s U.S. portion of the Brink’s and BHS operations will continue and the lengthy period over which coal-related liabilities will become available for deduction on tax returns, management has concluded that it is more likely than not that these deferred tax assets will be realized.
For U.S. state jurisdictions and non-U.S. jurisdictions, the Company has evaluated its ability to fully utilize the net deferred tax assets on an individual jurisdiction basis. Due to a recent history of losses in some non-U.S. jurisdictions and doubts about whether future operating performance will be sufficiently profitable to realize deferred tax assets, the Company has approximately $42 million of valuation allowances at December 31, 2005.
Among other things, should tax statutes, the timing of deductibility of expenses or expectations for future performance change, the Company could decide to adjust its valuation allowances, which would increase or decrease tax expense, possibly materially.
Goodwill and Property and Equipment Valuations
Accounting Policies
At December 31, 2005, the Company had property and equipment of $867.4 million and goodwill of $103.8 million, net of accumulated depreciation and amortization. The Company reviews these assets for possible impairment using the guidance in SFAS 142, “Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets,” for goodwill and SFAS 144, “Accounting for the Impairment or Disposal of Long-lived Assets,” for property and equipment and other long-lived assets. The review for impairment requires the use of significant judgments about the future performance of the Company’s operating subsidiaries and, as such, the Company believes they represent critical accounting estimates.
Application of Accounting Policies
Goodwill
Goodwill is reviewed for impairment at least annually. The Company estimates the fair value of Brink’s, the only reporting unit that has goodwill, primarily using estimates of future cash flows. The fair value of the reporting unit is compared to its carrying value to determine if an impairment is indicated. At December 31, 2005, net goodwill was $103.8 million at Brink’s. To date, no impairment has been identified. BAX Global’s goodwill of $165.2 million at December 31, 2005 has been included in assets held for sale.
Due to a history of profitability and cash flow, the carrying values of long-lived assets of Brink’s are believed to be appropriate.
Property and Equipment
To determine if an impairment exists related to property and equipment, the Company compares estimates of the future undiscounted net cash flows of groups of assets to their carrying value when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying amount may not be recoverable. For purposes of assessing impairment, assets are grouped at the lowest level for which there are identifiable cash flows that are largely independent of the cash flows of other groups of assets.
Brink’s has not had any material impairments of property and equipment in the last three years.
Each quarter, when BHS customers disconnect their monitoring service, BHS records an impairment charge related to the carrying value of the related security systems estimated to be permanently disconnected based on historical reconnection experience. BHS makes estimates about future reconnection experience in its estimate of impairment charges. Future reconnection experience is estimated using historical data. Should the estimate of future reconnection experience change, BHS’s impairment charges would be affected.
Employee and Retiree Benefit Obligations
The Company provides its employees and retirees benefits arising from both Company-sponsored plans (e.g. defined benefit pension plans) and statutory requirements (e.g. medical benefits for otherwise ineligible former employees and nonemployees under the Health Benefit Act).
The primary benefits which require the Company to make cash payments over an extended period of years are:
- Pension obligation
- Retiree medical obligation
- Health Benefit Act premiums to the Combined Fund
- Black Lung obligation
Accounting Policy
The Company accounts for its pension plans under SFAS 87, “Employers’ Accounting for Pensions.” The Company accounts for its retiree medical obligations and Black Lung obligations under SFAS 106, “Employers’ Accounting for Postretirement Benefits Other Than Pensions.” As a result of annual remeasurements, the Company records changes in liabilities and associated expenses over time as required under these accounting standards.
Health Benefit Act obligations are recorded under EITF 92-13, “Accounting for Estimated Payments in Connection with the Coal Industry Retiree Health Benefit Act of 1992,” which requires the Company to accrue estimated undiscounted future premiums to be paid to the Combined Fund.
As is normal for these benefits, cash payments will be made for periods ranging from the current year to over seventy years from now for these benefits. The amount of the cash payments and related expenses will be affected over time by inflation, salary increases, investment returns and market interest rates, changes in the numbers of plan participants and changes in the benefit obligations and/or laws and regulations covering the benefit obligations. Because of the inherent volatility of these items and because the obligations are significant, the Company believes these represent critical accounting estimates.
The critical accounting estimates that determine the carrying values of liabilities and the resulting annual expense are discussed below. The plans that are affected by the assumptions discussed are identified parenthetically in the relevant title.
Application of Accounting Policy
Discount Rate (Pension, Retiree Medical and Black Lung)
A discount rate is used to determine the present value of future payments. The rate should reflect returns expected from high-quality bonds and will fluctuate over time with market interest rates. In general, the Company’s liability changes in an inverse relationship to interest rates, i.e. the lower the discount rate, the higher the associated plan obligation.
The Company selects a discount rate for its plan obligations after reviewing published long-term yield information for a small number of high-quality fixed-income securities (e.g. Moody’s AA bond yields). The Company’s advisors also calculate yields for the broader range of long-term high-quality securities with maturities in line with expected payments. After considering these factors, the Company selected a discount rate of 5.50% as of December 2005 and 5.75% as of December 31, 2004. The average Moody’s AA bond yields for the ten year period ended December 31, 2005 was approximately 6.9%.
Sensitivity Analysis
The discount rate selected at year end materially affects the valuations of plan obligations at year end and calculations of net periodic expenses for the following year.
The tables below compare hypothetical plan obligation valuations as of December 31, 2005 and estimated expenses for 2006 if the Company had used discount rates that were 100 basis points lower or higher.
Plan Obligations at December 31, 2005
| Hypothetical | Actual | Hypothetical | ||
| (In millions) | 4.50% | 5.50% | 6.50% | |
| Primary U.S. pension plan ABO and PBO | $ | 873.7 | 745.6 | 644.4 |
| Coal-related retiree medical accumulated postretirement benefit obligation (“APBO”) | 707.3 | 633.0 | 571.6 | |
| Black Lung APBO | 55.6 | 51.7 | 47.7 |
Projected 2006 Expense
| Hypothetical | Actual | Hypothetical | ||
| (In millions) | 4.50% | 5.50% | 6.50% | |
| Primary U.S. pension plan | $ | 16.8 | 5.2 | (4.4) |
| Coal-related retiree medical | 18.8 | 17.0 | 15.3 | |
| Black Lung | 4.0 | 3.9 | 3.7 |
Return on Assets (Pension and Retiree Medical)
The Company’s primary U.S. defined benefit pension plan had assets at December 31, 2005 valued at approximately $620 million. This pension plan’s assets are invested primarily using actively managed accounts with asset allocation targets of 47.5% domestic equities and 22.5% international equities, which include a broad array of market capitalization sizes and investment styles, and 30% fixed income securities. The Company’s policy does not permit certain investments, including investments in The Brink’s Company common stock, unless part of a commingled fund. Fixed-income investments must have an investment grade rating at the time of purchase. The plan rebalances its assets on a quarterly basis if actual allocations of assets are outside predetermined ranges. Among other factors, the performance of asset groups and investment managers will affect the long-term rate of return.
The Company-sponsored retiree medical plan had assets in a VEBA at December 31, 2005 valued at approximately $185 million. The assets in the VEBA are invested and managed on a similar basis to the pension plan. Accordingly, the same long-term rate of return assumption is used for the VEBA.
Pension accounting principles require companies to use estimates of expected asset returns over long periods of time. The Company selects the expected long-term rate of return assumption using advice from its investment advisor and its actuary considering the plan’s asset allocation targets and expected overall investment manager performance and a review of its most recent ten-year historical average compounded rate of return. After following the above process, the Company selected 8.75% as its expected long-term rate of return as of December 31, 2005 and 2004.
It is unlikely that in any given year the actual rate of return will be the same as the assumed long-term rate of return. In general, if actual returns exceed the expected long-term rate of return, future levels of expense will go down and vice-versa. Over the last ten years, the annual returns of the Company’s primary pension plan have fluctuated from a high of a 27.5% gain (2003) to a low of a 9.3% loss (2002) and averaged over 9.6%, net of fees, per annum over the period. During that time period, there were seven years in which returns exceeded the assumed long-term rate of return and three years, the three years ended December 31, 2002, with returns below the assumed long-term rate of return.
If the Company were to use a different long-term rate of return assumption, it would affect annual pension expense but would have no immediate effect on funding requirements. For every hypothetical change of 100 basis points in the assumed long-term rate of return on plan assets, the Company’s U.S. annual pension plan expense in 2005 would have increased or decreased by approximately $6 million before tax. Similarly, the 2005 benefit of investment income in the VEBA would have increased or decreased by approximately $2 million.
The reduction (or “credit”) to pension expense associated with the assumed investment return fluctuates based on the level of plan assets (over time, the higher the level of assets, the higher the credit and vice versa) and the assumed rate of return (the higher the rate, the higher the credit and vice versa).
For the pension plan, the Company calculates expected investment returns by applying the expected long-term rate of return to the market-related value of plan assets. The market-related value of the plan assets is different from the actual or fair-market value of the assets. The actual or fair-market value is the value of the assets at a point in time that are available to make payments to pensioners and to cover any transaction costs. The market-related value recognizes changes in fair-value on a straight-line basis over five years. This recognition method spreads the effects of year-over-year volatility in the financial markets over several years.
The Company has elected to calculate expected investment returns on assets in the VEBA by applying the expected long-term rate of return to the fair market value of the assets at year end. This method is likely to cause the credit from the VEBA’s expected return to fluctuate more than the similar credit in the pension plan.
Salary Inflation (Pension)
Historically, pension expense and liabilities varied with the expected rate of salary increases – the higher or lower the annual increase, the higher or lower the liability and expense. Since the Company has frozen benefits under the U.S. defined benefit pension plan, this assumption will no longer affect future pension expense and liability for that plan.
Medical Inflation (Retiree Medical, Health Benefit Act)
Changes in medical inflation will affect liability and expense amounts differently for the Company’s plans. There is a direct link between medical inflation and expected spending for postretirement medical benefits under the Company-sponsored plan for 2005 and for later years. Future cash payments associated with the Health Benefit Act will reflect only a portion of the effect of medical inflation as a result of statutory limitations on premium growth.
For the retiree medical plan, the Company assumed an inflation rate of 10% for 2006, and projects this rate to decline to 5% by 2011 for the Company-sponsored plans. The average annual increase for medical inflation in the plan for the last three years has been above 9%. Health Benefit Act liabilities were assumed to have a 4.5% inflation rate for premium payments. The average annual premium increase over the last three years has been below 4.5% since premium increases are related only to increases in prices of medical benefits and do not include cost changes stemming from the use of more expensive treatments, changes in technology or the amount of care required. Because of the volatility of medical inflation it is likely that there will be future adjustments to these estimates, although the direction and extent of these adjustments cannot be predicted at the present time.
If the Company had assumed that the health care cost trend rates would be 100 basis points higher in each future year, the APBO for the coal-related retiree medical benefit plan would have been approximately $76 million higher at December 31, 2005 and the expense for 2005 would have been $3.8 million higher. If the Company had assumed that the future health care cost trend rate would be 100 basis points lower, the APBO would have been approximately $64 million lower at December 31, 2005 and the related 2005 expenses would have been $3.2 million lower.
Numbers of Participants (All Plans)
The valuations of all of these benefit plans are affected by the life expectancy of the participants. Accordingly, the Company relies on actuarial information to predict the number and life expectancy of participants. The Company uses the following mortality table for its major plans.
| Plan | Mortality table |
| Retiree medical | RP-2000 Combined Healthy Blue Collar |
| Black Lung | 1983 Group Annuity |
| Health Benefit Act | U.S. Life 79-81 |
| U.S. pension | RP-2000 Combined Healthy Blue Collar |
The 2005 number of participants by major plan are as follows:
| Plan | Number of participants |
| Coal-related | 5,413 |
| All other | 5,400 |
| Total retiree medical | 10,813 |
| Black Lung | 805 |
| Health Benefit Act – assigned beneficiaries (a) | 2,140 |
| U.S. pension | 23,809 |
- (a)
- In addition to assigned beneficiaries, there are 15,349 unassigned beneficiaries, of which approximately 10% are allocated to subsidiaries of the Company.
Due to the complexity of the contractual relationship with the UMWA for postretirement medical benefits and the application of regulations associated with the Health Benefit Act, the number of participants has and will continue to fluctuate as new participants are made known to the Company and as the Company and others investigate the application of the regulations. Since the Company is no longer operating in the coal industry, it anticipates that the number of participants in the postretirement medical plan and the number of beneficiaries under the Health Benefit Act will decline over time due to mortality.
Changes in Laws (All Plans)
The Company’s valuations of its liabilities are determined under existing laws and regulations. Changes in laws and regulations which affect the ultimate level of liabilities and expense are reflected once the changes are final and their impact can be reasonably estimated. Recent changes in laws that provide government subsidies for amounts paid for pharmaceuticals for medicare-eligible medical plan participants have reduced the Company’s liability. Changes in laws directed at changing the funding available for medical benefits related to unassigned beneficiaries under the Health Benefit Act could significantly reduce the Company’s ultimate liability to the Combined Fund.