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Recently Issued Accounting Pronouncements. In December 2011, the Financial Accounting Standards Board
(“FASB”) issued Accounting Standards Update ("ASU") No. 2011-11, Balance Sheet (Topic 210): Disclosures about Offsetting
Assets and Liabilities. ASU 2011-11 adds certain additional disclosure requirements about financial instruments and
derivatives instruments that are subject to netting arrangements. The Company has master netting arrangements pertaining to
collateral posting requirements with its interest rate swap counterparties, as more fully discussed in Note 23: Derivatives and
Hedging Activities. Additional details about these positions and how they are reported will be disclosed. The new disclosures
are required for annual reporting periods beginning on or after January 1, 2013, and interim periods within those periods.
Because this amendment impacts disclosures only, it will have no effect on the Company's financial condition, results of
operations or cash flows.
In September 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-08, Intangibles-Goodwill and Other (Topic 350): Testing Goodwill
for Impairment. ASU 2011-08 is intended to simplify goodwill impairment testing by adding a qualitative review step to assess
whether the required quantitative impairment analysis that exists today is necessary. Under the amended rule, a company will
not be required to calculate the fair value of a business that contains recorded goodwill unless it concludes, based on the
qualitative assessment, that it is more likely than not that the fair value of that business is less than its book value. If such a
decline in fair value is deemed more likely than not to have occurred, then the quantitative goodwill impairment test that exists
under current GAAP must be completed; otherwise, goodwill is deemed to be not impaired and no further testing is required
until the next annual test date (or sooner if conditions or events before that date raise concerns of potential impairment in the
business). The amended goodwill impairment guidance does not affect the manner in which a company estimates fair value.
The new standard is effective for annual and interim goodwill impairment tests performed for fiscal years beginning after
December 15, 2011, with early adoption permitted. The Company has $255 million in goodwill, all of which is associated with
its PULSE Network. The value of that goodwill will not be affected by the adoption of this standard.
In June 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-05, Comprehensive Income (Topic 220): Presentation of Comprehensive
Income. This ASU will require companies to present the components of net income and other comprehensive income either as
one continuous statement or as two consecutive statements. It eliminates the option to present components of other
comprehensive income as part of the statement of changes in stockholders' equity. The standard does not change the items
which must be reported in other comprehensive income, how such items are measured or when they must be reclassified to net
income. This standard is effective for interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2011. The FASB subsequently
deferred the effective date of certain provisions of this standard pertaining to the reclassification of items out of accumulated
other comprehensive income, pending the issuance of further guidance on that matter. Because this ASU impacts presentation
only, it will have no effect on the Company's financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.
In May 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-04, Fair Value Measurement (Topic 820): Amendments to Achieve
Common Fair Value Measurement and Disclosure Requirements in U.S. GAAP and IFRSs. This ASU is intended to result in
convergence between U.S. GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”) requirements for measurement of
and disclosures about fair value. The amendments are not expected to have a significant impact on companies applying U.S.
GAAP. Key provisions of the amendment include: a prohibition on grouping financial instruments for purposes of determining
fair value, except when an entity manages market and credit risks on the basis of the entity’s net exposure to the group; an
extension of the prohibition against the use of a blockage factor to all fair value measurements (that prohibition currently
applies only to financial instruments with quoted prices in active markets); and a requirement that for recurring Level 3 fair
value measurements, entities disclose quantitative information about unobservable inputs, a description of the valuation process
used and qualitative details about the sensitivity of the measurements. In addition, for items not carried at fair value but for
which fair value is disclosed, entities will be required to disclose the level within the fair value hierarchy that applies to the fair
value measurement disclosed. This ASU is effective for interim and annual periods beginning after December 15, 2011. The
adoption of this ASU is not expected to have a significant impact on the Company’s fair value measurements, financial
condition, results of operations or cash flows.
In April 2011, the FASB issued ASU No. 2011-03, Transfers and Servicing (Topic 860): Reconsideration of Effective
Control for Repurchase Agreements. This ASU amends the sale accounting requirement concerning a transferor’s ability to
repurchase transferred financial assets even in the event of default by the transferee, which typically is facilitated in a
repurchase agreement by the presence of a collateral maintenance provision. Specifically, the level of cash collateral received
by a transferor will no longer be relevant in determining whether a repurchase agreement constitutes a sale. As a result of this
amendment, more repurchase agreements will be treated as secured financings rather than sales. This ASU is effective
prospectively for new transfers and existing transactions that are modified in the first interim or annual period beginning on or
after December 15, 2011. Because essentially all repurchase agreements entered into by the Company have historically been
deemed to constitute secured financing transactions, this amendment is expected to have no impact on the Company’s
characterization of such transactions and therefore is not expected to have any impact on the Company's financial condition,
results of operations or cash flows.
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