TripAdvisor 2014 Annual Report Download - page 76

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General and Administrative
General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel and related overhead costs, including executive leadership,
finance, legal and human resource functions and stock-based compensation as well as professional service fees and other fees
including audit, legal, tax and accounting, and other costs including bad debt expense and our charitable foundation costs.
Interest Income and Other, net
Interest income and other, net primarily consists of interest earned and amortization of discounts and premiums on our
marketable securities, and net foreign exchange gains and losses.
Interest Expense
Interest expense primarily consists of interest incurred, commitment fees and debt issuance cost amortization related to our
Credit Agreement and Chinese Credit Facilities.
Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities
Our cash equivalents consist of highly liquid investments with maturities of 90 days or less at the date of purchase. Our
marketable debt and equity securities have been classified and accounted for as available-for-sale. We determine the appropriate
classification of our investments at the time of purchase and reevaluate the designations at each balance sheet date. We invest in
highly-rated securities, and our investment policy limits the amount of credit exposure to any one issuer, industry group and currency.
The policy requires investments to be investment grade, with the primary objective of minimizing the potential risk of principal loss
and providing liquidity of investments sufficient to meet our operating and capital spending requirements and debt repayments.
We classify our marketable debt securities as either short-term or long-term based on each instrument’s underlying contractual
maturity date and as to whether and when we intend to sell a particular security prior to its maturity date. Marketable debt securities
with maturities greater than 90 days at the date of purchase and 12 months or less remaining at the balance sheet date will be classified
as short-term and marketable debt securities with maturities greater than 12 months from the balance sheet date will generally be
classified as long-term. We classify our marketable equity securities, limited to money market funds and mutual funds, as either short-
term or long-term based on the nature of each security and its availability for use in current operations. Our marketable debt and
equity securities are carried at fair value, with the unrealized gains and losses, net of taxes, reported in accumulated other
comprehensive income (loss) as a component of stockholders’ equity. Fair values are determined for each individual security in the
investment portfolio.
Realized gains and losses on the sale of securities are determined by specific identification of each security’s cost basis. We may
sell certain of our marketable securities prior to their stated maturities for strategic reasons including, but not limited to, anticipation of
credit deterioration and liquidity and duration management. The weighted average maturity of our total invested cash shall not exceed
18 months, and no security shall have a final maturity date greater than three years.
We continually review our available for sale securities to determine whether a decline in fair value below the carrying value is
other than temporary. When evaluating an investment for other-than-temporary impairment, we review factors such as the length of
time and extent to which fair value has been below its cost basis, the financial condition of the issuer and any changes thereto, and our
intent to sell, or whether it is more likely than not it will be required to sell the investment before recovery of the investment’s cost
basis. Once a decline in fair value is determined to be other than temporary, an impairment charge is recorded and a new cost basis in
the investment is established. If we do not intend to sell the debt security, but it is probable that we will not collect all amounts due,
then only the impairment due to the credit risk would be recognized in earnings and the remaining amount of the impairment would be
recognized in accumulated other comprehensive loss within stockholders’ equity.
Cash consists of cash deposits held in global financial institutions.