TRADE RECEIVABLES SECURITIZATION

9 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2013

TRADE RECEIVABLES SECURITIZATION

TRADE RECEIVABLES SECURITIZATION

10.  TRADE RECEIVABLES SECURITIZATION

The Company sells trade receivables under two asset-backed securitization programs and under an accounts receivable factoring program.

Asset-Backed Securitization Programs

The Company continuously sells designated pools of trade receivables under its Global Asset-Backed Securitization Agreement (the “Global Program”) and its North American Asset-Backed Securitization Agreement (the “North American Program,” collectively, the “ABS Programs”) to affiliated special purpose entities, which in turn sell 100% of the receivables to unaffiliated financial institutions. These programs allow the operating subsidiaries to receive a cash payment and a deferred purchase price receivable for sold receivables.  The Company maintains a continuing involvement in the receivables sold as a result of the deferred purchase price. The investment limits by the financial institutions are $500.0 million for the Global Program and $300.0 million for the North American Program and require a minimum level of deferred purchase price receivable to be retained by the Company in connection with the sales.

Servicing fees recognized during the three-month and nine-month periods ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2012 were not material and are included in interest and other, net within the condensed consolidated statements of operations.  As the Company estimates the fee it receives in return for its obligation to service these receivables is at fair value, no servicing assets and liabilities are recognized.

As of December 31, 2013, approximately $1.2 billion of accounts receivable had been sold to the special purpose entities under the ABS Programs for which the Company had received net cash proceeds of $633.9 million and deferred purchase price receivables of approximately $528.8 million.  As of March 31, 2013, approximately $1.0 billion of accounts receivable had been sold to the special purpose entities for which the Company had received net cash proceeds of $556.9 million and deferred purchase price receivables of approximately $412.4 million.  The deferred purchase price receivables are included in other current assets as of December 31, 2013 and March 31, 2013, and were carried at the expected recovery amount of the related receivables.  The difference between the carrying amount of the receivables sold under these programs and the sum of the cash and fair value of the deferred purchase price receivables received at time of transfer is recognized as a loss on sale of the related receivables and recorded in interest and other, net in the condensed consolidated statements of operations and were immaterial for all periods presented.

As of December 31, 2013 and March 31, 2013, the accounts receivable balances that were sold under the ABS Programs were removed from the condensed consolidated balance sheets and the net cash proceeds received by the Company were included as cash provided by operating activities in the condensed consolidated statements of cash flows.

For the nine-month periods ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2012, cash flows from sales of receivables under the ABS Programs consisted of approximately $3.0 billion and $2.8 billion for transfers of receivables, respectively (of which approximately $0.3 billion and $0.5 billion, respectively, represented new transfers and the remainder proceeds from collections reinvested in revolving-period transfers for both periods).

The following table summarizes the activity in the deferred purchase price receivables account:

	Three-Month Periods Ended						Nine-Month Periods Ended
	December 31, 2013			December 31, 2012			December 31, 2013			December 31, 2012
	(In thousands)
Beginning balance	$	558,311		$	458,085		$	412,357		$	514,895
Transfers of receivables	1,066,512			953,620			2,933,053			2,669,102
Collections	(1,095,993		)	(949,691		)	(2,816,580		)	(2,721,983		)
Ending balance	$	528,830		$	462,014		$	528,830		$	462,014

Trade Accounts Receivable Sale Programs

The Company also sold accounts receivables to certain third-party banking institutions. The outstanding balance of receivables sold and not yet collected was approximately $517.1 million and $163.6 million as of December 31, 2013 and March 31, 2013, respectively. For the nine-month periods ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2012, total accounts receivable sold to certain third party banking institutions was approximately $2.7 billion and $820.7 million, respectively. The loss on sales of accounts receivables sold was not material for the three-month and nine-month periods ended December 31, 2013 and December 31, 2012 and is recorded in interest and other, net in the condensed consolidated statements of operations.  The receivables that were sold were removed from the condensed consolidated balance sheets and were reflected as cash provided by operating activities in the condensed consolidated statements of cash flows.