Sale of Receivables

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Sale of Receivables [Abstract]

Sale of Receivables

4. Sale of Receivables

From time to time, we sell undivided interests in certain of our receivables to financial institutions.  We enter these agreements at our discretion when we determined that the cost of factoring is less than the cost of servicing our receivables with existing debt.  Pursuant to these agreements, we sold $566.2 million and $430.1 million of receivables for the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010, respectively.  Under the terms of the agreements, we retain no rights or interest, have no obligations with respect to the sold receivables, and do not service the receivables after the sale.  As such, these transactions are being accounted for as a sale.  A charge in the amount of $8.4 million, $6.4 million and $3 million related to the sale of receivables is included in selling, general and administrative expense in our consolidated statements of operations for the years ended December 31, 2011, 2010 and 2009, respectively.