SEC Company Response from BANCTEC INC (CIK 0000318378) — Aug 19, 2005
BANCTEC INC (CIK 0000318378)
Date: Aug. 19, 2005 · CIK: 0000318378 · Accession: 0001104659-05-040445
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
Referenced dates: July 22, 2005
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CORRESP 1 filename1.htm 2701 E. Grauwyler Rd. Irving, TX 75061 972-579-6000 August 19, 2005 VIA Edgar Electronic Transmission Ms. Kathleen Collins Accounting Branch Chief United States Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 RE: BancTec, Inc. Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2004 Dear Ms. Collins: This letter contains the response of BancTec, Inc. (the “Company”) to the comments regarding the referenced filing contained in the letter dated July 22, 2005, (the “Staff’s Letter”) from the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The numbered responses that follow correspond by number to the comments in the Staff’s Letter. Sincerely, /s/ Coley Clark Coley Clark President and Chief Executive Officer Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations Liquidity and Capital Resources, page 14 1. We note you omitted disclosure of whether you believe you have sufficient capital resources to meet your working capital and capital expenditure needs. Tell us your considerations of providing a reasonably detailed discussion of the Company’s ability or inability to generate sufficient cash to support its operations during the twelve-month period following the date of the financial statements. Refer to Item 303(a)(1) of Regulation S-K. Response Item 303(a)(1) states as follows: “1) Liquidity. Identify any known trends or any known demands, commitments, events or uncertainties that will result in or that are reasonably likely to result in the registrant’s liquidity increasing or decreasing in any material way. If a material deficiency is identified, indicate the course of action that the registrant has taken or proposes to take to remedy the deficiency. Also identify and separately describe internal and external sources of liquidity, and briefly discuss any material unused sources of liquid assets.” The Company did state on page 14 that “The Company’s working capital requirements are generally provided by cash and cash equivalents, funds available under the Company’s revolving credit agreement… and by internally generated funds from operations.” This paragraph went on to state “General economic conditions, decreased revenues from the Company’s maintenance contracts, and the requirement to obtain performance bonds or similar instruments could have a material impact on the Company’s future liquidity.” Although the Company believes it has complied with the requirements of Item 303(a)(1) of Regulation S-K, the Company has modified the language in its 10Q filing for the second quarter of 2005, and would propose to modify future filings as follows: “The Company’s working capital and capital expenditure requirements are generally provided by cash and cash equivalents, funds available under the Company’s revolving credit agreement, as discussed below, which matures May 30, 2006, and by internally generated funds from operations. Funds availability under the revolving credit agreement is determined by a borrowing-base formula equal to a specified percentage of the value of the Company’s eligible accounts receivable, inventory and pledged cash. General economic conditions, decreased revenues from the Company’s maintenance contracts, and the requirement to obtain performance bonds or similar instruments could have a material impact on the Company’s future liquidity. The Company believes, however, that these sources will be sufficient to support operations and capital expenditure needs during the next twelve months.” Consolidated Financial Statements Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements Note A-Summary of Significant Accounting Policies Revenue Recognition, page 28 2. We note your disclosure of your various hardware products, software products and services on pages 3 and 4. Tell us if you enter into multiple element arrangements and identify the elements included in each type of sales transaction. Describe your consideration of EITF 00-21 and SOP 97-2, as applicable, for arrangements that include multiple elements. Tell us how you apply the separation criteria in EITF 00-21 for those arrangements. Response The Company does enter into multiple element arrangements which could include hardware, software, professional services and postcontract customer support (PCS). When the Company enters into multiple element arrangements that involve hardware, software and/or professional services, the Company considers the software and/or the professional services to be essential to the functionality of the hardware and therefore applies SOP 97-2, Software Revenue Recognition, to these transactions. SOP 97-2 requires that the fee should be allocated to the elements and recognized as revenue when the revenue recognition criteria for that element have been met. This statement further provides that if evidence of fair value of each element does not exist, all revenue under the arrangement must be deferred until the earlier of when (1) such evidence does exist, (2) all elements have been delivered, or (3) evidence of fair value exists for the undelivered elements. A specific exception does exist if the only undelivered element is PCS. EITF 00-21 describes criteria for determining if separate units of accounting exist in an arrangement involving multiple deliverables. Under this guidance, in sales involving multiple element arrangements under SOP 97-2, the Company does not account for multiple deliverables as separate units of accounting, and is not generally able to provide evidence of the fair value of each element, with the exception of PCS. Therefore, revenue is recognized on the delivered elements only when the remaining undelivered element is PCS. As a result, the following criteria must be met on all elements except PCS before any revenue is recognized: (1) a contract has been executed with the customer, (2) delivery has occurred or services have been rendered, (3) the price is fixed and determinable, (4) collectibility is reasonably assured, (5) contract terms and statement of work have been met, and (6) documented proof of customer acceptance has been received. When all these criteria have been met, revenue on all elements except PCS is recognized. The fair value of PCS is determined based upon the price the Company charges for PCS in similar arrangements (and also considers the prices the Company charges for PCS renewal contracts), and this revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the service contract. FASB Technical Bulletin 90-1, Accounting for Separately Priced Extended Warranty and Product Maintenance Contracts, applies to arrangements that include separately priced extended warranty or product maintenance contracts. The guidance in that Technical Bulletin provides for a method of allocation that is the same as the “reverse” residual method. In arrangements that include these types of deliverables, the guidance in Technical Bulletin 90-1 remains applicable when allocating arrangement consideration to a separately priced extended warranty or product maintenance contract. If there are other deliverables in the arrangement, the guidance in EITF 00-21 applies to those other deliverables. The Company, in certain cases, sells hardware through third-party resellers. In these cases, the Company provides no installation services, software or professional services, but may provide PCS for only the hardware device. In this case, SOP 97-2 does not apply as the only software included is imbedded operating system software, which is incidental to the product as a whole. In these cases, revenue on the hardware sale portion is recognized when the first five criteria specified above are met. As specified in FASB Technical Bulletin 90-1, revenue related to the PCS is determined based upon the price the Company charges for the PCS arrangement, and this revenue is recognized ratably over the term of the service contract. It should be noted that the Company monitors the prices charged in these PCS arrangements and those prices are consistent among similar transactions and renewals of hardware PCS arrangements. Property, Plant and Equipment, page 28 3. Tell us what is included in field support spare parts. Are these parts used in the installation or repair of the equipment sold? If so, explain why this is included in property and equipment and depreciated over two to five years and why the parts are not included as part of cost of sales when used. Response Consistent with what the Company believes to be industry practice, e.g., NCR Corporation and Diebold Inc., the Company uses and separately classifies two distinct types of parts in the maintenance service business: repairable parts (“field support spare parts”), such as motors, drives, etc. and non-repairable parts such as belts, rollers, etc. The Company classifies field support spare parts as a component of property, plant and equipment rather than inventory because such parts are repaired and re-used over a long period of time, e.g., two to five years, the same period over which such parts are depreciated. The Company classifies non-repairable parts that are consumed in providing maintenance service as a component of inventory. The depreciation expense on the field support spare parts is included in cost of sales, as is the cost incurred to repair these parts. Stock-based Compensation, page 30 4. We note your disclosure that options granted in 2003 and 2004 were issued at or above “market price.” In light of the fact that your common shares are not publicly traded, define for us what you mean by “market price.” Further, please describe how you determined the fair value of shares underlying each of your share option grants in 2003 and 2004 including the methodology and significant assumptions used. Response When the Company states that options were issued at or above “market price”, this is intended to communicate that the strike price of the options issued is at or above “fair value” of the underlying common stock of the company. The fair value test is computed using a discounted cash flow model, similar to that used for testing in relation to the Company’s FAS 142 impairment test for goodwill, which was originally set up by an independent valuation consultant. Under this income valuation approach, value is dependent on the present worth of future economic benefits to be derived from ownership. Future debt-free net cash flows available for distribution are discounted at market-based rates of return to provide indications of value. An estimate of the stabilized future cash flow attributable is also discounted back to present value. The summation of the discounted annual cash flows plus the stabilized cash flow after capitalization and discounting indicates the current value of the Company. The debt-free net cash flow is the anticipated future annual cash flow net of long-term charges and net of requirement for future working capital infusions and capital expenditures. Anticipated depreciation and amortization expense is then added to the projected debt-free net income to arrive at debt-free net cash flow. The discount rate used was based on a weighted average cost of capital (“WACC”) analysis. In determining an appropriate discount rate utilizing the WACC analysis, consideration was given to short-term interest rates, the yields of long-term corporate and government bonds, and other alternative investment instruments, as well as the typical capital structure of companies in the industry. The discount rate determined under this method and used in the computation was 15%. In addition, five years of projected cash flows were used in the calculation based on results comparable to 2004 actual results as well as capital spending comparable to 2004 spending. Once this total value was determined, reductions were made for preferred stock obligations to determine a net value which was computed on a per share basis that was then compared to the stock option exercise price of $9.25 per share. In all cases the stock option exercise price, which was set by the board of directors, was in excess of the fair value per share price computed under the discounted cash flow methodology, resulting in no compensation expense under the intrinsic value method. Note C-Discontinued Operations, Restructuring, Impairment and Change in Accounting Estimate Change in Accounting Estimate, page 33 5. Explain, in detail, what facts came to your attention that lead the Company to record a $4.3 million adjustment to deferred revenue. Also, explain the estimates and uncertainties that are used accounting for deferred revenues and how you considered including a discussion of such estimates in your critical accounting policy disclosures. Response The Company performs warranty and extended service contract calls for Dell under various contracts. Under the extended service contract program, a Dell customer will buy an extended service contract, and a portion of the proceeds from that contract will be remitted to BancTec to cover future repair services under a reverse agency agreement. BancTec records the remittance as deferred revenue, and as service calls are run, recognizes revenue out of the deferred revenue pool. Various estimates are used to ascertain the per call revenue to be recognized including anticipated rates of breakdown for various units. Different contracts are executed with Dell for desktop and non-desktop equipment, and these contracts call for “true-ups” based on differences between the estimates used to establish per call rates and the actual experienced rates of breakdown. Note that the final actual breakdown rates cannot be computed until the end of the contract period. From 2000 to present, various reconciliation and true-up activities have taken place with respect to the Dell contracts. Prior to 2001, the contracts did not have a true-up mechanism and revenue was recognized based on a straight-line amortization method. The Company worked with Dell to begin receiving contract and incident file data in order to reconcile between the BancTec estimates and the Dell data. Until the contract information is received from Dell, the Company must make estimates based on the information available to tie a service call to a contract. During this period, the Company used all available information to track the individual service calls and tie those calls to a specific contract. The Company received the information from Dell to true-up the desktop contracts on a consistent basis from September 2000 through December 2003. The Company did not begin receiving data related to non-desktop contracts until 2004. When the data from Dell was analyzed, it was discovered that cutoff differences in the contract year resulted in pricing differences on the service calls. Dell applied a 360-day year, whereas the Company applied a 365-day year. As a result, some service calls were estimated at the year one contract rate instead of the higher year 2 contract rate. Pricing and breakdown rate estimates vary between desktop and non-desktop contracts and from year to year, therefore the rates applied differed. The Company’s calculations were based on its interpretation of the arrangement; therefore, collaboration between the Company and Dell resolved the differences in estimates in 2004. In June 2004, the Company recorded entries to reflect the process of reconciling the deferred revenue accounts based on the data provided by Dell in 2004 and reflected the adjustments as a change in accounting estimate. The resulting entries record all adjustments effective for contracts expiring through March 2004. These entries resulted in a debit to deferred revenue and a credit to reve