5. Restructuring and Impairment Charges

For the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, the Company recorded $4 million and $3 million of pre-tax restructuring charges, respectively. During 2018, the Company introduced its Cost Smart program, designed to improve profitability, further streamline its global business and deliver increased value to shareholders through anticipated savings in cost of sales, including freight, and SG&A. For the three months ended March 31, 2019, the Company recorded $3 million of employee-related severance and other costs in the South America and North America segments as part of its Cost Smart SG&A program, including $1 million of other costs associated with the Finance Transformation initiative in Latin America. The Company expects to incur less than $1 million in other costs during the remainder of 2019 related to this Finance Transformation initiative. Additionally, the Company recorded $1 million of other costs as part of the Cost Smart cost of sales program in relation to the prior year cessation of wet-milling at the Stockton, California plant. The Company expects to incur approximately $1 million of additional costs during the remainder of 2019 to complete this project.

For the three months ended March 31, 2018, the Company recorded $2 million of other costs related to the North America Finance Transformation initiative and $1 million of other restructuring costs related to the leaf extraction process in Brazil, both of which were announced in 2017.

A summary of the Company’s employee-related severance accrual as of March 31, 2019 is as follows (in millions):


Balance in severance accrual as of December 31, 2018	$	10
Cost Smart cost of sales and SG&A		2
Payments made to terminated employees		(5)
Balance in severance accrual as of March 31, 2019	$	7

Of the $7 million severance accrual as of March 31, 2019, $6 million is expected to be paid in the next 12 months.