LEASES

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

In the ordinary course of business, the Company renews and enters into new leases for office property and equipment, which expire at various dates.

At the lease inception date, the Company assesses whether a contract is or contains a lease. At the commencement date, the Company determines the classification of each separate lease component as either a finance lease or an operating lease. The Company's leases are all currently classified as operating leases. For operating leases that have a lease term of more than 12 months, the Company recognizes a lease liability and a right-of-use asset in the Company's consolidated balance sheets at the present value of the lease payments at the lease commencement date.

At the commencement date, the Company determines lease terms by assuming the exercise of those renewal options that are deemed to be reasonably certain. The exercise of lease renewal options is at the sole discretion of the Company.

As the lease contracts generally do not provide an implicit discount rate, the Company uses its incremental borrowing rate based on information available at the commencement date to determine the present value of lease payments. The incremental borrowing rate is based on a borrowing with a term that is similar to the term of the associated lease. The Company has made an accounting policy election not to include renewal, termination, or purchase options that are not reasonably certain of exercise when determining the term of the borrowing.

The Company’s lease agreements do not contain any material residual value guarantees or material restrictive covenants.

Operating lease rentals are expensed on a straight-line basis over the life of the lease beginning on the commencement date.

The following table presents the Company’s total lease expense and the cash flows arising from lease transactions:


	Year ended			Year ended
	December 31, 2020			December 31, 2019

Lease cost:
Operating lease expense	$	24,726		$	27,549
Short-term lease expense(1)	299			1,132
Sublease income(2)	(3,578)			(1,144)
Total lease expense	$	21,447		$	27,537

Other information:
Operating cash outflows from operating leases	$	20,452		$	25,004

Right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for new operating lease liabilities	$	36,742		$	—

Weighted-average remaining lease term - operating leases(3)	10.2 years			9.0 years

Weighted-average discount rate - operating lease(4)	4.2		%	4.7		%

(1) Short-term lease expense is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

(2) Sublease income largely relates to office properties in New York and London.

(3) Weighted-average remaining lease term was calculated on the basis of the remaining lease term and the lease liability balance for each lease at the reporting date.

(4) Weighted-average discount was calculated on the basis of the discount rate that was used to calculate the lease liability balance for each lease at the reporting date and the remaining balance of the lease payments for each lease at the reporting date.

The following table presents the scheduled maturity of the Company's operating lease liabilities at December 31, 2020:


	Expected
Year ended December 31,	Cash Flows

2021	$	22,817
2022	23,598
2023	20,190
2024	14,478
2025	13,849
Later years	78,987
Discount	(33,656)
Total discounted operating lease liabilities	$	140,263

On February 1, 2020, the commencement date, the Company reflected a 15 year lease for a new office property in Alpharetta, Georgia in the Company's consolidated balance sheet. Consequently, this lease is also reflected in the maturity table above. The total contractual lease costs over the 15 year lease is $40 million.

The following table presents the scheduled maturity of the Company's operating lease liabilities at December 31, 2019:



Year ended December 31,

2020	$	19,225
2021	19,129
2022	20,049
2023	16,641
2024	11,006
Later years	58,562
Discount	(29,028)
Total discounted operating lease liabilities	$	115,584

For the year ended December 31, 2018, the total lease expense was $33 million.