SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements of Knoll, Inc. (the “Company”) have been prepared with generally accepted accounting principles for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by generally accepted accounting principles for complete financial statements. In the opinion of management, all adjustments (consisting of normal recurring accruals) considered necessary for a fair presentation have been included. The condensed consolidated financial statements include the accounts of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiaries and any partially-owned subsidiaries that the Company has the ability to control. All significant intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated in consolidation. Operating results for the three-month period ended March 31, 2019 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ended December 31, 2019. Beginning with the March 31, 2019 Form 10-Q, the Company began reporting all dollar amounts in millions. In certain circumstances, this change in rounding resulted in prior year disclosures being removed.

The condensed consolidated balance sheet of the Company, as of December 31, 2018, has been derived from the Company’s audited consolidated financial statements at that date but does not include all of the information and footnotes required by generally accepted accounting principles for complete financial statements.

For further information, refer to the consolidated financial statements and footnotes thereto included in the Company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018.

New Accounting Pronouncements Not Yet Adopted And Adopted

New Accounting Pronouncements Not Yet Adopted

In June 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-13, Financial Instruments - Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments. ASU 2016-13 replaces the incurred loss impairment methodology for measuring and recognizing credit losses with a methodology that reflects expected credit losses and requires consideration of a broader range of reasonable and supportable information to inform credit loss estimates. This amendment is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019. The Company is currently in the process of evaluating the impact of adoption of the ASU on its consolidated financial statements.

In August 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-13, Fair Value Measurement (Topic 820) which modifies the disclosure requirements of fair value measurements in Topic 820, Fair Value Measurement. For public companies the ASU removes disclosure requirements for transfers between Level 1 and Level 2 of the fair value hierarchy, the policy for timing of transfers between levels and the valuation process for Level 3 fair value measurements. The ASU modifies the disclosure requirements for investments in certain entities that calculate net asset value and clarifies that the measurement uncertainty disclosure is to communicate information about the uncertainty in measurement as of the reporting date. The ASU adds the disclosure requirement for changes in unrealized gains and losses for the period included in other comprehensive income for recurring Level 3 fair value measurements held at the end of the reporting period and the range and weighted average of significant unobservable inputs used to develop Level 3 fair value measurements. The amendments in this update are effective for all entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019 including interim periods within that fiscal year. Early adoption is permitted. The Company does not plan to early adopt this ASU and the Company does not believe there will be a material impact to the financial statements as a result of adopting this ASU.

Accounting Standards Adopted

In February 2016, the FASB issued guidance codified in ASC 842, Leases, which supersedes the guidance in ASC 840, Leases. ASC 842 was effective for the Company on January 1, 2019, and the Company adopted the standard using the modified retrospective approach. The Company recorded lease liabilities of $117.2 million, with an offsetting increase to right-of-use assets of $102.4 million, for all leases with an initial term of greater than twelve months regardless of their classification as of January 1, 2019.

In 2018, the FASB issued clarifying guidance to the topic in ASUs No. 2018-10 and No. 2018-11, which clarified certain aspects of the new leases standard and provided an optional transition method. The Company has elected the package of practical expedients and adopted utilizing the optional transition method defined within ASU 2018-11 on January 1, 2019. The Company did not elect the hindsight expedient. The adoption of the standard did not materially impact the Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income or Cash Flows.

In June 2018, the FASB issued ASU 2018-07, Compensation - Stock compensation (Topic 718) which simplifies several aspects of the accounting for nonemployee share-based payment transactions resulting from expanding the scope of Topic 718, Compensation-Stock Compensation, to include share-based payment transactions for acquiring goods and services from non-employees. Some of the areas for simplification apply only to nonpublic entities. The amendments specify that Topic 718 applies to all share-based payment transactions in which a grantor acquires goods or services to be used or consumed in a grantor’s own operations by issuing share-based payment awards. The amendments also clarify that Topic 718 does not apply to share-based payments used to effectively provide (1) financing to the issuer or (2) awards granted in conjunction with selling goods or services to customers as part of a contract accounted for under Topic 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers. The amendments in this Update are effective for public business entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within that fiscal year. Early adoption is permitted. The Company adopted this ASU effective January 1, 2019. The adoption of this ASU did not have a material impact on the Company’s condensed consolidated financial statements.

Leases

The Company accounts for leases in accordance with ASC Topic 842, Leases, (“ASC 842”). The Company determines if an arrangement is a lease at contract inception. A lease exists when a contract conveys to the customer the right to control the use of identified property, plant, or equipment for a period of time in exchange for consideration. The definition of a lease embodies two conditions: (1) there is an identified asset in the contract that is land or a depreciable asset (i.e., property, plant, and equipment), and (2) the customer has the right to control the use of the identified asset. The Company determines whether the contracts are considered operating or financing leases. The Company does not currently have finance leases.

Operating leases are included in right-of-use (“ROU”) lease assets, current portion lease liability, and lease liabilities on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets. The lease liabilities are initially measured at the present value of the unpaid lease payments at the lease commencement date, and subsequently remeasured at each balance sheet date.

Key estimates and judgments include how the Company determined (1) the discount rate it uses to discount the unpaid lease payments to present value, (2) lease term and (3) lease payments.

(1)

ASC 842 requires a lessee to discount its unpaid lease payments using the interest rate implicit in the lease or, if that rate cannot be readily determined, its incremental borrowing rate. As the majority of the Company’s leases do not provide an implicit rate, the Company uses the incremental borrowing rate based on the information available at commencement date in determining the present value of lease payments. The Company’s incremental borrowing rate for a lease is the rate of interest it would have to pay on a collateralized basis to borrow an amount equal to the lease payments under similar terms. The Company uses the implicit rate when readily determinable.


(2)	The lease term for all of the Company’s leases includes the non-cancellable period of the lease plus any additional periods covered by a Company option to extend (or not to terminate) the lease that the Company is reasonably certain to exercise.

(3)

Lease payments included in the measurement of the lease liability comprise the following: fixed payments (including in-substance fixed payments), less any lease incentives paid or payable to the lessee, variable payments that depend on an index or rate, amounts expected to be payable under a residual value guarantee and the exercise price of the Company option to purchase the underlying asset if the Company is reasonably certain to exercise.

The ROU asset is initially measured at cost, which comprises the initial measurement of the lease liability adjusted for lease payments made at or before the lease commencement date, plus any initial direct costs incurred, less any lease incentives received.

For operating leases, the ROU asset is subsequently measured throughout the lease term at the amount of the remeasured lease liability, adjusted for the remaining balance of any lease incentives received, any cumulative prepaid or accrued rent if the lease payments are uneven throughout the lease term and any unamortized initial direct costs. Lease expense for lease payments is recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

Variable lease payments associated with the Company’s leases are recognized when the event, activity, or circumstance in the lease agreement on which those payments are assessed occurs. Variable lease payments are presented as operating expenses in the Company’s Condensed Consolidated Statement of Operations and Comprehensive Income in the same line item as expense arising from fixed lease payments for operating leases.

ROU assets for operating leases are subject to the long-lived assets impairment guidance in ASC Subtopic 360-10, Property, Plant, and Equipment - Overall. As of March 31, 2019, the Company has not incurred any impairment losses.

The Company monitors for events or changes in circumstances that require a reassessment of a lease. When a reassessment results in the remeasurement of a lease liability, a corresponding adjustment is made to the carrying amount of the corresponding ROU asset unless doing so would reduce the carrying amount of the ROU asset to an amount less than zero. In that case, the amount of the adjustment that would result in a negative ROU asset balance is recorded in profit or loss.

The Company has lease agreements which include lease and non-lease components, which are accounted for separately using a relative stand-alone price basis.

Lease expense for short-term leases are recognized on a straight-line basis over the lease term.

On January 1, 2019 the Company adopted ASC 842 using a modified retrospective transition method and elected the optional transition method as defined within ASU 2018-11. As a result, the Company was not required to adjust its comparative period financial information for effects of the standard or make the new required lease disclosures for periods before the date of adoption (i.e. January 1, 2019). The Company has elected to adopt the package of transition practical expedients and, therefore, has not reassessed (1) whether existing or expired contracts contain a lease, (2) lease classification for existing or expired leases or (3) the accounting for initial direct costs that were previously capitalized. The Company did not elect the practical expedient to use hindsight for leases existing at the adoption date. Further, the Company does not expect the amendments in ASU 2018-01: Land Easement Practical Expedient for Transition to Topic 842 to have an effect on the Company because it does not enter into land easement arrangements.

The Company has elected not to recognize ROU assets and lease liabilities for all short-term leases that have a lease term of 12 months or less. The Company recognizes the lease payments associated with its short-term leases as an expense on a straight-line basis over the lease term. Variable lease payments associated with these leases are recognized and presented in the same manner as for all other Company leases.

Additionally, the Company applies a portfolio approach to determine the discount rate (i.e. incremental borrowing rate for leases with similar characteristics). The Company applies the incremental borrowing rate generally based on the transactional currency of the lease and the lease term.