Note 12 — Derivative Financial Instruments

Interest Rate Swap Agreements

As of December 31, 2017, the Company had approximately $50 million of interest rate swaps that swap floating rate obligations for fixed rate obligations at an average of 1.09% against LIBOR in U.S. dollars. The swap matures in September 2019. The swap was accounted for as a cash flow hedge of our floating rate bank loan. To ensure the swap was highly effective, all of the principal terms of the swap matched the term of the bank loan. The fair value of the interest rate swap was an asset of $0.8 million and $0.7 million at December 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively.

At December 31 2017, we had two interest swaps related to European debt obligations which had a combined notional value of approximately €56.4 million. These derivatives swapped floating rate obligations for fixed rates at a weighted average rate of 0.5% against EURIBOR in Euros. The swaps amortize through the final maturities of the obligations on June 30, 2023 and June 30, 2024, in annual installments. The derivatives are accounted for as cash flow hedges of the floating rate French term loans. To ensure the swaps are highly effective, all of the principal terms of the swap matched the terms of the bank loans. The fair value of the interest rate swaps was a liability of $0.4 million and $0.1 million at December 31, 2017 and December 31, 2016, respectively.

The Company had treasury lock agreements to protect against unfavorable movements in the benchmark treasury rate related to the issuance of our Senior Unsecured Notes. These hedges were designated as cash flow hedges for hedge accounting purposes thus any change in fair value was recorded as a component of other comprehensive income. As part of the issuance of our senior notes, we net settled these derivatives for $10 million in cash. As a result of settling these derivatives the previously deferred gains recorded in other comprehensive income will be released to interest expense over the life of the senior notes. The effect of these settled treasury locks will reduce the effective interest rate on the senior notes by approximately 0.25%.

Foreign Currency Forward Exchange Contracts

A number of our European subsidiaries are exposed to the impact of exchange rate volatility between the U.S. dollar and the subsidiaries’ functional currencies, being either the Euro or the British pound sterling. We entered into contracts to exchange U.S. dollars for Euros and British pound sterling through June 2020. The aggregate notional amount of these contracts was $285.4 million at December 31, 2017 and $423.8 million at December 31, 2016. The purpose of these contracts is to hedge a portion of the forecasted transactions of European subsidiaries under long-term sales contracts with certain customers. These contracts are expected to provide us with a more balanced matching of future cash receipts and expenditures by currency, thereby reducing our exposure to fluctuations in currency exchange rates. The effective portion of the hedges was a gain of $34.6 million and losses of $32.2 million and $26.7 million, for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively, and are recorded in other comprehensive income. At December 31, 2017, $14.7 million of the carrying amount of these contracts was classified in other assets and $2.8 million in other liabilities on the consolidated balance sheets and $33.9 million classified in other liabilities at December 31, 2016. During the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, we recognized net losses of $11.3 million, $19.4 million and $17.8 million, respectively, recorded in sales. For the three years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, hedge ineffectiveness was immaterial.

In addition, we enter into foreign exchange forward contracts which are not designated as hedges. These are used to provide an offset to transactional gains or losses arising from the remeasurement of non-functional monetary assets and liabilities such as accounts receivable. The change in the fair value of the derivatives is recorded in the statement of operations. There are no credit contingency features in these derivatives. During the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, we recognized net foreign exchange gains of $17.1 million and losses of $0.9 million, and $14.9 million, respectively, in the consolidated statements of operations. The carrying amount of the contracts for asset and liability derivatives not designated as hedging instruments was $1.3 million classified in other assets and $0.1 million in other liabilities on our consolidated balance sheets.

The activity, net of tax, in accumulated other comprehensive loss related to foreign currency forward exchange contracts for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 was as follows:

(In millions)	2017			2016			2015
Unrealized losses at beginning of period, net of tax	$	(25.9	)	$	(15.0	)	$	(9.2	)
Losses reclassified to net sales		8.9			14.4			11.8
Increase (decrease) in fair value		25.6			(25.3	)		(17.6	)
Unrealized gains (losses) at end of period, net of taxes	$	8.6		$	(25.9	)	$	(15.0	)

Unrealized gains of $3.5 million recorded in accumulated other comprehensive loss, net of tax of $1.7 million, as of December 31, 2017 are expected to be reclassified into earnings over the next twelve months as the hedged sales are recorded. The impact of credit risk adjustments was immaterial for the three years.