Significant Accounting Policies

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

Significant Accounting Policies [Abstract]

Significant Accounting Policies [Text Block]

Note 1 – Significant Accounting Policies

Principles of consolidation: All majority-owned subsidiaries are included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements, with appropriate elimination of intercompany balances and transactions. Investments in associated companies (less than majority-owned and in which the Company has significant influence) are accounted for under the equity method. The Company’s share of net income or losses in these investments in associated companies is included in the Consolidated Statements of Income. The Company periodically reviews these investments for impairments and, if necessary, would adjust these investments to their fair value when a decline in market value or other impairment indicators are deemed to be other than temporary. See Note 14 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. The Company is not the primary beneficiary of any variable interest entities (“VIEs”) and therefore the Company’s consolidated financial statements do not include the accounts of any VIEs.

Translation of foreign currency: Assets and liabilities of non-U.S. subsidiaries and associated companies are translated into U.S. dollars at the respective rates of exchange prevailing at the end of the year. Income and expense accounts are translated at average exchange rates prevailing during the year. Translation adjustments resulting from this process are recorded directly in equity as accumulated other comprehensive (loss) income (“AOCI”) and will be included as income or expense only upon sale or liquidation of the underlying investment. Generally, all of the Company’s non-U.S. subsidiaries use their local currency as their functional currency.

Cash and cash equivalents: The Company invests temporary and excess funds in money market securities and financial instruments having maturities typically within 90 days. The Company considers all highly liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less to be cash equivalents. The Company has not experienced losses from the aforementioned investments.

Inventories: Inventories are valued at the lower of cost or net realizable value, and are valued using the first-in, first-out method. See Note 11 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Long-lived assets: Property, plant and equipment are stated at cost. Depreciation is computed using the straight-line method on an individual asset basis over the following estimated useful lives: buildings and improvements, 10 to 45 years; and machinery and equipment, 1 to 15 years. The carrying values of long-lived assets are evaluated whenever changes in circumstances or current events indicate the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. An estimate of undiscounted cash flows produced by the asset, or the appropriate group of assets, is compared with the carrying value to determine whether an impairment exists. If necessary, the Company recognizes an impairment loss for the difference between the carrying amount of the assets and their estimated fair value. Fair value is based on current and anticipated future cash flows. Upon sale or other dispositions of long-lived assets, the applicable amounts of asset cost and accumulated depreciation are removed from the accounts and the net amount, less proceeds from disposals, is recorded in the Consolidated Statements of Income. Expenditures for renewals or improvements that increase the estimated useful life or capacity of the assets are capitalized, whereas expenditures for repairs and maintenance are expensed when incurred. See Note 12 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Capitalized software: The Company capitalizes certain costs in connection with developing or obtaining software for internal use, depending on the associated project. These costs are amortized over a period of 3 to 5 years once the assets are ready for their intended use. In connection with the implementations and upgrades to the Company’s global transaction, consolidation and other related systems, approximately $1.3 million and $1.4 million of net costs were capitalized in property, plant and equipment on the Company’s December 31, 2017 and 2016 Consolidated Balance Sheets, respectively.

Goodwill and other intangible assets: The Company records goodwill, definite-lived intangible assets and indefinite-lived intangible assets at fair value at the date of acquisition. Goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets are not amortized, but tested for impairment at least annually. These tests will be performed more frequently if triggering events indicate potential impairment. Definite-lived intangible assets are amortized over their estimated useful lives, generally for periods ranging from 4 to 20 years. The Company continually evaluates the reasonableness of the useful lives of these assets, consistent with the discussion of long-lived assets, above. See Note 13 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Revenue recognition: The Company currently recognizes revenue in accordance with the terms of the underlying agreements, when title and risk of loss have been transferred, when collectability is reasonably assured, and when pricing is fixed or determinable. For the Company, this generally occurs when products are shipped or delivered to customers or, for consignment-type arrangements, upon usage by the customer and when services are performed. License fees and royalties are included in other income when recognized in accordance with their agreed-upon terms, when performance obligations are satisfied, when the amount is fixed or determinable, and when collectability is reasonably assured.

During the first quarter of 2018, the Company will adopt the provisions of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (“FASB’s”) new revenue recognition guidance, which will require the Company to recognize revenue to depict the transfer of

promised goods or services to customers in an amount that reflects the consideration to which the Company expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services. To do this, the Company will apply the five-step model in the FASB’s guidance, which requires the Company to: (i) identify the contract with a customer; (ii) identify the performance obligations in the contract; (iii) determine the transaction price; (iv) allocate the transaction price to the performance obligations in the contract; and (v) recognize revenue when, or as, the Company satisfies a performance obligation. See Note 3 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

As part of the Company’s chemical management services, certain third-party product sales to customers are managed by the Company. Where the Company acts as a principal, revenues are recognized on a gross reporting basis at the selling price negotiated with its customers. Where the Company acts as an agent, such revenue is recorded using net reporting as service revenue at the amount of the administrative fee earned by the Company for ordering the goods. Third-party products transferred under arrangements resulting in net reporting totaled $44.5 million, $43.5 million and $48.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Accounts receivable and allowance for doubtful accounts: Trade accounts receivable subject the Company to credit risk. Trade accounts receivable are recorded at the invoiced amount and generally do not bear interest. The allowance for doubtful accounts is the Company’s best estimate of the amount of probable credit losses with its existing accounts receivable. Reserves for customers filing for bankruptcy protection are generally established at 75-100% of the amount outstanding at the bankruptcy filing date. However, initially establishing a reserve and the amount thereto is dependent on the Company’s evaluation of likely proceeds to be received from the bankruptcy process, which could result in the Company recognizing minimal or no reserve at the date of bankruptcy. Large and/or financially distressed customers are generally reserved for on a specific review basis while a general reserve is established for other customers based on historical experience. The Company performs a formal review of its allowance for doubtful accounts quarterly. Account balances are charged off against the allowance when the Company deems it is probable the receivable will not be recovered. The Company does not have any off-balance-sheet credit exposure related to its customers. During the year ended December 31, 2017, the Company’s five largest customers accounted for approximately 18% of its consolidated net sales with the largest customer accounting for approximately 8% of the Company’s consolidated net sales. See Note 10 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Research and development costs: Research and development costs are expensed as incurred and are included in selling, general and administrative expenses (“SG&A”). Research and development expenses were $23.9 million, $22.5 million and $22.1 million for the years ended December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively.

Environmental liabilities and expenditures: Accruals for environmental matters are recorded when it is probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the liability can be reasonably estimated. If there is a range of estimated liability and no amount in that range is considered more probable than another, then the Company records the lowest amount in the range in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Accrued liabilities are exclusive of claims against third parties and are not discounted. Environmental costs and remediation costs are capitalized if the costs extend the life, increase the capacity or improve safety or efficiency of the property from the date acquired or constructed, and/or mitigate or prevent contamination in the future. See Note 23 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Asset retirement obligations: The Company follows the FASB’s guidance regarding asset retirement obligations, which addresses the accounting and reporting for obligations associated with the retirement of tangible long-lived assets and the associated retirement costs. Also, the Company follows the FASB’s guidance for conditional asset retirement obligations (“CARO”), which relates to legal obligations to perform an asset retirement activity in which the timing and (or) method of settlement are conditional on a future event that may or may not be within the control of the entity. In accordance with this guidance, the Company records a liability when there is enough information regarding the timing of the CARO to perform a probability-weighted discounted cash flow analysis. As of December 31, 2017 and 2016, the Company had limited exposure to such obligations and had immaterial liabilities recorded for such on its Consolidated Balance Sheets.

Pension and other postretirement benefits: The Company maintains various noncontributory retirement plans, the largest of which is in the U.S., covering a portion of its employees in the U.S. and certain other countries. The plans of the Company’s subsidiaries in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Mexico and Sweden are subject to the provisions of FASB’s guidance regarding employers’ accounting for defined benefit pension plans. The plans of the remaining non-U.S. subsidiaries are, for the most part, either fully insured or integrated with the local governments’ plans and are not subject to the provisions of the guidance. The guidance requires that employers recognize on a prospective basis the funded status of their defined benefit pension and other postretirement plans on their consolidated balance sheet and, also, recognize as a component of other comprehensive income, net of tax, the gains or losses and prior service costs or credits that arise during the period but are not recognized as components of net periodic benefit cost. The Company’s U.S. pension plan year ends on November 30 and the measurement date is December 31. The measurement date for the Company’s other postretirement benefits plan is December 31.

The Company’s global pension investment policies are designed to ensure that pension assets are invested in a manner consistent with meeting the future benefit obligations of the pension plans and maintaining compliance with various laws and regulations including the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The Company establishes strategic asset allocation percentage targets and appropriate benchmarks for significant asset classes with the aim of achieving a prudent balance between return and risk. The Company’s investment horizon is generally long term, and, accordingly, the target asset allocations encompass a long-term perspective of capital markets, expected risk and return and perceived future economic conditions while also considering the profile of plan liabilities. To the extent feasible, the short-term investment portfolio is managed to immunize the short-term obligations, the intermediate portfolio duration is immunized to reduce the risk of volatility in intermediate plan distributions, and the total return portfolio is expected to maximize the long-term real growth of plan assets. The critical investment principles of diversification, assessment of risk and targeting the optimal expected returns for given levels of risk are applied. The Company’s investment guidelines prohibit use of securities such as letter stock and other unregistered securities, commodities or commodity contracts, short sales, margin transactions, private placements (unless specifically addressed by addendum), or any derivatives, options or futures for the purpose of portfolio leveraging.

The target asset allocation is reviewed periodically and is determined based on a long-term projection of capital market outcomes, inflation rates, fixed income yields, returns, volatilities and correlation relationships. The interaction between plan assets and benefit obligations is periodically studied to assist in establishing such strategic asset allocation targets. Asset performance is monitored with an overall expectation that plan assets will meet or exceed benchmark performance over rolling five-year periods. The Company’s pension committee, as authorized by the Company’s Board of Directors, has discretion to manage the assets within established asset allocation ranges approved by senior management of the Company. As of December 31, 2017, the plan’s investments were in compliance with all approved ranges of asset allocations. See Note 18 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Comprehensive income (loss): The Company presents other comprehensive income (loss) in its Statements of Comprehensive Income. The Company follows the FASB’s guidance regarding the disclosure of reclassifications from AOCI which requires the disclosure of significant amounts reclassified from each component of AOCI, the related tax amounts and the income statement line items affected by such reclassifications. See Note 20 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Income taxes and uncertain tax positions: The provision for income taxes is determined using the asset and liability approach of accounting for income taxes. Under this approach, deferred taxes represent the future tax consequences expected to occur when the reported amounts of assets and liabilities are recovered or paid. The provision for income taxes represents income taxes paid or payable for the current year and the change in deferred taxes during the year. Deferred taxes result from differences between the financial and tax bases of the Company’s assets and liabilities and are adjusted for changes in tax rates and tax laws when changes are enacted. Valuation allowances are recorded to reduce deferred tax assets when it is more likely than not that a tax benefit will not be realized. The FASB’s guidance regarding accounting for uncertainty in income taxes prescribes the recognition threshold and measurement attributes for financial statement recognition and measurement of tax positions taken or expected to be taken on a tax return. The guidance further requires the determination of whether the benefits of tax positions will be more likely than not sustained upon audit based upon the technical merits of the tax position. For tax positions that are determined to be more likely than not sustained upon audit, a company recognizes the largest amount of benefit that is greater than 50% likely of being realized upon ultimate settlement in the financial statements. For tax positions that are not determined to be more likely than not sustained upon audit, a company does not recognize any portion of the benefit in the financial statements. Additionally, the Company monitors and adjusts for derecognition, classification, and penalties and interest in interim periods, with appropriate disclosure and transition thereto. Also, the amount of interest expense and income related to uncertain tax positions is computed by applying the applicable statutory rate of interest to the difference between the tax position recognized, including timing differences, and the amount previously taken or expected to be taken in a tax return. The Company’s continuing practice is to recognize interest and/or penalties related to income tax matters in income tax expense. Finally, when applicable, the Company nets its liability for unrecognized tax benefits against deferred tax assets related to net operating losses or other tax credit carryforwards that would apply if the uncertain tax position were settled for the presumed amount at the balance sheet date. See Note 8 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Derivatives: The Company is exposed to the impact of changes in interest rates, foreign currency fluctuations, changes in commodity prices and credit risk. The Company is currently not using derivative instruments to mitigate the risks associated with foreign currency fluctuations, changes in commodity prices or credit risk, but has used derivative financial instruments primarily for purposes of hedging exposures to fluctuations in interest rates in the past. If used in the future, the Company will recognize the entire change in the fair value of the hedging instrument in the same income statement line as the hedged item. The Company currently uses no derivative instruments designated as hedges and, also, has not entered into derivative contracts for trading or speculative purposes.

Fair value measurements: The Company utilizes the FASB’s guidance regarding fair value measurements, which establishes a common definition for fair value to be applied to guidance requiring use of fair value, establishes a framework for measuring fair value and expands disclosure about such fair value measurements. Specifically, the guidance utilizes a fair value hierarchy that prioritizes the inputs to valuation techniques used to measure fair value into three broad levels. See Notes 18 and 22 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. The following is a brief description of those three levels:

	•	Level 1: Observable inputs such as quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities.
	•	Level 2: Inputs other than quoted prices that are observable for the asset or liability, either directly or indirectly. These include quoted prices for similar assets or liabilities in active markets and quoted prices for identical or similar assets or liabilities in markets that are not active.
	•	Level 3: Unobservable inputs that reflect the reporting entity's own assumptions.

Share-based compensation: The Company applies the FASB’s guidance regarding share-based payments, which requires the recognition of the fair value of share-based compensation as a component of expense. The Company has a long-term incentive program (“LTIP”) for key employees which provides for the granting of options to purchase stock at prices not less than its market value on the date of the grant. Most options become exercisable between one and three years after the date of the grant for a period of time determined by the Company, but not to exceed seven years from the date of grant. Restricted stock awards and restricted stock units (“RSU”) issued under the LTIP program are generally subject to time vesting over a one to five-year period. In addition, as part of the Company’s Global Annual Incentive Plan (“GAIP”), nonvested shares may be issued to key employees, which generally vest over a two to five-year period. In addition, while the FASB’s guidance permits the Company to make an accounting policy election to account for forfeitures as they occur for service condition aspects of certain share-based awards, the Company has decided not to elect this accounting policy and instead has elected to continue utilizing a forfeiture rate assumption. Based on historical experience, the Company has assumed a forfeiture rate of 13% on certain of its nonvested stock awards. The Company will record additional expense if the actual forfeiture rate is lower than estimated, and will record a recovery of prior expense if the actual forfeiture is higher than estimated. See Note 6 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Earnings per share: The Company follows the FASB’s guidance regarding the calculation of earnings per share for nonvested stock awards with rights to non-forfeitable dividends. The guidance requires nonvested stock awards with rights to non-forfeitable dividends to be included as part of the basic weighted average share calculation under the two-class method. See Note 9 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Segments: The Company’s reporting segments are the same as the Company’s operating segments. The Company’s reportable operating segments reflect the structure of the Company’s internal organization, the method by which the Company’s resources are allocated and the manner by which the Company assesses its performance. The Company’s reportable operating segments are organized by geography as follows: (i) North America, (ii) Europe, Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”), (iii) Asia/Pacific and (iv) South America. See Note 4 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Business combinations: The Company accounts for business combinations under the acquisition method of accounting. This method requires the recording of acquired assets, including separately identifiable intangible assets and assumed liabilities at their respective acquisition date estimated fair values. Any excess of the purchase price over the estimated fair value of the identifiable net assets acquired is recorded as goodwill. The determination of the estimated fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed requires significant estimates and assumptions. Based on the assessment of additional information during the measurement period, which may be up to one year from the acquisition date, the Company may record adjustments to the estimated fair value of assets acquired and liabilities assumed. See Note 21 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Restructuring activities: Restructuring programs consist of employee severance, rationalization of manufacturing or other facilities and other related items. To account for such programs, the Company applies FASB’s guidance regarding exit or disposal cost obligations. This guidance requires that a liability for a cost associated with an exit or disposal activity be recognized when the liability is incurred, is estimable, and payment is probable. See Note 5 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Reclassifications: Certain information has been reclassified to conform to the current year presentation. During the first quarter of 2017, the Company early adopted an accounting standard update regarding the classification of pension costs. The guidance in this accounting standard update was required to be applied retrospectively, which resulted in a reclassification to the Company’s Consolidated Statements of Income for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, respectively. See Note 3 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. In addition, the Company has made certain reclassifications to prior year disclosures regarding combination-related items to conform with the current period presentation. See Note 2 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

Accounting estimates: The preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities and disclosure of contingencies at the date of the financial statements and the reported amounts of net sales and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from such estimates.