Fair Value Measurements

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Note 3 Fair Value Measurements

As of March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, U.S. Cellular did not have any material financial or nonfinancial assets or liabilities that were required to be recorded at fair value in its Consolidated Balance Sheet in accordance with GAAP.

The provisions of GAAP establish a fair value hierarchy that contains three levels for inputs used in fair value measurements. Level 1 inputs include quoted market prices for identical assets or liabilities in active markets. Level 2 inputs include quoted market prices for similar assets and liabilities in active markets or quoted market prices for identical assets and liabilities in inactive markets. Level 3 inputs are unobservable. A financial instrument’s level within the fair value hierarchy is based on the lowest level of any input that is significant to the fair value measurement. A financial instrument’s level within the fair value hierarchy is not representative of its expected performance or its overall risk profile and, therefore, Level 3 assets are not necessarily higher risk than Level 2 assets or Level 1 assets.

U.S. Cellular has applied the provisions of fair value accounting for purposes of computing the fair value of financial instruments for disclosure purposes as displayed below.



		March 31, 2020				December 31, 2019
	Level within the Fair Value Hierarchy	Book Value		Fair Value		Book Value		Fair Value
(Dollars in millions)
Cash and cash equivalents	1	$	258	$	258	$	285	$	285
Long-term debt
Retail	2	917		795		917		943
Institutional	2	535		527		534		594
Other	2	83		83		83		83

The fair values of Cash and cash equivalents and Short-term investments approximate their book values due to the short-term nature of these financial instruments. Long-term debt excludes lease obligations, other installment arrangements, the current portion of Long-term debt and debt financing costs. The fair value of “Retail” Long-term debt was estimated using market prices for the 7.25% 2063 Senior Notes, 7.25% 2064 Senior Notes and 6.95% Senior Notes. U.S. Cellular’s “Institutional” debt consists of the 6.7% Senior Notes which are traded over the counter. U.S. Cellular’s “Other” debt consists of a senior term loan credit agreement. U.S. Cellular estimated the fair value of its Institutional and Other debt through a discounted cash flow analysis using the interest rates or estimated yield to maturity for each borrowing, which ranged from 2.74% to 7.05% and 3.55% to 5.73% at March 31, 2020 and December 31, 2019, respectively.