Derivative Financial Instruments

6 Months Ended

Jul. 02, 2017

Derivative Financial Instruments [Abstract]

Derivative Financial Instruments

Note 7. Derivative Financial Instruments

As a multinational corporation with operations throughout the world, the Company is exposed to certain market risks. The Company uses a variety of practices to manage these market risks, including, when considered appropriate, derivative financial instruments.  The Company's objective is to offset gains and losses resulting from interest rates and foreign currency exposures with gains and losses on the derivative contracts used to hedge them.  The Company uses derivative financial instruments only for risk management and not for trading or speculative purposes.

By using derivative financial instruments to hedge exposures to changes in interest rates and foreign currencies, the Company exposes itself to credit risk and market risk.  Credit risk is the risk that the counterparty will fail to perform under the terms of the derivative contract.  When the fair value of a derivative contract is positive, the counterparty owes the Company, which creates credit risk for the Company.  When the fair value of a derivative contract is negative, the Company owes the counterparty, and therefore, it does not face any credit risk.  The Company minimizes the credit risk in derivative instruments by entering into transactions with major financial institutions.

Market risk is the adverse effect on the value of a financial instrument that results from a change in interest rates, currency exchange rates, or commodity prices.  The market risk associated with interest rate and forward exchange contracts is managed by establishing and monitoring parameters that limit the types and degree of market risk that may be undertaken.

Cash flow hedges:

For derivative instruments that are designated and qualify as cash flow hedges, the Company records the effective portion of the gain or loss in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) as a separate component of shareholders' equity.  The Company subsequently reclassifies the effective portion of gain or loss into earnings in the period during which the hedged transaction is recognized in earnings.

The Company utilizes interest rate swaps to limit exposure to market fluctuations on floating-rate debt.  During the second quarter of 2016, the Company entered into a floating to fixed interest rate swap for an initial aggregate notional amount of $300 million.  The notional amount at July 2, 2017 was $228 million. This interest rate swap is designated as a cash flow hedge.  The gains and losses associated with this interest rate swap are recorded in accumulated other comprehensive income (loss). The fair value of this swap was an asset of $2.0 million at July 2, 2017 and is recorded in other non-current assets on the Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheet.

Assets and liabilities measured at fair value are based on one or more of three valuation techniques. The three valuation techniques are as follows:

• Market approach - prices and other relevant information generated by market transactions involving identical or comparable assets or liabilities.

• Cost approach - amount that would be required to replace the service capacity of an asset or replacement cost.

• Income approach - techniques to convert future amounts to a single present amount based on market expectations, including present value techniques, option-pricing and other models.

The Company primarily applies the income approach for interest rate derivatives for recurring fair value measurements and attempts to utilize valuation techniques that maximize the use of observable inputs and minimize the use of unobservable inputs.

The fair value of our interest rate swap contract is determined based on inputs that are readily available in public markets or can be derived from information available in publicly quoted markets and are categorized as Level 2.