Leases Leases (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued an accounting standards update (“ASU”) that eliminates the requirement to separately measure and report hedge ineffectiveness and generally requires the entire change in the fair value of a hedging instrument to be presented in the same income statement line as the hedged item when the hedged item affects earnings. We adopted the ASU as of January 1, 2019 with no material effect on our Consolidated Financial Statements.

The FASB issued an ASU that changes certain disclosure requirements for fair value measurements. The ASU is required to be adopted in 2020 and applied prospectively. We do not expect such adoption to have a material effect on our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.

On January 1, 2019, we adopted Accounting Standards Codification Topic 842 “Leases” (“ASC 842”), which supersedes Accounting Standards Codification Topic 840 “Leases” (“ASC 840”). Information in this Note 2 with respect to our leases and lease related costs as both lessee and lessor and lease related receivables as lessor is presented under ASC 842 as of June 30, 2019 and for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019 and under ASC 840 as of and for the year ended December 31, 2018.

We adopted ASC 842 using the modified retrospective approach whereby the cumulative effect of adoption was recognized on the adoption date and prior periods were not restated. There was no net cumulative effect adjustment to retained earnings as of January 1, 2019 as a result of this adoption. ASC 842 sets out the principles for the recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of leases for both lessees and lessors. We operate as both a lessor and a lessee. As a lessor, we are required under ASC 842 to account for leases using an approach that is substantially equivalent to ASC 840's guidance for operating leases and other leases such as sales-type leases and direct financing leases. In addition, ASC 842 requires lessors to capitalize and amortize only incremental direct leasing costs. As a lessee, we are required under the new standard to apply a dual approach, classifying leases, such as ground leases, as either finance or operating leases based on the principle of whether or not the lease is effectively a financed purchase. This classification determines whether lease expense is recognized based on an effective interest method or on a straight-line basis over the term of the lease. ASC 842 also requires lessees to record a right of use asset and a lease liability for all leases with a term of greater than a year regardless of their classification. We have also elected the practical expedient not to recognize right of use assets and lease liabilities for leases with a term of a year or less.

On adoption of the standard, we elected the package of practical expedients provided for in ASC 842, including:


•	No reassessment of whether any expired or existing contracts were or contained leases;


•	No reassessment of the lease classification for any expired or existing leases; and


•	No reassessment of initial direct costs for any existing leases.

The package of practical expedients was made as a single election and was consistently applied to all existing leases as of January 1, 2019. We also elected the practical expedient provided to lessors in a subsequent amendment to ASC 842 that removed the requirement to separate lease and nonlease components, provided certain conditions were met.