Derivative Financial Instruments And Hedging

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2012

Derivative Financial Instruments And Hedging

NOTE 18 - DERIVITIVE FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS AND HEDGING

We are exposed to interest rate risk through our variable-rate debt. We manage this risk primarily by managing the amount, sources, and duration of our debt funding and through the use of derivative financial instruments. Specifically, we enter into derivative financial instruments to manage our exposure to known or expected cash payments related to our variable-rate debt. The maximum length of time over which we have hedged our exposure to variable interest rates with our existing derivative financial instruments is approximately seven years.

Our objectives in using derivatives financial instruments are to add stability to interest expense and to manage our exposure to interest rate movements. To accomplish these objectives, we primarily use interest rate swaps as part of our interest rate risk management strategy. Our interest rate swaps designated as cash flow hedges involve the receipt of variable-rate payments from a counterparty in exchange for making fixed-rate payments over the life of the agreements without exchange of the underlying notional amount.

Our agreements with our derivative counterparties contain a provision where if we default, or are capable of being declared in default, on any of our indebtedness, then we could also be declared in default on our derivative financial instruments.

Information about our derivative financial instruments at December 31, 2012 follows (dollar amounts in thousands):

	Number of Instruments		Notional Amount		Fair Value			Valuation Technique
Interest rate swaps (liability)		4	$	41,095	$	(641	)	Level 2 - Market Approach

As of December 31, 2012, we had not posted any collateral related to these agreements and were not in breach of any financial provisions of the agreements. If we had breached any agreement provisions, we could have been required to settle our obligations under these agreements at their aggregate termination value of $0.6 million at December 31, 2012.

The table below details the location in the financial statements of the loss recognized on derivative financial instruments designated as cash flow hedges (in thousands). We had no derivative financial instruments in 2011.

	2012
Gain (loss) recognized in accumulated other comprehensive income on derivative financial instruments (effective portion)	$	(786	)
Gain (loss) reclassified from accumulated other comprehensive income to interest expense (effective portion)	$	(147	)
Gain (loss) recognized in gain (loss) on derivative financial instruments (ineffective portion and amounts excluded from effectiveness testing)	$	(2	)

Amounts reported in accumulated other comprehensive income related to derivative financial instruments will be reclassified to interest expense as interest payments are made on the hedged variable-rate debt. In 2013, we estimate that an additional $0.3 million will be reclassified from other comprehensive income as an increase to interest expense.