Investments in Affiliated Companies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Investments in Affiliated Companies [Abstract]

Equity Method Investments and Joint Ventures Disclosure

Investments in Affiliated Companies

Investments in affiliated companies represent our investment in non-consolidated domestic and foreign entities. These entities are in businesses similar to ours, such as credit reporting, credit-scoring and credit-monitoring services.

We use the equity method to account for investments in affiliates where we are able to exercise significant influence. For these investments, we adjust the carrying value for our proportionate share of the affiliates’ earnings, losses and distributions, as well as for purchases and sales of our ownership interest.

We account for nonmarketable investments in equity securities in which we are not able to exercise significant influence, our “Cost Method Investments”, at our initial cost, minus any impairment, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or a similar investment of the same issuer. For these investments, we adjust the carrying value for any purchases or sales of our ownership interests. We record any dividends received from these investments as other income in non-operating income and expense.

There was a $5.3 million loss on the impairment of an investment in one of our affiliated companies during the three months ended March 31, 2019. The loss was included in other income and expense in the consolidated statements of income.

Investments in affiliated companies consisted of the following:

(in millions)	March 31,   2020		December 31, 2019
Equity Method investments	$	42.4	$	49.0
Cost Method investments	89.9		84.7
Total investments in affiliated companies (Note 4)	$	132.3	$	133.7

These balances are included in other assets in the consolidated balance sheets. The increase in cost method investments is due to a new investment in our U.S. Markets segment.

Earnings from equity method investments, which are included in other non-operating income and expense, and dividends received from equity method investments consisted of the following:

	Three Months Ended   March 31,
(in millions)	2020		2019
Earnings from equity method investments (Note 13)	$	2.6	$	3.8
Dividends received from equity method investments	$	0.6	$	0.5