INVESTMENTS IN OTHER ASSOCIATIONS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2018

NOTE 3 – INVESTMENTS IN OTHER ASSOCIATIONS

Investments in other associations include investments in the patronage capital of other cooperatives and other required investments in the organizations. Our investment in a cooperative increases when a cooperative allocates patronage capital credits to us and it decreases when we receive a cash retirement of the allocated capital credits from the cooperative. A cooperative allocates its patronage capital credits to us based upon our patronage (amount of business done) with the cooperative.

Investments in other associations are as follows (dollars in thousands):


	March 31,		December 31,
	2018		2017
Basin Electric Power Cooperative	$	101,820	$	101,820
National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation - patronage capital		11,232		11,232
National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation - capital term certificates		16,021		16,085
CoBank, ACB		9,062		8,174
Western Fuels Association, Inc.		2,336		2,346
Other		4,161		3,951
Investments in other associations	$	144,632	$	143,608

Patronage capital represents retained margins in a cooperative which is the equity in that cooperative. Therefore, the investments in the patronage capital of other cooperatives and other required investments in the organizations meet the definition of an equity security, as defined by the accounting requirements related to investments in equity securities. However, these investments don’t have readily determinable fair values (defined as observable price changes of identical or similar investments, such as in an organized market). Therefore, we measure these investments at cost less impairment. We have evaluated our investments in the patronage capital of other cooperatives and other required investments in the organizations for indicators of impairment. There were no impairments of these investments recognized for the three months ended March 31, 2018 and the comparable period in 2017.