Derivative Instruments Derivative Instruments (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities Disclosure [Abstract]

Derivatives, Policy [Policy Text Block]

The Company borrows funds at a combination of fixed and variable rates. Borrowings under the Company's revolving credit facility and certain bank mortgage loans bear interest at variable rates. Other long-term debt typically bears interest at fixed rates. The Company's interest rate risk management objectives are to limit generally the impact of interest rate changes on earnings and cash flows and to lower the Company's overall borrowing costs. To achieve these objectives, from time to time, the Company enters into interest rate hedge contracts such as collars, swaps, caps and treasury lock agreements in order to mitigate our interest rate risk with respect to various debt instruments. The Company generally does not hold or issue these derivative contracts for trading or speculative purposes.

Interest rate swaps involve the receipt of variable-rate amounts from a counterparty in exchange for making fixed-rate payments over the life of the agreements without exchange of the underlying notional amount. The changes in the fair value of derivatives designated and that qualify as cash flow hedges is recorded in accumulated other comprehensive loss and noncontrolling interest (for the Trust) and general partner's equity and limited partners’ equity - common units (for the Operating Partnership) and is subsequently reclassified into interest expense in the period that the hedged forecasted transaction affects earnings.

The Company determines the fair value of its interest rate swaps by netting discounted future fixed cash payments with the discounted expected variable cash receipts. These variable cash receipts of interest rate swaps are based on expectations of future LIBOR interest rates (forward curves) estimated by observing market LIBOR interest rate curves. This is a Level 2 fair value calculation. Also, credit valuation adjustments are factored into the fair value calculations to account for potential nonperformance risk. These credit valuation adjustments were concluded to be not significant inputs for the fair value calculations for the periods presented.