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General (Policies)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Basis of Presentation. The accompanying Consolidated Financial Statements are prepared in accordance with United States (“U.S.”) generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) and are presented in our reporting currency, the U.S. dollar. References herein to the translation of activity for significant nonrecurring transactions are at the rate in effect at the date of the transaction. All material intercompany transactions with consolidated entities have been eliminated.

The accompanying unaudited interim financial information has been prepared according to the rules and regulations of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Certain information and note disclosures normally included in our annual financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP have been condensed or omitted in accordance with such rules and regulations. Our management believes that the disclosures presented in these financial statements are adequate to make the information presented not misleading. In our opinion, all adjustments and eliminations, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary to present fairly the financial position and results of operations for both the Parent and the OP for the reported periods have been included. The results of operations for such interim periods are not necessarily indicative of the results for the full year. The accompanying unaudited interim financial information should be read in conjunction with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, as filed with the SEC, and other public information.

Reclassification

Reclassifications. Upon adoption of the new lease standard, rental recoveries for 2018 have been reclassified to Rental Revenues in the Consolidated Statements of Income to conform to the 2019 financial statement presentation.

New Accounting Pronouncements

New Accounting Pronouncements.

New Accounting Standards Adopted

Leases. In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued an accounting standard update (“ASU”) that provided the principles for the recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of leases. The guidance amended the existing accounting standards, including the requirement that lessees recognize right-of-use assets and lease liabilities for leases with terms greater than twelve months in the Consolidated Balance Sheets. Additional guidance and targeted improvements to the February 2016 ASU were made through the issuance of supplementary ASUs in July 2018, December 2018 and March 2019. We refer to all three ASUs collectively as the “new lease standard.”

We adopted the new lease standard on January 1, 2019 and applied it to leases that were in place on the effective date. Results for reporting periods beginning January 1, 2019 are presented under the new lease standard.

We elected the package of practical expedients and were not required to reassess the following upon adoption: (i) whether an expired or existing contract met the definition of a lease; (ii) the lease classification at January 1, 2019 for existing leases; and (iii) whether leasing costs previously capitalized as initial direct costs would continue to be amortized. This allowed us to continue to account for our existing ground and office space leases as operating leases, however, any new or renewed ground leases after January 1, 2019 may be classified as financing leases unless they meet certain conditions to be considered a lease involving land owned by a government unit or authority. Upon adoption, we did not have an adjustment to the opening balance of retained earnings due to the election of these practical expedients.

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As a lessor. The new lease standard required that lessors expense, on an as-incurred basis, certain initial direct costs that are not incremental in negotiating a lease. Initial direct costs include the salaries and related costs for employees directly working on leasing activities. Prior to January 1, 2019, these costs were capitalizable and therefore the new lease standard resulted in certain of these costs being expensed as incurred. During the three months ended March 31, 2019 and 2018, we expensed $6.5 million in Rental Expense in the Consolidated Statements of Income and capitalized $5.4 million in Other Assets in the Consolidated Balance Sheets, respectively, of internal costs related to our leasing activities. We will continue to amortize initial direct costs capitalized prior to January 1, 2019.

We adopted the practical expedient that allowed us to not separate expenses reimbursed by our customers (“rental recoveries”) from the associated rental revenue if certain criteria were met. We assessed these criteria and concluded that the timing and pattern of transfer for rental revenue and the associated rental recoveries are the same and as our leases qualify as operating leases, we accounted for and presented rental revenue and rental recoveries as a single component under Rental Revenues in our Consolidated Statements of Income for the three months ended March 31, 2019. As a result of our adoption of this practical expedient, we also presented $427.9 million of rental revenues and $128.0 million of rental recoveries as a single component in the Consolidated Statements of Income for the three months ended March 31, 2018 to conform to the 2019 new presentation.

•	As a lessee. At January 1, 2019 we recognized Lease Right-of-Use (“ROU”) Assets and Lease Liabilities, principally for our ground and office space leases, in which we are the lessee, on the Consolidated Balance Sheets.

See Note 3 for further disclosure around our adoption of the new lease standard.

Derivatives and Hedging. In August 2017, the FASB issued an ASU that simplified the application of hedge accounting guidance in current GAAP and improved the reporting of hedging relationships to better portray the economic results of an entity’s risk management activities in its consolidated financial statements. Among the simplification updates, the ASU eliminated the requirement in current GAAP to separately recognize periodic hedge ineffectiveness. Mismatches between the changes in value of the hedged item and hedging instrument may still occur but they will no longer be separately reported. The ASU required the presentation of the earnings effect of the hedging instrument in the same income statement line item in which the earnings effect of the hedged item is reported. We adopted the ASU on January 1, 2019 on a modified retrospective basis and there was no adjustment to the opening balance of retained earnings.