Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies Basis of Presentation and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (Notes)

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2019

Basis of Accounting [Text Block]

(1) BASIS OF PRESENTATION AND SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

The interim condensed consolidated financial statements included herein are unaudited. In the opinion of management, these statements include all adjustments, consisting only of normal, recurring adjustments, necessary for a fair statement of the financial position of Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., a Bermuda exempted company limited by shares, and its consolidated subsidiaries ("Axalta," the "Company," "we," "our" and "us") at September 30, 2019 and December 31, 2018, the results of operations, comprehensive income (loss) and changes in shareholders' equity for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, and cash flows for the nine months then ended. All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated.

These interim unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. The year-end condensed consolidated balance sheet data was derived from audited financial statements, but does not include all disclosures required by accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

The interim unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements include the accounts of Axalta and its subsidiaries, and entities in which a controlling interest is maintained. Certain of our joint ventures are accounted for on a one-month lag basis, the effect of which is not material.

The results of operations for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019 are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for a full year.

Reclassifications

During the nine months ended September 30, 2019, the condensed consolidated statements of operations were updated to combine "Net sales" and "Other revenue" into "Net sales". The 2018 condensed consolidated statements of operations have been updated for comparability with the current year presentation.

Correction of Immaterial Errors to Prior Period Financial Statements

During the nine months ended September 30, 2019, the Company identified and corrected an error that affected the previously-issued 2018 annual and interim financial statements. Specifically, the financial statements reflected an investment in noncontrolling interest payment of $26.9 million within investing activities as opposed to its appropriate classification within financing activities. The Company determined that these corrections were immaterial to the previously-issued financial statements. However, given the significance of the error and for comparability purposes, we have revised the condensed consolidated statements of cash flows for the nine months ended September 30, 2018, and will revise annual periods in future filings. This revision has no impact on the consolidated or condensed consolidated statements of operations or balance sheets.



	Nine Months Ended September 30, 2018
	As Reported			Revised
Cash used for investing activities	$	(204.5	)	$	(177.6	)
Cash used for financing activities	$	(212.5	)	$	(239.4	)

Recently Adopted Accounting Guidance

In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standards Update ("ASU") 2016-02, "Leases", which, together with amendments comprising ASC 842, requires lessees to identify arrangements that should be accounted for as leases and generally recognized, for operating and finance leases with terms exceeding twelve months, a right-of-use (or "ROU") asset and lease liability on the balance sheet. In addition to this main provision, this standard included a number of additional changes to lease accounting. This standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018, including interim periods within those fiscal years. A modified retrospective transition approach is required, applying the new standard to all leases existing at the date of initial application. An entity may choose to use either the adoption date or the beginning of the earliest comparative period presented in the financial statements as its date of initial application. We elected to adopt the new standard on January 1, 2019 and use the adoption date as our date of initial application. As a result, historical financial information will not be updated, and the disclosures required under the new standard will not be provided as of and for periods before January 1, 2019. See Note 7 for further information on the implementation of the standard.

The new standard provides a number of optional practical expedients in transition. We have elected the package of practical expedients, which permits us not to reassess under the new standard our prior conclusions about lease identification, lease classification and initial direct costs. We have also elected the practical expedient pertaining to land easements which permits entities to forgo the evaluation of existing land easement arrangements in transition to determine if they contain a lease. We did not elect the use-of-hindsight practical expedient. The new standard also provides practical expedients for an entity’s ongoing accounting. We have elected the short term lease exception and we will not recognize ROU assets or lease liabilities for qualifying leases (leases with a term of less than 12 months from lease commencement). We also elected the accounting policy election to not separate lease and non-lease components for all asset classes.

The Company implemented an outsourced software solution to support the ongoing accounting requirements that this standard will have on our consolidated financial statements. We have evaluated the completeness and accuracy of lease data entered into the software solution and updated our processes, policies and internal controls. Changes to our internal controls covered the identification, accounting and disclosure of leases both upon adoption and subsequent to adoption. Adoption of ASU 2016-02 at January 1, 2019 resulted in a one-time loss to retained earnings of $0.7 million on our condensed consolidated balance sheets and condensed consolidated statement of changes in shareholders’ equity related to the net difference of derecognition of existing assets and debt obligations associated with our leases historically accounted for as sale-leaseback financings, for which the ASU requires accounting for as a lease at the date of initial application.

Of the accounting standards we have adopted in 2019, the below standard did not have a material impact:



ASU		Effective Date
2018-16	Derivatives and Hedging (Topic 815): Inclusion of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) Overnight Index Swap (OIS) Rate as a Benchmark Interest Rate for Hedge Accounting Purposes	January 1, 2019

Accounting Guidance Issued But Not Yet Adopted

In June 2016, the FASB issued ASU 2016-13, “Financial Instruments - Credit Losses”. ASU 2016-13 replaces the incurred loss impairment methodology in current GAAP with a methodology that reflects expected credit losses and requires considerations of a broader range of reasonable and supportable information to inform credit loss estimates. The new standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, including interim reporting periods therein. The adoption of this standard is not expected to have a material impact on our financial statements.