|
Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)
|
3 Months Ended |
|---|---|
|
Mar. 31, 2012
|
|
| Significant Accounting Policies [Abstract] | |
| Venezuela |
Currency restrictions enacted by the Venezuelan government in 2003 have become more restrictive and have impacted the ability of the Company’s subsidiary in Venezuela, Herbalife Venezuela, to obtain U.S. dollars in exchange for Venezuelan Bolivars, or Bolivars, at the official foreign exchange rates from the Venezuelan government and its foreign exchange commission, CADIVI. The application and approval processes have been intermittently delayed and the timing and ability to obtain U.S. dollars at the official exchange rates remains uncertain. Effective January 1, 2012, additional laws were enacted that required companies to register with the Registry of Users of the System of Transactions with Securities in Foreign Currency, or RUSITME, prior to transacting with the SITME, the regulated system, which is controlled by the Central Bank of Venezuela. As an alternative exchange mechanism, the Company has participated in certain bond offerings from the Venezuelan government and from Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. or PDVSA, a Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company, where the Company effectively purchased bonds with its Bolivars and then sold the bonds for U.S. dollars. In other instances, the Company has also used alternative legal exchange mechanisms for currency exchanges. During the three months ended March 31, 2012, the Company recognized $2.1 million of foreign exchange losses as a result of exchanging Bolivars to U.S. dollars using an alternative legal exchange mechanism that was approximately 40% less favorable than the 5.3 Bolivars per U.S. dollar published SITME rate. As of March 31, 2012, Herbalife Venezuela’s net monetary assets and liabilities denominated in Bolivars were approximately $34.0 million, and included approximately $40.8 million in Bolivar denominated cash and cash equivalents. The majority of these Bolivar denominated assets and liabilities were remeasured at the SITME rate. The Company continues to remeasure its Bolivars at the published SITME rate given the limited availability of alternative exchange mechanisms and the uncertainty in the effective exchange rate for alternative exchange mechanisms. These remeasured amounts, including cash and cash equivalents, being reported on the Company’s consolidated balance sheet using the SITME rate may not accurately represent the amount of U.S. dollars that the Company could ultimately realize. Although Venezuela is an important market in the Company’s South and Central America region, Herbalife Venezuela’s net sales represented less than 3% and 2% of the Company’s consolidated net sales for the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, respectively, and its total assets represented less than 3% of the Company’s consolidated total assets as of both March 31, 2012 and December 31, 2011. |
| Segment Reporting |
The Company is a nutrition company that sells a wide range of weight management products, nutritional supplements and personal care products within one industry segment as defined under the Financial Accounting Standards Board, or FASB, Accounting Standards Codification, or ASC, Topic 280, Segment Reporting. The Company’s products are manufactured by third party providers and by the Company in its Suzhou, China facility and in its Lake Forest, California facility, and then are sold to independent distributors who sell Herbalife products to retail consumers or other distributors. Revenues reflect sales of products by the Company to distributors and are categorized based on geographic location. |
| Derivatives and Hedging Policies |
The Company engages in an interest rate hedging strategy for which the hedged transactions are forecasted interest payments on the Company’s New Credit Facility. The hedged risk is the variability of forecasted interest rate cash flows, where the hedging strategy involves the purchase of interest rate swaps. For the outstanding cash flow hedges on interest rate exposures at March 31, 2012, the maximum length of time over which the Company is hedging certain of these exposures is approximately one year and four months. During August 2009, the Company entered into four interest rate swap agreements with an effective date of December 31, 2009. The agreements collectively provide for the Company to pay interest for less than a four-year period at a weighted average fixed rate of 2.78% on notional amounts aggregating to $140.0 million while receiving interest for the same period at the one month LIBOR rate on the same notional amounts. These agreements will expire in July 2013. These swaps at inception were designated as cash flow hedges against the variability in the LIBOR interest rate on the Company’s term loan under the Prior Credit Facility or against the variability in the LIBOR interest rate on the replacement debt. The Company’s term loan under the Prior Credit Facility was terminated in March 2011 and refinanced with the New Credit Facility as discussed further in Note 4, Long-Term Debt. The Company’s swaps remain effective and continue to be designated as cash flow hedges against the variability in certain LIBOR interest rate borrowings under the New Credit Facility at LIBOR plus 1.50% to 2.50%, fixing the Company’s weighted average effective rate on the notional amounts at 4.28% to 5.28%. There was no hedge ineffectiveness recorded as result of this refinancing event.
The Company assesses hedge effectiveness and measures hedge ineffectiveness at least quarterly. During the three months ended March 31, 2012 and 2011, the ineffective portion relating to these hedges was immaterial and the hedges remained effective as of March 31, 2012. Consequently, all changes in the fair value of the derivatives are deferred and recorded in other comprehensive income (loss) until the related forecasted transactions are recognized in the consolidated statements of income. The fair value of the interest rate swap agreements are based on third-party bank quotes. At March 31, 2012 and December 31, 2011, the Company recorded the interest rate swaps as liabilities at their fair value of $4.5 million and $5.1 million, respectively. |
| Fair Value Measurement |
The Company applies the provisions of FASB ASC Topic 820, Fair Value Measurements and Disclosures, or ASC 820, for its financial and non-financial assets and liabilities. ASC 820 defines fair value as the price that would be received to sell an asset or paid to transfer a liability in an orderly transaction between market participants at the measurement date. ASC 820 establishes a fair value hierarchy, which prioritizes the inputs used in measuring fair value into three broad levels as follows: Level 1 inputs are quoted prices (unadjusted) in active markets for identical assets or liabilities that the reporting entity has the ability to access at the measurement date. Level 2 inputs include quoted prices for similar assets or liabilities in active markets, quoted prices for identical or similar assets or liabilities in markets that are not active, inputs other than quoted prices that are observable for the asset or liability and inputs that are derived principally from or corroborated by observable market data by correlation or other means. Level 3 inputs are unobservable inputs for the asset or liability. |