• A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has issued a sealed indictment charging Crédit Lyonnais with fraud in connection with its acquisition of the assets of a failed California insurance company a decade ago, reports The New York Times. The indictment involves allegations that the French bank committed fraud when it purchased the $3 billion junk bond portfolio of Executive Life, a California insurance company, while other French investors acquired the company itself, which collapsed in 1991.
  
  

According to the Times, information later came to light that the other investors were really fronting for Crédit Lyonnais, trying to circumvent both a federal law that barred banks from owning insurance companies and a state law barring entities of foreign governments from such holdings. The company also faces a civil lawsuit filed by California's insurance commissioner seeking to compensate Executive Life policyholders.

• Carmaker DaimlerChrysler AG denied a report that it was aiming to cut costs by $1.6 billion this year. Germany's Focus Money magazine quoted an unnamed DaimlerChrysler executive as saying that all areas of the business would be ordered to cut costs significantly in the second half of the year, with the aim of saving $1.5 billion in total. "There is no such program," said a DaimlerChrysler spokeswoman.
  
  

• Corporations making estimated tax payments may postpone part of their September 15, 2003, payment, due to a provision in the new tax law enacted in May, the Internal Revenue Service announced. This law allows 25 percent of the September estimated installment to be made by October 1, 2003.
  
  

CFOs on the Move

• Sportswear and equipment giant Nike Inc. announced that chief financial officer Tom Arndorfer has been named a vice president of the Beaverton, Oregon-based company.
  
  

• In other sporting news, Scott Hulme, president of the Fresno Grizzlies, and his father, Mike, the CFO, resigned after only one year with the team. "It came as a surprise," said Rick Roush, a board member with the Fresno Diamond Group, which owns the triple-A team.
  
  

• ADC Telecom named its corporate controller and treasurer, Gokul Hemmady, to the post of CFO. He succeeds Robert Switz, who was promoted to president and chief executive of the telecommunications-equipment maker in mid-August after Richard Roscitt left the company to join MCI. In 1997, Hemmady joined ADC as assistant treasurer; he has been the company's corporate controller and treasurer since 2002. ADC also named Mark Borman to the post of treasurer, in addition to his current responsibilities as vice president of investor relations.
  
  

• Kulicke & Soffa Industries of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, announced that Clifford G. Sprague, who suffered a mild heart attack on August 21, will retire from his post as CFO to move to Florida with his family. Sprague will be replaced by Maurice Carson, who has been the vice president of finance and corporate controller of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in San Jose, California, since 2001. Sprague is recuperating quickly and expects to help K&S make the transition, the company added.
  
  

Correction
In ''Warning Shot from the SEC's Cutler,'' the August 22 edition of Today in Finance, we incorrectly reported that C. Wayne Stallings, who resigned ''after it was found that he was responsible for more than a year's worth of salary overpayments,'' was the CFO of the state of North Carolina.

In fact, Stallings was the CFO of the state's Department of Transportation. Robert L. Powell, the state controller, is the chief financial officer of the state of North Carolina.

According to the Associated Press, state Transportation Secretary Lyndo Tippett has named Zeke Partin as interim CFO of the department. Partin has most recently served as assistant state controller for financial systems.

• « previous
• 1
• 2