Feds Restrict Use of Cellphone Trackers

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced a new policy governing how federal agents use a surveillance tool that mimics cellphone towers and has been a source of grave privacy concerns.Under the policy, agents would have to get a search warrant before using the device, known as a cell-site sim...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 4, 2015

IRS Delay Will Benefit Pension Plan Sponsors

People are living longer and pension plan sponsors will have to adjust their contribution models accordingly — but not until 2017, according to the Internal Revenue Service.That’s a “credit positive,” says Moody’s Investors Service, as the IRS’ July decision not to update mortality assumptions to...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 3, 2015

Explore the Trendline➔

Top 5 stories from CFO.com

From CPA licensure changes to undergoing a digital transformation, these are the most popular stories CFOs are reading. 

By CFO.com staff

Infrastructure in the Rich World: Building Works

It is hard to exaggerate the decrepitude of infrastructure in much of the rich world. One in three railway bridges in Germany is over 100 years old, as are half of London’s water mains. In America the average bridge is 42 years old and the average dam 52. The American Society of Civil Engineers r...

By Economist Staff • Sept. 3, 2015

Retail Job Cuts Up 90% YoY

U.S. employers continue to downsize, though workforces got a bit of a reprieve in August from the month before, according to a report released Thursday by Chicago outplacement consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.Employers in the U.S. announced plans to shed 41,186 workers from payro...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 3, 2015

Health Care’s Cyber-Security Spend Found Lacking

Four-fifths of U.S. health-care executives say their information technology has been compromised by hackers, a symptom of the sector’s lack of investment in cyber security, according to a new survey.KPMG said in the report accompanying the survey results that health-care organizations are at incr...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 1, 2015

Chinese Malware Hack Hits ‘Jailbroken’ iPhones

Hackers in China have compromised the Apple accounts of more than 225,000 iPhone users in what may be the largest such theft caused by malware.The cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks reported in a blog post that the hackers stole login names and passwords, using a malicious software family d...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 1, 2015

BNY Mellon’s Systems Back to Near Normal

It’s been a hellish seven days for BNY Mellon, but the financial institution may be finally starting to put a high-profile technology failure behind it.The bank’s systems for calculating net asset values are back to normal after a glitch in a SunGard accounting system caused mayhem last week. The...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 1, 2015

U.S. Construction Spending Hits Seven-Year High

The latest figures on U.S. construction spending — the highest in seven years — confirm the economy is gaining momentum in the third quarter.Construction spending in July rose an estimated 0.7%, to $1.08 trillion, up 13.7% compared with July of last year, and the highest level since May 2008, the...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 1, 2015

Senate Democrats Press SEC on Political Spending Disclosures

Forty-two Democrats and both Independents in the Senate are ratcheting up the pressure on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White to revisit a 2013 proposal that would force public companies to disclose their spending on political campaigns.“We add our voices to the many who h...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 1, 2015

Moving from CFO to CEO: A Half Brainer

Want to be a CEO? Good luck. Among chief executives in the Forbes 2000, a listing of the world’s largest publicly held companies, only 13% are former finance chiefs.However hard you work, however successful you are as a CFO, however strategic your orientation, the reason the odds are against you ...

By David McCann • Aug. 31, 2015

Paid in Full

This month, Mercer released a survey of CFO pay at S&P 500 companies in 2014. The consultancy analyzed data from 32 S&P 100 companies and 127 other companies in the S&P 500. Test your knowledge of pay practices in the S&P 500 by taking our quiz.1. Total direct compensation for CFO...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Aug. 31, 2015

Total Shareholder Return: How Long Is Long Enough?

Over the past 5 to 10 years, executive compensation programs have evolved from emphasizing stock options that have 10-year performance horizons to performance-based restricted stock with mid-term performance horizons — usually just 3 years long. While there are a wide variety of performance-based...

By Eric Hosken and Takis Makridis • Aug. 31, 2015

GOP Senators Seek Details on Litigation Finance

Expressing alarm at the growth of “litigation speculation,” two top Republican senators have asked three of the largest litigation finance firms for information about their involvement in the civil justice system.The companies finance the cost of civil litigation in return for a portion of any re...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 28, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending August 28

Jennifer Ceran Jennifer Ceran has been named finance chief at Coupons.com, effective Sept. 8. She takes over the finance reins from CFO and COO Mir Aamir, who has been promoted to president and COO. Most recently, Ceran was vice president of finance at Box; before that, she held several posts at ...

By Joan Urdang • Aug. 28, 2015

Google Denies Search Results Anti-Competitive

Google isn’t backing down in the face of European Union antitrust allegations, saying its search results do not divert online shoppers away from rivals’ shopping comparison services.Google’s product search is “robustly competitive,” Senior Vice-President Kent Walker said in a blog post that accom...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 28, 2015

Dole CEO Hit With $148M Award Over Buyout

A Delaware judge on Thursday ordered Dole Food CEO David Murdock and a former top aide to pay shareholders more than $148 million, finding that they manipulated the company’s stock price so Murdock could take it private on the cheap.The $1.2 billion, or $13.50-a-share, buyout was “arguably fair,”...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 27, 2015

Email Communication Still Ubiquitous: Survey

Contrary to some experts’ notions, emails are not going away, even in the age of instant messaging, texting, and social media.So says an online survey of 400 U.S.-based “white collar” workers, released Wednesday by Adobe. On average, survey respondents reported using email six hours a day, or 30-...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 27, 2015

Q2 GDP Higher Than Initially Thought

The U.S. economy expanded more in the second quarter than initially thought.The U.S. gross domestic product rose 3.7% in the second quarter — much greater than the previous estimate of 2.3%, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The increase in real GDP reflected positive contributions from pers...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 27, 2015

Third Point Hedge Fund Settles Antitrust Case

In a case that has sparked a debate over regulation of activist investors, New York hedge fund Third Point has settled charges it failed to seek antitrust clearance before acquiring shares in Yahoo nearly four years ago.The charges alleging violations of the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act were broug...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 25, 2015

Excel Tip: Fast Stepping

User Problem: Why doesn’t Excel offer horizontal subtotals (see Figure1, below)?Solution: This is a great question. I had several people write in to say that they regularlyused the following method to add horizontal subtotals. Although it is a lot of steps, if you use shortcut keys, it is actuall...

By Bill Jelen • Aug. 25, 2015

Apple’s CEO Cook May Be in Hot Water for Email

Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook may have violated federal disclosure rules when he privately emailed a mid-quarter update to CNBC’s Jim Cramer, according to a MarketWatch article Monday.In the email, the text of which was posted on MarketWatch, Cook wrote that iPhone activations have accelerated...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 25, 2015

Companies and Employment: Who’s the Boss?

Company A hires company B to hire employees for a project. These employees work for company B, but do they also work for company A? If they are upset with the terms of their employment can they go after company A with pickets, boycotts, and protests? Does A have any direct obligations to these em...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 25, 2015

Inflation In First Half of 2015 Lower Than Reported

Reported inflation was probably overstated so far this year, but “residual seasonality” likely won’t cause the Federal Reserve to begin raising interest rates prematurely, so say researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.Because of residual seasonality — insufficient adjustment of ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 24, 2015

Being ‘Intensely’ Data Driven Is Not for Everyone

Let me start with a confession. I am and always have been a workaholic. I was even profiled once on a TV program about workaholics. I spent sixteen years at one of the (now four, then eight) big professional services firms — one of 2,000 partners among 100,000 employees — where everyone was very ...

By John Parkinson • Aug. 24, 2015

FTC Can Sue Wyndham For Cyber Breach: Court

Wyndham Hotels and Resorts on Monday lost its bid to stop the Federal Trade Commission from suing the hotelier for allegedly failing to secure its computers from Russian hackers, according to Bloomberg.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia denied Wyndham’s motion to dism...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Aug. 24, 2015