Do CFOs Understand Property Insurance?

At a recent session on disaster recovery that attracted several dozen CFOs, an official of a major insurance broker implied strongly at the beginning of his address that the audience didn’t understand certain aspects of property insurance very well.Judging by the attendees’ reactions to several o...

By David McCann • May 21, 2015

BHP Billiton Fined $25M Over Olympics Junkets

Mining giant BHP Billiton has agreed to pay $25 million to settle charges that it failed to properly monitor a program that paid for dozens of foreign government officials to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.Announcing the fine, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday...

By Matthew Heller • May 20, 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

How to Root Out Knowledge Workers’ Waste

Aficionados of gangster films know that the “Vig” is the percentage that bookmakers, casinos, and loan sharks take off the top of all money that changes hands. If the Vig — short for vigorish, the Russian word for winnings — is pointed out to gamblers, they shrug it off as an unavoidable expense ...

By William Heitman • May 20, 2015

Tech Giants Pressure Obama Over Data Encryption

A high-stakes battle over data privacy intensified Tuesday as technology companies including Apple and Google lobbied President Barack Obama to reject any law enforcement proposal that weakens the encryption of customer data.As The Washington Post reports, senior law enforcement officials includi...

By Matthew Heller • May 19, 2015

CFOs Collaborating More with Their CIOs

Chief financial officers are increasingly collaborating with their chief information officers to manage cybersecurity, establish IT strategies and processes, transition to a digital IT function, and create an analytics-driven organization, according to Ernst & Young’s global survey of 652 CFO...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 19, 2015

Housing Starts Surged in April

Housing starts surged in April, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, to their highest level since November 2007, and their percentage increase month-on-month was the largest since February 1991.Privately-owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.14 million, 20....

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 19, 2015

High Court Sides With Workers in ERISA Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed pension plan participants a victory by making it easier for them to sue plan sponsors for imprudently managing investments.Lower courts had ruled that claims of Edison International employees who sued their 401(k) plan administrator for breach of fiduciary ...

By Matthew Heller • May 19, 2015

Improving Economy Boosting Finance Execs’ Pay

Financial executives of both public and private companies are continuing to get higher salaries as the economy improves, according to an annual survey released Monday by Grant Thornton LLP and Financial Executives Research Foundation.The average salary increase for financial executives at private...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 18, 2015

Pension Reforms Worsening Income Gap

Pension reforms including the conversion of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans into defined-contribution (DC) plans are increasing the gap between rich and poor, according to a report by the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems.The report identifies the conversion trend as a ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 18, 2015

Economists Lower Q2 Growth Forecast to 2.5%

Economists aren’t expecting much of a rebound in U.S. economic growth in 2015 after a shaky start to the year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.In its second-quarter survey of economists, the Philly Fed said forecasters predict real GDP will grow at an annual rate of 2.5% thi...

By Matthew Heller • May 18, 2015

Lyft Picks Up $100M Investment From Carl Icahn

Lyft was riding high Friday, announcing it had raised $150 million in capital, with $100 million coming from billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn.Icahn’s investment follows an earlier $530 million round of funding in March led by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten that valued the ride-sharing ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 15, 2015

CFO, Son Accused of $1M Insider-Trading Scheme

The CFO of a technology firm and his investment banker son have been charged with making more than $1 million in illicit profits from a serial insider-trading scheme that allegedly used coded e-mails disguised as discussions about golf.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said in a civil c...

By Matthew Heller • May 15, 2015

Oil Prices Fuel Stagnant U.S. Manufacturing Output

Manufacturing output was unexpectedly flat in April due to lower oil and gas prices and the stronger dollar, the Federal Reserve announced Friday.The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists called for a 0.2% increase.“The manufacturing picture is really pretty flat,” 4Cast senior e...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 15, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 15

Amway has chosen Mark Stevens to fill the top finance spot. He takes over for Mike Cazer, who was named chief operating officer last year. Formerly, Stevens was vice president of worldwide sales at Apple.Deborah O’Connor has been appointed to lead the finance function at True Value, replacing Dav...

By Joan Urdang • May 15, 2015

Personal Finance 101

Most Americans — 59% — say they deserve a grade of A or B for their knowledge of personal finance, according to a March survey of more than 2,000 adults by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. But many people would earn low marks for their financial management practices, the survey indi...

By CFO Editorial Staff • May 15, 2015

Firms Lack ‘Basic Building Blocks’ to Comply with Anti-Fraud Laws

Increased pressure to grow revenues — amid growing geopolitical instability, commodity and currency price volatility, as well as economic sanctions — is pushing companies and their executives toward high-risk behaviors, according to Ernst & Young’s 2015 Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 14, 2015

Wholesale Prices Drop

Wholesale prices dropped in April due to lower oil and gas prices and the stronger dollar.The Labor Dept. Thursday said that its producer price index for final demand fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in April, after moving up 0.2% in March. In addition, on an unadjusted basis, the index for final ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 14, 2015

Lost in Translation

What do the best-performing employees have in common? Among other things, it’s likely they are quick to offer relevant insights and analysis, easy to work with, and mindful of keeping a lid on costs.In other words, those employees share the same characteristics of the technology any finance execu...

By Josh Hyatt and David W. Owens • May 14, 2015

Walmart’s Next Move

If any company has a proven formula for success, it’s Walmart. The Bentonville, Ark.-based behemoth is the world’s largest retailer, with nearly half a trillion dollars in annual sales and 2.2 million employees conducting business in 27 countries. Through its more than 11,000 stores and Sam’s Clu...

By Edward Teach • May 14, 2015

Workers Want More Retirement Help From Employers

Employees want their employers to take a more active role in their retirement plans but employers are reluctant to do so, primarily because of fiduciary concerns, according to Northern Trust.In a survey of more than 1,000 participants in 401(k) and other defined contribution (DC) plans, the finan...

By Matthew Heller • May 13, 2015

Cybercrime Costs to Soar to $2T By 2019

Cybercrime will cost businesses over $2 trillion by 2019, almost four times the estimated cost of security breaches this year, according to a report by Juniper Research.Most breaches will target existing information technology and network infrastructure, the U.K. research and analytics firm said....

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 13, 2015

U.S. Retail Sales Continue Weak in April

The U.S. Commerce Department  on Wednesday reported that U.S. retail sales in April totaled $436.8 billion, virtually unchanged from March, but 0.9% above April 2014.Economists had predicted that sales would rise 0.2% in April, according to Reuters. The weaker number suggests consumers likely are...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 13, 2015

Payments on the Go

Change in the payments industry is almost literally afoot, as new technologies make it easier and safer for customers to purchase goods and services with their smartphones or tablet computers. The total value of global payments via mobile devices in 2014 was $507 billion, up nearly 40% from the p...

By Bob Violino • May 13, 2015

Nomura, RBS Facing $800M Penalty in Securities Fraud Case

Nomura Holdings and Royal Bank of Scotland Group could be facing a judgment of more than $805 million after a New York judge ruled they made false statements about the loans underlying securities they sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.U.S. District Judge Denise M. Cote’s decision concluded a ben...

By Matthew Heller • May 12, 2015

Small Business Optimism Up

The National Federation of Independent Business Tuesday said that its Small Business Optimism Index rose 1.7 points from March to 96.9, “a decent month-over-month reading but overall still below the historical average.”“Overall, the index remains steady, but it is still a few points below the ave...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • May 12, 2015