2022 M&A Outlook: Deal Market Expected to Continue Hot Pace

M&A volume likely will be robust this year, driven in part by deals that can be transacted with richly valued equity or cheap debt, say economists and analysts. But at the height of the market, experts advise taking risk mitigation steps during due diligence and deal structuring.The deal mark...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 20, 2022

Is Goodwill Accounting’s Future in the Past?

Portfolio managers and other investment professionals surveyed by the CFA Institute last week would prefer the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) not travel back in time 20 years to attempt to improve the U.S. accounting standard for goodwill.  FASB, however, seems intent on making the j...

By Vincent Ryan • Dec. 15, 2021

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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

AmEx Fires Workers Over Payments Sales Pitches

American Express has disclosed it terminated employees for making improper sales pitches to business customers about the tax benefits of using its wire payment services.According to AmEx, the employees “positioned certain products inappropriately, specifically with respect to tax benefits,” with ...

By Matthew Heller • Nov. 23, 2021

Accounting Profs Decry Corporate Minimum Tax

A group of accounting experts has urged Congress not to use book income as the basis for levying a 15% minimum corporate tax to help pay for President Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation.Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Angus King, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden proposed the tax as an...

By Matthew Heller • Nov. 8, 2021

Cycle Time to Complete the Annual Budget: Metric of the Month

Do you remember the classic holiday song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Andy Williams? Well, if you ask CFOs and business unit managers about their favorite time of year, few, if any, would say budgeting season. In some organizations, the budgeting process can start in June or eve...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Nov. 1, 2021

Senators Propose Corporate Minimum Tax

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Angus King Senate Democrats have proposed levying a 15% minimum tax on large companies’ income to help pay for President Biden’s “Build Back Better” legislation.Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Angus King, Maine Indepedent, and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden offered the t...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 27, 2021

Will the SEC Finally Approve a Tougher Clawback Rule?

During a recent speech, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said he would be pushing his staff to recommend rules for clawing back public company executive pay.The idea that executives — initially, CFOs and CEOs — should return certain kinds of compensation to their publicly-hel...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 7, 2021

SPAC Merger Calendar: Upcoming Votes

The month of October marks a slowdown in SPAC merger deal votes, but the calendar does include several multibillion-dollar deals.SPAC merger votes can act as a catalyst, as it completes the last step in the merger process and also changes the company over to a new name and ticker that can help bu...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 4, 2021

Metric of the Month: Average Tenure of FP&A Employees

Anyone who has participated in the corporate budgeting process knows that it can be an arduous endeavor. Without good collaboration and communication, this process can easily stretch into a lengthy exercise in which participants battle over strategic items like sales targets, capital investments,...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Oct. 4, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending October 1

Dan Durn Adobe named Dan Durn as executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective October 18. Durn joins the software maker from Applied Materials, where he has been CFO since 2017. He was previously executive vice president and CFO at NXP Semiconductors N.V. following its merger w...

By Lauren Muskett • Oct. 1, 2021

CFOs: Time to Reconsider SPAC Deals

More than 400 special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are scouring the private company universe for merger targets. And a few hundred more SPACs have announced merger transactions with target companies but have yet to close.For CFOs at companies looking to go public via this abbreviated rou...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 30, 2021

Claire’s Sees Gen Z Growth in IPO Pitch

Three years after exiting bankruptcy, Claire’s is bringing its concept of fashion jewelry, accessories and ear piercings for the Generation Z market to Wall Street.The specialty retailer disclosed a large loss for its most recent quarter in an IPO prospectus but said it delivers “a differentiated...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 30, 2021

ESG Targets Gain Foothold in Exec Comp Plans

If stakeholders judge companies based on meeting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, it’s natural to tie executive compensation to those goals. After all, environmentally friendly companies may one day attract more and cheaper capital and achieve higher valuations.But there’s a lon...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 27, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending September 17

Denis Coleman Denis Coleman will take over as finance chief of Goldman Sachs on January 1. Coleman joined the bank in 1996 as an analyst in the bank loan group and has served as co-head of the global financing group in the investment banking division since 2018. He is also co-chair of the firmwid...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 17, 2021

The Great Logistics Crunch

Over the past 30 years, the winning formula for U.S. manufacturing firms has been simple: outsource as much production as possible to low-cost centers in Asia and ship the goods across the Pacific.That model had a good run, but the unprecedented supply chain disruption affecting every corner of t...

By Lou Longo • Sept. 16, 2021

Inflation Pressures Forcing CFOs to Take Action

The U.S. Labor Department’s consumer price index stayed in heady territory in August. Prices for the basket of consumer products and energy goods rose 5.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from July. Both of those numbers, though, were one-tenth of a percentage point lower than economists’ projection...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 14, 2021

3 Things CFOs Need to Know About FX Hedging

Preparing for a board meeting can often be tedious and time-consuming.  One of the topics that often receives a lot of attention (or avoidance) is foreign exchange (FX). This is because many consider it complex and “speculative.”  As you walk into that next meeting, your challenge is to demystify...

By Helen Kane • Sept. 13, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending September 10

Stephanie Peng Transcarent appointed Stephanie Peng as CFO. Before joining the health and care platform, Peng was CFO of Teladoc Health U.S., where she was the financial strategist for four businesses with a combined $2 billion in annual revenues. Before that, she was senior vice president of fin...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 10, 2021

Historic Lows in Net Interest Margins Bedevil U.S. Banks

FDIC-insured U.S. banks recorded net income of $70.4 billion in the second quarter, down 8% from the first quarter but more than double the profits of a year ago. Reduced provisions for loan losses drove a large part of the quarter’s income, as credit quality improved. However, loan growth contin...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 8, 2021

Budgeting for Cybersecurity Requires a New Approach

When a country sends its army to war, it does so based on a plan to win, not on fitting a predetermined budget.But when it comes to the virtual cybersecurity battlefield, CFOs too often take the opposite approach, leaving their companies unnecessarily exposed. Their spending on cyber defense is s...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 7, 2021

Kraft Heinz Fined $62M for Accounting Fraud

Kraft Heinz has agreed to pay $62 million to settle charges that its procurement division improperly managed expenses to deliver unrealistic cost savings and inflate profits.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the alleged accounting fraud began after the $49 billion merger that forme...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 3, 2021

Acquirers: Don’t Skimp on Commercial Due Diligence

If you’re an investor making new platform investments or a proactive company making add-on acquisitions, you know that due diligence is critical to the success or failure of the M&A process. For potential investors or acquirers of any kind, the process includes a range of activities, from und...

By Sean Mooney • Aug. 31, 2021

Amplitude Files for Direct Listing on Nasdaq

Data analytics firm Amplitude has filed paperwork for a direct listing that it hopes will benefit from investor enthusiasm for digital optimization.The direct listing on Nasdaq will enable Amplitude’s shares to be publicly traded but it is not seeking to raise capital from the listing. A Series F...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 31, 2021

Help Employees Thrive During Disruption

Mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructurings have a lot of commonalities. For example, restructuring requires working with finite resources by trimming or reorganizing to optimize business performance without sacrificing long-term viability. Similarly, an M&A post-deal integration pr...

By Vanessa Akhtar and Laurin Parthemos • Aug. 30, 2021

Healthcare Services Group Fined Over Accounting

Healthcare Services Group has agreed to pay $6 million to settle charges that its CFO failed to record loss contingencies from legal liabilities to inflate its earnings.According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the accounting violations resulted in HCSG’s earnings being misstated ...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 24, 2021