Adobe’s Mark Garrett: Finance Pros Must Expand Skill Sets

Digital transformation is disrupting company strategy and performance across industries, and with it the way internal organizations support a company’s growth agenda. While having a strong financial grounding is more essential than ever for finance professionals, it’s no longer enough.Adobe CFO M...

By Mark Garrett • Feb. 27, 2017

Social Media Posts Can Sink Deals

People have been warned and warned over the past decade-plus: Be careful what you post on social media. Yet social sites are saturated with compromising posts, and a surprising number of them are made by businesspeople with a lot of money staked on their reputations.A clueless poster may, of cour...

By David McCann • Feb. 24, 2017

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

Many Companies Taking a Pass on Buying Cyber Insurance

A September 2016 survey by the Risk and Insurance Management Society found that 80% of companies surveyed bought a stand-alone cybersecurity policy in 2016. The takeaway, according to RIMS, was that policies covering cyber exposures exclusively are now the norm for many large companies. In fact, ...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 23, 2017

U.S. Data Breaches Hit All-Time High

The number of reported U.S. data breaches hit an all-time high in 2016, thanks in part to new CEO phishing hacks that send phony emails to employees requesting sensitive business data.Researchers from the Identity Theft Resource Center and data-security provider CyberScout scoured federal and sta...

By Sean Allocca • Feb. 22, 2017

Koch Completes Acquisition of Infor Stake

The private investment arm of Koch Industries, the industrial conglomerate of the billionaire Koch brothers, has completed its $2.5 billion acquisition of a large stake in business software provider Infor Inc.The investment by Koch Equity Development LLC is intended to boost Infor’s financial mus...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 22, 2017

Raising the Minimum Wage Makes Economic Sense

Businesses depend on customers who can afford to buy what they are selling. When millions of workers can’t make ends meet because their wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living, it hurts business and it hurts the economy.Holly Sklar Minimum wageThe minimum wage sets the floor under worker pa...

By Holly Sklar • Feb. 17, 2017

$5.6B Charge Dims AIG Turnaround Hopes

AIG posted a larger-than-expected quarterly loss as the insurance giant booked a $5.6 billion reserve charge to cover possible future claims, casting doubt on its turnaround efforts.For the fourth quarter, AIG had a net loss of $3.04 billion, or $2.96 per share, compared to a loss of $1.84 billio...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 16, 2017

U.S. Producer Prices Surge 0.6% in January

Prices paid by U.S. businesses for goods and services posted their largest gain in more than four years last month but the strength of the dollar may limit any spillover to consumer inflation.The Labor Department said its producer price index jumped 0.6% on a seasonally adjusted basis in January....

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 15, 2017

$6 Billion Writedown Adds to Toshiba Turmoil

The turmoil at Toshiba intensified Tuesday as the conglomerate projected a $6.3 billion writedown, wiping out shareholder equity, and said its chairman had resigned.Toshiba also delayed its earnings report because of allegations of impropriety, sending its shares down 8% in Tokyo trading. The num...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 14, 2017

Master of All Metrics

In the quaint days of old, managing a business entailed studying last quarter’s revenues and expenses, taking the pulse of market demand, and conjecturing a forecast with fingers crossed. Do this today and you’d be laughed out of the boardroom.Companies now plot their future on more than just fin...

By Russ Banham • Feb. 3, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Feb. 3

The Charles Schwab Corp. has promoted Peter Crawford to finance chief, effective May 16. He takes over for Joseph Martinetto, who will remain senior executive vice president. Crawford joined the firm in 2001 and was named executive vice president of finance in 2015.ToniAnn Sanzone Chip Molloy, to...

By Joan Urdang • Feb. 3, 2017

Exposure to Wage-and-Hour Class Actions Heightens

The dollar volume of settlements of class-action litigation against U.S. companies over employee-compensation practices soared in 2016 for a second year in a row, and 2017 is likely to bring more of the same, according to national law firm Seyfarth Shaw.The value of settlements in so-called “wage...

By David McCann • Feb. 1, 2017

CFO Brings ‘New Thinking’ to Private Equity Portfolio Firm

Just hired for the fourth time to be the CFO of a private equity-owned portfolio company, Andy Goldstein’s mission is to guide his new employer through its next stage of growth.Andy Goldstein Private equityThe 13-year-old company, Purch (formerly TechMediaNetwork), is “not a startup anymore” and ...

By David McCann • Jan. 31, 2017

Tempur Sealy Stock Tumbles on Contract News

Tempur Sealy said its brands would no longer be sold at Mattress Firm stores because of a contract dispute, sending its stock tumbling to the lowest closing price in more than three years.The shares fell closed down 28% at $45.49 on Monday after Tempur Sealy announced the terminations of its agre...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 30, 2017

Toshiba to Sell Stake in Memory Chip Business

Toshiba said Friday it would sell part of its semiconductor business as it seeks to shore up its finances ahead of an imminent multi-billion dollar writedown related to its U.S. nuclear business.The Japanese conglomerate was already reeling from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal when it announced...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 27, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Jan. 27

Robert Langer has been chosen to fill the top finance spot at Disney/ABC Television Group. He succeeds Peter Seymour, who announced in November that he would step down. Most recently, Langer was country manager for The Walt Disney Co. in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.Robert Langer Real estate...

By Joan Urdang • Jan. 27, 2017

How Hard Is It to Achieve Target Incentive Payouts?

If you’re a top executive at a very large company that offers performance-based bonuses and you don’t get one, you’re part of an unfortunate, small minority.Compensation Advisory Partners examined incentive payouts from 2010 through 2015 by 100 publicly held companies — each with at least $18 bil...

By David McCann • Jan. 24, 2017

Oil Shipper and Its Former CFO Fined for Understating Tax

Overseas Shipholding Group has agreed to pay $5 million to settle charges that the oil shipper and its former CFO failed to account for more than $500 million in tax liabilities arising from a foreign subsidiary’s guarantees of credit agreements.According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commi...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 24, 2017

The CFO-CIO Relationship: Bridging the Gap

Imagine the start of a meeting between a company’s CIO and CFO. They sit silently across the conference table from each other, like two prizefighters squaring off. What is each of them thinking?[The CIO]: So, what’s my play here? I need funding for new digital projects, but the CFO is going to st...

By Bryan Mueller • Jan. 23, 2017

Ford to Take $3 Billion Pretax Charge in 2016

Ford Motor said Friday it expects to take a $3 billion pretax charge to its fourth-quarter earnings due to the change in pension accounting it made a year ago.On an after-tax basis, Ford said, the remeasurement loss will reduce its full-year net income by about $2 billion in 2016.The automaker la...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 20, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Jan. 20

Fareed Khan will join Kellogg on Feb. 17 and will become CFO and principal financial officer the day after it files its Form 10-K. Khan, who takes over for finance chief Ron Dissinger, most recently headed finance at US Foods Holding Corp., where he will be replaced by senior vice president, fina...

By Joan Urdang • Jan. 20, 2017

Treasurer Charged with Hedge Accounting Violations

Seattle-based financial services company HomeStreet  has agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty to settle charges that it conducted improper hedge accounting and later took steps to prevent employees from blowing the whistle on the company.HomeStreet’s treasurer, Darrell van Amen, agreed to pay a $20,0...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 20, 2017

SEC Fines GM $1M Over Accounting for Recall

General Motors has agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges that it failed to properly assess the potential impact on its financial statements of a defective ignition switch found in some vehicles.According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a flaw in GM’s internal accounting contr...

By Matthew Heller • Jan. 19, 2017

My 2017 Tech Watchpoints

In my previous column, I outlined how I think about organizing the research we do for clients — aimed at seeing past the obvious trends to detect the “weak signals” that indicate that something unexpected might be going on. Here’s what I am watching for in 2017 and beyond.Everything (except peopl...

By John Parkinson • Jan. 12, 2017

Will Automation Take Over Senior Finance Jobs?

Could the roles of senior finance executives grow obsolete, replaced by a robot or other technology? Some of them apparently think so, according to a poll by the New York chapter of Financial Executives International.In the poll of 83 finance executives, 10% said they believed that some senior fi...

By David McCann • Jan. 11, 2017