Balance Due

Structuring executive compensation is a delicate balancing act that isn’t getting easier. Pay plans have multiple goals — attracting and retaining top talent, motivating performance, and keeping activist shareholders at bay — that are often at odds with each other.Ostensibly, both shareholders an...

By Keith Button • July 26, 2017

J.C. Penney Names New CFO

Jeffrey Davis, former CFO of Darden Restaurants, was named the finance chief of struggling retailer J.C. Penney on Monday.He replaces former CFO Edward Record. Andrew Dexler, who was in the job on an interim basis after Record’s resignation earlier this month, will return to his role as the retai...

By Vincent Ryan • July 25, 2017

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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

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending July 21

Bruce Stanski, president of the government group at engineering and construction firm Fluor Corp. since March 2009, has been promoted to CFO, effective Aug. 4. He replaces Biggs Porter, who announced his retirement in March of this year. Porter will continue with the company as an adviser.Amit Si...

By David McCann • July 21, 2017

Lawyer Accused of Shell Company Stock Fraud

A New York attorney has been charged with making false and misleading statements in corporate filings to conceal the true ownership of a public company he co-founded.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said David Lubin, who was both a director and corporate counsel of Entertainment Art, p...

By Matthew Heller • July 20, 2017

Got Extra IP Addresses? You Can Sell Them

Can there be a “secondary market” for a scarce resource, when that resource was available to its original market for free?It’s merely a question of semantics. Whatever you call it, any company that possesses unused internet addresses — that is, internet protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses — can v...

By David McCann • July 19, 2017

Athenahealth Loses Another CFO

Athenahealth, a cloud-based services provider for health care and point-of-care mobile apps, is looking for a new CFO — again. The publicly held, Watertown, Mass.-based IT firm announced last week that Karl Stubelis, who had been finance chief for a little more than a year, would be leaving the c...

By Vincent Ryan • July 19, 2017

Kroger to Contribute up to $1B to Pension Plan

Kroger disclosed Monday it will contribute up to $1 billion to its pension plan this year, citing “strategic opportunities” such as the current interest rate environment.In a regulatory filing, the nation’s largest grocer said it believes the pension contribution “will significantly address the u...

By Matthew Heller • July 17, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending July 14

Twitter has chosen Ned Segal to lead the finance function, effective late next month. He replaces Anthony Noto, who will continue with the company in the role of chief operating officer, which he’d already been performing in addition to his finance duties. Segal formerly was senior vice president...

By Joan Urdang • July 14, 2017

Do High CEO Pay Ratios Harm Company Value?

If you think a high CEO pay ratio — which compares a chief executive’s compensation to that of the company’s median-paid worker — is an example of social injustice, you’re not alone. But that’s an opinion. Here is a fact: a high CEO pay ratio is associated with strong company stock performance an...

By David McCann • July 11, 2017

‘Bar Works’ Founder Charged with Fraud

A U.K. citizen living in New York, Renwick Haddow, has been charged with fraud over a scheme involving co-working spaces in former bars and restaurants. Haddow allegedly sent more than $4 million from investments in Bar Works to one or more bank accounts he controls in Mauritius, an island nation...

By William Sprouse • July 10, 2017

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending July 7

The Federal Reserve Board has named Ricardo Aguilera CFO and director of the division of financial management. Most recently, he was comptroller and assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management.Carrie Dolan Jason Dubinsky has been chosen to fill the top finance spot at Morningsta...

By Joan Urdang • July 7, 2017

Vantiv Agrees to Worldpay Merger

U.S. credit-card processing company Vantiv and Worldpay Group have reached an agreement on a potential merger worth $9.94 billion, the companies announced on Wednesday.Worldpay is the largest payment processing company in the United Kingdom and was once owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group.C...

By William Sprouse • July 6, 2017

What to Do When Your Boss Sells the Company

At some point in their career, most employees are taken by surprise by a change in their job situation.But when a company is put up for sale, it creates a uniquely challenging situation for CFOs and other senior executives, who may find themselves in the unenviable position of having to ensure th...

By Frank Williamson • July 6, 2017

How to Capture More Value With Price Segmentation

One of the most basic concepts to understand about pricing is that price generally reflects (or should reflect) value. But it’s important to remember that value is not defined from the seller or supplier’s perspective; it’s defined by the customer or buyer. A good is only worth what a buyer is wi...

By Alex Hoff • July 6, 2017

Boeing CFO’s Role Is Substantially Expanded

Boeing announced that its CFO, Greg Smith, will be assuming new, expanded responsibilities ahead of the planned retirement of two senior executives later this year.The company said Smith would begin duties as executive vice president of enterprise performance and strategy, in addition to his CFO ...

By William Sprouse • July 5, 2017

Maersk Back Online After Ransomware Attack

A.P. Moller-Maersk said its information technology systems were back online and it was resuming container deliveries at major ports, a week after it was hit by a major cyberattack, according to Reuters. “Today we can finally reopen our key applications,” the Danish shipping giant said in a statem...

By William Sprouse • July 5, 2017

Disruption Hits the Professional Services Sector

America’s CPA firms reached a quiet, but important inflection point last year. For the first time ever, the number of partners over age 50 declined from the prior year. The total number of partners also decreased. Why should CFOs care? The shift has exposed a clear rift in the professional servic...

By Brian Peccarelli • July 5, 2017

Retiree Health Costs Demand Financial Wellness

The escalating cost of health care continues to be a top financial concern among employees — and there’s plenty of indication that these rising costs are threatening employees’ retirement savings, too.In our 2017 Bank of America Merrill Lynch Workplace Benefits Report, which surveyed more than 1,...

By Kevin Crain • June 30, 2017

Consumer Spending Rises Modestly

U.S. consumer spending rose at a modest rate in May while inflation fell slightly, according to the latest figures from the Commerce Department. In the eyes of some economists, the consumer spending number strengthens the idea that economic activity is slowly but steadily increasing and could lea...

By William Sprouse • June 30, 2017

Plan Sponsors Should Offer Passive Investment Options

One way to help prepare participants for retirement, and thereby reduce employer costs, is to include several different passively managed index funds in their 401(k) investment menus. Unfortunately, it’s an often-overlooked opportunity.The Fed’s suppression of interest rates, which has finally st...

By Kenneth Hoffman • June 29, 2017

Delayed Departure

In early 2014, Hugh O’Toole of retirement plan provider MassMutual felt discouraged—“haunted,” he says—by finance chiefs’ lack of engagement in their companies’ 401(k) plans.When he met with the rare companies that still offered defined-benefit (DB) pension plans, the CFO was typically the most e...

By David McCann • June 29, 2017

Should Looming Tax Reform Drive 401(k) Prefunding?

With the potential for lower corporate tax rates, many employers and their benefits advisers have been focusing on the potential benefits of prefunding retirement contributions in order to secure deductions at the current higher deduction level.To date, the primary tax reform-related consideratio...

By Bruce Bach and Robyn Credico • June 29, 2017

CFOs Saw Higher Salary Increases Than CEOs

Seventy-one percent of chief financial officers received a pay increase in 2016, according to the results of an annual survey from Compensation Advisory Partners. CAP found a median increase in CFO pay of 3% and a median increase in actual total direct compensation (i.e., cash plus equity) for CF...

By William Sprouse • June 29, 2017

Subscription Economy Growth Slows but Remains Robust

The breakneck growth pace of the “subscription economy” moderated somewhat for the six months ended March 31, pulling back to 16.1% growth. For the prior six-month period, which ended last September, the rate was 21.6%.The data is courtesy of Zuora, a provider of billing and financial tools for c...

By David McCann • June 27, 2017

Collaboration Is ‘Magic Ingredient’ for CFOs: SAP Study

What drives company financial performance? It’s a soup with a plethora of ingredients, of course. But key traits possessed by CFOs certainly correlate with revenue growth, according to a new report from SAP and Oxford Economics.SAP, which surveyed 1,500 CFOs from around the world, divided the res...

By David McCann • June 26, 2017