CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 30

Eric Aboaf will join State Street Corp. as executive vice president in December, and will become finance chief in March of next year when current CFO Mike Bell leaves the firm. Most recently, Aboaf headed finance at Citizens Financial Group.Deanna Strable-Soethout Deanna Strable-Soethout has been...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 30, 2016

Retail Investors Highly Confident in U.S. Capital Markets

Despite a turbulent upcoming presidential election, American retail investors have overwhelming confidence in U.S. capital markets, publicly traded companies, and the firms that audit publicly traded companies, according to a new survey from the Center for Audit Quality.The 10th annual “Main Stre...

By Sean Allocca • Sept. 29, 2016

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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

AB InBev Fined $6M in India Bribery Case

Anheuser-Busch InBev has agreed to pay $6 million to settle U.S. charges that it made improper payments to government officials in India to boost its beer business there and chilled a whistleblower who had reported misconduct.After the merger that formed AB InBev in 2008, the company operated in ...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 29, 2016

Musk’s SolarCity Announces New CFO

One of the energy industry’s leading clean energy companies has announced a new CFO. SolarCity said Wednesday that Radford Small will lead the company’s financial operations, after overseeing financial business development and investor relations. As former managing director and COO for the clean ...

By Sean Allocca • Sept. 28, 2016

Don’t Get Financially Stung by the GDPR

On May 25, 2018, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – a massive piece of legislation that will have the effect of becoming a de facto global data protection law — goes into effect. While chief privacy officers are already reaching for the anti-anxiety medication, hopefully they wi...

By Todd Ruback • Sept. 28, 2016

Weatherford Fined $140M for Accounting Fraud

Oil services company Weatherford International has agreed to pay $140 million to settle charges that it inflated earnings by more than $900 million through fraudulent income tax accounting.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said two senior accounting executives — former vice president of...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 27, 2016

A Breach of Trust Can Move You Forward

It is a strategic planning time of year. Your senior leadership team needs your analytical skills tuned in to improving not just capital growth, but the systems underpinning that growth.What happens when the system in need of improvement is behavioral?In June’s issue of CFO, Raj Agrawal, finance ...

By Michelle Reina and Dennis Reina • Sept. 26, 2016

Stock Awards: Fewer Shares, More Value

While more companies are using stock awards as a compensation vehicle, the number of shares granted has declined in recent years as stock prices rise and fewer shares are needed to deliver intended pay levels, according to a new report from compensation research firm Equilar.Among S&P 500 com...

By David McCann • Sept. 23, 2016

Promoter Accused of $2M Shell Company Scam

A stock promoter has been charged with disguising a “supply chain” of blank check companies as promising startups in a scheme that generated $2.7 million in illicit profits.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Sheldon Rose, 77, created more than a dozen shell companies that had no ope...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 22, 2016

Growing Globally From Local Beginnings

For Intuit today, global sales are a small part of overall revenue. But as part of our shift to cloud-based services, the global small business market represents a big growth opportunity over the next decade. We’ve introduced our QuickBooks Online small business accounting software in France and ...

By Neil Williams • Sept. 22, 2016

Microsoft to Spend Up to $40B on Share Buyback

With its shares trading at multi-year highs, Microsoft is using its cash hoard to repurchase up to $40 billion in stock and boost its dividend by 8%.The buyback announced Tuesday comes on top of the current $40 billion buyback plan, which the company said it is on track to complete by Dec. 31. Th...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 21, 2016

Pay at the Pinnacle

As evidenced by the new CEO Pay Ratio Rule, to take effect in 2018, regulators are taking executive compensation seriously — even if investors don’t care much, judging by the results of shareholder “say on pay” votes, which routinely approve of CEO comp packages. Still, how much the boss earns do...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 20, 2016

Marijuana Firm Charged With $12M Stock Scam

The CEO of Fusion Pharm and his brother-in-law have been charged with using about $1.3 million they obtained through illegal stock sales to create phony revenue for the marijuana container company.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Scott Dittman, a former CPA, and his brother-in-law...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 19, 2016

Tonic for Retirement Ills

Finance executives’ efforts to manage benefits risks and costs, while trying to enhance benefits outcomes, will be critical to their companies’ ability to succeed in the future.This is the key finding of a recent CFO Research survey of 180 senior finance executives at U.S. companies with defined ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 19, 2016

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 16

Mark Erceg has been named to lead the finance function at Tiffany & Co., effective Oct. 18. He has been finance chief at Canadian Pacific Railway since May of last year.Lending Club has chosen Thomas Casey to fill the top finance spot. He takes over for interim CFO Brad Coleman, who will stay...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 16, 2016

Rising to the Challenge

CFOs to Watch 2016In most lists of top finance chiefs, the criteria involve looking backward at what the executive has accomplished. At CFO, we take a different tack. Since 90% of a CFO’s job involves looking forward, so do we. That’s why our second annual CFOs to Watch comprises, even more than ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 15, 2016

Robots, Robots Everywhere

In fairly short order, robots have begun taking over in the corporate world. Don’t be alarmed. This is nothing like the feared “singularity,” that prophesied (if dubious) moment when machines become smarter than humans and then, to prove it, commence wiping us out.But robots are indeed infiltrati...

By David McCann • Sept. 15, 2016

Tiffany Appoints Mark Erceg as Finance Chief

Jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. announced Tuesday it had hired former Canadian Pacific Railway executive Mark Erceg as its new CFO, filling a position that had been vacant since May.Erceg’s appointment will become effective on Oct. 18. He stepped down last week as CFO at Canadian Pacific after...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 13, 2016

Getting Up to Speed on the New Lease Accounting Standards

While the deadline for the new lease accounting standards is still a way off, there is a lot of preparation work that needs to take place prior to the new rules going into effect. CFOs need to familiarize themselves with the procedures they will need to update to ensure reporting compliance. Here...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 10, 2016

Evolving Set of Risk Factors Vexes Tech Industry

Five years is a long time in the technology industry, so perhaps it’s not surprising that the risk profiles of major tech firms have changed markedly in that time (see chart below).In fact, some risk factors have become significantly greater concerns rather suddenly. For example, among the fiscal...

By David McCann • Sept. 7, 2016

The Cash-Flow Clash

Pity the poor cash-flow statement. The youngest of the three major corporate financial reports, it’s gotten hardly any of the attention paid by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to income statements and balance sheets.As a result, CFOs are at sea about whether to classify many kinds of cas...

By David Katz • Sept. 7, 2016

Waste-to-Energy CEO Accused of $6M Scam

The chief executive of a waste-to-energy company has been charged with orchestrating a scam that defrauded professional athletes and other investors of at least $6 million, much of which he spent on personal expenses including alimony payments.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Dona...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 6, 2016

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Sept. 2

Applied-solutions firm IDEX has appointed Michael Yates interim CFO, effective Sept. 9. He replaces Heath Mitts, who has resigned. Yates joined the company 11 years ago and has been chief accounting officer since 2010.Anil Goel Anil Goel, CFO of Indian Hotels Co., India’s largest hotel chain, res...

By Joan Urdang • Sept. 2, 2016

Intellectual Capital: The Hidden Talent Metric

Did you know that assets comprising 86% of the market value of Dow Jones Industrial Average companies are not reported in financial statements? Perhaps not, if you think of company value strictly from an accounting standpoint.As the late Roger Sinclair forcefully argued in three articles for CFO,...

By David McCann • Sept. 1, 2016

SEC Calls for Hyperlinks to Exhibits

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday proposed rule and form amendments that would require public filers to include a hyperlink to exhibits in their filings.The proposed amendments would require registrants that file registration statements and periodic and current reports that are ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Sept. 1, 2016