Human Capital: Page 154

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    Retiree Health Benefits Keep Shrinking

    Do retiree health benefits belong on the endangered list?It’s starting to seem that way, judging by a survey of 333 companies with 1,000 or more employees conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates.In 2004, according to survey respondents, 8 percent of companies eliminated su...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 15, 2004
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    Audit Regulator’s Budget in Doubt

    The Securities and Exchange Commission may reject the budget for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), in part because the new agency is seeking relatively big salaries for its top people, Bloomberg reported. The PCAOB is charged with overseeing the auditing profession.The $153 m...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 13, 2004
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    The Cost of Loyalty

    For Merck & Co., one trigger was the withdrawal of Vioxx from the market. For Marsh & McLennan Cos., it was news that New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had launched an investigation into alleged bid-rigging. And for Delta Air Lines Inc., it was simply investors’ belief that ma...

    By Lori Calabro • Dec. 13, 2004
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    Read Blue’s Lips: No New Pensions

    In a move that could potentially rock the shrinking world of defined-benefit pension plans, beginning in 2005 International Business Machines Corp. will no longer offer its pension plan to new employees.New hires at IBM will instead be offered an expanded version of Big Blue’s 401(k) plan. The cu...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 10, 2004
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    CFOs on the Move

    • GNC Corp. promoted senior vice president of finance and corporate controller Curtis J. Larrimer, a 25-year veteran of the company, to the position of senior vice president and chief financial officer. Larrimer succeeds and reports to David R. Heilman, who has been named chief administrative off...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 10, 2004
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    Layoffs Surged for Past Three Months: Report

    Are mass layoffs coming back to 2002 levels?Perhaps. Consider that on Tuesday, Colgate-Palmolive Co. announced a four-year restructuring that will include a reduction of 12 percent of its workforce, or about 4,400 jobs.What’s more, General Motors Corp. said last week that it would lay off about 9...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 8, 2004
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    Options Grants Probed at Chip Maker

    Analog Devices Inc. said the SEC has launched an inquiry of the company’s granting of stock options to officers and directors over the last five years .The maker of analog microchips said in a regulatory filing that it believes other companies have received similar inquiries.The company, which sa...

    By Stephen Taub • Dec. 3, 2004
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    CFOs on the Move

    • Christopher M. O’Meara, formerly controller of Lehman Brothers Inc., was promoted to chief financial officer of the global investment bank. He succeeds and reports to Dave Goldfarb, who has been named chief administrative officer. O’Meara joined Lehman in 1994; his other roles have included CFO...

    By Lisa Yoon • Dec. 3, 2004
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    What Will Judy Do?

    Long considered a strong candidate to be the next CEO of Merck & Co., CFO Judy Lewent now finds herself in a tenuous position. Like Merck’s stock price, Lewent’s stock with the company’s investors has plummeted since September 30, when the pharmaceutical giant pulled its arthritis drug Vioxx ...

    By Kate O'Sullivan • Dec. 3, 2004
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    Programmer, Reprogrammed

    This past September at a hotel in Atlanta, some 20 senior IT managers in industries ranging from agriculture to retail to high tech attended the first in a series of invitation-only “MBA for IT” seminars sponsored by Blazent Inc., a San Mateo, California-based software vendor.Throughout the day, ...

    By Gay Jervey • Dec. 1, 2004
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    Merck Shields Execs with Severance Plan

    Do Merck & Co. officials fear a hostile takeover?It seems so, given the terms of the severance arrangement it announced Monday for 230 executives. The new plan covers members of the management committee and vice president-level managers. The participants would receive the severance benefits i...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 30, 2004
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    401(k) Plans Losing Retirement Race

    Employees with 401(k) plans are unlikely to do nearly as well in a bear market as employees with traditional pension plans, according to a study. The portfolios of employer-funded defined-benefit (DB) plans performed better than the mostly employee-funded, defined contribution (DC) plans in 2000,...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 29, 2004
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    A Buyer’s Job Market

    Back in the merger mania of the 1990s, companies bought and sold workforces as much as they scooped up or divested tangible assets. In their haste to expand, acquirers coveted personnel — especially executive talent and technical personnel — as much if not more than property, plants, or equipment...

    By Lori Calabro • Nov. 24, 2004
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    Continental’s Kellner Shares in Pay Cut

    Citing losses since 2001 and expected losses of hundreds of millions of dollars in 2004, Continental Airlines reported that it will cut $500 million in payroll and benefits costs next year. The airline’s reductions, which will take effect Feb. 28, are in addition to $1.1 billion in annual cost s...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 22, 2004
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    Far Eastern Promise

    A dearth of local candidates for senior finance posts in China spells big opportunities for foreign nationals. That’s one of the conclusions of a new groundbreaking survey of over 300 Chinese companies from CFO China, a sister publication of CFO.com.Ten years ago, there was a dire shortage of fin...

    By Yang Jian • Nov. 22, 2004
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    In the Journals: Building Bench Strength

    “Many companies face a 40 to 50 percent attrition of their senior executive teams over the next five years,” writes consultant John Beeson in Business Horizons magazine. Moreover, according to a report by the Conference Board, the number of Americans ages 35 to 44 — a demographic pool that could ...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 19, 2004
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    Partial Retirement, Partial Pension

    The Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service have proposed regulations that would allow older workers with defined-benefit pension plans to cut back on their hours while beginning to receive part of their pension.Today, workers typically can retire at age 65 and receive a full ...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 18, 2004
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    The Ghost of Holiday Bonuses Past

    Waiting for a holiday gift from your employer? Bah, humbug!This year, 63 percent of U.S. companies aren’t planning a year-end bonus for the rank and file, according to a new survey by Hewitt Associates.Not that Corporate America has become a collective Scrooge — at least, not lately. Rather, this...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 18, 2004
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    PBGC Chief to CFOs: Mind Your Liability

    Bradley Belt, the executive director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., is facing a complex series of problems, not the least of them the $23.3 billion deficit that the nation’s pension insurer revealed in releasing its financials on Monday. But he has one simple message for the CFOs of compa...

    By David Katz • Nov. 18, 2004
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    GM Predicts Rising Heath-Care Costs

    Officials at General Motors Corp. expects retiree health care costs to rise next year.In its quarterly regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the world’s largest car maker predicted that health-care costs will rise by at least 10 percent in 2005. The filing also said the G...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 15, 2004
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    Do As I Do

    An awful lot of attention has been paid lately to “tone at the top.” In September, in his censure of the former CEO, CFO, and president of Freddie Mac, a federal judge claimed the trio had set “an inappropriate tone at the top.” The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is currently auditing ...

    By Kate O'Sullivan • Nov. 15, 2004
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    IRS Audits BofA Retirement Plans

    The Internal Revenue Service is auditing the 1998 and 1999 tax returns of Bank of America’s pension and 401(k) plans.The audit, which was revealed earlier this week in the bank’s quarterly filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, includes a review of participants’ voluntary transfers ...

    By Stephen Taub • Nov. 12, 2004
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    CFOs on the Move

    • Verizon Wireless named John Townsend vice president and chief financial officer effective January 2005. The telecom company is a joint venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group. Townsend has been CFO of Vodafone’s Europolitan Holdings AB in Sweden, and Vodafone Australia, as well as ...

    By Lisa Yoon • Nov. 12, 2004
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    Leaves of a Different Color

    As goes California, so goes the nation. At least that is the case with a new paid family leave law that went into effect on July 1. Now 27 other states are considering similar options. The problem for employers: the rules all promise to be different.California’s law, which was first enacted in 20...

    By Lori Calabro • Nov. 12, 2004
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    Great Expectations

    Ever since the 1940s, when CFO J. Edward Lundy helped restore Ford Motor Co. to profitability, training and mentorship have been as much a part of the carmaker’s financial strategy as number-crunching and analysis. The legendary Lundy “established the pattern we still have today,” says Paul Beer,...

    By Alix Stuart • Nov. 12, 2004