Goin’ to the Chapel

Since 1982, when the Village Voice offered domestic-partner benefits to its employees, some 41 percent of the Fortune 500, along with thousands of smaller companies, have followed suit, according to the Human Rights Campaign. But in the wake of a recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 26, 2004

Paring HR Costs, Preserving Expertise

Companies looking to reduce their labor costs and older employees looking to reduce their hours seem to have an interest in common. Likewise, companies that hope to preserve the expertise of their most experienced workers share an interest with employees who aren’t ready to stop working altogethe...

By Stephen Taub • March 25, 2004

Bank of America Names Finance Team

Bank of America, which is preparing to close on its acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp., named a new chief financial officer as well as a treasurer.Marc Oken will become CFO, reporting to James Hance, who is relinquishing the CFO title but will continue as vice chairman. Oken, whojoined Ba...

By Stephen Taub • March 24, 2004

Options Figured Big for Many CFOs

Reebok chief financial officer Kenneth Watchmaker may have received a 2003 bonus that was 37 percent smaller than the year before, but he also made nearly $7.8 million from exercising stock options and selling the underlying shares. Altogether, he earned more than $9.1 for the year.Guidant CFO Ke...

By Stephen Taub • March 24, 2004

New Designs for Options Plans

As the Financial Accounting Standards Board moves closer to requiring that companies expense the value of stock options, more and more large businesses are moving away from this form of compensation for their top.In a study by compensation consultancy Pearl Meyer & Partners — which examined 5...

By Stephen Taub • March 23, 2004

Applebee’s CFO Establishes Option Plan

Applebee’s International Inc. announced that chief financial officer Steve Lumpkin has established a plan to manage the exercise and sale of certain non-qualified stock options.Under SEC Rule 10b5-1, employees can adopt written plans to sell shares on a regular basis, regardless of any subsequent...

By Stephen Taub • March 22, 2004

CFOs Pulling in the Big Bucks

Last year chief financial officers and other top executives at financial services companies may have been the highest earners as a group. But a number of finance execs at old-line, industrial companies made some big bucks as well.Stephen Chazen, CFO of Occidental Petroleum, enjoyed a package wort...

By Stephen Taub • March 22, 2004

CFOs on the Move

California Pizza Kitchen Inc. named Susan M. Collyns chief financial officer. She joined the company in 2001 as its controller and was named chief accounting officer in January 2004.City National Corp. announced that chief financial officer Frank Pekny will relinquish his day-to-day responsibilit...

By Stephen Taub • March 19, 2004

Dollar General Settles; CFO Departs

Discount retailer Dollar General announced that it has settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the restatement of its 1998 and 1999 financials and certain unaudited financial information for fiscal year 2000.The company added that chief financial officer James Hagan wi...

By Stephen Taub • March 17, 2004

Nortel Puts CFO, Controller on Leave

Nortel Networks Corp. put its chief financial officer, Douglas Beatty, and its controller, Michael Gollogly, on paid leaves of absence. The suspensions are part of an investigation into the circumstances leading up to the company’s restatement announced in October.Last week the company said it wi...

By Stephen Taub • March 16, 2004

More CFOs Get Rich on Options

Exercised stock options continue to play a big role in the compensation gains of top finance executives, as detailed in proxy filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.For example, last year W. Thomas Forrester, vice president and CFO at insurance company Progressive Corp., earned $5.5 ...

By Stephen Taub • March 15, 2004

CFOs on the Move

Waste Management Inc. named former CFO David Steiner as its new chief executive officer. Steiner succeeds Maurice Myers, who will remain Waste Management’s chairman until November 2004. Prior to serving as finance chief, Steiner was senior vice president and general counsel.Robert Simpson, Waste ...

By Stephen Taub • March 12, 2004

Fly out of That Pigeonhole

Once there was a finance manager who worked hard and consistently met expectations. Eventually he ascended to become a divisional head of financial planning and analysis. As he steadfastly pursued excellence in fulfilling the requirements of his job, the manager became the go-to person whom senio...

By Lisa Yoon • March 12, 2004

Big Paydays for Three CFOs

Last year seems to be stacking up as an excellent one in terms of the compensation of finance chiefs at big-name companies. Merrill Lynch CFO Ahmass Fakahany, for instance, earned about $10 million last year — including roughly $5.3 million bonus and $4.4 million in restricted stock — he is far f...

By Stephen Taub • March 11, 2004

Banks Paying Top Compensation Dollars

It’s becoming increasingly clear that brokerage firms and banks were among the best places to be a top executive in 2003, at least from a compensation standpoint.According to the proxies flying off the printing presses in anticipation of the heavy annual-meeting season, finance and other top exec...

By Stephen Taub • March 9, 2004

NYSE Directors Probed on Grasso’s Pay

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued subpoenas to every New York Stock Exchange director who served during Richard Grasso’s eight years as chairman and chief executive officer, according to The Washington Post.The SEC is investigating how the directors wound up approving three contra...

By Stephen Taub • March 9, 2004

Four Resign over Putnam 401(k) Error

Putnam Investments, the embattled money-management giant, asked four employees, including one senior executive, to resign for not correcting an accounting error that cost a company’s retirement plan $1.5 million, according to USA Today.Putnam failed to immediately invest the entire $1 billion in ...

By Stephen Taub • March 9, 2004

CFOs on the Move

Philip Ryan has resigned as chief financial officer of Credit Suisse Group, effective sometime this summer. He has held the position for 5 of his nearly 20 years with the financial services giant, which credited Ryan for completing its three-year transition to U.S. GAAP as its primary accounting ...

By Stephen Taub • March 5, 2004

The Mint Is Extra

Business travel may be picking up, but some hotels still boost revenues by tacking unexpected and sometimes ludicrous charges onto bills, according to ongoing research by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.Among the charges likely to make travelers flip out at checkout are resort fees ($15-$20), fax char...

By Tim Reason • March 5, 2004

Take-Two Chairman Earnings Top $4.6 Million

The chairman of video-game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., which is facing possible civil charges for its accounting practices, earned more than $4.6 million in 2003.In 2003 Ryan Brant received a salary of $752,884 and a bonus of more than $2.9 million, and he netted more than $1 mi...

By Stephen Taub • March 4, 2004

Alien Nation

With an estimated 8 million to 10 million undocumented workers in the United States, many businesses are hailing President Bush’s recently proposed “temporary-worker program” as a much-needed step in the right direction. The measure would grant temproary legal status for illegal immigrants alread...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 4, 2004

Bear Stearns CFO Earned Nearly $11 Million

Bear, Stearns chief financial officer Samuel Molinaro Jr. took home more than $10.8 million last year.As is the custom at the investment bank, the executive’s salary was just $200,000. However, Molinaro received a bonus of more than $5.3 million, about 25 percent higher than last year. He also re...

By Stephen Taub • March 2, 2004

A Few Good Lawyers

The Securities and Exchange Commission received $30 million less than it requested from Congress this year, putting its new budget of $811.5 million roughly 15 percent above last year’s. Is Congress starving the securities watchdog? Not quite. The real problem is that the agency can’t spend money...

By Alix Stuart • March 2, 2004

Cashing In on Rising Stocks

As proxies fly off the printing presses for the spring annual meeting season, it is becoming very apparent that some top executives took advantage of last year’s stock market rally to cash in on stock options.United Technologies CFO Stephen Page made more than $11.1 million from exercising option...

By Stephen Taub • March 1, 2004

Another Inside Job?

The New York Stock Exchange continued to shake up its executive suite last month, naming Amy Butte executive vice president and finance chief upon Keith Helsby’s retirement in April. Most recently chief strategist and CFO of Credit Suisse First Boston’s financial-services group, the 36-year-old B...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 1, 2004