Human Capital: Page 167

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    Needed: $36 Billion in Pension Contributions

    Underfunded defined-benefit pension plans sponsored by Standard & Poor’s 500 companies could require a boost of about $36 billion in the next 16 months.This according to a study of defined-benefit plan disclosures in the 10-K filings of the constituent companies of the S&P index. The rese...

    By David Katz • June 11, 2003
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    Balancing Cash-Balance Plans

    Much to the chagrin of some big employers, the Financial Accounting Standards Board has agreed to look again at a proposal made by its Emerging Issues Task Force (EITF). The proposal would change the way cash-balance pension plans are valued, according to Reuters.Cash-balance plans, which are bac...

    By David Katz • June 2, 2003
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    Coming Clean

    Few companies commanded greater trust or respect. In business for well over a century, and with a reputation built on a bedrock of Swiss impartiality, by the 1990s Société Général de Surveillance (SGS) had become easily the world’s largest cargo inspection company. Governments and companies the w...

    By Justin Wood • June 1, 2003
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    Split Personality

    In the wake of the spectacular bankruptcies of Enron, United Airlines, and Polaroid, employee stock ownership plans have come under intense media scrutiny during the past year. The staggering losses of employees’ retirement savings have prompted pundits to predict the demise of ESOPs, and politic...

    By Kris Frieswick • June 1, 2003
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    Big Dig to Baghdad?

    Andrew Natsios walked into a fiscal nightmare when he left his job as Secretary for Administration and Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to take the helm at the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, aka the Big Dig. But the Big Dig now looks like the farm team for his new gig — administrator...

    By CFO Editorial Staff • June 1, 2003
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    Survey: Workers May Bolt When Economy Recovers

    A workforce study released this week by human-resource consultancy Towers Perrin offers good news and bad news for employers. Actually, it’s more like pretty good news with a big caveat (admittedly, that doesn’t have the same punch as “good news, bad news”).Anyway, the good news is that according...

    By Lisa Yoon • May 30, 2003
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    Separate but Equal

    Where’s Ally McBeal when you need her?A new study on executive lives may put to rest a question debated since the rise of women’s lib: Can women have it all?Apparently, the answer is yes. The Families and Work Institute, Catalyst, and Boston College looked at 1,200 “very senior” women and men exe...

    By Lisa Yoon and Joan Urdang • May 16, 2003
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    Pension Woes Worrying CFOs, Survey Finds

    Pension shortfalls, pension regulations, and pension accounting are high on CFOs’ lists of concerns these days, according to a new study by global outsourcing and consulting firm Hewitt Associates,More than half of the CFOs and treasurers at the 174 mid-sized to large companies in the survey said...

    By Jennifer Caplan • May 13, 2003
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    The Bigger Picture

    Conventional wisdom has it that specialisation is good. But for someone trying to navigate an increasingly competitive, global economy, manage an increasingly diverse workforce, and serve an increasingly international bunch of customers, what is (increasingly) needed is not just specialised know-...

    By Economist Staff • May 8, 2003
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    A Bad Year for Benefit Costs

    From the point of view of private-sector employers, it’s been a disastrous year for benefit costs.For the year ended March 2003, benefit expenses leaped 6.1 percent, greater than the 4.8 percent jump for the year ending March 2002, according to figures just released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor St...

    By David Katz • May 6, 2003
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    Return of the Company Store

    St. Peter, don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go,I own my soul to the company store.In October 1955, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s recording of Merle Travis’s folk lament, “Sixteen Tons,” was released. The song, which was issued by Capitol Records, painted a bleak picture of Appalachian miners forever in...

    By David Katz • May 6, 2003
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    Ditching the Scarlet Letter

    It used to be that unemployment created a maddening Catch-22: You need a job, but no one will hire you because they wonder why you don’t already have one. But a new survey suggests that the burden of unemployment is easing up.In a poll of 323 recruiters by ExecuNet, a career-management and execut...

    By Lisa Yoon • May 2, 2003
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    Security Blanket

    (Editor’s note: Be sure to check out our interactive401(k) Buyer’s Guide.)The effect of the bear market on 401(k) participants seems clear, at least to plan providers. Employees who once demanded numerous investment alternatives and “advice” services are less sanguine about making their own decis...

    By Roy Harris • May 1, 2003
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    Better Options

    Avery Dennison Corp. sticks to what works — not just in its business, but also in its executive compensation. The adhesive-products company has pointedly not abandoned its stock-option program, despite the recent exodus from options by many other companies. Instead, Avery Dennison adheres to an o...

    By Kris Frieswick • May 1, 2003
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    History as Teacher

    Hillenbrand Industries Inc. CFO Scott K. Sorensen now has some idea of what it’s like to be under fire. And no, that doesn’t mean the Batesville, Ind., company has been hit by shareholder suits or SEC investigations.Sorensen recently visited the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., with his ...

    By CFO Editorial Staff • May 1, 2003
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    Back in the USSR

    In discussing the role of Russians in arts and letters in the late 19th century, Friedrich Nieztche wrote: “In Russia, there is an emigration of intelligence.”A century later, a wholly different Russia saw an influx of intelligence — of the corporate kind, as Western executives went East to join ...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 30, 2003
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    Coming: Souped-Up MBA

    Finance executives looking for ways to jazz up their resumes may want to consider a new degree certification that’s being unveiled next month. MBA graduates who want to earn the spanking-new Certified Masters of Business Administration (CMBA) certification can start testing as early as May 5, 200...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 29, 2003
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    Former CFO Now CEO at American Airlines

    Welcome to the left seat, Gerard ArpeyArpey is the new chief executive of troubled American Airlines. He started at the company as a finance specialist, joining American in 1982 as a financial analyst, working his way up to CFO by 1995. In 2000, he became executive vice president for operations, ...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 28, 2003
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    Happy Gilmour?

    It seems Ford Motor Co.’s Allan Gilmour wants back — into retirement, that is.According to Reuters, the carmaker has been putting out feelers for Gilmour’s replacement for some months now. Gilmour, a Ford veteran, came out of retirement last May to help Ford get back on track.Now he’s saying that...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 24, 2003
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    You’re Not CFO Material

    The numbers are firm, and they’re not encouraging. You may very well be a skillful, seasoned finance manager, but many other people — both inside and outside your company — can say the same. And in every company, there’s room for only one CFO.The first, most important step you can take toward lan...

    By Marie Leone • April 20, 2003
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    Pension Gain Estimates Too High?

    CFOs won’t get the same bottom-line boost from pension fund gain assumptions this year that they got in 2002. That’s because new federal guidelines will force companies to be more conservative about their rosy investment return sceanrios.Starting later this year, regulators will audit the financi...

    By Marie Leone • April 18, 2003
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    Ex-Enterprise Controller Wins Suit

    A jury last week found in favor of former Enterprise Rent-a-Car controller Thomas P. Dunn. As CFO.com reported earlier in the week, Dunn had sued Enterprise for wrongfully terminating him in 2001.In a 9-3 verdict, the jury awarded Dunn $4 million in damages late last Friday. Dunn’s suit charged t...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 17, 2003
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    Trouble Up North: Solly Hit With Two Suits

    Canada may be the Great White North, but things are decidedly not great for the Canadian arm of financial-services giant Salomon Smith Barney Inc.The former finance chief and a bank analyst of Salomon Smith Barney Canada Inc. are both suing the firm for wrongful termination, reports Canada’s Nati...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 16, 2003
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    Back to the Future

    No doubt executives of fallen telecom giant WorldCom have wished certain recent events had never happened. That’s wishful thinking, of course, but they can attempt to start over with a new name and a new finance chief. Hence, the appointment of restructuring specialist Robert Blakely as CFO of MC...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 15, 2003
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    Salary World Turned Upside Down

    If misery loves company, then many CEOs in today’s bad-news economy could pass for extras in Les Miserables. Pay raises for chief executives for 2003, for example, were the lowest in a long time. Moreover, an unprecedented number of CEOs are going without bonuses.But amid this dreary backdrop for...

    By Lisa Yoon • April 14, 2003