Best Practices in Investor Relations

As the investor relations function has grown more strategic and complex, IR professionals are seeking ways to measure how well they’re doing.On one hand, potential yardsticks abound for measuring overall IR success: stock price, the shareholder mix, analyst ratings, and financial metrics such as ...

By Kara Newman • Sept. 18, 2003

Former Enron Executive Pleads Guilty, Faces Prison

For the first time, a former Enron executive implicated in the scandal that toppled the energy-trading company is facing prison.Former treasurer Ben Glisan on Wednesday pled guilty to a single count of criminal conspiracy and was immediately sentenced to five years in a federal minimum-security p...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 11, 2003

Fastow, Co-defendants to Be Tried Separately

It looks like Andrew Fastow is going solo.The indicted former Enron chief financial officer will not be tried with his two co-defendants, according to an order issued late Thursday by a Houston judge and reported by the Houston Chronicle.United States District Judge Kenneth Hoyt scheduled Fastow’...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 8, 2003

What’s the Word on Andrew Fastow?

The Houston Chronicle has called on a local court to make public its criminal case against three former Enron executives, including former chief financial officer Andrew Fastow.On Tuesday the newspaper asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order Houston-based U.S. District Judge Kenneth ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 4, 2003

Sticker Shock

Bill Teuber prickles a bit at the notion that the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley legislation has forced major reforms within EMC Corp. “I think about internal controls all the time; I didn’t need the law to get me to think about them,” says the CFO of the $5.4 billion information-storage giant. For the ...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2003

Bring Me Your Powerless Masses

What is the greatest technological advance of the past 100 years? That was the question considered recently by America’s National Academy of Engineering. Some said the light bulb or the television; others the telephone, the computer or perhaps the internet. In fact, the experts picked an achievem...

By Economist Staff • Aug. 22, 2003

You Have the Right to an Attorney

Signing off on a company’s financial results is one more good reason that CFOs might seek out the sage advice of corporate counsel. Whether they will feel comfortable enough to ask for that advice is another matter.Under a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that went into effect August 5, in...

By Craig Schneider • Aug. 20, 2003

Riding That Chain

Here’s something that Liam Casey knows about logistics in China that you probably don’t. The People’s Republic is the only country in the world where customs officials want to know precisely the quantity of raw materials used in that component you are trying to export. Manufacturers on the mainla...

By Arthur Clennam • Aug. 7, 2003

Fiduciaries Face Rising Insurance Costs

It’s becoming very expensive to serve as a fiduciary in this brave new world of Sarbanes-Oxley.Insurance premiums for certain lines of fiduciary liability coverage have surged as much as 500 percent, according to the most recent RIMS Benchmark Survey.Fiduciary liability insurance includes coverag...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 5, 2003

PCAOB Can’t Bark, Suggests Crafty Way to Bite

Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) cannot publicly reveal problems it uncovers at an accounting firm if the firm fixes the problems within 12 months. To say the least, this is not a popular feature among investors who want to know about sloppy audi...

By Stephen Taub and Craig Schneider • Aug. 4, 2003

Who Rules Accounting?

Dennis Beresford is having flashbacks these days, and they are anything but pleasant. Congress is once again trying to derail the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s efforts to require companies to expense stock options. And for the former FASB chairman, the lawmakers’ moves are a painful remi...

By Craig Schneider • Aug. 1, 2003

SEC Study Endorses Principles-Based Accounting

The Securities and Exchange Commission has prepared a staff study that supports the adoption of a principles-based accounting system. This approach relies more on broadly applied principles and less on specific, detailed rules.The SEC staff study, prepared by the Office of the Chief Accountant an...

By Stephen Taub • July 29, 2003

FCC Rule on Media Ownership Blocked by House

Coming to C-SPAN this summer: a new version of reality TV. Last week lawmakers approved a bill — in the face of a veto threat from the Bush Administration — that would block a new Federal Communications Commission rule allowing broadcast companies to own television stations that reach a greater p...

By Craig Schneider • July 28, 2003

Proxy Battle Shaping Up — at the SEC

Last week, staff members of the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a report recommending that the agency change its proxy process to aid shareholders with nominating and electing board directors.The report recommends that the commission require companies to make greater disclosure of the n...

By Craig Schneider and Alix Stuart • July 21, 2003

Little Spending on Security, Survey Says

It’s been less than two years since terrorists launched a series of devastating attacks on U.S. soil. But it looks like 9/11 is already a distant memory for many corporate executives.According to a new study released by The Conference Board, most companies are only spending modest sums on securit...

By Stephen Taub • July 14, 2003

House Panel Approves Bill to Boost SEC

A bill to strengthen the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement powers is one step closer to becoming law. But some critics say the proposal will trample on the power of state regulators.On Thursday, the House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee approved H.R. 2179, the Secur...

By Stephen Taub and Craig Schneider • July 14, 2003

Tax Cut Benefits: Fuzzy

The Bush Administration is hoping that the third- largest tax cut in U.S. history, signed into law in May, will charm the economy out of its current funk. The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 will slice taxes by $330 billion and provide $20 billion in aid to states.While many...

By Marie Leone and Kris Frieswick • July 7, 2003

Insurers to Blame for Insurance Hikes, Survey Suggests

Memo to CFOs on Independence Day: Think about self-insuring more risk—and giving your insurers the boot.Property-casualty insurers haven’t shown a whole lot of client-centeredness in recent years, that’s for sure. Take the issue of the premium hikes many corporations have been enduring.But financ...

By David Katz • July 3, 2003

What Price Security?

When it comes to thwarting terrorism, only a handful of companies have had to worry about controversial big-ticket items like intrusion-detection equipment for chemical plants or antimissile defenses for airliners, which some lawmakers want to mandate. For the rest of Corporate America, aggressiv...

By Roy Harris • July 1, 2003

Age Discrimination Snags Lurking in Pension Rules

When the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service released proposed regulations last year that would make it easier to convert to cash-balance plans, pension plan sponsors breathed a sigh of relief — until they read the fine print. The new rules, it turns out, could actually make it h...

By Kris Frieswick • June 30, 2003

Learn Ethics in Your Spare Time

The indictment of domestic doyenne and media mogul Martha Stewart” seems to have revitalized boardroom and water cooler debates about insider trading. In fact, there’s anecdotal evidence that board members, executives, and workers have been craving a clear definition of insider trading, as well a...

By Marie Leone • June 23, 2003

DOA: Derivatives Oversight Agency

The shakeup at Freddie Mac” last week underscored a problem that many observers say should have been resolved in 1994: derivatives remain a risky — and unregulated — financial instrument.Certainly, over the past ten years, the U.S. financial landscape has been littered with the broken remains of ...

By Marie Leone • June 16, 2003

File Under ‘Nightmare’

Not long ago, the topics of data retention and records management elicited yawns from senior executives. After all, the storing of old documents and E-mails hardly seemed like a strategic imperative. But if those executives are yawning now, it’s not from boredom but from being up all night worryi...

By Bob Violino • June 16, 2003

Stock Option Standoff

It may be time for FASB to write its own Declaration of Independence — from Congress.Last week, Financial Accounting Standards Board Chairman Robert Herz urged legislators to stop interfering in its independent standard-setting process. That urging came at a House subcommittee hearing on the expe...

By Craig Schneider • June 9, 2003

CFOs: Risk Magnets

A few weeks before every quarterly close, John Adamovich receives 225 representation letters from 75 reporting locations in 30 countries. The letters come to Adamovich, the CFO of Pall Corp., from three sources: in-country general managers and controllers, operations committee members that have o...

By Marie Leone • June 4, 2003