Hopkins to Join Citigroup

She’s back.Deborah Hopkins, who in 2000 was named the second most powerful woman in American business by Fortunemagazine, has returned to the corporate world, joining Citigroup as head of corporate strategy and a member of the company’s management committee.As you know, Hopkins is noted for shaki...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 18, 2002

O’Neill Shown the Door

Call it the opening salvo in the 2004 Presidential campaign.With U.S. stock markets still floundering — and with a national election only 2 years away — the Bush administration launched a major shakeup of its economic team today, announcing the resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and ...

By John Goff • Dec. 6, 2002

Fire at Former House of Fastow

The Enron saga took a bizarre twist just a day short of the one-year anniversary of the energy company’s historic bankruptcy filing.An unfinished home once owned by former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow was deliberately set on fire early Sunday morning. The home, located in a wealthy suburb of Houston, ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 3, 2002

Stock Splits

For years, reverse stock splits have been seen as window dressing, or a desperate attempt by tiny companies to avoid being delisted. But what about the reverse splits now being completed or considered by such companies as AT&T Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., and Palm Inc.?Despite analysts’ d...

By Tim Reason • Dec. 1, 2002

SEC Turmoil

Harvey Pitt may be gone, but what he left undone can’t be forgottenThe perpetually embattled chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission resigned on Election Night after 15 tumultuous months in office. Criticized for being too close to his former Wall Street clients, unable to build consen...

By Lori Calabro • Dec. 1, 2002

Stock Option Hedging

Given the trouble EDS Corp. has incurred from its equity-based hedging program, it’s little wonder such techniques are under fire. In late September, the Plano, Tex.-based company announced that it had to issue $225 million in commercial paper to buy back 3.7 million of its own shares, thanks to ...

By Alix Stuart • Dec. 1, 2002

Cover Me

As restatements go these days, it seemed a pittance. What’s more, the change reported by Westaff, a temporary-staffing company, looked like a positive one. Partly because of tax-law changes in the federal economic stimulus bill enacted in March, the Walnut Creek, California-based company should h...

By David Katz • Dec. 1, 2002

WorldCom Halfway Home

WorldCom took a major step toward emerging from bankruptcy when a federal judge on Tuesday approved a partial settlement in what the Securities and Exchange Commission has deemed the largest corporate fraud in the commission’s 70-year history.The SEC’s case is still open, however, and WorldCom st...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 27, 2002

I Did Nothing Wrong, Says Fastow

Former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow pleaded not guilty to a 78-count indictment that he defrauded the energy trader and its shareholders.Fastow, appearing yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Marcia Crone, stated that he was innocent of charges ranging from fraud to money launder...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 7, 2002

Shareholder Management

In this market you wouldn’t expect companies to turn investors away, but that’s exactly what some are doing. Why? To save money, of course, says Scott T. Gallagher, senior vice president at Georgeson Shareholder, a New York shareholder-communications firm. “Public companies are looking under ever...

By Kris Frieswick • Nov. 1, 2002

Double-Header: Fastow Charged with Fraud, Pitt Urged to Resign

Federal prosecutors probing Enron Corp.’s collapse finally reeled in a big fish.After weeks of media speculation, former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow was indicted Thursday on 78 counts. The long list of charges includes fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy as part of an alleged ...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 1, 2002

SEC Implementing Sarbanes-Oxley

The Securities and Exchange Commission took another big step toward implementing provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.On Wednesday, the commission proposed a number of critical rules regarding pro forma results, off-balance-sheet entities, and executive stock-trading.The commission is seeking pub...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2002

Mo’ Better Blues

When it comes to filing financial reports, will faster be better?The Securities and Exchange Commission seems to think so. To give investors more to go on than pro forma earnings statements at the end of a quarter, the SEC will require publicly traded companies to speed up their 10-K and 10-Q fil...

By Jennifer Caplan • Oct. 9, 2002

Legal Unease

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires corporate lawyers to report evidence of misconduct to the CEO or independent directors. The new law also gives the Securities and Exchange Commission the obligation to set guidelines for company attorneys. The rules have provoked the ire of some lawyers, wh...

By Joseph McCafferty • Oct. 1, 2002

Regulation: Pitt and the Pendulum

It’s not that the Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t working hard during the years that Enron, WorldCom, and others were allegedly submitting fictional financials. In many instances, the agency, overburdened and lacking strategy, was simply working wrong.Consider the case of Ants Software ...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2002

Oops, Lost the Insurance

The high price of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance is bad enough. But there may be a bigger anxiety: Can an insurer pull a company’s existing coverage if an executive or board member makes a reporting miscue?To be sure, court-ordered D&O policy cancellations, also known as “rescis...

By David Katz • Oct. 1, 2002

New Liabilities, New Policies

As restatements go these days, it seems a pittance.What’s more, the change reported by Westaff, a temporary-staffing company with $110 million in second quarter revenues, looked like a positive one.Partly because of tax law changes in the federal economic stimulus bill enacted in March, the compa...

By David Katz • Oct. 1, 2002

Investor Relations

Regulatory reform from Congress and the stock exchanges has forced companies to undertake a raft of changes in their audit processes and corporate governance. But companies in varying states of compliance are struggling with what to communicate to Wall Street.“Clearly the landscape has changed,” ...

By Joseph McCafferty • Oct. 1, 2002

Securities Suits

Many of the new reforms look to make companies sitting ducks for more and costlier shareholders’ lawsuits. The federal statute of limitations on such cases has jumped from one year to two, and accounting fraud is now labeled a crime, which makes it uninsurable. So how can companies stem the tide ...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2002

Paper Jam: Xerox Reassigns Treasurer

Xerox Corp., which is facing a criminal probe of its accounting practices, on Friday reassigned its treasurer to the company’s unit in Canada.The copier company’s management said Gregory B. Tayler, a Canadian, has accepted a position at Xerox Canada, effective immediately.Chief financial officer ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 30, 2002

Homestore’s Ex-CFO Settles Charges

As expected, Homestore’s former CFO and two other former senior executives settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s office that they inflated advertising revenues in 2001.The commission Tuesday filed charges in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Jo...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 27, 2002

Homestore on the Range

As expected, Homestore’s former CFO and two other former senior executives settled charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney’s office that they inflated advertising revenues in 2001.The commission Tuesday filed charges in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against Jo...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 26, 2002

Insurance

The assault on executive-compensation schemes continues. The latest victim is split-dollar life insurance arrangements. The IRS recently proposed regulations that would tax executives more heavily on the benefits of such plans, which could make them obsolete.Split-dollar life insurance, in which ...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2002

The Uncertainty of Surety

In a trial guaranteed to embarrass both sides, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. will square off in court this December against 11 insurance companies to demand payment of almost $1 billion in commercial surety bonds. The insurers have refused to pay, claiming the gas trades they thought they were guar...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 1, 2002

Contingency Planning

For the past year, New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) CFO Walter Hines has been grateful for a trading floor that is less than half the size his company had 13 months ago and a 50 percent longer commute from his home. Grateful, because the exchange’s original trading floor and offices, along with al...

By Alix Stuart • Sept. 1, 2002