Global Warming Hasn’t Boosted Storm-Related Damages, Study Argues

Contrary to some analysts’ claims, global warming hasn’t caused increases in catastrophic hurricane damages, contends a new study of insured hurricane damages from hurricanes affecting the continental United States in the 20th century.Key findings of the study Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, according...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 11, 2001

Web Site Settles Shareholder Lawsuit for at Least $4.25 Million

Drkoop.com Inc. announced on Monday that it reached a tentative agreement to settle the consolidated securities class action litigation and shareholder’s lawsuit filed against certain former officers and directors for $4.25 million in cash and $10 million in warrants. The $4.25 million will be fu...

By CFO Editorial Staff • July 9, 2001

CFO Career Tip: Go to HR School

Here’s a tip for CFOs on how to boost your job prospects: Serve an apprenticeship in the human resources department. It could help make your company’s next merger a career-building success. With the fate of M&A deals often hanging on intangibles like the quality of a workforce or a customer b...

By David Katz • July 5, 2001

How to Develop a Positioning Statement

Almost every press release or other corporate communication has one: A “boiler-plate,” canned statement describing what a company does, differentiating the firm in terms of its markets or competitors, and establishing the company’s prospects going forward.And while the casual reader may tend to s...

By Ed Zwirn • July 2, 2001

How to Develop a Positioning Statement

Almost every press release or other corporate communication has one: A “boiler-plate,” canned statement describing what a company does, differentiating the firm in terms of its markets or competitors, and establishing the company’s prospects going forward.And while the casual reader may tend to s...

By Ed Zwirn • July 2, 2001

Privacy Matters

Amazon.com’s recent brush with the Federal Trade Commission over consumer privacy (the agency claimed the company’s practices were “deceptive” but did not take action, although Amazon did spend $1.9 million in legal fees as a result) is further proof that senior executives should take a hard look...

By Alix Stuart • July 1, 2001

Internet Law

Amazon.com’s recent brush with the Federal Trade Commission over consumer privacy (the agency claimed the company’s practices were “deceptive” but did not take action, although Amazon did spend $1.9 mil-lion in legal fees as a result) is further proof that senior executives should take a hard loo...

By Alix Stuart • July 1, 2001

At-Will Employment

As companies mull possible midyear layoffs in response to a slowing economy, executives should take another look at an October California Supreme Court decision that handed companies an at-will employment victory.An at-will policy allows employers to terminate workers at the company’s discretion....

By John P. Mello Jr. • July 1, 2001

Disclosure Rule

The Securities and Exchange Commission wants companies to present their stock option compensation plans in neat, easy-to-read tables, rather than relegate the information to a footnote. To that end, the commission released a proposed rule calling for the tabular disclosures to be included in prox...

By John P. Mello Jr. • July 1, 2001

SEC Scrutiny

You may be hearing from us,” warns chief accountant Robert A. Bayless, of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s division of corporation finance. Apparently, before the slowdown in initial public offerings this year, companies had a 1 in 15 chance of being reviewed. But with extra time on its h...

By Jake Wengroff • July 1, 2001

Sexual Harrasment

Legal departments would have a much easier time if the Love Bug virus were confined to computers. But with longer hours and fewer formalities at the office, love has been blooming among employees. According to a survey by Vault.com, a career Web site, nearly 50 percent of respondents have been ro...

By Alix Stuart • July 1, 2001

Let There Be Light

Tim Condon isn’t overly worried about the soaring electricity costs at his own office. After all, electricity is still a small portion of the operating costs for Household Automotive Finance, in San Diego. But the CFO is worried about the electric bills of Household’s customers– all subprime borr...

By Tim Reason • July 1, 2001

Why Employers Should Sound the Alarm on Expiring Options

How interested are employers in alerting employees that their in-the- money stock options will soon expire?Listen to Tim Clancey and you might get the idea that employers simply aren’t that concerned.In May 2000, Clancey, now a vice president at a bank in Northern California, left a similar post ...

By David Katz • June 28, 2001

E-commerce Insurance: New Riders of the Digital Age

Theorem: Technology is not always the answer.Proof #4,825: In 1930, the French military began constructing a great barricade across the entire French-German border to prevent a repeat of the German invasion two decades earlier. The brainchild of French defense minister André Maginot, the interloc...

By Tim Reason • June 15, 2001

Don’t Get Knocked Out in the Second Round of Layoffs

While love may be lovelier the second time around, as the song says, that’s not likely to be the case for a second round of layoffs.The patience of top-performing people who hung around for an opening round could start to wear thin if an employer announces that a new set of compatriots will be de...

By David Katz • June 14, 2001

“Brazilianriver.com”

The panel members were winking while trying to be “discreet.”And you may have needed an atlas to help you get the reference.But a rudimentary knowledge of geography and a passing familiarity with some of the events that have precipitated the dot.com implosion of recent times left the reference an...

By Ed Zwirn • June 14, 2001

Principal’s CFO Gears Up For IPO

The benefits of going public are certainly obvious for the Principal Financial Group, the huge 401(k) services provider and life and health insurer.In changing from a mutual to a stock-company structure, as it plans to do, the Principal could gain capital to expand globally and develop technology...

By David Katz • June 14, 2001

Nearby Massacre Sparked Prevention Programs

When it comes to motivating an employer to prevent the risk of workplace violence, location and a personal connection are everything.That’s been the experience of finance and human resources executives in the vicinity of Wakefield, Mass., where seven employees of Edgewater Technology were shot de...

By David Katz • June 7, 2001

Stock Performance

Corporations couldn’t stop the price-drop virus that infected Nasdaq over the past year, but a handful of health-care companies managed to inoculate themselves. The quintet, plus three apparel companies, a bakery chain, and an education firm, were the top 10 stock performers in the United States ...

By Tama Miyake • June 1, 2001

Abandoned IPOs

CFO Bryan Carr and his colleagues at Intellon Corp., a semiconductor maker in Ocala, Fla., were anxious to raise capital through an initial public offering in 2001. But as the equity markets soured, so did the company’s IPO prospects. By March, Intellon had withdrawn its offering. Nevertheless, t...

By John P. Mello Jr. • June 1, 2001

Press Relations

It was bad enough that sales for Ault Inc.’s power conversion equipment had slowed and that the $85 million Minneapolis-based company would have to cut 21 percent of its staff. But for CFO Donald Henry, there was one more issue to deal with: the scrutiny of the media.Henry was the front line of d...

By Alix Stuart • June 1, 2001

Just-in-Case Capital

Late last year, Royal Bank of Canada and the French tire maker Compagnie Financiere Michelin sought access to capital for future contingencies–in the bank’s case, to absorb severe credit losses, and in Michelin’s, to fund future acquisitions or expansions. Rather than access capital from the debt...

By Russ Banham • June 1, 2001

How Being Nice Can Lead to a Lawsuit

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be nice. And sometimes it takes a CFO to say honesty is a better policy.A case in point occurs when a shocked employee gets fired after years of stellar performance reviews. Baffled, the worker looks for a cause—and finds it in the real or imagined race, gender, or age...

By David Katz • May 31, 2001

Employment Bias: Should You Settle, or Risk a Jury Trial?

Let’s say you’re the CFO of one of the many companies that have laid off workers recently.Angered by your move, or piqued by a real grievance, one or more of the workers turns around and sues your company for age, sex, or racial bias.Should you tell your lawyers to settle the case or take it to a...

By David Katz • May 24, 2001

SEC to Congress: Verdict Out on Reg FD

The verdict is still out on Regulation FD, the Securities and Exchange Commission told a Congressional subcommittee on Thursday.“It is still very early to measure in any objective manner the effects of Regulation FD,” the regulatory body stated in written testimony provided today to Rep. Richard ...

By Ed Zwirn • May 17, 2001