Analysts Now Turn First to the CFO, Not CEO

The CFO — no longer the CEO — is king when it comes to dealing with buy-side analysts, Greenwich Associates concludes in this year’s U.S. Corporate Investor Relations Study. The 688 Wall Street equity analysts interviewed for the annual survey, for the first time, ranked the credibility of a comp...

By Stephen Taub • June 9, 2008

Interim CFO of Mesa Air Quits

The struggling Mesa Air Group announced on Friday that it has accepted the resignation of its interim CFO, William Hoke, seven months after he replaced the company’s previous finance chief.Hoke, who became interim CFO in November 2007, resigned on May 23 “to pursue another career opportunity,” Me...

By David Katz • June 6, 2008

Scrushy at Home on the Ranch

For Richard Scrushy, the imprisoned former CEO of HealthSouth, the grass is greener on his side of the fence. That’s because his comfortable white-collar federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, does not actually have a fence.So Scrushy, who is serving time for fraud and bribery, wants to stay put in h...

By Alan Rappeport • June 6, 2008

Rating-agency Reforms Are Hammered Out

The top three credit rating agencies, as expected, signed an agreement with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that reforms their business by instilling greater independence from the entities they rate — and, it is hoped, introduces greater accuracy.The agreement will change the way Moody’s ...

By Alan Rappeport • June 5, 2008

Major Reforms Near for Ratings Industry

Everybody, it seems, wants to turn the tables on the ratings agencies.On Tuesday, questions about reforming Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Ratings were high on the agenda for senators questioning three Securities and Exchange Commission nominees. After a discussion ab...

By Roy Harris • June 4, 2008

Facing Backdating Claims: Pick Your Strategy

Three cases. Three different strategies for dealing with stock-option backdating allegations.While Brocade Communications Systems has said it will pay $160 million to plaintiffs to settle its class-action lawsuit, and Analog Devices Inc. and its CEO have signed seven-figure settlements in the fac...

By Stephen Taub and Roy Harris • June 3, 2008

Ex-CFO to Help Case Against His Old Firm

The former finance chief of defunct North Carolina human-resources services provider Castleton Group pleaded guilty to tax evasion, and reportedly will cooperate with prosecutors pursuing others related to Castleton. Jay McLamb, the former CFO, entered the plea as part of a negotiated settlement ...

By Stephen Taub • June 3, 2008

Rating Agencies in Sights of New SEC?

The Securities and Exchange Commission, on the verge of being down to just two commissioners, may soon be back up to full strength — and using that muscle against credit rating agencies.When it came to questions about credit rating agencies, Democratic nominees Luis Aguilar and Elisse Walter, and...

By Tim Reason • June 3, 2008

Stress Test

“We are in the eye of the storm,” says Simon Melliss, the long-serving finance chief of Hammerson, one of the UK’s largest property groups. This particular storm started last summer after the US’s subprime mortgage meltdown, and is battering companies like Hammerson as property values plummet and...

By Janet Kersnar • June 2, 2008

Dow Settles “LBO” Case Against Ex-CFO

Dow Chemical said it settled lawsuits with former CFO J. Pedro Reinhard and a former divisional executive vice president stemming from a dispute over whether the pair took part in a secret effort to take over the company.Under the deal — described in a press release purporting to be from Reinhard...

By Roy Harris and Stephen Taub • June 2, 2008

A Big Challenge for Fans of Political Disclosure: GM

With six big companies recently having decided to adopt disclosure policies for their corporate political contributions, shareholders for an even bigger one — General Motors — will put their own proposal up for a vote at GM’s Tuesday annual meeting. Were the measure — offered by shareholder Catho...

By Kate Plourd • June 2, 2008

Implanting Fraud? Ex-CFO Settles SEC Charges

A former CFO of Swiss health-care products company Centerpulse settled Securities and Exchange Commission charges related to his alleged involvement in the fraudulent inflation of Centerpulse’s income during the third and fourth quarters of 2002.Urs Kamber, the ex-finance chief, is among a number...

By Stephen Taub • June 2, 2008

Click Here

From retail punters to the largest money managers, few investors research a company without first paying its corporate website a visit. The good news for European companies is that their sites are now considered top-notch. Eight of the top ten companies in this year’s Financial Times/Bowen Craggs...

By Eila Rana • June 2, 2008

Hard to Say I’m Sorry

In May, when Crédit Agricole chief executive Georges Pauget admitted to reporters that the French bank had “paid the price” for decisions it made before the credit crunch, it was a relatively straightforward mea culpa. Swiss bank UBS was similarly forthcoming when it published a 50-page document ...

By Tim Burke • June 2, 2008

REACHing Out

From disposable nappies to dustbin lids, toothbrushes to toys, chemicals are everywhere. The 30,000 substances that must be registered under the EU’s new REACH regulation — that is, the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals — are just the tip of the iceberg. But whi...

By Jennifer Rankin • June 2, 2008

Principles vs. Practices

Rules seem onerous until you contemplate life without them. That seems to be one message uncovered in a survey of more than 200 CFOs and senior comptrollers recently conducted by accounting firm Grant Thornton. Asked whether today’s financial statements are too complex for the average investor, a...

By Scott Leibs • June 1, 2008

Suddenly, It’s Here

Saying that it will “let the sun shine in as never before,” Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox announced last month that the SEC had voted unanimously to propose a rule that will require companies — by as early as next year — to file financial statements in an “interactiv...

By Alan Rappeport • June 1, 2008

A CFO Wannabe’s Litany of Lies

Federal prosecutors have brought criminal charges against a Florida man for engaging in a bizarre, elaborate scheme to be hired as a CFO.Jorge Enrique Yepes was charged with three counts of wire fraud for allegedly forging correspondence from a Securities and Exchange Commission attorney. If conv...

By Stephen Taub and David McCann • May 30, 2008

E&Y Ex-Partner Indicted for Insider Trades on Deals

A former Ernst & Young partner and an investment banker were indicted for participating in a scheme to trade on inside information about seven separate, potential merger-and-acquisition transactions involving clients of the Big Four accounting firm.James Gansman, the former E&Y partner, a...

By Stephen Taub • May 29, 2008

Welcome Back, Guidance

Earnings guidance may be back in vogue.Two-thirds of investor relations professionals responding to a recent National Investor Relations Institute survey reported they were providing earnings guidance, reversing a trend away from the practice over several years.In 2007, just 51 percent of NIRI re...

By Stephen Taub • May 28, 2008

Haggling on the Hill

There was lofty talk of bipartisanship in Washington, DC, this week as a bill to rescue struggling homeowners cleared a key Senate committee, the biggest hurdle it is likely to face. But the noise in the background was the unmistakable sound of horses being traded.Democrats got their expansion of...

By Economist Staff • May 23, 2008

Today’s Tip: Stay Away from the SEC

It goes without saying that free-wheeling auditors prefer to keep their distance from the Securities and Exchange Commission. But now a new study suggests that the benefit of staying away from the SEC may be literal as well as figurative.Auditors located farther away from the SEC’s 11 regional of...

By Alan Rappeport • May 22, 2008

Can’t Pay SEC Penalty? Don’t Bother

The Securities and Exchange Commission has settled civil fraud charges against the ex-CFO of Royal Ahold’s one-time U.S. subsidiary relating to the company’s massive accounting scandal. Michael Resnick, the former finance chief of U.S. Foodservice, consented to the judgment without admitting or ...

By Stephen Taub • May 21, 2008

Ex-Finance Exec Settles Insider Trading Charges

A former finance executive for Provide Commerce has settled insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gordon C. Bigler, director of corporate finance and investor relations for the e-commerce company that sells fresh flowers and fruit, has consented, without admitting o...

By Stephen Taub • May 21, 2008

Patient with Pups, but Tough on Troubled Treasurers

The former treasurer of the American Spaniel Club, after pleading guilty to stealing $120,000 by writing checks to herself to support a gambling habit, received 15 years probation as her sentence. She was also ordered to pay $500 monthly until June 2009, and $1,000 thereafter, according to the Ta...

By Stephen Taub and Roy Harris • May 19, 2008