Gloom over Economy Reaches Corporate CPAs

Recent problems in the subprime-mortgage and credit markets have left certified public accountants serving as senior executives feeling gloomy about the economy, according to a new survey by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.Fourth-quarter results fell to their lowest levels ...

By Alan Rappeport • Nov. 16, 2007

New SEC Rules Offer a Small-Biz Boost

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved new rules Thursday to make it easier for small businesses to raise capital through private offerings, issue stock options, and make regulatory filings.Most notably, the holding period for restricted securities was shortened from a year to six months...

By Alan Rappeport • Nov. 16, 2007

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

The Rich List

In the fast-consolidating steel sector, with multi-billion euro megadeals now commonplace, Salzgitter has kept a low profile. In March, when news broke that the German steel group was sizing up Algoma, a Canadian rival, expectations of a bidding war among cash-rich trade and financial buyers push...

By Randy Myers and Jason Karaian • Nov. 5, 2007

Food Fighters

Lounging at a linen-covered table, watching the crowd reflected in the engraved mirrors at Paris’ exquisite art deco brasserie Le Boeuf sur le Toit, one could hardly feel further removed from the hectic Big Mac queues amid the formed plastic tables of “McDo’s” around the corner at 140 Champs Elys...

By Laura Cameron and Tony McAuley • Nov. 5, 2007

China’s Next Miracle?

Barred from U.S. shores for 15 years, China’s banks may soon reestablish a beachhead here. As summer ended, the Federal Reserve was evaluating applications from China Merchants Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to open full-fledged branches in New York. The New York State Ba...

By Vincent Ryan • Nov. 1, 2007

The Host with the Most

At the September unveiling of SAP’s latest product offering — a hosted application aimed at midsize businesses — company officials extolled the virtues of rented software. “Globalization and digitalization are creating a new world of business,” noted CEO Henning Kagermann. “[This] fundamental shi...

By John Edwards • Nov. 1, 2007

Group Therapy

A plane crashes in the desert and six survivors are left to choose what items to salvage. Should they take a gun? Salt tablets? Heavy overcoats? How about a cosmetics mirror? With 15 possibilities and limited time to make their choices, the group must quickly prioritize.You might think that a hig...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2007

Can This Retirement Be Saved?

Whether you are contemplating retirement in the near term or further down the road, you’ve no doubt run plenty of numbers, from asset-allocation percentages to investment returns to vesting schedules. Maybe you’ve even taken a guess at your estimated lifespan.But you may not have calculated the p...

By Clint Willis • Nov. 1, 2007

Ingersoll-Rand Settles Iraq Kickback Charges

Ingersoll-Rand Co. has agreed to pay $6.7 million to settle charges that subsidiaries paid illegal kickbacks to the Iraq government relating to sales of humanitarian goods under the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program. The company agreed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to the entry ...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2007

CFO’s Lie Costs Indonesia Company $500K

Indonesia’s state oil company was fined $500,000 by a New York court for the “intentional” false deposition of its former chief financial officer, according to the Financial Times. Judge Thomas Griesa determined that Ainin Na’im, former finance chief at Pertamina, lied in a dispute with Karaha B...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 30, 2007

Small-Town Treasurers Gone Wild

A pair of Andy Fastow-wannabes who were treasurers for small villages are in big trouble for embezzling funds in separate cases. In Wisconsin, Kim Simmelink, former clerk and treasurer of the Village of Oostburg, was charged with 10 felonies for allegedly embezzling more than $56,000 from the vi...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 23, 2007

T&E Budgeter’s Lament: Spending Shocks Ahead

Travel and entertainment spending is due for another jolt next year — with a 6-percent rise in the average U.S.-based trip that involves air fare, rental car, and hotel — according to this year’s American Express Global Business Travel Forecast, out just in time for the corporate budgeting cycle....

By Roy Harris • Oct. 23, 2007

Six Accused in PIPE Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two short sellers and four corporate insiders with running an illegal scheme using PIPEs, or private investments in public equity. The short sellers, Zev Saltsman and Menachem Eitan, were accused along with Edward Newman and Steven Newman, fo...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 23, 2007

IPOs: The Formula for Success

Why are some initial public offerings more successful than others? According to a new study by Ernst & Young, common factors among those that have worked out well include the age of the company and its CEO, whether the company has a global operation, and the breadth of investor support. But s...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 17, 2007

Survey: CFO Optimism at Three-Year Low

For at least the second time this quarter, CFOs have registered a glum outlook the economy and their companies’ business prospects. Financial Executives International and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business reported that its CFO Optimism Index for the U.S. economy fell 4.5 percentage poin...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 17, 2007

Activist Hedge Fund Slams CSX

The manager of a large, activist hedge fund is putting the heat on railroad company CSX Corp., calling for a broad slate of new corporate governance practices and better business performance. The Children’s Investment Master Fund, founded and run by the secretive Chris Hohn, made public a letter...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 16, 2007

Credit Not so Tough to Get, Small Businesses Say

Credit crunch? What credit crunch? According to a new survey by PNC Financial Services Group, 87 percent of small and mid-sized business owners who need credit say availability is the same or better than three months ago.And these business owners apparently are not skittish about unloading the m...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 4, 2007

Go with the Flow

Read the complete results of the 2007 Cash Masters survey, or review just those results that appeared in print.Life often imitates art. Given the recent twists and turns at his company, Lothar Lanz, for example, can easily relate to the soap operas broadcast on television channels owned by ProSie...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

Business Outlook Survey

For weeks, debate has raged over whether the credit crunch gripping banks, hedge funds and private equity firms will spread to the global economy. In a recent research note, State Street’s Andrew Capon made his opinion clear: “Those that believe this will have no impact on the real economy are wh...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

High Maintenance

What is it about joint ventures in China? They’re hard to set up, difficult to manage, and almost impossible to unwind if things go wrong. Just ask Emmanuel Faber, the former CFO of French yogurt and water company Danone, which has been running dozens of JVs with China’s largest beverage company,...

By Janet Kersnar • Oct. 1, 2007

China: Not So Blue

For the first time, CFO Europe’s latest quarterly Business Outlook Survey includes a dedicated poll of finance chiefs in China. Gauging the sentiment of 380 CFOs, the survey finds senior finance executives in the country in a good mood, relatively speaking.More than 40% of China-based CFOs say th...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

ROI of Humans

In a Harvard Business Review paper in the early 1990s, Peter Drucker, the most influential management thinker of the last century, wrote, “It is the individual, and especially the skilled and knowledgeable employee, who decides in large measure what he or she will contribute to the organisation a...

By Laura Cameron • Oct. 1, 2007

Business Outlook Survey

CFO optimism plunged to a six-year low in this quarter’s Duke University/CFO magazine Business Outlook Survey, with a record 62 percent of U.S. finance executives saying they felt more pessimistic about the economy than last quarter. Ongoing worries about consumer demand and the cost of labor, co...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2007

If You Build It, Will They Come?

When the towering Shanghai World Financial Center is completed next year, it will not only rank among the world’s tallest skyscrapers but will also embody Shanghai’s bid to become a major financial center. (Indeed, the smoke pouring from the building during a mid-August fire could have been read ...

By Alan Rappeport • Oct. 1, 2007

View from China: What Price Glory?

Exactly one year before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which begin on the auspicious date of August 8, 2008 (the Chinese regard eight as a lucky number, and a triple eight compounds its value), state media is dominated by reports of how excited the Chinese people are about hosting this...

By Wu Chen • Oct. 1, 2007