J-SOX Nation

This past April, Japanese pitching sensation DaisukeMatsuzaka wowed Red Sox Nation with his “gyroball.” From now untilnext April, Dave Sackett expects to be equally mesmerized by Japan’sversion of the corporate curveball.The corporate controller of Ulvac Technologies is charged withimplementing J...

By Cheryl Rosen • June 22, 2007

Painful Memories: SEC Grilled on 404 Costs

Under congressional pressure to ease the future burdens of small businesses in complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission is being asked to return to an issue that’s likely to open old wounds: quantifying the costs to companies of complying with t...

By David Katz • June 12, 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

Senators Urge SEC to Delay 404, Again

Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe have sent another letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox asking him to give small companies more time to prepare for complying with the internal-control provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The small-business committees in both...

By Sarah Johnson • June 8, 2007

Survey: CFOs Gloomy about Economy

CFOs are feeling gloomier about the U.S. economy this quarter, their optimism sagging on concerns about rising labor costs and weak consumer demand, according to the latest Duke University/CFO Business Outlook Survey. For the first time this year, a majority of CFOs are feeling pessimistic about ...

By Alan Rappeport • June 7, 2007

Coming This Summer: 404 for All

The jury is still out on whether recent rule changes will make it easier for small companies to comply with section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. Chances are, they’ll start to find out this summer.The House Committee on Small Businesses heard testimony Tuesday from regulators and advocates for smaller p...

By Alan Rappeport • June 5, 2007

Measuring Up

When Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez gave up a double, a single, and another double in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, he not only squandered a three-run lead (and ultimately the pennant), but also provided a poignant lesson in the value of metrics.Martinez’s eighth inning coll...

By Scott Leibs • June 1, 2007

A Piece of the P-E

Think of private equity as a can of Red Bull for your personal portfolio. But there’s a catch: you have to wait 2 to 10 years for the rush to kick in.Actually, there are several catches, including high entrance costs, complex record-keeping, and a curious mix of volatility (high) and risk (surpri...

By Marie Leone • June 1, 2007

View from Europe: Global Bribery

When news broke this spring that the Securities and Exchange Commission had launched an informal investigation into the bribery scandals plaguing Siemens, CFOs in Europe gave a collective shudder. Combined with the announcement that the U.S. Department of Justice also had the German electronics a...

By Janet Kersnar • June 1, 2007

Did Hawk Fly Too High?

Hawk Corp. said the Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a formal investigation into the auto-parts maker’s compliance with section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley ActAccording to a filing issued Wednesday by Hawk, the SEC is apparently exploring whether or not various stock transactions mig...

By Stephen Taub • May 30, 2007

Going Twice…

The top end of the auction world can be a rarefied place. Giving an investor presentation in New York in March, William Sheridan, the finance chief at auction house Sotheby’s, described how one of the company’s principal assets, and a significant barrier to entry for competitors, is “unparalleled...

By Tony McAuley • May 17, 2007

Employers Hit for Misclassifying Workers

A growing number of larger companies are incorrectly calling some of their employees “independent contractors” and saving as much as 30 percent in payroll costs by doing so, according to employee advocates testifying at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday. Misclassifying some of t...

By Sarah Johnson • May 8, 2007

The Bright Side of Bubbles

The American economy is forever blowing bubbles. Housing seems to be the investment bubble du jour, coming on the heels of the Internet bubble, which popped seven years ago. The two are linked: as the dot-com economy slowed, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan steadily lowered the feder...

By Edward Teach • May 1, 2007

Long-term Thinking

Spend enough time sorting through the intricacies of long-term-care insurance and you may decide that John Maynard Keynes’s famous axiom, “In the long run, we are all dead,” is positively comforting. While almost no one would dispute that longevity is good, it comes at a price: as baby boomers in...

By Marie Leone • May 1, 2007

Finance vs. Marketing

Companies are still struggling to measure their returns on marketing investments, and two recent studies shed some light on why. For one thing, marketing and finance disagree as to how well current programs to measure the ROI of expenses such as advertising and direct mail actually perform. At ma...

By Joseph McCafferty • May 1, 2007

A Sense of Things to Come

The military uses for wireless technology are persuasive. For example, pilots can fly above a war zone and drop thousands of small wireless sensors, the size of a small pebble and costing a dollar apiece, over the terrain. As soon as they settle the devices start communicating with each other, we...

By Economist Staff • April 30, 2007

How to Dance with Angels

Serial entrepreneur Sam Yagan considered financing his third start-up company with venture capital, but passed. Instead, he secured $6 million in funding for his free online dating Website, OkCupid, from five angel investors. One of his primary motives for eschewing VC money was that he wanted th...

By Theresa Sullivan Barger • April 27, 2007

Could Small Biz Get Another Sarbox Reprieve?

More than 6,000 public companies face a serious dilemma about their Sarbanes-Oxley compliance: Should they use the current version of Section 404 now in reviewing internal controls over their financial reporting? Or should they wait until the Securities and Exchange Commission and Public Company ...

By Sarah Johnson • April 19, 2007

Survey: CFOs’ Confidence Up

CFOs are confident that their companies will do better this year, according to a recent survey from audit firm Grant Thornton. Sixty percent of 134 CFOs said their firms’ financial prospects will improve in 2007. That’s an improvement over last fall, when the audit firm last surveyed finance chie...

By Sarah Johnson • April 13, 2007

Six Sigma in Shenzhen

When Jack Welch embraced Lean/Six Sigma in 1990s, it made perfect sense. GE has long been a company that values perfection and self-improvement, and LSS, as the process is known at GE, is the ultimate perfectionist’s tool.Three years ago, LSS jumped from GE’s manufacturing operations to GE Money,...

By Don Durfee • April 13, 2007

Sun Microsystems: Expanding Its Universe

Michael Lehman, the finance chief of Sun Microsystems, a high-end computer-maker that rose and fell with the dotcom boom of the 1990s, recalls a typical customer visit from about a year ago. A delegation from America’s navy, a big client, sat down in Sun’s Silicon Valley offices. The admiral’s fi...

By Economist Staff • April 12, 2007

Midmarket Companies So-so on Prospects

Despite robust market activity last year, not all executives at “middle market” companies are sanguine about the prospects for the year ahead, according to a new report.Investment bank DAK Group and Columbia Business School surveyed 703 owners and senior managers at privately held companies with ...

By Alan Rappeport • April 10, 2007

Looks Like Cheese, Smells Like Fraud

Two former executives of now-defunct cheese manufacturer Suprema Specialties have been convicted by a federal jury of booking millions of dollars in phony sales to defraud the company’s lenders and investors.Co-founder, former chairman, and former chief executive officer Mark Cocchiola, as well a...

By Stephen Taub and Dave Cook • April 3, 2007

Investing in Oils

Twenty-five years ago as a nearly broke graduate student, Walter Manninen gazed upon a dreamy vision of four courtesans and knew he had to have them. So the aspiring banker borrowed $2,000 and purchased a 1914 Theresa Bernstein oil painting entitled Lilies of the Field.Thus began a lifelong love ...

By Alix Stuart • April 1, 2007

View from China: Shanghai Confidential

A colorful embezzlement scandal has toppled political and business leaders in Shanghai and elsewhere in China as the country launches a major drive to stop white-collar crime. For CFOs of multinational corporations, the drama has played out at arm’s length. But a highly publicized series of sting...

By Wu Chen • April 1, 2007

Business Outlook Survey

It’s springtime and finance executives are ready to sow a few seeds. With renewed confidence in the economy, companies report that they are investing in their businesses — ramping up hiring plans and increasing projections for capital spending.According to the most recent Duke University/CFO Busi...

By Joseph McCafferty • April 1, 2007