Are You Reinvesting Enough?

Faced with new, desirable investment opportunities, the CFO of a client company of ours recently chose not to cut her substantial share-repurchase program to fund the investments. Instead, she decided to finance the new outlay by slashing investments in two other businesses, both of which were gr...

By Gregory V. Milano • May 1, 2011

States Show Their Claws

In 2009, CFO Mark Poncin found himself in a situation many CFOs now face. Three years earlier, his company, boat-builder Chris-Craft Corp., struck a deal with North Carolina. If Chris-Craft created a certain number of jobs over the course of the year, the state would grant it more than $50,000. I...

By Marielle Segarra • May 1, 2011

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

Bye-Bye Budgets?

“Budgets aren’t what they used to be,” one CFO told us for this month’s cover story. At a growing number of companies, in fact, budgets have ceased to be at all.Consider it the recession’s silver lining: the same volatility that has made running a business so challenging over the past three years...

By Scott Leibs • May 1, 2011

Too Big to Succeed?

In economics classes, students typically learn that a company can drive down its average cost of production by expanding. The ability to spread fixed cost across a larger base of business is supposed to result in better financial performance. We often hear companies wax eloquently about such bene...

By Gregory V. Milano • April 29, 2011

Midsize Companies See Growth Ahead

Growth dominates the agendas of midsize companies, a new survey by Deloitte indicates. About 80% of respondents see their company’s revenues and profits growing this year, and nearly 70% plan to hire, according to the survey of 527 top managers at U.S.-based firms with between $50 million and $1 ...

By Alix Stuart • April 26, 2011

For Start-ups, Another Source of Cash

Last year Velico Medical Systems, an aging Beverly, Massachusetts-based start-up with no products and no revenue, needed some money. The company had been “in perpetual funding mode,” CFO Tom Fitzgerald told a gathering on Tuesday hosted by The Capital Network, a Boston-area networking group. It h...

By Alix Stuart • April 12, 2011

Grab Your Partner(s)

Like flailing swimmers clutching life preservers, companies reached for customers, suppliers, and any other third parties they thought could help keep them afloat during the recession.Now, with the economy’s choppy waters calming down, those same companies are finding that a partnership strategy ...

By Josh Hyatt • April 1, 2011

Spring Fever?

Although CFOs are still cautious, their optimism has grown since last quarter, climbing back to 2007 levels, according to the most recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey.Now in its 60th consecutive quarter, the survey also finds finance chiefs expecting to increase ear...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 1, 2011

No Need for Smooth Moves

It turns out the effort that many finance chiefs have made over the years to show consistent earnings growth may have been for naught. According to a new study by McKinsey & Co., there is no evidence that smooth earnings produce higher returns for shareholders. Indeed, says Tim Koller, a McKi...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 1, 2011

Spring Fever?

Although CFOs are still cautious, their optimism has grown since last quarter, climbing back to 2007 levels, according to the most recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey.Now in its 60th consecutive quarter, the survey also finds finance chiefs expecting to increase ear...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 1, 2011

Missing: Public Companies

Another sign of the difficulty small firms are having in accessing capital: the number of publicly traded companies in the United States continues to fall, according to new data supplied by Grant Thornton. At the end of February, there were 5,091 companies listed on major U.S. exchanges, a 2% dro...

By Alix Stuart • March 22, 2011

Springtime for the Economy?

CFOs’ optimism about the economy has climbed back to 2007 levels, according to the most recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, now in its 60th consecutive quarter. Finance chiefs also expect a double-digit jump in earnings and plan to boost spending in several key cat...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 9, 2011

IFRS Outlook: Hurry Up and Wait

While the prospect of moving to a single set of global financial reporting standards is very much at the top of CFOs’ minds, most of them work for companies that haven’t begun to grapple with the challenges of accounting convergence, the latest Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook...

By David Katz • March 9, 2011

Springtime for the Economy?

CFOs’ optimism about the economy has climbed back to 2007 levels, according to the most recent Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, now in its 60th consecutive quarter. Finance chiefs also expect a double-digit jump in earnings and plan to boost spending in several key cat...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 9, 2011

Good Advice: Start an Advisory Board

As optimism about the economy grows, companies are beginning to hire again. Some firms, however, are acquiring expertise in a less direct way: through advisory boards.Advisory boards are separate from boards of directors and generally don’t have legal obligations. They are particularly popular at...

By Alix Stuart • March 8, 2011

Good Advice: Start an Advisory Board

As optimism about the economy grows, companies are beginning to hire again. Some firms, however, are acquiring expertise in a less direct way: through advisory boards.Advisory boards are separate from boards of directors and generally don’t have legal obligations. They are particularly popular at...

By Alix Stuart • March 8, 2011

Going Deep

With job creation now the top priority for the Obama Administration (last month the President even paid a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has reached often into its deep pockets to oppose him on just about everything, to make a plea for job creation), we could think of no better topi...

By Scott Leibs • March 1, 2011

Small Biz to Congress: Deep-Six the 1099 Expansion

The expansion of Form 1099 reporting requirements that lawmakers buried in the health-care reform bill has caused no shortage of anxiety among business owners and executives, many of whom already feel buried in paperwork. Following the Senate’s vote last week to repeal the measure and President O...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 11, 2011

Small Biz to Congress: Deep-Six the 1099 Expansion

The expansion of Form 1099 reporting requirements that lawmakers buried in the health-care reform bill has caused no shortage of anxiety among business owners and executives, many of whom already feel buried in paperwork. Following the Senate’s vote last week to repeal the measure and President O...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 11, 2011

Finance’s Expanding Borders

If you’re a CFO at a small or midsize company and your role hasn’t expanded in the past two years, you might want to think twice.A recent survey by Accenture of more than 1,000 CFOs at companies of all sizes found that the vast majority of them — more than 80% — have been asked to take on new res...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 7, 2011

Finance’s Expanding Borders

If you’re a CFO at a small or midsize company and your role hasn’t expanded in the past two years, you might want to think twice.A recent survey by Accenture of more than 1,000 CFOs at companies of all sizes found that the vast majority of them — more than 80% — have been asked to take on new res...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 7, 2011

Forget What You Think You Know

Finance chiefs, by their nature, rarely need to be reminded that, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” But with domestic demand sluggish at best, many are looking to overseas markets for growth, and there is a marked tendency to put on rose-colored glasses when doing so.Of course, ...

By Janet Kersnar • Feb. 1, 2011

Let the Good Times Crawl

Let’s kick off 2011 by admitting that the phrase “cautious optimism” has become redundant. The only form of optimism on display anywhere in the business world these days is the cautious kind, and that is very unlikely to change over the next 12 months.But optimism, however tempered and qualified ...

By Scott Leibs • Feb. 1, 2011

Back in Business

Finance chiefs are welcoming 2011 with plans to loosen their purse strings and hire new workers, while also expressing more optimism than they have in many months.Nearly 50% of CFOs are more optimistic about the U.S. economy than they were last quarter, while just 14% are less optimistic, accordi...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 1, 2011

Tweedie Takes a Bow

In June, Sir David Tweedie will retire as chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, a position he has held since the organization’s inception 10 years ago. We recently asked him about the future of accounting.Some critics grumble that if the United States does not adopt IFRS, it s...

By Marie Leone • Feb. 1, 2011