Financial Firms Drag Down S&P 500

Call it a tale of two markets: first-quarter 2008 operating earnings for the S&P 500 declined 25.9 percent from a year earlier — but excluding financial companies, the group actually enjoyed a healthy gain, according to preliminary figures from Standard & Poor’s.It was the third consecuti...

By Stephen Taub • May 16, 2008

SEC Rule Aids Small-Biz Capital

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a rule amendment to increase the availability of capital to smaller companies that may not have ready access to the public capital markets or other forms of conventional financing.With the rule change, more small, financially troubled businesses ...

By Stephen Taub • May 16, 2008

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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

SEC Plans to Boost Small-Business Capital Formation

The Securities and Exchange Commission will consider a proposal its staff says would boost access to capital for small companies that are either developing or struggling. The rule amendment would give more small, financially troubled businesses a better chance at getting investment dollars. As it...

By Sarah Johnson • May 8, 2008

Weather Report

Whether it’s due to regulation, pressure from stakeholders or genuine anxiety about the fate of our planet, climate change is becoming a boardroom issue. Or, at least, companies are making it appear so.Corporate Register, an online directory of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, rec...

By Laura Cameron • May 5, 2008

Steppes Ahead

Last month, a standing-room-only crowd packed a posh London hotel for a conference about an unlikely topic: Mongolian capital markets. A year ago, notes J Peter Morrow, CEO of Ulaanbaatar-based Khan Bank, such a gathering “would have been somewhere between irrelevant and fatuous.” Now, however, w...

By Laura Cameron • May 5, 2008

Small Businesses Bitten by Credit Crunch

The credit crunch and soft economy are taking their toll on small companies. Recent studies and reports from lenders show that small businesses are either having a harder time getting credit or struggling to pay off their debt.Consider, for example, the recent earnings report from Advanta Corp., ...

By Stephen Taub • May 2, 2008

Half Full, and Then Some

Confidence is in short supply these days. The prospect of a lengthy recession has left just about everyone feeling nervous and insecure. Finance chiefs in particular are gloomier than ever, as indicated by CFO magazine’s recent Business Outlook surveys, which found that nearly 90 percent don’t an...

By Alan Rappeport • May 1, 2008

View from Asia: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I was hosting a dinner of multinational executives in Shanghai recently when the CFO of a well-known U.S. company that has been operating in China for ages told me that he was about to conclude a long assignment in Shenzen and move back to New York.He said that he was looking forward to returning...

By Tom Leander • May 1, 2008

Europe Feels Effects of Credit Crunch

The global credit crunch is clearly taking a toll on European companies.In the first quarter of 2008, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded 35 issuers in Europe and upgraded only 17. The gap of downgrades to upgrades was the worst since the third quarter of 2006, when the ratings gap was at minus ...

By Stephen Taub • April 29, 2008

For Global Credit Ratings, Down Is Way Up

Another measure of global credit quality plunged in the first quarter, as the ratio of downgrades-to-upgrades ratio soared to 3-to-1 from 2-to-1 in the previous quarter.As recently as the 2007 second quarter, the number of upgrades had approximated the number of downgrades, according to a new rep...

By Stephen Taub • April 28, 2008

Credit Woes Stifle Small-Biz Loans

A banking-industry leader blames inefficiencies at the Small Business Administration for the fact that much-needed financing for small businesses has begun to run dry.Lenders have been discouraged by the SBA’s high fees, staffing problems, and lowered loan-guarantee levels, said Cynthia Blankensh...

By Sarah Johnson • April 18, 2008

New Boss Means No Budget

As the long Presidential campaign continues, the impact of cutting taxes — or not cutting them — on the federal budget is sure to be a point of debate. One other thing is for sure, as well: federal departments and agencies won’t actually be preparing budgets for the fiscal year that begins in 200...

By Kate Plourd • April 18, 2008

Rising Gas Prices Push Small Businesses to the Brink

Small business executives, though not traditionally fond of government intervention, are begging for federal help in addressing the rising cost of fuel prices. In a Wednesday hearing held on Capitol Hill by a subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee, experts and executives testified on ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 10, 2008

Growth Engine

Last month, the executive team of Skoda gathered at the Czech carmaker’s headquarters in Mladá Boleslav, about an hour’s drive north-east of Prague, to unveil yet another batch of record-setting financial results. It was a wet, grey day that put the imposing concrete communist-era tower blocks wh...

By Jason Karaian • April 7, 2008

Into the Unknown

The debate over accounting for intangible assets rumbles on, as common standards on how to measure trademarks, brands, databases and the like have yet to materialise.Next month, the International Valuation Standards Committee, a London-based non-governmental organisation, will host a roundtable i...

By Eila Rana • April 7, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

It may not be a recession, but it’s awfully close. That’s how finance chiefs in Europe describe what’s going on at home, according to our latest survey of senior finance executives. More than 1,000 finance chiefs worldwide participated in this quarter’s poll, conducted in conjunction with Tilburg...

By Jason Karaian • April 7, 2008

Europeans Target Inflation, not Slowdown

European officials seem more interested in checking inflation than heading off a recession, as U.S. officials are doing. European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet seemed to indicate that it is more important to hold interest rates at their current level than lower them to stimulate the ...

By Stephen Taub • April 4, 2008

One Standard, Many Laws

When he wanted to reprint U.S. accounting standards in a textbook he was writing, Lawrence Cunningham, a professor of accounting and law at George Washington University, was told he would have to pay. That’s because the Financial Accounting Standards Board holds copyright to its pronouncements — ...

By Alan Rappeport • April 1, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

After months of steady decline, the economic outlook cannow only be described as bleak. Speakingat CFO’s annual CFO Rising conference lastmonth, veteran finance chief Jerry Yorksaid, “It’s going to be a very bad recession,perhaps the worst I’ve seen in the 46 yearsI’ve been working.” A majority o...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 1, 2008

View from China

Aluminum Corp. of China (Chinalco), China’s biggest aluminum maker and a diversified metallic and mining company, won instant fame when it orchestrated a successful dawn raid on February 1, acquiring 12 percent of Australian miner Rio Tinto for $14.05 billion. By far the largest overseas deal by ...

By Wu Chen • April 1, 2008

Small Biz, Big Concerns

Just because Jim Smith oversees the finances at a private company doesn’t mean he’s immune to the rules and regulations specifically designed for his colleagues at publicly traded companies.In fact, Smith, the CFO of Phonon Corp., has also felt the same sting of higher audit fees that public comp...

By Sarah Johnson • March 31, 2008

For CFOs, Green Is the Color of Money

Sustainability issues are moving from a risk management focus to a revenue generation opportunity. That is, executives are moving away from a defensive posture, based on mitigating environmental cleanup, legal, and reputational risks, and taking the offensive, said several CFOs who addressed the ...

By Marie Leone • March 27, 2008

End Looks Near for Carlyle Capital

Carlyle Capital Corp. rocked the financial world Thursday when it announced it was unable to reach an agreement with its lenders and that the lenders are likely to take possession of its remaining assets.The company’s only current portfolio assets are U.S. government agency Triple-A rated reside...

By Stephen Taub • March 13, 2008

Darkness Visible: CFOs See Recession Through 2009

The news is getting grim. Optimism among U.S. CFOs has plummeted this quarter, with three-quarters of them predicting a recession at some point during 2008. Even grimmer: They expect inflation will rise to 3 percent this year. Grimmest: Nearly 90 percent say the economy will not rebound until 200...

By David Katz • March 12, 2008

U.S. Open

South-east of Los Angeles and known as one of America’s most dangerous cities, Compton is not the first place you would expect to see British royalty. But last month Prince Andrew — the Duke of York and the UK’s “special representative” for trade and industry — made the visit. The reason was to a...

By Tim Burke • March 3, 2008