They Don’t Like Surprises

Faulty forecasts have been the downfall of many CFOs. Last year, two telecom giants, Motorola and Ericsson, saw their CFOs depart amid massive cuts in revenue projections (Motorola) and unpleasant surprises regarding profits and share price (Ericsson).Despite the heavy toll exacted when investors...

By Alan Rappeport • March 1, 2008

Thriller

“If the federal government were a private corporation and the same report came out this morning, our stock would be dropping and there would be talk about whether the company’s management and directors needed a major shake-up.” That was David M. Walker, comptroller general of the United States an...

By Edward Teach • March 1, 2008

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

Skin in the Game

When James Lawrence left General Mills to become CFO of Unilever last September, investors hoped he would help boost the Dutch consumer-products giant’s lagging stock price. What they probably didn’t expect was that he would use his own money to do so. In two transactions spanning four months, th...

By Alix Stuart • March 1, 2008

As the World Churns

Turnover has long been been a hallmark of the top finance job, and 2007 was no exception. The 2,313 CFO changes at public companies marked just a slight increase from 2006’s rate, but reshaped the executive suites of some of the country’s best-known businesses. Pfizer, Citigroup, and McDonald’s —...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 1, 2008

Offshoring Spreads Its Wings

During the last U.S. Presidential campaign, offshoring was a particularly touchy subject. Candidates denounced “Benedict Arnold CEOs” for sending U.S. jobs offshore, while CNN anchor Lou Dobbs kept a disapproving tally of companies with offshore operations. This time around, even with the economy...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 1, 2008

View from Europe: Labor Lackings

For the first time in a long while long while, unemployment levels have begun to fall across Europe. Broadly speaking, of course, higher employment is a good thing, but European companies are facing a massive shortage of skilled labor. Some companies had hoped that the recent expansion of the Eur...

By Janet Kersnar • March 1, 2008

India’s Turn?

In less than six months, property developer QuarkCity is expected tocomplete its specialeconomic zone (SEZ) in Mohali, a district in theIndian state of Punjab. “Frankly, we paid more thanthe market rate,” says Fred Ebrahimi, QuarkCity’schairman, talking about land acquisitions. “In myopinion, if ...

By Oliver Jones and Uday Sekhar • Feb. 29, 2008

Visa Dust-Up

Asian companies looking to build their businesses in the United States havelong complainedthat Washington imposes an unfair block by a miserly issuance of H1-B visas.But another, lesser-knowntype of visa has become the cause of complaints in the other direction, viaAmerican politicians who charge...

By Tom Leander • Feb. 29, 2008

Dropped Call: Sprint Has $29.5B Q4 Loss

Sprint Nextel Corp. reported a fourth quarter loss of $29.5 billion, reflecting a noncash goodwill impairment charge of $29.7 billion. The flood of red ink represents the fifth-largest loss recorded by a Standard & Poor’s 500 company since 1990, according to Bloomberg News. The embattled tele...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 28, 2008

Warning: The Economy Stinks

More ominous warnings about the state of the economy have emerged in the past few days from a variety of sources. On Monday, the National Association for Business Economics warned that U.S. economic growth will slow to less than one percent in the first half of 2008. Almost half of the NABE’s pa...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 25, 2008

Harder to Hide

The massive Siemens bribery scandal — involving alleged payments togovernment officials around the world — continuesto ensnare company officials. The latest victim is the newCFO of the company’s industry division, whose appointment wasrevoked after company officials reviewed prosecution documents...

By Don Durfee • Feb. 15, 2008

Olympics Create Inventory Hurdles for TV Maker

A high-definition TV maker will file its second-quarter results late, while it evaluates its accounting treatment following the delayed build-out of the 2008 Beijing Olympic facilities.Syntax-Brillian Corp. had sold a large number of LCD TVs through its distributors in China. But these TVs have n...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 11, 2008

GE Finance Unit to Hop the Pond

General Electric is moving the headquarters of its consumer and small-business financial-services unit from Connecticut to London.A senior GE official told The Financial Times that the relocation of GE Money “is emblematic of the globalization” of its business. The unit racks up $25 billion in re...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 8, 2008

Germany to Nokia: Give Back Subsidies

A state government in Germany wants a refund from Nokia. State officials are asking the giant Finnish cell-phone maker to give back $60 million in subsidies for a decade-old manufacturing plant it plans to close, according to the Associated Press.In the late 1990s, the North Rhine-Westphalia gove...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 6, 2008

Four Settle Dow Jones Insider Case

Four Hong Kong residents, including a former Dow Jones board member, have agreed to pay $24 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission insider-trading charges stemming from Dow Jones’ acquisition by News Corp.The SEC alleges that David Li Kwok Po, chairman and CEO of the Bank of East As...

By Stephen Taub • Feb. 5, 2008

Break Through

Despite its striking red and silver pattern and a scroll-like shape that pays homage to China’s invention of paper, the Beijing-bound Olympic torch that leaves Greece next month looks essentially like any other Olympic torch. But there’s more to it than meets the eye. The torch, which will travel...

By Tim Burke • Feb. 4, 2008

Keeping Bad Apples

“The customer is king” is probably the most common management mantra. Coming in second, however, is “Fire bad customers.” A host of management books — “Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge your Stock” by Geoffrey Colvin and Larry Selden is a good example —...

By Eila Rana • Feb. 4, 2008

Will Bills Stimulate Companies to Spend?

In the two economic stimulus packages bouncing around Congress, the items corporate finance executives are likely to care most about are bonus depreciation and the tax rebates individuals would get, according to a comparison by accounting firm Grant Thornton.Bonus depreciation would provide busin...

By Alan Rappeport • Feb. 1, 2008

Signals of Distress

Which companies will default on bonds this year and next?While the current turn in the corporate credit cycle resembles the weakening that affected corporate bond issuers in 2001 — at least in terms of the predicted severity — there will likely be some key differences.Last time around, the indust...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 1, 2008

Dismal Science Indeed

What are the odds that the United States will enter a recession? No, scratch that: What are the odds that the United States will enter a recession next month? According to New York Fed economist Arturo Estrella, the odds are 0.40965, give or take a millionth of a decimal point. That means there’s...

By Avital Louria Hahn • Feb. 1, 2008

The Declining Dollar

For every penny the euro increases against the dollar, United Technologies Corp. records an additional $10 million in earnings. A diversified manufacturing behemoth that earns more than 60 percent of its revenues outside the United States, UTC received an earnings boost of about $100 million last...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 1, 2008

Top 10 Concerns of CFOs

CFOs expressed concern about a wide range of issues in the most recent Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, but above all they fear that an array of intensifying economic pressures will finally affect U.S. consumers and their demand for goods and services. With the costs o...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 1, 2008

Bending the Rules

Last December, as they unveiled a plan to freeze the interest rates on thousands of subprime mortgages, President George Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. emphasized the shared interest among homeowners, banks, and investors. Thousands of people, the President said, were in danger of ...

By Tim Reason • Feb. 1, 2008

View from Asia: India Starts Buying American

Editor’s Note:This article, published in the February 2008 edition of CFO magazine, incorrectly stated that Dr. Reddy’s, the Indian pharmaceutical company, set up a corporate social responsibility program in Germany to educate children about the dangers of drug addiction. In fact, the program was...

By Tom Leander • Feb. 1, 2008

Preparing Your Company for Recession

“At kitchen tables across our country, there is a concern about our economic future,” the President said in his State of the Union address Monday night. He might well have mentioned conference-room tables, too.Though the president never uttered the word “recession,” his speech came just before ne...

By Tim Reason • Jan. 30, 2008