Sarbox Getting Costlier for Small Firms

Costs related to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act seem to be increasing for small businesses, according to a Merrill Lynch report. In fact, 35 percent of small-business CFOs and CEOs predict Sarbox expenses to rise over the next year. The executives are hoping a new Congress will bring them some Sarbox rel...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 5, 2006

Flying the Unfriendly Skies

What are your biggest complaints about air travel?Cramped seating: 75%Security-screening delays: 58%Declining service on board: 49%Flight delays: 47%Cost: 30%What additional safety measures would you consider tolerable?Fingerprint scans: 73%More-expensive luggage screens: 64%Retinal scans: 54%Ext...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Dec. 4, 2006

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

Over There: Private-Equity Sets Sail

Private-equity investments overseas have hit a record high, reflecting a four-year upward trend, according to a European publisher. Through mid-November, international investments announced by U.S. private-equity firms in 2006 totaled $82 billion, compared with $46 billion during the same period ...

By Sarah Johnson • Dec. 1, 2006

View from China: Unions at Wal-Mart

In Beijing these days, it’s common to hear the phrase “Building a Harmonious Society” being uttered by CFOs in both public and private. This newly minted Communist phrase is being taken seriously in a way that recent party lines never were.That’s because the phrase is not just a slogan, but also ...

By Wu Chen • Dec. 1, 2006

Biotech Dreaming

Two years after its founding in Boulder, Colorado, Sirna Therapeutics Inc. picked up and moved to San Francisco in 2005. While most CFOs might have balked at the idea of relocating to one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, finance chief Greg Weaver saw the move as critical ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Dec. 1, 2006

Alternative Universe

It has been called “illogical,”“horrific,” “a slow-motion trainwreck,” and, most colorfully, the “roachmotel” of taxes: you check in but younever check out. The alternative minimumtax (AMT), dreamed up by Congressin the late 1960s to make sure therich don’t exploit tax loopholes, nowaffects more ...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 1, 2006

A Productive Debate

If there’s anything like an elixir for aneconomy, it’s productivity growth. Economic theoryholds that when output per worker rises, so shouldwages, and hence living standards. In practice, that’swhat transpired so impressively in the United States duringmuch of the last century.But recent data su...

By Edward Teach • Dec. 1, 2006

Third Thoughts on Foreign Capital

The next great globalization, according to Frederic Mishkin’s new book (The Next Great Globalization, Princeton University Press, 2006) of that name, will be financial in character: the flow of foreign money into stocks, bonds and banking in emerging economies. A recently appointed governor of th...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 22, 2006

A Good Cause

Within 24 hours of the tsunami hitting southeast Asia on December 26th 2004, more than 230,000 people were dead, 1.7m people displaced, 430,000 homes destroyed and some €10 billion of damage done in 14 countries. It immediately became a showcase for aid agencies and other nonprofit organisations....

By Janet Kersnar • Nov. 22, 2006

On the Record: Jumeirah Group’s CFO

You know you’re in Dubai when you walk into the lobby of the world’s tallest hotel and you’re bathed in the glow of its gold-leaf interior. The sail-shaped, all-suite Burj al Arab is an icon of the booming Gulf city and the crown in the portfolio of Jumeirah Group. A part of Dubai Holding, the in...

By Abe De Ramos • Nov. 21, 2006

Go West, Old Man

Tinkering with the circadian clock, the day-and-night cycle in the physiological processes of all living beings, is rarely a good idea. Poor health and accidents are more common in those who fly frequently or do shift work. Now a new study shows that the direction in which the clock is changed af...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 21, 2006

Down But Not Out

Rarely have Wall Street’s seers been so split. Not only are they divided about where the economy is headed, they even disagree about how it is faring today. Pessimists, such as Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Global Economics, reckon output is slowing from its already desultory pace of 1.6% a year in ...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 20, 2006

Dim Sums

China’s national bird, it is said, is the crane. They loom all over cities, as ever more skyscrapers, car factories and steel plants are constructed. Concern that the investment boom is out of control has forced the government to clamp down on new projects. As a result, investment in fixed assets...

By Economist Staff • Nov. 14, 2006

Setting up Shop in India

India’s retail revolution is at last getting started. At the moment 97% of retail sales are made in more than 15m tiny mom-and-pop stores, mostly of less than 500 square feet (46 square metres). But now Reliance Industries, the country’s largest business group, is to spend 250 billion rupees ($5....

By Economist Staff • Nov. 13, 2006

In Case of Emergency

When Tropical Storm Ernesto hit Florida in August, Bill Franklin, manager of travel for Mitretek Systems, was busy tracking how many of the company’s employees were in its path. With the help of an interactive database, Franklin could see their location and send them a group E-mail alert if neces...

By Laura DeMars • Nov. 13, 2006

Designs of Intelligence

Companies go to enormoustrouble to capture and store data,and then go to even more trouble(and expense) when they attemptto extract and use it. The systemsfor accomplishing the latter task goby various names — business intelligence(BI), performance management,analytics — and while a technologistc...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 1, 2006

The Carbon Economy

Hazelwood is the world’sdirtiest power station. Located nearthe vast Latrobe Valley brown coaldeposits in Australia’s Victoria state,the plant is a magnet for environmentalprotesters, angry that its emissionsof greenhouse gases per unit of electricitytopped a recent global rankingby the World Wil...

By Jason Karaian • Nov. 1, 2006

Passing the Bucks

Walter Dollard was never one to procrastinate — until heretired.During a 37-year career at WestinghouseElectric, the mechanical andnuclear-power engineer was able toaccumulate a sizable nest egg. After retiringat age 62, he consolidated it by takinghis pension in a lump sum and transferringthat m...

By Marie Leone • Nov. 1, 2006

View from Europe

It wasn’t all politics as usual at the UK Labour Party’s annual conference in Manchester in late September. On the afternoon that Chancellor Gordon Brown was giving his why-I’d-make-a-good-prime-minister speech, Industry Minister Margaret Hodge held a side meeting about a topic that has rankled m...

By Janet Kersnar • Nov. 1, 2006

Harry Potter and the Corner Office

Who would make a better CEO, Harry Potter orMoses? Should you run your companylike the New York Yankees, eventhough the team just failed again inthe clutch? What can Formula 1 racingteach you about developing talent?Does Attila the Hun still speak towould-be masters of the universe, oris Captain ...

By Joseph McCafferty • Nov. 1, 2006

Business Travel to Cost More in 2007

The cost of business travel will increase across the board in 2007 as a result of continuing demand without a commensurate increase in supply, according to the latest American Express Global Business Travel Forecast.The average domestic North America trip inclusive of air fare, car rental, and ho...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 26, 2006

Going from Global Trends to Corporate Strategy

An executive’s ability to read trends accurately in a rapidly changing business environment can make all the difference between riding the currents of opportunity and paddling upstream against them. But even when you have a good feel for broad emerging macroeconomic, social, environmental, and bu...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • Oct. 18, 2006

Finance Execs: Energy Prices Not a Worry

Finance professionals are confident the energy crisis has passed.According to a new survey of treasury and finance professionals conducted earlier this week at the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) Annual Conference, just 12 percent expect significant increases in the price of electri...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 17, 2006

CEO Confidence Sinks to Five-Year Low

Chief executive officers are more pessimistic now than they have been in five years, according to the Conference Board. For the first time in half a decade, organization’s CEO Confidence Measure has dipped below 50, falling to 44 in the third quarter. That approaches the nadir hit in the final q...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 12, 2006

Growing Pains

On December 11th last year, a huge explosion ripped through the Buncefield fuel depot in Hertfordshire, 56 kilometres northeast of London. The local fire chief described the blast at the depot, the main fuel hub for Heathrow and other airports around the city, as the largest of its kind in peacet...

By Tony McAuley • Oct. 10, 2006