Small, Midsize Manufacturers Optimistic

Fully 96 percent of top executives describe the condition of their manufacturing or distribution business as “thriving and growing” or “holding its own,” according to a recent survey by professional-services firm RSM McGladrey.A total of 1,031 executives — including 489 chief financial officers, ...

By Stephen Taub • June 26, 2006

As Good as It Gets

View the ranking of Europe’s largest 100 debt issuers.If you had to choose one company that embodied the ups and downs of the business cycle over the past 10 years, KPN might be it. From euphoria in the late 1990s to the plunge in share prices in 2000 and 2001, frenzied cost-cutting in subsequent...

By Jason Karaian • June 22, 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

Selling Russia

“See, no bodyguards with machine guns, no armored car,” Vitali Podolsky points out as he removes a laptop from the back seat of his Audi sedan on a sunny spring morning just off Petrovska Street in Moscow’s pricey — and fairly customer-devoid — shopping district. He says it with a smile, but the ...

By Tony McAuley • June 15, 2006

Popular Ambition

Federico Castor is hardly the sort of consumer who makes marketers rub their hands with glee. The 55-year-old lives in a precarious-looking concrete shack in the community of San Andres Bukid in Manila. He’s lived there since 1968, selling cigarettes — one stick at a time — and candy from a makes...

By Justin Wood • June 15, 2006

Small-business Owners Eye Slowdown

Small business owners are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economy’s prospects, according to a monthly report by the National Federation of Independent Business. William Dunkelberg, chief economist of the NFIB, said: “A slowdown is definitely going to happen. The only question is how f...

By Stephen Taub • June 14, 2006

U.K. Regulator Allays Sarbox Worries

An acquisition of the London Stock Exchange by a U.S. suitor would not automatically subject its member companies to stringent U.S. regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the U.K.’s regulatory watchdog has reportedly stated.The issue has become more than theoretical. In March, the Nasdaq Sto...

By Stephen Taub • June 12, 2006

Connecting the Dots

Synthesis is a subject that’s discussed a lot around Novasep. With good reason. A big part of its €400 million ($491 million) business depends on the ability of biochemists to synthesize organic molecules for customers in industries like pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. But it’s the synthesis t...

By Janet Kersnar • June 12, 2006

CFO Optimism Drops as Risks Multiply

Chief financial officers are growing more pessimistic about the U.S. economy but still plan to increase capital spending and hiring this year. Their expansion plans will be in substantial jeopardy, however, if inflation, the federal funds rate, or the price of oil continues to rise.Those are some...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 7, 2006

India: Tale of Two Strategies

Two major technology companies are taking distinctly different approaches to India.IBM announced that it expects to nearly triple its investment in the country over the next three years, to $6 billion, primarily in services, research, and software operations.Speaking before 10,000 employees gathe...

By Stephen Taub • June 6, 2006

Innocents Abroad

Nearly 35 years after China reestablished trade with the United States, launching a foreign subsidiary there remains difficult — especially for a smaller company. Managers must come up with a business plan, translate it into Mandarin, then submit it along with a two-inch pile of forms. That’s whe...

By Don Durfee • June 1, 2006

This Time It’s Personal

This year, demographers tell us, the massive wave of baby-boomer retirements will begin, and the impact will be felt on everything from corporate-succession planning to condo sales. One likely ripple effect will be a mad rush to the offices of financial planners, as executives who spent a lifetim...

By Scott Leibs • June 1, 2006

Core Inflation Hits 13-month High

Is inflation actually higher than the pundits have maintained?The latest worrisome data, for corporations and other economy-watchers, was Friday’s announcement by the Department of Commerce that core inflation rose 2.1 percent in April, compared with April 2005.This was the fastest increase in co...

By Stephen Taub • May 26, 2006

Creation Nets: Getting the Most from Open Innovation

Thanks to the many books on “open innovation” and to the prominence of open-source software projects such as Linux, most executives have at least a passing familiarity with the subject. Its central idea is that when companies look outside their own boundaries, they can gain better access to ideas...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • May 16, 2006

Can SOX 404 Be Measured?

Speakers at the May 10 Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 roundtable, co-hosted by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, listed a host of numbers to prove their particular point of view about the impact of the internal controls provision on companies an...

By Helen Shaw • May 16, 2006

Ex-CFO of Parmalat Blames the Boss

Fausto Tonna, once the chief financial officer of Parmalat Finanziaria SpA, testified Tuesday that former chief executive officer Calisto Tanzi explicitly told other executives to fudge financial reports to mask losses at the food and dairy giant in 1994, the Associated Press reported.“The fact o...

By Stephen Taub • May 9, 2006

Talking Points

Of all the functions under the corporate roof, employee communications is the one that most managers pay lip service to. It’s not that they regard it as unimportant. Executives acknowledge that when it comes to effecting major change — a shift in strategy, or a merger, or a restructuring — employ...

By Edward Teach • May 8, 2006

Spitzer Turns Up the Heat on H&R Block

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer filed an amended lawsuit against tax preparer H&R Block, citing additional evidence of fraudulent marketing of individual retirement accounts and alleging that the company penalized employees who wouldn’t play along.“In addition to designing a fla...

By Stephen Taub • May 8, 2006

Easy Target?

Success has its side effects. One is that it puts you directly in what money professionals call the “seller hit zone.” That’s the place where executives become a target for anyone with a slick sales pitch and an investment opportunity that is supposedly “necessary” for building and protecting wea...

By Chuck Jaffe • May 8, 2006

View from Europe

When Fulvio Conti was promoted from CFO to CEO at Italian utility Enel last year, it was widely assumed that he would immediately use the company’s €15 billion war chest to make some long-anticipated cross-border acquisitions. Like many other European companies, Enel has few growth opportunities ...

By Janet Kersnar • May 8, 2006

Small-business Shake-up

Hector Barreto, the head of the federal Small Business Administration, is leaving his position to take the helm of the Latino Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy group.To succeed him, President Bush nominated Steven Preston, an executive vice president for ServiceMaster, a nationwide network o...

By Stephen Taub • April 26, 2006

Trimming Hemlines and Deadlines

In the late 1990s, managers of clothing boutiques began freshening up the inventory in their stores every few weeks. The accelerated turnover—quite hefty compared to the industry standard of three to four times a year—spurred them to place increased importance on metrics that could help them prod...

By Helen Shaw • April 24, 2006

At Wendy’s, Where’s the Chief?

In a surprise, Wendy’s International announced that Jack Schuessler will step down as chairman and chief executive officer after more than 30 years with the fast-food purveyor.Chief financial officer Kerrii Anderson will step in as interim chief executive officer and president; long-time board me...

By Stephen Taub • April 18, 2006

A Final Cry for Relief

Will small companies catch a break on Sarbanes-Oxley reporting requirements? One way or another, they’ll find out soon.On Wednesday, April 12, the SEC Advisory Committee on Smaller Public Companies will hold its last public teleconference to discuss whether the requirements of Section 404 of Sarb...

By Helen Shaw • April 10, 2006

Restatements Deliver Fuel for Reform

Providing support for arguments against regulatory breaks for small caps, Richardson Electronics and Hemispherx Biopharma announced restatements stemming from accounting errors and saw their share prices dive.Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox said earlier this week that ...

By Stephen Taub • April 5, 2006

As the Cycle Turns

Anxiety rippled through Corporate America last February when the U.S. Department of Commerce issued its latest report card on the economy — a mere 1.6 percent GDP growth for the fourth quarter of 2005. That was the slowest growth in three years. But economists generally remained optimistic, predi...

By Edward Teach • April 1, 2006