Small-Caps Eye Listing Abroad

U.S. small-cap companies are increasingly launching their initial public offerings or placing their secondary listings on foreign securities exchanges. Often, potential issuers are lured by what they see as more flexible regulatory regimes. But foreign markets also appeal to some companies becaus...

By Helen Shaw • Aug. 9, 2005

Gauging Success

When business-performance dashboards began to appear a few years ago, they were positioned as a way to put key business data into executives’ and managers’ hands, a neat approach to presenting the analysis that business-intelligence (BI) software packages had produced. Graphs, charts, and other f...

By Doug Bartholomew • Aug. 2, 2005

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

The Price of a Cheap Suit

It’s 10:00 p.m., and Charlie Kernaghan is driving around the garment district in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It’s well past quitting time for the fabric cutters and seamstresses who started work in the factories at 8 o’clock that morning. But the workers aren’t coming out of the gray, decaying buildings, ...

By Joseph McCafferty • Aug. 1, 2005

Picture Improves for Private-company Pay

Small private companies have long faced a David-and-Goliath battle with their larger public counterparts in the competition for senior executive talent, at least when it comes to compensation. But now that some public issuers are scaling back on offering stock options — in large part because of F...

By Lisa Yoon • July 26, 2005

China Revalues Its Currency

China will no longer peg its currency, the yuan, to the U.S. dollar.The Chinese government announced a new trading program in which China will float the yuan in a tight band against a basket of foreign currencies, according to press reports. For more than a decade the yuan has been pegged at 8.28...

By Stephen Taub • July 21, 2005

Symbol CFO Departs amid Poor Forecasts

Fresh off a high-profile accounting scandal, bar-code company Symbol Technologies Inc. announced that chief financial officer Mark Greenquist has resigned “to pursue other career interests.”In a conference call Thursday, chief executive officer William Nuti insisted that Greenquist, who had serve...

By Stephen Taub • July 15, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Whey Station Closed

Disclaimer: Good Week/Bad Week is presented by the authority of the Ponds Institute and The Sheboygan FOE. Funding for Good Week/Bad Week is provided by the Society for Relentless Esoterica and the not-for-profit Dyslexics of the Universe Untie! While items in this column are based on real news e...

By John Goff • July 15, 2005

Building the Healthy Corporation

“Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.” —Mark TwainGrowing numbers of organizations — including banks on both sides of the Atlantic, a global natural-resources group, and a leading U.K. retailer — are adding an important new “stone” to the 21st-century bus...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • July 12, 2005

Earnings Warnings Rise for S&P 500

On at least two measures, the second quarter is shaping up as the worst three-month period for corporate profits in several years.On the eve of the quarter’s reporting season, for every company in the Standard & Poor’s 500 that said things were looking better than anticipated, 2.5 companies w...

By Stephen Taub • July 12, 2005

Budgeting in the Real World

Exotic Newcastle Disease, one of the most infectious bird diseases in the world, kills so swiftly that many victims die before any symptoms appear. When it broke out in Southern California two years ago, it could have spelled disaster for the San Diego Zoo.“We have one of the most valuable collec...

By Tim Reason • July 12, 2005

Concern for KPMG Extends to E.U.

European regulators are apprehensive about the potential global consequences of a Department of Justice investigation into U.S. tax practices of KPMG, according to the Financial Times.The regulators are particularly concerned that the outcome could damage an already-concentrated audit market by t...

By Craig Schneider • July 11, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Invasion of the Latte Snatchers

The following column, while based on actual items, cannot be counted on as a reliable source of news, information, or fiber. Any resemblance between this article and actual articles you might read in real magazines and newspapers is purely coincidental.Please, no lawsuits.Good WeekHollywood Mogul...

By John Goff • July 8, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Morning Becomes Electric

Disclaimer: This copyrighted article is presented by the authority of the Ponds Institute and the Boise Center for Interspatial Studies. It is intended solely for the private and non-commercial use of our audience, which consists mostly of a dozen or so controllers, treasurers, and VP’s of financ...

By John Goff • July 1, 2005

Dog Days for the Economy?

It may be the middle of summer, but finance executives expect the U.S. economy to begin cooling off. They predict that hiring and capital spending will slow during the next year, due partly to rising energy and raw-material prices. In fact, CFOs are less optimistic about the prospects for the eco...

By Joseph McCafferty • July 1, 2005

Give Little Guys a Break, SEC Told

The Securities and Exchange Commission should consider letting more small companies take advantage of an internal-controls extension, and it should think about clearer guidelines for which controls missteps to report, executives testified at a recent SEC committee hearing.At issue is what many se...

By Helen Shaw • June 22, 2005

Sarbox and IT: How Bad Can Things Get?

When we polled readers about the IT implications of current Sarbanes-Oxley requirements, we didn’t expect a happy chorus, but we were surprised to uncover so many entrenched problems and misgivings about the regulations, the manner in which they’ve been communicated, and the qualifications of tho...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 22, 2005

Supersized ROI

When Arinc Inc. makes decisions about technology projects going forward, it begins by looking back. The company, which provides systems-engineering solutions to the airline industry, has developed and started using a new metric: ROIE, or return on infrastructure employed. ROIE is a retrospective ...

By Russ Banham • June 22, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Meditate

Disclaimer: Good Week/Bad Week does not adhere to normal standards of journalism, or even those of The New York Post. It is intended to be read, then pretty much forgotten. It is not intended to be taken internally.In addition, the prose contained within does not meet the high artistic, literary,...

By John Goff • June 17, 2005

Boosting Returns on Marketing Investment

Today’s chief marketing officers (CMOs) confront a painful reality: their traditional marketing model is being challenged, and they can foresee a day when it will no longer work.The declining effectiveness of mass advertising is only the most visible sign of distress. Marketers also face a genera...

By The McKinsey Quarterly • June 14, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Epoxy on Your House

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way, shape, or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts.Further, the comments expressed below are strictly those of the author, and do not reflect the opinions of the Economist Group, CFO Publishing, or anyone who knows ...

By John Goff • June 10, 2005

U.S. Investment Overseas Up 90 Percent

U.S. corporations are ramping up their investments abroad in a huge way. After three flat years, direct investment by U.S. manufacturers in foreign countries surged a whopping 90 percent in 2004, to more than $54 billion, according to a new study by Deloitte Research.Of course, the recovering eco...

By Stephen Taub • June 3, 2005

Good Week/Bad Week: Lox, Stocks, and Two Smoking Pharaohs

Disclaimer: This column, such as it is, does not, in any way, shape, or form, purport to adhere to traditional journalistic concepts.Further, the comments expressed below are strictly those of the author, and do not reflect the opinions of the Economist Group, CFO Publishing, or anyone with half ...

By John Goff • June 3, 2005

Job Picture Looks Lackluster

Companies have budgeted for salary increases averaging only 3.5 percent this year, and are expected to remain at that level next year, according to the Conference Board.“The recovery from the economic downturn appears to be leveling off, and U.S. companies are paying close attention to cost contr...

By Stephen Taub • June 2, 2005

CFO Optimism at a Three-Year Low

Capital spending and employment growth will slow during the next year, according to a new survey of chief financial officers, who point to high costs of health care and fuel, rising interest rates, and reduced pricing power.These are some of the findings of the June 2005 Duke University/CFO magaz...

By CFO Editorial Staff • June 2, 2005

Airlines Fight to Stay Aloft

United Airlines announced that it has reached an agreement with its largest union, which represents machinists, shortly after its mechanics union ratified a long-term contract, according to the Associated Press. The AP added that both unions had planned to strike if a bankruptcy judge had cancell...

By Stephen Taub • June 2, 2005