Instacart Pulls IPO; CEO Says 2022 Listing Unlikely

Grocery delivery company Instacart has shelved its plans for an initial public offering this year.In a memo to employees on Thursday, Fidji Simo, chief executive of Instacart, wrote that turbulent market conditions make a stock exchange listing in the fourth quarter unlikely, reported the New Yor...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 21, 2022

Myron Scholes Says Odds Favor ‘Hard Landing’

Is the U.S. economy in for a hard, soft, or somewhere-in-between landing from the monetary tightening cycle? As someone who has been both on the academic and business side of finance, and has deep experience with managing risk, Myron Scholes is qualified to address the question.Scholes won the No...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 20, 2022

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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

How Well Do You Understand Your Company’s Value Drivers?

Value drivers are the distinct qualities that make any company unique. When aggregated, they paint a picture of a company that is as distinctive as a Picasso, a one-of-a-kind representation illuminating its strengths and weaknesses, health and prospects, and what differentiates it from its closes...

By Reed Phillips and Charles Slack • Oct. 13, 2022

Debt-to-Equity Ratio Down 34 Percentage Points from Pandemic High

Despite weak second-quarter earnings and two-and-a-half years of negative operating cash flow, executives at Norwegian Cruise Lines forecast tailwinds for 2023. An uplift in cruise bookings next year and higher prices will “rebuild and improve margins” and maximize cash flow generation, the compa...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 12, 2022

U.S. Corporate Bankruptcies Down 16% in September: Weekly Stat

Despite a whirlwind of reports of economic troubles in almost every industry, corporate bankruptcy filings in the United States are at their lowest in more than a decade, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The 31 filings that took place in September were a 16% dip from the 37 f...

By Adam Zaki • Oct. 12, 2022

Corporate Cash Finally Finds Some Yield

For the first time in a while, there’s enough yield in short-term cash investing to make CFOs and treasurers notice.Relatively safe and liquid money market funds, Treasury bills, and other credit instruments have attractive rates again because of the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes. Inflati...

By Vincent Ryan • Oct. 11, 2022

Are You Your Company’s Chief Value Creation Officer?

Value creation is arguably the single most important initiative for any company. Yet executives are not always as focused on it as they should be. With all of their other responsibilities, they set value creation aside and assume they’ll get there by growing revenue and improving earnings.Unfortu...

By Reed Phillips and Charles Slack • Oct. 11, 2022

Budgeting vs. Forecasting: You Likely Need Both

It’s that time of year. The leaves are falling and the temperature is dropping. For those of us whose companies operate on a calendar year basis, that also means it is budgeting season.While there have been many technological enhancements over the years that profess to simplify and accelerate the...

By Michael Paull • Oct. 10, 2022

How Much Revenue Should Each Employee Generate? Metric of the Month

More than ever, organizations are counting on the people they bring on board to be well worth the investment.

By Perry D. Wiggins • Oct. 5, 2022

61% of Global Companies Disclose Decarbonization Strategies: Weekly Stat

Businesses across the globe are increasing disclosure around their climate impacts. In EY’s most recent Climate Risk Barometer, the report found companies are improving at disclosing and strategizing on their climate risks and opportunities, but efforts still leave significant room for improvemen...

By Adam Zaki • Oct. 5, 2022

Customer Service Functions Evade Cost Cuts

Companies may be tightening up on costs in response to a host of economic pressures this year, but they’re generally stopping short of risking customer satisfaction.In fact, in a July poll by Gartner, 21% of the 234 participating finance leaders said they plan to increase funding for their custom...

By David McCann • Oct. 4, 2022

How CFOs Should Gauge Risk Versus Reward in Investments

Inflation continues to pummel the spending value of the U.S. dollar domestically. Proactive CFOs have begun to keep this top of mind when looking at their cash reserves. Many organizations, whether public or private, are sitting on cash to guard against an incoming recession or because they're wa...

By Adam Zaki • Oct. 3, 2022

5 Tips to Help CFOs Achieve Carbon Neutrality

The pandemic challenged the world in many ways, and that included pushing the limits of what is possible with regard to business operations. The ingenuity required for businesses to turn on a dime and shift to remote business operations was unprecedented, and so was the significant worldwide redu...

By Adam Moloney • Sept. 28, 2022

80% of CFOs Expect Cost Pressures to Persist Into Next Year: Weekly Stat

CFOs are starting to feel the weight of economic troubles, according to a recent survey by Duke University and the Federal Reserve Banks of Richmond and Atlanta. Although confidence in the economy as a whole rose slightly, financial executives across the board are dealing with an abundance of iss...

By Adam Zaki • Sept. 28, 2022

SMBs Are Going Global: Don’t Ask Why, Ask Why Not

Finally nearing a post-COVID world, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face a seemingly looming economic recession. I recently shared four ways SMBs can help recession-proof their business, and market diversification is the linchpin in that strategy. The U.S. Small Business Administration e...

By Michael Levine • Sept. 22, 2022

Fed Projected to Raise Interest Rates Another 0.75%

Update: At 2 p.m. EDT the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee announced it had decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 3%-3.25%. In its official statement, the FOMC said recent indicators "point to modest growth in spending and production. ... Inflation remains elevated,...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 21, 2022

5 Ways CFOs Can Ensure M&A Deal Value in a Volatile Market

Amidst rising inflation and interest rates, stock market volatility and geopolitical instability, high-value investment opportunities like mergers and acquisitions may sound out of reach. In fact, the number of deals fell almost 17% year over year in February 2022, while the value of those deals ...

By Stephen Mortimer • Sept. 19, 2022

How Finance and IT Can Collaborate for Growth

The collaboration between finance and IT is pivotal to any organization looking to grow, said Jim Caci, CFO of software-as-a-service (Saas) and data management platform provider AvePoint. Caci believes IT and finance should leverage each other's skills to create a partnership, expanding their rel...

By Adam Zaki • Sept. 15, 2022

Treasurers Shift Focus to Payments and Banking Fees

In times of economic turmoil, corporate treasury departments often change their priorities. During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, for example, the spotlight was on financial counterparties and whether they would fail. In recessionary periods, in another example, access to bank borrowing or cr...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 14, 2022

Core Goods Inflation Climbed 0.6% in August

To the equity markets and some economists, August’s consumer price index (CPI) reading, released on Tuesday, was an unpleasant close to summer. CPI Inflation rose more than expected. The overall consumer price index, tracking a broad swath of goods and services prices for urban consumers, increas...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 14, 2022

Lack of Liquidity and Price Transparency Complicate Dollar Hedging

The surging dollar has become one of the dominant macroeconomic trends. The Wall Street Journal Dollar Index, which measures the US dollar against a basket of 16 major currencies, has surged repeatedly this year and is near a 20-year high as of September 12 — up 10% since the beginning of 2022 an...

By Eric Huttman • Sept. 13, 2022

CFO Leadership: Navigating Volatility While Aiming for Growth

CFOs want to allocate assets to grow their organizations but are often over-cognizant of risk when it comes to seizing opportunity due to the contemporary volatility of markets, according to a recent McKinsey & Co. quarterly article. Identifying, navigating, and leveraging volatility with str...

By Adam Zaki • Sept. 9, 2022

20 Large Companies Filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in First Half of 2022

Large U.S. corporate bankruptcies had a very slow first half. But the pace of filings could pick up the rest of the year as higher interest rates, inflation, a global recession, and a likely growing inability to pass through higher costs eat away at margins and cash flows.Such a scenario has been...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 7, 2022

5 Ways CFOs Can Invest In and Build Their Network

Talent shortages, supply chain challenges, inflation, geopolitical risk. CFOs’ calendars are overflowing with a seemingly unending series of challenges that have serious short- and long-term implications for their organizations. It doesn’t seem like the most opportune moment to carve out time for...

By John Touey • Sept. 2, 2022

Nearly a Quarter of CFOs Lag in Technology Integration: Survey

In CFO's recently published annual survey, finance chiefs from across a range of industries were asked which of their duties could be made easier by advanced analytics, cloud technology, or automation. While respondents agreed there is value in collaborating with IT leaders to leverage technology...

By Adam Zaki • Sept. 1, 2022