How to Add M&A Value: Pay Cash, Go Hostile

For years, debate has raged as to whether mergers and acquisitions add value. Academic studies have tended to find that M&A is a sure-fire way to destroy value, and yet the corporate world keeps on going down the acquisitions route to take out rivals, grow market share, expand geographically,...

By Andrew Sawers • April 23, 2012

Microsoft Beats (and Surprises) the Street

Microsoft CFO Peter Klein said Thursday that sales of Windows — the operating system that dominates and powers the vast majority of the world’s desktop computers — rose 4% in the third quarter, even as worldwide PC shipments increased only 1.9% so far this year.Windows software sales contributed...

By David Rosenbaum • April 20, 2012

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

Emerging Risks Are Easier to Miss

Kevin Gordon, finance chief of Quintiles, which provides services to pharmaceutical and medical-device companies, has risk management on the brain. For CFOs, risk management “is on our minds from a financial perspective every minute of the day,” he says.Many CFOs like Gordon have seen their respo...

By Sarah Johnson • April 18, 2012

Like It or Not, You’re in the Euro Zone

Sure, you’ve got worries: the fragility of an economic recovery still straining to create jobs, the impossible-to-predict outcome of the Federal Reserve’s expansive monetary policy, and forecasts of trillion-dollar-plus federal deficits stretching out for years, to name just three.Yet, as serious...

By Randy Myers • April 15, 2012

Have We Reached the End of the Tunnel?

Is the economy finally on firmer footing? Finance executives’ optimism levels have returned to normal after falling off dramatically during the recession, according to the latest Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. “CFOs’ outlook for the future has finally emerged from th...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 15, 2012

The Games Businesses Play

Go online to Samsung’s home page and you’ll find, right below the carousel advertising tablets, televisions, and phones, an invitation to join “Samsung Nation.” Beneath that is a leader board; in early March, Kenneth Brown, a Massachusetts business owner and a “Level 6 Legend,” was on top with 21...

By David Rosenbaum • April 15, 2012

The Beauty of Invisibility

What is a programmer doing when he spends his personal time improving open-source software? Or an enthusiast of the Bauhaus school when she modifies a Wikipedia entry on art history? Authors Christopher Meyer and Julia Kirby say each of those actions amounts to an “invisible handshake.” “Invisibl...

By CFO Editorial Staff • April 15, 2012

High Anxiety

It takes Hughes Communications and its partners four years to design, build, and launch a $400 million satellite. Failure, however, can happen very fast. “The rocket would explode on launch, immediately destroying both it and the satellite,” says Grant Barber, executive vice president and CFO of ...

By Josh Hyatt • April 15, 2012

No Résumés Required

In a recent survey, more than a quarter of the responding CFOs said they increased accounting staff in the past two years. Indeed, the biggest growth in jobs right now seems to be occurring in the professional- and business-services sector. But chances are the majority of those organizations are ...

By David Rosenbaum • April 15, 2012

PE Managers Predict Two Years of Healthy Returns

Despite a challenging capital-raising environment and growing worries about new government regulations, private- equity firms are guardedly optimistic about fund returns and see strong investing opportunities in specific U.S. industries.Those were the views expressed in a new quarterly CFO benchm...

By Vincent Ryan • April 15, 2012

Google Sitting on Top of Cash Mountain

On Thursday, Google revealed that it will issue a third class of shares, Class C, which will be traded on Nasdaq. The new shares will be allocated to current Class A and Class B shareholders on a one-to-one basis — effectively a split that will, Google hopes, satisfy shareholders looking for cash...

By David Rosenbaum • April 13, 2012

Wine CFO Hedges Pinot to Manage Growth, Demand

“It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and thrive even when it’s neglected. No, Pinot needs constant care and attention. Only somebody who really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential can then coax it into its full...

By Marielle Segarra • April 9, 2012

Private Equity Firms Go for Bolt-Ons in Q1

In a soft market for mergers and acquisitions, financial sponsors spent less money on leveraged buyouts in the first quarter. In fact, the period saw the lowest level of private-equity-backed buyout activity in two years, with total value falling 20% from the fourth quarter of 2011.Private-equity...

By Vincent Ryan • April 5, 2012

Microsoft to Ax Service, Putting Small Cos. at Risk of Data Loss

Small businesses that use Microsoft to host their websites and e-mail accounts may be in for a harsh shock come May. At the end of April, Microsoft is replacing its free e-mail and website-hosting service, Microsoft Office Live Small Business (OLSB), with Office 365, a paid productivity service i...

By Marielle Segarra • April 3, 2012

Buyout Loans to Get Closer Scrutiny

Federal banking regulators want banks to tighten up the underwriting of loans used by many private-equity firms in buyout transactions. They are recommending more frequent stress testing of such specialized loans and want banks to delve deeper into whether the financial sponsor would inject capit...

By Vincent Ryan • March 27, 2012

When Big Data Gets Small, It Gets Useful

“Business executives have a gut sense that there’s money out there in data,” says Forrester principal analyst Brian Hopkins, and there’s more and more data flooding into enterprises all the time. According to Forrester, the data available to businesses — from Facebook “likes” to natural-language ...

By David Rosenbaum • March 27, 2012

Meet the Chinese Consumer of 2020

Most large consumer-facing companies realize that they will need China to power their growth in the next decade. But to keep pace, these companies will also need to understand the economic, societal, and demographic changes shaping the profiles of consumers and the way they spend. This is no easy...

By Yuval Atsmon and Max Magni • March 21, 2012

Tech Giants Revive Acquisition Market

Technology firms unleashed some of their capital in the past week and a half, injecting some life into an otherwise sluggish merger-and-acquisition climate. Big — but not earth-shattering — deals by Cisco Systems, Dell, and Amazon reversed what had been a dismal beginning to March.Acquisitions ar...

By Vincent Ryan • March 20, 2012

The Future Is Special-ized

Some of you may have read UCLA Professor Jared Diamond’s 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. In it, Diamond answers a question from Yali, his aboriginal New Guinean friend. The question (and I’m paraphrasing) is: “Why do you guys have all the stuff?” That is, why did civiliz...

By Timothy Chou • March 16, 2012

Five Costly Health-Care Compliance Slips

Smaller companies without a substantial, experienced human-resources team may risk overlooking some fundamental requirements for complying with health-care-related laws and regulations. The firms might get away with such an oversight for a while, but could be subject to significant fines if they’...

By David McCann • March 14, 2012

Why CFOs Are Skeptical About Sustainability

To a great extent — and unfortunately — “sustainability” is a quality that exists in the mind of the beholder.Earlier this month, Apple posted a report on its website announcing that the company had created or supported 514,000 jobs in the United States, portraying itself as adhering to one of th...

By David Katz • March 13, 2012

Europe’s Slowdown Won’t Halt U.S. Growth: Economists

Thanks to a vastly lower risk of near-term financial chaos in Europe and an uptick in hiring in the United States, many CFOs and economists are getting a tad more cheery about business prospects for 2012.About 54% of CFOs responding to the Duke/CFO Global Outlook Survey released on Tuesday said t...

By Vincent Ryan • March 9, 2012

For CFOs, Happy Days Are Here Again

Finance executives’ level of optimism about the U.S. economy is back to normal at last, after falling off dramatically during the recession, according to the latest Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, released today.On average, CFOs rate their optimism at 59 on a 100-poin...

By Kate O'Sullivan • March 6, 2012

Choosing a Cloud Application: A Hornets’ Nest of Complexity

As cloud computing is still very much at the peak of the Gartner Hype Cycle (and very much on the mind of CFOs), it’s worth examining how cloud computing can add both complexity and cost to what should be a relatively standard process: selecting an enterprise IT system in a midsize organization. ...

By Rob Livingstone • March 6, 2012

A $20 Million Bet on Cloud Services

Cloud Sherpas, a company that helps businesses deploy Google business applications, and GlobalOne, a Salesforce systems integrator and consultancy, announced today that they would merge under the Cloud Sherpas name.In effect, the deal creates a cloud-services integrator and consultancy with exper...

By David Rosenbaum • March 6, 2012