Here, There and Everywhere

Poznan is described in travel guides as a quaint, historic university city with a population of less than 1m. Most visitors to Poland are lured instead by bustling Warsaw or trendy Krakow, with Poznan attracting attention only because it lies on the Paris-Berlin-Moscow rail route.But Poznan’s eco...

By Janet Kersnar and Bennett Voyles • Oct. 6, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

“A global economic slow-down is looming,” according to the European Commission’s latest forecast. According to finance chiefs, the slowdown is already well under way, and likely to get worse before it gets better.Pessimists outnumber optimists worldwide in this quarter’s poll of nearly 1,300 seni...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 3, 2008

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

Cut or Grow? It Depends

The Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey recently asked chief financial officers to rank their strategic priorities for 2009. The tug-of-war between revenue growth and cost-cutting was evident, with a strong number of responses in both categories. Ultimately, the top priori...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Oct. 1, 2008

Convergence Divergence

The unveiling of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new road map to international financial reporting standards (IFRS) in late summer came as a relief to some, but also sparked a backlash as critics questioned not only certain details but the entire rationale for adopting international stan...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 1, 2008

Dear Mr. President

On November 4, the nation will choose either Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain as its 44th President. The winner will inherit a mess. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a crisis in the credit markets, a painful housing bust, and soaring energy and commodity prices head the list of thorny...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2008

The Champ Feels Some Heat

Deep into the largest financial shock since the Great Depression, it is easy to imagine that the rise of the Chinese and Indian economies and the resurgence of London as a financial center could tilt the balance of capital-markets power. America’s biggest global banks, desperate to rebuild capita...

By Randy Myers • Oct. 1, 2008

And They’re Off! (But Should You Worry?)

When Kathleen Casey-Kirschling collected her first Social Security check in Vero Beach, Florida, last February, alarm bells went off across the nation. Casey-Kirschling, born January 1, 1946, is considered the first baby boomer. Therefore, her retirement foreshadows the mass exodus of tens of mil...

By Alix Stuart • Oct. 1, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

When it comes to predicting a U.S. economic revival, even optimistic finance executives sound gloomy. They do expect the economy to show signs of life — but not until mid-2009. And while this quarter’s Duke University/CFO Global Business Outlook Survey counts fewer pessimistic CFOs than it did la...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2008

View from Europe

Although spared the mudslinging ads on television and in local press, CFO son this side of the Atlantic are watching the final weeks of the U.S. Presidential campaigns more closely than they have in previous elections. Indeed, regardless of whether they’re in the Obama or McCain camp, there’s a w...

By Janet Kersnar • Oct. 1, 2008

Equipment Financing Hits a Skid

Companies are pulling back on financing equipment for their businesses as tight credit and diminished demand is showing new signs of spreading throughout the economy. The August survey by the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association shows that new business volume dropped by 14.5 percent, falling...

By Alan Rappeport • Sept. 25, 2008

Financial Crisis Means Rougher Flying for Boeing

Running Boeing Co. these days must seem like managing air-traffic control at O’Hare on a stormy day full of delays and re-routings. And like an overworked controller, CEO Jim McNerney tries to sound calm when asked whether credit-strapped airline customers may be forced into canceling orders, or ...

By Roy Harris • Sept. 25, 2008

Leaping Layoffs, and Not Just on Wall St.

The financial services industry may be imploding and combining, with untold layoffs yet to come. But a number of companies seemingly far-removed from banking already have announced sizable layoffs this week.The mounting number of unemployed hardly bodes well for the overall economy, which recentl...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 17, 2008

A Turn for the Worse

THE second quarter of this year was the most profitable ever for Big Oil: the six largest Western oil companies reported a 40% jump in profits, to a combined $51.6 billion. Exxon Mobil, the biggest of them all, banked $11.7 billion, the highest-ever quarterly profit reported by an American firm, ...

By Economist Staff • Sept. 12, 2008

Internal Controls Flummox Small Companies

More than one-third of small, publicly traded companies reported they had ineffective internal controls this year, the first in which they had to comply with the controls provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Only half that many larger companies said the same about their first experience with Sarb...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 10, 2008

E&Y Study: Small Caps Ripe for Picking

A decline in market capitalization among companies listed in the Russell 2000 Index of small-cap companies is driving strong mergers and acquisitions activity, according to an Ernst & Young analysis of the index’s annual reconstitution.A total of 137 companies were removed from the index beca...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 10, 2008

Feeling for the Bottom

CFOs predict job cuts and scant capital spending throughout the remainder of 2008 and the first half of next year, with most CFOs thinking a recovery is not likely to begin until next summer at the earliest, according to the results of the latest quarterly Duke University/CFO magazine Global Busi...

By Tim Reason • Sept. 9, 2008

Baidu CFO Jennifer Li

Last December, Baidu, China’s top Internet search provider, suffered a blow — the death of its popular CFO, 40-year-old Shawn Wang, who saw the company through its 2005 Nasdaq IPO. In March, Baidu tapped another 40-year-old, Jennifer Li, the North America controller of GMAC, the financing arm of ...

By Don Durfee • Sept. 8, 2008

Two Airlines Cut Fuel Surcharges

What goes up may just come down — even fuel surcharges.A large number of energy guzzlers, from airlines and cruise companies to truckers to chemical companies, were quick to institute fuel surcharges as the price of oil surged earlier this year, topping out at more than $147 per barrel. Now that ...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 5, 2008

Credit Check

Read the rankings of Europe’s 100 largest debt issuers by Moody’s KMV.Wolfgang Reithofer was exasperated. When presenting a stellar set of 2007 results, the CEO of Wienerberger, a €2.5 billion Austrian building materials group, lamented how the firm’s share price had “disconnected” from its finan...

By Jason Karaian • Sept. 3, 2008

Braced for Change

Plenty of M&A deals have an unwanted impact on someone, be it the executive who loses out in a boardroom reshuffle or the shareholder whose holdings are diluted. In the technology industry, there’s another knock-on effect: a deal can aggravate the acquired company’s customers, whose CFO and C...

By Tim Burke • Sept. 3, 2008

Top Ten Concerns of CFOs

Though his company makes fuel tanks for commercial vehicles, Ludwig Gold is as concerned about what goes inside the containers as the tanks themselves. The head of corporate finance and controlling at Salzburger Aluminium, like most finance executives around the world, cites the cost of fuel as o...

By Jason Karaian • Sept. 3, 2008

Gunning for Global Graft

Anyone trying to grease a few palms abroad, beware. The Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission are on track to file a record number of enforcement actions this year based on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits the bribing of foreign officials....

By Kate O'Sullivan • Sept. 1, 2008

Roiled by Oil

It’s official: The price of oil is a problem. Even as the going rate for black gold set one record after another, finance chiefs seemed largely unconcerned. But when gasoline crested the $4-per-gallon mark this summer, fuel prices rose to the top of the list of finance executives’ concerns for th...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Sept. 1, 2008

The Taxman Cometh

After years of doling out tax breaks and incentives to support the domestic information technology industry that made offshoring a household word (and lured plenty of U.S. businesses to Bangalore and other high-tech hot spots), India’s government is looking for a little payback. The 2008 Finance ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Sept. 1, 2008

View from Asia

As corporate growth grinds to a halt in the United States and Europe, the bosses of global companies are rediscovering their enthusiasm for emerging markets. Companies ranging from Sony to General Electric to General Motors stress that, despite gloom at home, prospects for their Asian operations ...

By Don Durfee • Sept. 1, 2008