Counter Attack

Most retailers want you to come to their checkout lines with as much merchandise as you can carry. Not Abercrombie & Fitch. The $3.75 billion apparel retailer actually limits the number of items customers can buy to 20, bumping it up to 50 only during the Christmas and back-to-school shopping...

By Randy Myers • June 1, 2008

Capex Caution

Capital spending generally goes as the economy goes — which means it’s currently in the doldrums. Growth of U.S. capital expenditures (capex) has slowed from a robust 21 percent in 2006 to 13 percent in 2007 to nominal growth projected for 2008, according to business consultancy The Hackett Group...

By Avital Louria Hahn • June 1, 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

Staying on Course

CaseCentral, a San Francisco–based litigation support firm, may seem as recession-proof as a business can be. It provides an electronic platform for evidence management to companies battling lawsuits — not a sector likely to see a precipitous falloff in business. Even so, CaseCentral isn’t immune...

By Karen M. Kroll • June 1, 2008

How Bad Will It Get?

Is the U.S. economy in a recession? By a well-known rule of thumb — two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth — no. Gross domestic product grew an estimated 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, the same pace as in the fourth quarter of 2007. Many economists forecast more growth for...

By Edward Teach • June 1, 2008

ROC Solid

In their never-ending quest to drive shareholder value, CFOs have a bevy of favorite performance gauges to point them in the right direction. But do popular metrics such as return on equity (ROE) and return on net assets (RONA) truly focus CFOs on the correct strategies for boosting a company’s v...

By Vincent Ryan • June 1, 2008

View from Europe

When Saudi Arabia’s government announced last month that it would join the list of Middle Eastern and Asian countries that have launched sovereign-wealth funds (SWFs), CFOs in Europe had more than just a passing interest. These SWFs — from the Government Investment Corp. in Singapore to Abu Dhabi...

By Janet Kersnar • June 1, 2008

Another One Bites the Dust

Silverjet didn’t cite skyrocketing fuel costs as its reason for ceasing operations Friday, but it didn’t need to be said. If the price of oil doesn’t moderate, soon there may be more airlines grounded than flying.In a statement on its Website, U.K.-based Silverjet — an all-business-class carrier ...

By Stephen Taub • May 30, 2008

Oil Blues Force Companies to Cut Back

At least two major companies made decisions this week in response to the surging price of oil, while a third is mulling a big change due to the weak economy.JetBlue Airways announced it plans to defer the delivery of 21 Airbus A320 aircraft, originally scheduled for delivery between 2009 through ...

By Stephen Taub • May 28, 2008

Maybe There’s No Pony, Small Biz Worries

The pessimism among small business owners is deepening by the quarter.A Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey conducted in April — compiling ratings in the areas of financial situation, cash flow, revenues, capital allocation, job hiring, and credit availability — found that optimism rat...

By Stephen Taub • May 27, 2008

SEC Rule Aids Small-Biz Capital

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a rule amendment to increase the availability of capital to smaller companies that may not have ready access to the public capital markets or other forms of conventional financing.With the rule change, more small, financially troubled businesses ...

By Stephen Taub • May 16, 2008

Financial Firms Drag Down S&P 500

Call it a tale of two markets: first-quarter 2008 operating earnings for the S&P 500 declined 25.9 percent from a year earlier — but excluding financial companies, the group actually enjoyed a healthy gain, according to preliminary figures from Standard & Poor’s.It was the third consecuti...

By Stephen Taub • May 16, 2008

SEC Plans to Boost Small-Business Capital Formation

The Securities and Exchange Commission will consider a proposal its staff says would boost access to capital for small companies that are either developing or struggling. The rule amendment would give more small, financially troubled businesses a better chance at getting investment dollars. As it...

By Sarah Johnson • May 8, 2008

Steppes Ahead

Last month, a standing-room-only crowd packed a posh London hotel for a conference about an unlikely topic: Mongolian capital markets. A year ago, notes J Peter Morrow, CEO of Ulaanbaatar-based Khan Bank, such a gathering “would have been somewhere between irrelevant and fatuous.” Now, however, w...

By Laura Cameron • May 5, 2008

Weather Report

Whether it’s due to regulation, pressure from stakeholders or genuine anxiety about the fate of our planet, climate change is becoming a boardroom issue. Or, at least, companies are making it appear so.Corporate Register, an online directory of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting, rec...

By Laura Cameron • May 5, 2008

Small Businesses Bitten by Credit Crunch

The credit crunch and soft economy are taking their toll on small companies. Recent studies and reports from lenders show that small businesses are either having a harder time getting credit or struggling to pay off their debt.Consider, for example, the recent earnings report from Advanta Corp., ...

By Stephen Taub • May 2, 2008

Half Full, and Then Some

Confidence is in short supply these days. The prospect of a lengthy recession has left just about everyone feeling nervous and insecure. Finance chiefs in particular are gloomier than ever, as indicated by CFO magazine’s recent Business Outlook surveys, which found that nearly 90 percent don’t an...

By Alan Rappeport • May 1, 2008

View from Asia: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I was hosting a dinner of multinational executives in Shanghai recently when the CFO of a well-known U.S. company that has been operating in China for ages told me that he was about to conclude a long assignment in Shenzen and move back to New York.He said that he was looking forward to returning...

By Tom Leander • May 1, 2008

Europe Feels Effects of Credit Crunch

The global credit crunch is clearly taking a toll on European companies.In the first quarter of 2008, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded 35 issuers in Europe and upgraded only 17. The gap of downgrades to upgrades was the worst since the third quarter of 2006, when the ratings gap was at minus ...

By Stephen Taub • April 29, 2008

For Global Credit Ratings, Down Is Way Up

Another measure of global credit quality plunged in the first quarter, as the ratio of downgrades-to-upgrades ratio soared to 3-to-1 from 2-to-1 in the previous quarter.As recently as the 2007 second quarter, the number of upgrades had approximated the number of downgrades, according to a new rep...

By Stephen Taub • April 28, 2008

Credit Woes Stifle Small-Biz Loans

A banking-industry leader blames inefficiencies at the Small Business Administration for the fact that much-needed financing for small businesses has begun to run dry.Lenders have been discouraged by the SBA’s high fees, staffing problems, and lowered loan-guarantee levels, said Cynthia Blankensh...

By Sarah Johnson • April 18, 2008

New Boss Means No Budget

As the long Presidential campaign continues, the impact of cutting taxes — or not cutting them — on the federal budget is sure to be a point of debate. One other thing is for sure, as well: federal departments and agencies won’t actually be preparing budgets for the fiscal year that begins in 200...

By Kate Plourd • April 18, 2008

Rising Gas Prices Push Small Businesses to the Brink

Small business executives, though not traditionally fond of government intervention, are begging for federal help in addressing the rising cost of fuel prices. In a Wednesday hearing held on Capitol Hill by a subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee, experts and executives testified on ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • April 10, 2008

Growth Engine

Last month, the executive team of Skoda gathered at the Czech carmaker’s headquarters in Mladá Boleslav, about an hour’s drive north-east of Prague, to unveil yet another batch of record-setting financial results. It was a wet, grey day that put the imposing concrete communist-era tower blocks wh...

By Jason Karaian • April 7, 2008

Into the Unknown

The debate over accounting for intangible assets rumbles on, as common standards on how to measure trademarks, brands, databases and the like have yet to materialise.Next month, the International Valuation Standards Committee, a London-based non-governmental organisation, will host a roundtable i...

By Eila Rana • April 7, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

It may not be a recession, but it’s awfully close. That’s how finance chiefs in Europe describe what’s going on at home, according to our latest survey of senior finance executives. More than 1,000 finance chiefs worldwide participated in this quarter’s poll, conducted in conjunction with Tilburg...

By Jason Karaian • April 7, 2008