Keeping Bad Apples

“The customer is king” is probably the most common management mantra. Coming in second, however, is “Fire bad customers.” A host of management books — “Angel Customers and Demon Customers: Discover Which is Which and Turbo-Charge your Stock” by Geoffrey Colvin and Larry Selden is a good example —...

By Eila Rana • Feb. 4, 2008

Will Bills Stimulate Companies to Spend?

In the two economic stimulus packages bouncing around Congress, the items corporate finance executives are likely to care most about are bonus depreciation and the tax rebates individuals would get, according to a comparison by accounting firm Grant Thornton.Bonus depreciation would provide busin...

By Alan Rappeport • Feb. 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

Signals of Distress

Which companies will default on bonds this year and next?While the current turn in the corporate credit cycle resembles the weakening that affected corporate bond issuers in 2001 — at least in terms of the predicted severity — there will likely be some key differences.Last time around, the indust...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 1, 2008

Dismal Science Indeed

What are the odds that the United States will enter a recession? No, scratch that: What are the odds that the United States will enter a recession next month? According to New York Fed economist Arturo Estrella, the odds are 0.40965, give or take a millionth of a decimal point. That means there’s...

By Avital Louria Hahn • Feb. 1, 2008

The Declining Dollar

For every penny the euro increases against the dollar, United Technologies Corp. records an additional $10 million in earnings. A diversified manufacturing behemoth that earns more than 60 percent of its revenues outside the United States, UTC received an earnings boost of about $100 million last...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 1, 2008

Top 10 Concerns of CFOs

CFOs expressed concern about a wide range of issues in the most recent Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, but above all they fear that an array of intensifying economic pressures will finally affect U.S. consumers and their demand for goods and services. With the costs o...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Feb. 1, 2008

Bending the Rules

Last December, as they unveiled a plan to freeze the interest rates on thousands of subprime mortgages, President George Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. emphasized the shared interest among homeowners, banks, and investors. Thousands of people, the President said, were in danger of ...

By Tim Reason • Feb. 1, 2008

View from Asia: India Starts Buying American

Editor’s Note:This article, published in the February 2008 edition of CFO magazine, incorrectly stated that Dr. Reddy’s, the Indian pharmaceutical company, set up a corporate social responsibility program in Germany to educate children about the dangers of drug addiction. In fact, the program was...

By Tom Leander • Feb. 1, 2008

Preparing Your Company for Recession

“At kitchen tables across our country, there is a concern about our economic future,” the President said in his State of the Union address Monday night. He might well have mentioned conference-room tables, too.Though the president never uttered the word “recession,” his speech came just before ne...

By Tim Reason • Jan. 30, 2008

Paying More for 404

How much will complying with Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 cost small companies when the regulatory burden fully descends upon them? A recent study estimating that figure has sparked heated debate. As CFO.com reported, Worcester, MA-based accounting firm Lord & Benoit put the average total cost...

By Alix Stuart • Jan. 29, 2008

Profit Party Portrays a Strong Economy After All

If you have been mesmerized by the steady drumbeat of billion-dollar write-offs from the world’s largest banks, home foreclosures, and dizzying drops in stock prices, it would be easy to conclude that the economy is falling apart.It also doesn’t help anyone’s confidence in the economy that Congre...

By Stephen Taub • Jan. 25, 2008

The Fed’s Statement on the Rate Cut

Jumping the gun on its regularly scheduled meeting next week, the Fed decided last night to cut its target federal funds rate by 75 basis points. Besides its effects on the overall global economy and on U.S. homeowners, the move has powerful implications for corporations’ future ability to issue ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Jan. 22, 2008

Innovation’s Big Spenders

China and India may trail far behind the Western world in terms of R&D spending, but they are catching up fast. That’s the conclusion of a recentstudy of corporate innovation spending by consultingfirm Booz Allen Hamilton.Chinese and Indian companies spent just US$2.1billion on R&D in 200...

By Don Durfee • Jan. 18, 2008

Made in China, Taxed in the U.S.

A tax surprise could await companies that manufacture in China and ship goods for sale back to the United States.The U.S. government has started to bring subsidy cases against imports coming out of China, “and Chinese subsidiaries of U.S. companies are being caught in that net,” says Philippe Br...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Jan. 17, 2008

You Have 0 Unread Messages

The founder of a company that gives away e-mail service might seem anunlikely candidate as the U.S. Congress’ 2007 poster child for corporatewrongdoing, but Jerry Yang seems to have this year’s contest wrapped up.Despite a field of promising candidates (particularly in the sub-primemortgage secto...

By Bennett Voyles • Jan. 15, 2008

Nailing Down the Cost of 404

Ever since companies began the daunting task of complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2003, the question of how much it costs has been ripe for debate. The Securities and Exchange Commission didn’t do much to clear things up when, that first year, it estimated the internal wor...

By Sarah Johnson • Jan. 10, 2008

China Drives IPO Upswing

The aches of the credit crisis and the pains of stiff market regulation could have added up to a slowdown of new public offerings on American exchanges in 2007. Instead, thanks largely to interest in Chinese companies, it turned out to be the most active year for IPOs in the last seven.According ...

By Alan Rappeport • Jan. 8, 2008

Bring Your Own Pretzels

Higher business-travel costs may force finance departments to run just to stay in place.The cost of the average U.S. domestic business trip, including airfare, hotel, and car rental, is projected to climb 6 percent this year; for international trips expect a 7 percent increase, according to Ameri...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 1, 2008

Business Outlook Survey

Finance chiefs are not predicting a very happy new year. A record-breaking 72 percent of them say they are less optimistic about the economy than they were last quarter, while just 9 percent are more optimistic, according to the latest Duke University/CFO magazine Global Business Outlook Survey. ...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Jan. 1, 2008

Small Business, Big Problems

Steven Preston is not one to refuse a thankless task. While transitioning out of the CFO role at $3.6 billion ServiceMaster, he agreed to stay on after the implosion of the firm’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, and then through what he calls the Sarbanes-Oxley “implementation war.”But then came an opp...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 1, 2008

Foreign Intelligence

Overseas markets seem to grow by the minute, luring ever smaller and younger U.S. companies with the promise of booming economies and lower costs. But for these relatively inexperienced firms, the dream of international expansion soon collides with reality: many companies find themselves unprepar...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Jan. 1, 2008

A Hedge-Fund Mystery

Last August was a bad month for the hedge-fund industry. According to fund tracker Barclay Hedge Ltd., about 75 percent of the 2,600 or so hedge funds that reported results for the month showed a loss, of about 1.4 percent on average. The week of August 6 was particularly cruel to quantitative eq...

By Edward Teach • Jan. 1, 2008

View from China: Growing out of Control

There’s a strong sense among foreign multinational executives that the door of opportunity is wide open in China, even as fears of recession have clouded growth prospects in the United States and Europe. This optimism is increasingly at odds with the view of China’s CFOs, many of whom are worried...

By Wu Chen • Jan. 1, 2008

Christmas Trees Are Rotten in Denmark

The Danish Christmas Tree Growers’ Association got something even worse than coal in its stocking this year: an indictment for serious economic crimes.The organization was charged with rigging prices for the trees — no small matter given that Denmark is the number-one exporter of Christmas trees ...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 21, 2007

Europe Woes Mount for Presstek

Presstek Inc. said it has widened an internal review of inventory issues and other business practices. The printing company already was looking into excess and obsolete inventory, receivables from distributors in Europe, and European revenue recognition practices. This caused the company to dela...

By Stephen Taub • Dec. 20, 2007