Group Therapy

A plane crashes in the desert and six survivors are left to choose what items to salvage. Should they take a gun? Salt tablets? Heavy overcoats? How about a cosmetics mirror? With 15 possibilities and limited time to make their choices, the group must quickly prioritize.You might think that a hig...

By Alix Stuart • Nov. 1, 2007

Can This Retirement Be Saved?

Whether you are contemplating retirement in the near term or further down the road, you’ve no doubt run plenty of numbers, from asset-allocation percentages to investment returns to vesting schedules. Maybe you’ve even taken a guess at your estimated lifespan.But you may not have calculated the p...

By Clint Willis • Nov. 1, 2007

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

Ingersoll-Rand Settles Iraq Kickback Charges

Ingersoll-Rand Co. has agreed to pay $6.7 million to settle charges that subsidiaries paid illegal kickbacks to the Iraq government relating to sales of humanitarian goods under the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program. The company agreed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to the entry ...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 31, 2007

CFO’s Lie Costs Indonesia Company $500K

Indonesia’s state oil company was fined $500,000 by a New York court for the “intentional” false deposition of its former chief financial officer, according to the Financial Times. Judge Thomas Griesa determined that Ainin Na’im, former finance chief at Pertamina, lied in a dispute with Karaha B...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 30, 2007

Small-Town Treasurers Gone Wild

A pair of Andy Fastow-wannabes who were treasurers for small villages are in big trouble for embezzling funds in separate cases. In Wisconsin, Kim Simmelink, former clerk and treasurer of the Village of Oostburg, was charged with 10 felonies for allegedly embezzling more than $56,000 from the vi...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 23, 2007

T&E Budgeter’s Lament: Spending Shocks Ahead

Travel and entertainment spending is due for another jolt next year — with a 6-percent rise in the average U.S.-based trip that involves air fare, rental car, and hotel — according to this year’s American Express Global Business Travel Forecast, out just in time for the corporate budgeting cycle....

By Roy Harris • Oct. 23, 2007

Six Accused in PIPE Scheme

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two short sellers and four corporate insiders with running an illegal scheme using PIPEs, or private investments in public equity. The short sellers, Zev Saltsman and Menachem Eitan, were accused along with Edward Newman and Steven Newman, fo...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 23, 2007

IPOs: The Formula for Success

Why are some initial public offerings more successful than others? According to a new study by Ernst & Young, common factors among those that have worked out well include the age of the company and its CEO, whether the company has a global operation, and the breadth of investor support. But s...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 17, 2007

Survey: CFO Optimism at Three-Year Low

For at least the second time this quarter, CFOs have registered a glum outlook the economy and their companies’ business prospects. Financial Executives International and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business reported that its CFO Optimism Index for the U.S. economy fell 4.5 percentage poin...

By Marie Leone • Oct. 17, 2007

Activist Hedge Fund Slams CSX

The manager of a large, activist hedge fund is putting the heat on railroad company CSX Corp., calling for a broad slate of new corporate governance practices and better business performance. The Children’s Investment Master Fund, founded and run by the secretive Chris Hohn, made public a letter...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 16, 2007

Credit Not so Tough to Get, Small Businesses Say

Credit crunch? What credit crunch? According to a new survey by PNC Financial Services Group, 87 percent of small and mid-sized business owners who need credit say availability is the same or better than three months ago.And these business owners apparently are not skittish about unloading the m...

By Stephen Taub • Oct. 4, 2007

Go with the Flow

Read the complete results of the 2007 Cash Masters survey, or review just those results that appeared in print.Life often imitates art. Given the recent twists and turns at his company, Lothar Lanz, for example, can easily relate to the soap operas broadcast on television channels owned by ProSie...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

Business Outlook Survey

For weeks, debate has raged over whether the credit crunch gripping banks, hedge funds and private equity firms will spread to the global economy. In a recent research note, State Street’s Andrew Capon made his opinion clear: “Those that believe this will have no impact on the real economy are wh...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

High Maintenance

What is it about joint ventures in China? They’re hard to set up, difficult to manage, and almost impossible to unwind if things go wrong. Just ask Emmanuel Faber, the former CFO of French yogurt and water company Danone, which has been running dozens of JVs with China’s largest beverage company,...

By Janet Kersnar • Oct. 1, 2007

China: Not So Blue

For the first time, CFO Europe’s latest quarterly Business Outlook Survey includes a dedicated poll of finance chiefs in China. Gauging the sentiment of 380 CFOs, the survey finds senior finance executives in the country in a good mood, relatively speaking.More than 40% of China-based CFOs say th...

By Jason Karaian • Oct. 1, 2007

ROI of Humans

In a Harvard Business Review paper in the early 1990s, Peter Drucker, the most influential management thinker of the last century, wrote, “It is the individual, and especially the skilled and knowledgeable employee, who decides in large measure what he or she will contribute to the organisation a...

By Laura Cameron • Oct. 1, 2007

Business Outlook Survey

CFO optimism plunged to a six-year low in this quarter’s Duke University/CFO magazine Business Outlook Survey, with a record 62 percent of U.S. finance executives saying they felt more pessimistic about the economy than last quarter. Ongoing worries about consumer demand and the cost of labor, co...

By Kate O'Sullivan • Oct. 1, 2007

If You Build It, Will They Come?

When the towering Shanghai World Financial Center is completed next year, it will not only rank among the world’s tallest skyscrapers but will also embody Shanghai’s bid to become a major financial center. (Indeed, the smoke pouring from the building during a mid-August fire could have been read ...

By Alan Rappeport • Oct. 1, 2007

View from China: What Price Glory?

Exactly one year before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which begin on the auspicious date of August 8, 2008 (the Chinese regard eight as a lucky number, and a triple eight compounds its value), state media is dominated by reports of how excited the Chinese people are about hosting this...

By Wu Chen • Oct. 1, 2007

SEC’s Small Biz Proposals Criticized

Participants in a Securities and Exchange Commission roundtable criticized proposed rule changes that the SEC claims would make it easier for small companies to raise capital. Earlier this year, the SEC proposed adjustments to several rules under Regulation D, a 25-year-old guideline used to dete...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 24, 2007

There’s Risky Business Abroad

An international assignment may feel like a holiday for jet-setting business travelers, but for the company sending them it can be a pure risk-management headache.Concerns over taxes and compliance with immigration regulations — not to mention more mundane worries about illness, injury, and other...

By Alan Rappeport • Sept. 18, 2007

Grand Theft Auto, for Real

The former chief financial officer of a luxury-car dealership in Florida has been charged with embezzling more than $500,000 during a five-year period. Andrew Casale, onetime CFO of Reeves Import Motor Cars, was arrested at his home on Thursday morning and charged with six counts of second-degree...

By Marie Leone • Sept. 14, 2007

Alcoa Gets China Payback

Alcoa Inc. sold its holding in Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. (Chalco) for about $2 billion as part of a plan to redeploy its Asian assets, capitalizing on a rapid rise in the value of Chalco shares since its 2001 initial public offering.The Pittsburgh-based aluminum giant, which was outbid earlier...

By Roy Harris • Sept. 12, 2007

CFOs’ Optimism Plummets to Six-Year Low

CFOs’ optimism about the U.S. economy has taken a nosedive. In fact, it has sunk to the lowest level on record, according to the latest results of the quarterly Duke University/CFO Business Outlook Survey.Nearly two-thirds of CFOs are feeling more pessimistic this quarter than they did three mont...

By Sarah Johnson • Sept. 11, 2007

Small Biz Owners Feeling a Squeeze

Small business owners were less upbeat in July than they were at the beginning of the prior quarter, according to the latest quarterly Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index.The index, the sum of both current and future perceptions, is based on telephone interviews with 603 small business owners...

By Stephen Taub • Sept. 6, 2007