Thank You for Smoking

Despite efforts to convince the ethical investment industry that they conduct their businesses “responsibly,” tobacco companies are universally excluded from ethical funds. Not that this has any effect on their financial performance. Bolstered by volume growth in emerging markets and pricing powe...

By Jason Karaian • Sept. 1, 2007

2050 Foresight

Just for fun, let’s turn away from the troubles of the present — the meltdown of the subprime mortgage sector, the volatility of the stock market, the cratering of hedge funds — and look to the horizon. What is the world going to look like in 2050?The growing consensus is that we will be in the m...

By Edward Teach • Sept. 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

At Your Beck and Call

Tired of doctors’ visits that consist of waiting 45 minutes for a hurried 5-minute conversation? Try the boutique alternative. Also called concierge care or membership-based coverage, these services are becoming increasingly popular despite their high cost.The idea is to charge consumers as much ...

By Lori Calabro • Sept. 1, 2007

View from Europe: The French Disconnection

You couldn’t help but be puzzled by the timing. Just as France’s new finance minister, Christine Lagarde, called on the nation to “stop thinking, start working” in a July speech, her countrymen were packing their bags to begin their annual summer holidays. Both working and thinking would have to ...

By Janet Kersnar • Sept. 1, 2007

What’s Your Fraud Score?

A new research report contains formulas to help auditors and investors predict the likelihood that a public company is playing earnings management games. Sponsored by the Big Four accounting firms, the report, “Predicting Material Accounting Manipulations,” explains how to calculate a “fraud scor...

By Marie Leone • Aug. 17, 2007

Sun Sets on More Jobs

Sun Microsystems said it will reduce its workforce, enabling it to save $100 million to $150 million over the next several quarters. However, it did not provide the exact number of positions it plans to eliminate. Since June 2006, Sun has cut about 4,000 jobs through layoffs and attrition. Sun ha...

By Stephen Taub • Aug. 8, 2007

Lessons in Sitting Pretty

This article has been updated to reflect a correction regarding the tax treatment of non-qualified stock options.Stock options are like sex, says Beth Walker, founder of financial-planning firm Virtual CFO and author of An Employee’s Guide to Stock Options. “Everybody wants some, everybody claims...

By Marie Leone • Aug. 1, 2007

View from Asia: How to Manage Terrorism

Head for any one of the pricey business hotels in Jakarta, and you’ll feel like you’re entering Iraq’s Green Zone. Entrances have more than one barricade and guards poke around in the taxi trunks. Soldiers are everywhere.Yet Indonesia can be called one of the world’s success stories in containing...

By Tom Leander • Aug. 1, 2007

Midair Maneuvers

Lasse Heinonen, CFO of Finnair, is well aware of the €2 billion airline’s competitive advantage: from its hub in Helsinki, Finnair offers a travel time to northeast Asia faster than any other European airline. But like most medium-sized European flag carriers, old obstacles had prevented him from...

By Eila Rana • July 30, 2007

Bill Would Broaden Scrutiny of Foreign Investments

If President Bush signs a bill to vet acquisitions by overseas companies that’s making its way to the White House, foreign companies could soon face greater scrutiny in the interests of national security when investing in the United States.The legislation would overhaul the Committee on Foreign I...

By Alan Rappeport • July 12, 2007

Growing with the Flow

Twenty years ago, Charles Mulford was talking to the CEO of a high-tech start-up that had very ambitious growth plans. “I was very interested in the company,” he says, “but I questioned how they were going to finance their aggressive growth strategy. The CEO really surprised me when he said, ‘We’...

By Scott Leibs • July 11, 2007

SEC Throws Small Companies a Bone

On the heels of congressional criticism that the Securities and Exchange Commission isn’t being friendly enough to small businesses, the regulator has proposed rule changes that would let an estimated 1,500 more companies take advantage of lighter disclosure rules first created for the smallest p...

By Sarah Johnson • July 10, 2007

Finance-Worker Confidence Takes a Plunge

In what has been a roller-coaster year for confidence survey results for accounting and finance employees, confidence dipped sharply in June, according to the Hudson Employment Index. The index score dropped 9.8 points to 106.3, after an upward surge in May. Hudson said lower hiring expectations ...

By Stephen Taub • July 5, 2007

Tangled Up in Tasks

The estimate is startling. Naturally, upon reading it, I have to leave my office and tell a colleague about it.According to Basex Inc., a knowledge-management research firm, work interruptions cost the U.S. economy at least $650 billion a year. Analysts Jonathan B. Spira and David M. Goldes recko...

By Edward Teach • July 1, 2007

View from China: Taking Stock

These days everyone in Shanghai seems to own stock shares, including my barber. A man in his late 60s, he owns a small shop in a part of Shanghai once known as the French Concession. A week before the big stock-market dive that hit the Shanghai exchange, he told me he had placed his life savings ...

By Wu Chen • July 1, 2007

GlobalSantaFe Probes Possible Nigerian Woes

Offshore oil driller GlobalSantaFe Corp. said it began a voluntary probe of its Nigerian operations for possible violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and local laws. It said that another company’s settlement of a case involving a customs agent, and similar studies by two other com...

By Kate Plourd • June 26, 2007

Congresswoman Turns Up the Heat on SEC

Nydia Velazquez, chair of the House Committee on Small Business, fired off a press release expressing her disappointment that the Securities and Exchange Commission missed her 20-day deadline to provide a cost estimate for compliance with the internal-control provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. ...

By Sarah Johnson • June 26, 2007

Companies Follow Earmark Trail

Editor’s Note: This article, on the apparent effectiveness of small company lobbying, originally appeared yesterday in our sister publication, Roll Call. With the 2008 election season already in full swing, CFO.com will occasionally bring its readers selected stories from our sister publication t...

By Paul Singer • June 26, 2007

Quick Quiz: What’s a Reporting Entity?

Before you can translate words into another language, you have to be sure you understand what they mean in your own country. Even the English definitions of the most basic accounting terms — such as “reporting entity” — can be interpreted differently at small private businesses and at large publi...

By Cheryl Rosen • June 22, 2007

J-SOX Nation

This past April, Japanese pitching sensation DaisukeMatsuzaka wowed Red Sox Nation with his “gyroball.” From now untilnext April, Dave Sackett expects to be equally mesmerized by Japan’sversion of the corporate curveball.The corporate controller of Ulvac Technologies is charged withimplementing J...

By Cheryl Rosen • June 22, 2007

Painful Memories: SEC Grilled on 404 Costs

Under congressional pressure to ease the future burdens of small businesses in complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission is being asked to return to an issue that’s likely to open old wounds: quantifying the costs to companies of complying with t...

By David Katz • June 12, 2007

Senators Urge SEC to Delay 404, Again

Senators John Kerry and Olympia Snowe have sent another letter to Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox asking him to give small companies more time to prepare for complying with the internal-control provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The small-business committees in both...

By Sarah Johnson • June 8, 2007

Survey: CFOs Gloomy about Economy

CFOs are feeling gloomier about the U.S. economy this quarter, their optimism sagging on concerns about rising labor costs and weak consumer demand, according to the latest Duke University/CFO Business Outlook Survey. For the first time this year, a majority of CFOs are feeling pessimistic about ...

By Alan Rappeport • June 7, 2007

Coming This Summer: 404 for All

The jury is still out on whether recent rule changes will make it easier for small companies to comply with section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley. Chances are, they’ll start to find out this summer.The House Committee on Small Businesses heard testimony Tuesday from regulators and advocates for smaller p...

By Alan Rappeport • June 5, 2007

Measuring Up

When Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez gave up a double, a single, and another double in Game 7 of the 2003 American League Championship Series, he not only squandered a three-run lead (and ultimately the pennant), but also provided a poignant lesson in the value of metrics.Martinez’s eighth inning coll...

By Scott Leibs • June 1, 2007