Economy Class

Forget Microsoft Corp. It’s the airlines whose recent dealings with competitors really have companies on edge. With alliances in the wind between United and Delta, American and USAir, and Northwest and Continental, companies face the threat that this increasing cooperation will exacerbate the alr...

By John P. Mello Jr. • July 1, 1998

Speech Therapy

Just before his presentation to a group of about 70 investors and analysts last February, James Condon did what he frequently does before such occasions: he ducked into a bathroom and threw up. A few minutes later, the CFO of CyberCash Inc. was on stage and in command– confidently telling his com...

By Joseph McCafferty • June 1, 1998

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

When Puts Marry Calls

For companies that might otherwise resist raising cash at today’s low interest rates, Wall Street has devised a new temptation: synthetic put bonds, or put-call notes.“We probably wouldn’t have refinanced without this structure,” says David Van Benschoten, vice president for treasury operations a...

By Emily S. Plishner • May 1, 1998

Getting Defensive

If a company needs to mount a defense against a hostile takeover, the CEO’s first call likely goes to the general counsel. But increasingly, the finance department quickly gets brought into the fray as well.Smart move, at least in the case of Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC), which in March managed ...

By Linda Corman • May 1, 1998

One STEP at a Time

When Life USA Holding Inc. needed $100 million to expand its fast-growing business during the next five years, it skipped over the usual capital providers and went right to a vendor. Far from admitting weakness, submitting to exorbitant terms, or relinquishing some control of its own business, ho...

By Ian Springsteel • April 1, 1998

Different Strokes

In times of double-digit profit growth, companies seldom challenge a conventional approach to pricing. Apart from weighing costs and the importance of retaining favored customers, what else counts? But good times do not last forever. As companies grope for ways to sustain revenues through less bo...

By Cathy Lazere • April 1, 1998

High Rollers

The day before last Thanksgiving, then-39-year-old financial whiz Jonathan Ledecky pulled off a bold deal. He went to the public equity markets and raised half a billion dollars for his company, Consolidation Capital Corp., in an initial public offering. What made this deal so brazen was not just...

By Joseph McCafferty • April 1, 1998

Forum: Simpler Isn’t Always Better

Imagine arriving at the hospital by ambulance with your father, who is experiencing severe shortness of breath. As paramedics speed him into the emergency room, you try to make sense of highly technical medical jargon. Paramedics, nurses, and doctors communicate in “code,” using precise terms to ...

By Gabor Garai • March 1, 1998

All Together Now

No doubt about it, budgeting and forecasting are universally loathed. For the finance department, the process can take six months to complete. For most operations people, it’s an overly financial exercise designed mainly to please corporate headquarters. The result, says Holly Snyder, director of...

By Cathy Lazere • Feb. 1, 1998

Change of Viewpoint

In the fall of 1994, when then-31-year-old Eliot W. Jacobsen joined Viewpoint DataLabs International Inc. as its first CFO, circumstances were far worse than the confident alumnus of Harvard Business School and Boston’s Bain & Co. had realized. Far from a promising young technology firm in ne...

By Robert A. Mamis • Feb. 1, 1998

In-Flight Infight

In a perfect world, Delta Air Lines Inc. CFO Thomas J. Roeck Jr., along with Ronald W. Allen, would be doing some first-class celebrating these days. As chairman, president, and chief executive officer of the nation’s third-largest airline, Allen presided over a breathtaking two-year rise from th...

By Roy Harris • Dec. 1, 1997

The Best Is EDS

Category WinnerCustomer ProcessingEmployee ProcessingTo undertake an extensive overhaul of finance at a company with more than $8 billion in annual revenues takes a lot of stamina in any year. But to do so in 1990, when words like reengineering, benchmarking, and best practices hadn’t yet entered...

By Russ Banham • Dec. 1, 1997

Champions of Change

Nobody knows that better than the winners of the 1997 REACH Awards for financial reengineering, cosponsored by CFO magazine and MasterCard Corporate Products.Case Corp. was a three-time finalist in last year’s competition; this year it’s a two-time winner, for internal audit operations and accoun...

By Ian Springsteel and Russ Banham • Dec. 1, 1997

Take Your PIK

Intermedia Communications Corp. needed cash last winter to continue its aggressive growth strategy, but circumstances blocked the way. Covenants on $160 million of Tampa-based Intermedia’s existing $353 million in senior debt ruled out another trip to the bank. The second option, issuing equity, ...

By Ian Springsteel • Dec. 1, 1997

Measure for Measure

Armstrong World In-dustries Inc. has a proud history dating back to 1860, but it has spent the past few decades cranking out financial returns considerably more uneven than the rolling plains surrounding its rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, headquarters. Today, the $2.2 billion maker of ceil...

By Randy Myers • Nov. 1, 1997

Easy Riders

Susan Miller will never forget what was arguably the most flagrant misuse of a company car ever. Fifteen years ago, when she was cutting her teeth in fleet administration for a former employer, a worker there decided that his black Chevrolet Caprice looked enough like an unmarked cruiser to suppo...

By Jeffrey Zygmont • Nov. 1, 1997

Frogs into Princes

If you see Bill Alldredge, CFO of Newell Co., in Wal-Mart, he’s more likely to be shopping for companies than for socks.Newell, a Freeport, Illinois-based manufacturer and marketer with $2.9 billion in revenues, has acquired 16 businesses in the past five years, including 5 so far this year. Amon...

By Roberta Reynes • Nov. 1, 1997

Barter Gets Real

Say “barter” to most people, and they picture pioneers swapping bearskins for flint. But barter is thriving in the electronic age among a growing roster of prestigious companies that exchange surplus assets for more useful goods and services.It’s not a ground swell, to be sure, but corporate bart...

By Emily S. Plishner • Nov. 1, 1997

Workers of the World, Disperse!

It takes Sue Sachdeva, CFO of Koss Corp., a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of stereo headphones, less than a minute to commute to work most days. That’s because she telecommutes from her home in Houston, 1,200 miles away from corporate headquarters in Milwaukee — an arrangement that’s been in effec...

By John Xenakis • Oct. 1, 1997

Forum: Just Stop Talking

Under most circumstances, the task of communicating with the general public is reasonably straightforward: Tell the truth about any current problem in a way that fairly represents whatever has happened. In interviews, present the corporate goals and your plans to meet them, as well as obstacles t...

By Louis Ehrenkrantz • Oct. 1, 1997

Help with Business Plans

FINANCIAL MODELINGHelp with Business PlansCan you really use a software program to help you write a business plan? Reid Anderson, a senior business consultant at Physicians Business Network, certainly thinks so. Anderson uses Ronstadt Financials, a $299 planning and budgeting program from Lord Pu...

By John Xenakis • Sept. 1, 1997