The Rise of ESG: Where It Is Now and How It Got Here

Germany’s top money manager DWS was rocked by scandal in early June as police and agents from that county’s securities regulator BaFin swarmed into the company’s Frankfurt head office to investigate allegations of greenwashing.Greenwashing is the practice of claiming to follow environmental, soci...

By Ted Jackson • July 5, 2022

CFOs: 9.3% Jump in Prices Will Wipe Out Real Revenue Growth

CFOs' views of the economy and the future financial performance of their own companies worsened in the second quarter, according to results of The CFO Survey released Wednesday. Overall optimism about the U.S. economy fell to its lowest point in nearly 10 years.Compared with the first quarter, th...

By Vincent Ryan • June 29, 2022

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

Strategic Acquisitions: Their Mistake Could Be Your Next Opportunity

Jeff Bezos famously said, “your margin is my opportunity.” Amazon certainly delivered in the decade since these words were spoken, despite its early naysayers. Unfortunately, recent history has also shown that a similar mentality in less able hands creates chaos and destroys value. Many neglected...

By Kal Vadasz • June 27, 2022

Tracking GDP Growth Estimates: Weekly Stat

Predicting a recession — especially the timing  — is difficult. And even when you’re right, you can be wrong.In March 2019, the yield on three-month and 10-year Treasuries inverted. And two-thirds of finance chiefs surveyed by Duke University and CFO expected the U.S. economy to be in a recession...

By Vincent Ryan • June 17, 2022

Equity Markets Near Stall Speed: Weekly Stat

A company is unlikely to sell new stock if the equities markets are not welcoming new issues with open arms, market volatility is high, a depressed stock price would make equity expensive, or a slew of other reasons. This year, multiple variables have put many initial public offerings (IPOs) and ...

By Vincent Ryan • June 3, 2022

Fixing Invoice Errors Shouldn’t Take a Week: Metric of the Month

Invoicing errors are a waste of time for all parties. The customer not only has to contact you (the supplier) to resolve the error, but your employees need to investigate its cause. Then, ideally, an employee has to take action to make sure the problem doesn’t recur.  Invoicing errors happen for ...

By Perry D. Wiggins • June 1, 2022

7 CFO Tips for Taking Your Company Public

If you want the straight story on what it’s like taking a company public, Mike Ellis has some thoughts for you. At the CFO Leadership Conference in Boston on Friday, Ellis, named a Boston Business Journal CFO of the Year, offered an inside look into how a CFO prepares a company for an initial pub...

By Vincent Ryan • May 23, 2022

Data Integration Drives Successful Mergers

A lackluster integration process is often to blame if a merger or acquisition doesn’t create new value for a combined entity. However, despite the prevalence of the problem, the dreaded post-merger integration (PMI) failure still slips under far too many corporate radars.   Stacy GalliganThankful...

By Stacy Galligan • May 16, 2022

CFO to CEO: 6 Tips to Prepare for the Top Spot

When Peloton Interactive and Hertz recently named former CFOs to the CEO position, they were keeping up with a trend. According to the Crist|Kolder Associates Volatility 2021 Report, 7.9% of the chief executive officers appointed in 2021 came from the CFO seat – up from 5.6% in 2012.  But unlike ...

By Sandra Beckwith • May 10, 2022

Meeting the Demand for Sustainability Disclosures and Investments

Globally, climate change is forcing people to think differently and, as a result, priorities are changing for private citizens and corporate ones. Stakeholders increasingly demand more from organizations than a commitment to short-term profitability. This drumbeat of demand includes a call for in...

By Steve McNally • May 3, 2022

Beware of Zombie Businesses in Your Portfolio

In the months to come, the penalty for holding disappointing businesses in corporate portfolios will grow. As interest rates rise, the expected future cash flows may be worth less than the capital invested in those businesses or projects.  Kal VadaszNow is the time to weed out such “zombie” busin...

By Kal Vadasz • April 28, 2022

3 CFO Priorities for An Unstable Time

In the best, most stable of times, the job of forecasting and responding to demand is difficult at best. These are not the most stable of times.In a 30-year career, I've never seen a more uncertain, unstable economic situation than what we're facing now, particularly for chief financial officers ...

By Richard Jenkins • April 26, 2022

Metric of the Week: CFOs Prefer Strategy Over Management

Chief financial officers as company leaders have been an ongoing theme over the past few years, for obvious reasons. CFO’s reporting has illuminated, and studies and surveys have shown, the finance chief not only is needed as a strategic leader within the organization but increasingly yearns to p...

By Andy Burt • April 18, 2022

The Fed Gets Ready to Taper: Weekly Stat

At the current rate of consumer price index inflation, the cost of living in the United States would double every nine years. So wrote Robert Phipps, a director at Per Stirling Capital Management, in a note released Friday.Wary of such a potentially devastating impact on households, the Federal O...

By Vincent Ryan • April 11, 2022

Whipping Inflation May Require Chancing a Recession

In the ideal outcome for the U.S. economy, the Federal Reserve will fine-tune monetary policy just enough to bring down inflation but not too much that consumers stop buying and GDP growth stalls. That’s why raising interest rates without tipping the country into recession is called the “Goldiloc...

By Ted Jackson • April 6, 2022

Inflation Weighs on Consumers’ Minds: Weekly Stat

What do consumers think about the macroeconomy and their own economic prospects? The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index, one of four data points we said CFOs should be tracking this year, shows widespread pessimism sinking in.The index fell to 59.4 for March, it was revealed last w...

By Vincent Ryan • March 28, 2022

Weekly Stat: High Volatility Index Readings Curb IPOs

No smart investment banker would counsel a CFO to price an initial public offering (IPO) when stock markets turn volatile. That’s why “upcoming IPOs” calendars are bare, and the one company that did list in March (as of Friday) saw its shares dive 65% on the open market.The go-to for measuring eq...

By Vincent Ryan • March 18, 2022

SEC Tries to Patch Money Market Rules

 Will the newest round of money market fund reforms from the Securities and Exchange Commission cause corporate treasurers to ditch the vehicles as a parking place for excess cash?Last December, the SEC proposed its third set of money market reforms in a decade-and-a-half. Like previous changes, ...

By Vincent Ryan • March 8, 2022

Metric of the Month: Return On Invested Capital

As countries begin to lift their pandemic restrictions and business leaders look toward post-COVID-19 business models, it’s important to ask whether the investments you made in 2020 (or earlier) still make sense. Reevaluating these investments can free up cash and enable investment in areas that ...

By Perry D. Wiggins • March 2, 2022

Planning for Inflation’s Impact

Inflation has been ticking upward for months, and with the U.S. Federal Reserve indicating a March rate increase, there are concerns heightened inflation could persist. Business leaders, and specifically CFOs, will be weighing the impact on their businesses — and how others interpret the moves th...

By Steve Gallucci and Ira Kalish • March 1, 2022

Stats of the Week: Diagnosing the Consumer

Are consumers in a funk? Consumer spending contracted nearly 1% in December 2021, and the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped to a gloomy 62.8 in February.PayPal seemed to think so during its early February earnings call. "The impact of omicron and the effect of inflationary...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 28, 2022

Private Equity’s 2022 Game Plan

A strong economic environment, record dry powder in the form of $500 billion across the top 25 firms, and cheap capital have fueled a surge in U.S. private equity. Fundraising, deal, and exit activity are at a scale and pace not seen since the early 2000s. Indeed, 2021 was a record for PE exits, ...

By Kevin Thornton and Chris Reeves • Feb. 25, 2022

Private Credit Market May Be Tested

Private credit markets for middle-market companies have rebounded strongly since the second half of 2021. Still, some credit analysts and market participants warn a turn in the cycle is coming.Financially weaker, highly leveraged midmarket companies may be in for a rough ride from inflation press...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 15, 2022

The Fed vs. Inflation: Playing Catch-Up

Last week’s consumer price index (CPI) report tolled the bell on the pandemic-induced, near-zero Federal Funds Rate. CPI inflation (including food and energy costs) has climbed since April 2021, while the Federal Reserve has kept the benchmark rate at its ultra-low April 29, 2020, setting. Now Fe...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 14, 2022

Prevent Customers from Going Delinquent

If cash is the lifeblood of a business, the revenue cycle is the circulatory system. The process of extending credit to customers, billing them for goods or services, and applying remittances to open receivables all pump blood through the body of a business. Delinquent customers and bad debt keep...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Feb. 2, 2022