Northrop Grumman CFO’s Job: Attack the Hackers

“Traditionally, cybersecurity has been focused on the upfront protection piece,” notes Heather Crofford, the incoming CFO of Enterprise Shared Services for Northrop Grumman, the big aerospace and defense contractor.Heather Crofford,CFO of enterprise shared services,Northrop Grumman That aspect in...

By David Katz • Feb. 26, 2015

IRS Begins Rule-Making for Tax on ‘Cadillac’ Plans

The Internal Revenue Service has begun the process of implementing the looming Obamacare excise tax on employer-sponsored health plans that, according to one recent analysis, could cost large companies subject to the tax $2.1 million per year from 2018 to 2024.The so-called “Cadillac plan” tax, w...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 26, 2015

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

Considering the Cloud

See the companion piece to this magazine feature, What Does the Cloud Really Cost?The cloud computing bandwagon continues to pick up speed, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) arrangements now outselling licensed software. Moreover, cloud computing is winning corporate converts to infrastructure-as...

By Keith Button • Feb. 26, 2015

Well Covered

Over the past 30 years, CFO has featured an impressive array of finance chiefs on its covers, not to mention a number of top regulators. Test your knowledge of CFO’s covers by taking the following quiz:1. These finance chiefs appeared on our cover in 2014. Match the CFO with his/her company:1. Ma...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Feb. 25, 2015

Investor Seeks to Link Exec Pay to Worker Engagement

Connecticut’s state pension fund leader has proposed linking a portion of Wal-Mart Stores’ executive compensation to a measure of “employee engagement,” Reuters reports.Wal-Mart last week said it was raising its minimum U.S. hourly wage to $9 in April and $10 for current employees next year. Acco...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 25, 2015

The Whole Story

To mark the 30th anniversary of CFO, we put together a short history of finance as chronicled by 21 cover stories of the magazine (see “30 Years of Finance”). Looking over those stories, it’s striking how bleak much of that history is. Black Monday, the 1990–91 recession, the dot-com boom and bus...

By Edward Teach • Feb. 25, 2015

The Way Forward

If you’re in charge of the finance function for a growing professional services firm, it may well be time to get out of the back office and onto the front lines.That’s one of the main themes we found emerging from a recent survey of professional services companies — including accounting firms, la...

By David W. Owens • Feb. 25, 2015

Super-sized Tax Avoidance by McDonald’s

McDonald’s has been able to dodge taxes in Europe for years, costing European countries roughly €1 billion ($1.1 billion) in lost taxes between 2009 and 2013, a charity and labor unions claim.The U.K. nonprofit War and Want, the European Federation of Public Service Unions, and the U.S.-based Ser...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 25, 2015

Women-Owned Businesses Are Greater Credit Risk

Women not only face inequalities in wages. When they own businesses they also appear to have trouble accessing capital and are more likely than male owners to have to put their personal credit at risk.A recent small-business analysis by Experian, based on a sampling of data from its consumer and ...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 24, 2015

Small Business Originations Rise at P2P Lender

This story was updated early Wednesday to reflect the company’s explanation of two return metrics used in its earnings report.Peer-to-peer small business lender OnDeck Capital reported a greater loss than analysts estimated in the fourth quarter but grew its loan originations by triple digits. In...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 24, 2015

JP Morgan Chase to Charge for Large Deposits

Some large institutional customers of JPMorgan Chase will soon have to either pay a fee for some of their deposits, move them to another product such as a money-fund sweep account, or else hold their deposits at another bank.The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the money center bank was ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 24, 2015

Retail CFOs See More Good Times Ahead

Judging by the opinions of CFOs at retail companies, this year promises to be a healthy one for consumer spending. They’re predicting a 3.9% increase in overall sales and 3.7% growth in comparable-store sales, according to a survey of 100 such finance chiefs by BDO USA.Those thresholds would cont...

By David McCann • Feb. 23, 2015

SEC May Take Another Stab at Venture Exchanges

Startups may be able to get access to more capital via “venture exchanges” promoted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.SEC Chair Mary Jo White told reporters outside the Practising Law Institute’s “SEC Speaks” conference that the agency is considering whether to promote the creation o...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 23, 2015

#CFOMustRead: Technical Debt, Status Quo Activists, and Megatrends

It was difficult to pick one story this week, so we picked five. (See below.)Just as a reminder, you can join our CFO readers who participate in #CFOMustRead by sending us your most interesting reads of the week from around the web. Send us the link as well as a brief take on why you think other ...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 20, 2015

RBS to Take $6B Goodwill Hit

Royal Bank of Scotland is continuing to pay the price for overpaying on acquisitions, as its annual profit is expected to be wiped out by a write-down of goodwill on its U.S. bank unit.RBS next week is expected to write down the value of the $130 billion-asset Citizens Financial by roughly 4 bill...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 20, 2015

Toughened EU Stance Puts Greece in a Tight Spot

Greece needs to make a firmer commitment to austerity if it wants the European Union to continue bailing it out and not be forced out of the euro, a German-led bloc within the European Union said Friday.“Germany, the Netherlands, and others will be hard and they will insist that Greece repays bac...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Feb. 20, 2015

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending Feb. 20

Donald Blair, who has headed finance at Nike since 1999, is retiring in the fall. His successor will be Andrew Campion, currently senior vice president of finance, strategy and investor relations, effective Aug. 1. Blair will stay on at the company through the end of October to aid in the transit...

By Joan Urdang • Feb. 20, 2015

FTC Sues to Block Sysco-US Foods Merger

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission moved Thursday to block the $3.5 billion merger of the nation’s two largest food distributors, saying Sysco‘s acquisition of debt-ridden US Foods would violate antitrust laws.In an antitrust complaint filed Thursday, the FTC said the deal, which was announced in ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 20, 2015

How to Pick a TPA for a Deferred Comp Plan: 7 Tips

For most companies, preparing a request for proposals for third-party administrators (TPAs) of nonqualified retirement plans is a relatively infrequent occurrence, compared with doing so when seeking TPAs for other types of benefit plans. For that reason, companies may not follow some best practi...

By John L. Sanford • Feb. 19, 2015

Finance: Processing Like It’s 1995

Here’s an irony for CFOs. Virtually the first major business function to be computerized way back in the 1960s and 70s was the finance function. For most of three decades, finance and its related planning, record keeping, and reporting processes were the early adopters in business automation, lea...

By John Parkinson • Feb. 19, 2015

Murky Press Releases Can Conceal Poor Results

Corporate news releases that report financial results in difficult-to-read prose can be misleading to investors, according to a new study.Financial writing has been criticized for being unclear and opaque, but the research published in The Accounting Review, the journal of the American Accounting...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 19, 2015

PCC Worried About Debt Classification Change

Private Company Council members are concerned that FASB’s effort to simply the balance sheet classification of debt may have unintended consequences.The FASB last month tentatively decided to propose a new, principles-oriented approach for classifying debt as either “current’ or ‘noncurrent’ in a...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 18, 2015

Caterpillar Discloses Grand Jury Probe

Caterpillar, which has been under congressional scrutiny over a strategy to cut taxes on overseas sales, has disclosed that a federal grand jury is investigating the movement of cash among its U.S. and overseas subsidiaries.The maker of construction and mining equipment said in a regulatory filin...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 18, 2015

Tax Benefit Jacks Up Goodyear Tire Earnings

Goodyear Tire reaped the benefit of a one-time, $2.2 billion tax credit in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the company forecast it would meet its target for operating income growth this year despite the strengthening U.S. dollar.The non-cash tax benefit, most of which was booked in the fourth quar...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 17, 2015

Customized Reporting Requests Swamp PE Firm CFOs

With private equity investors increasingly looking toward operational excellence in deciding which funds to invest in, CFOs PE firms must master the complexities of timely and transparent reporting, according to a new Ernst & Young report.Transparency demonstrates operational excellence and i...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 17, 2015