Which Companies Have Increased Leverage the Most?

With banks still easing underwriting standards on corporate loans and fixed-income investors welcoming corporate issues with open arms, it’s no surprise that many large companies are tapping credit markets aggressively.But in the past many bank loans and bond deals were about refinancing existing...

By Vincent Ryan • May 7, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending May 2

David Wehner has been promoted to replace Facebook CFO David Ebersman, effective June 1. Wehner is now vice president of corporate finance and business planning.NBCUniversal has named Vasant Prabhu finance chief, effective June 1. He joins the company from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide,...

By Joan Urdang • May 2, 2014

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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

Excel Tip: Do Not Disturb My Borders

A reader posed the following question: “I have built a report in Excel and used numerous borders to outline the data. After entering a formula to calculate profit in E3, I want to copy the formula down to E4 through E7 [Figure 1, below].However, because cell E3 has a top border, copying the formu...

By Bill Jelen • May 2, 2014

Public Companies Earn Poor Grades in Sustainability

While many U.S. publicly held companies are integrating sustainability into their decisions and business systems, some interest groups say they are not moving fast enough. A new report from nonprofit group Ceres and research firm Sustainalytics finds that in some areas companies aren’t taking sus...

By Vincent Ryan • May 1, 2014

Bank Lending in Emerging Markets Worsens

Bank lending in emerging economies deteriorated in the first quarter of 2014, reflecting “mainly weaker economic performance,” the Institute of International Finance reported Wednesday. The IIF’s quarterly composite index of lending — based on questions put to senior loan and chief credit officer...

By Vincent Ryan • May 1, 2014

Companies Failing to Adjust Strategic Plans for Risks

Think your company does a decent job of assessing, prioritizing and preparing for their major strategic risks? The American Productivity & Quality Center’s latest research on best practices in enterprise risk management (ERM) will make you think twice.On the one hand, the survey of nearly 100...

By Mary Driscoll • April 30, 2014

Risk Managers Mull How to Talk to a CFO

DENVER — Weighted average cost of capital. Return on equity. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Total corporate medical spend.All those financial metrics — and more — have been floated at the annual Risk and Insurance Management Society conference as suggestions for w...

By David Katz • April 29, 2014

CFOs Disregarding Cyber Risks

DENVER — CFOs and corporate treasurers may be asleep at the wheel when it comes to the risks to data privacy and security their organizations face.It’s hard to come away with anything but that impression from the results of a Marsh survey on excellence in risk management released yesterday at the...

By David Katz • April 29, 2014

Why Gender Diversity at the Top Remains a Challenge

In a 1976 McKinsey Quarterly article, the firm’s Jim Bennett noted that companies taking an honest look at how they handled the advancement of women were likely to uncover a number of “thorny attitude-based problems” that “will take much longer and prove much more difficult to solve” than “sex-ba...

By Sandra Sancier-Sultan, Charlotte Werner, and Sandrine Devillard • April 28, 2014

In Bitcoin We Don’t Trust

On a purely abstract level, Bitcoin is ideal. The virtual currency requires no government backing or third-party middleman, such as a clearinghouse or bank, thereby cutting costs; it uses public-key encryption for security; transactions are irreversible, as with cash; and the supply of Bitcoins i...

By Vincent Ryan • April 24, 2014

Verizon Finds Nine Kinds of Cyber Risk

The exponential growth in data-breach risks is already outstripping the ability of any one company to completely contain them. Yet Verizon’s 2014 Data Breach Investigations Report suggests one powerful way for companies to marshal their risk management resources to get the best bang for their buc...

By David Katz • April 23, 2014

Flat Capex Weakens Economic Recovery

Buttressed by increased corporate revenues and profits, the economy has begun taking a forward step, a cash-flow expert says. But it’s also been taking a backward stride: Corporate managers have been decreasing the capital expenditures (capex) and inventory spending that could sustain that sales ...

By David Katz • April 23, 2014

Ratings Agencies: Credit Where Credit’s Due

At first glance, the past few years have not been good to the ratings agencies. During the financial crisis, a collapse in bond markets cut the industry’s revenues by a third. Worse, they were blamed for helping to precipitate the crisis, by giving unduly high ratings to mortgage-backed securitie...

By Economist Staff • April 22, 2014

Compliance Pays — No, Really

If finance chiefs could choose a new name for the compliance function, many would settle on something like this: The Department of Necessary Evils.After all, companies have traditionally viewed compliance as a costly burden, sapping valuable resources from revenue-generating activity. Lacking met...

By Josh Hyatt • April 21, 2014

Do the Math Before You Buy Insurance

When it comes to deciding how much property-casualty insurance to buy for their companies, CFOs and corporate risk managers face an essential dilemma. On one hand, they don’t want to buy more insurance than their companies need because the cost depletes capital that could be used for other busine...

By Dave Heppen and Claude Yoder • April 18, 2014

Perfect Storm Looms for Insurance Pricing

As we enjoy the first real days of spring sunshine, we can truly begin to put this winter behind us.  March came in like a lion but it certainly didn’t leave like a lamb.  The same might be said of pricing in the commercial insurance market, where CFOs like me, as well as risk managers, might hav...

By Jeffrey A. Burchill • April 18, 2014

CFOs on the Move: Week Ending April 18

Scotts Miracle-Gro has promoted Randy Coleman to finance chief. He takes over from Larry Hilsheimer, who has left the firm. Coleman, who has been at the company since 1999, had been senior vice president of operating finance and enterprise performance analytics.Retailer DSW has named Mary Meixels...

By Joan Urdang • April 18, 2014

Shareholder Engagement Should Be a Two-Way Street

“Shareholder engagement” is a popular concept — a quick Google search yields 6.4 million results. It has become a buzzword in the corporate governance community and is the remedy du jour for a number of corporate concerns, such as an activist knocking at the door or a close “say-on-pay” vote.We a...

By Jeffrey D. Morgan • April 17, 2014

Does Asset Utilization Matter?

Many companies have changed their performance measures in recent years from measures of profit and margin to measures of return.  This is intended to increase the focus of management on asset utilization that is implicitly expected to benefit shareholders.There are many measures of return. They i...

By Allison Cavasino and Gregory V. Milano • April 17, 2014

Court Decision Makes a Mess of Conflict-Minerals Rule

A federal appeals court on Monday struck down a key disclosure requirement of the SEC’s conflict minerals rule, saying it violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of compelled speech.It’s a victory for companies — at least, a temporary one, as this is unlikely to be the last legal twist in the ...

By David McCann • April 17, 2014

Seeking Certainty

The good news: finance chiefs’ concerns about the U.S. economy continue to abate. The not-so-good news: Their confidence in their own companies’ futures could use some shoring up.At the start of a new year, the Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey shows that U.S. CFOs are s...

By David W. Owens • April 16, 2014

First-Time CFO Thinks Big for Growth-Hungry Pegasystems

Salesforce.com announced last Friday that it will be the main tenant in a 61-story building under construction in San Francisco. When its 4,000 Bay-area employees move in, company veteran Rafe Brown will not be among them.Brown spent nine years at the juggernaut cloud software company before leav...

By David McCann • April 15, 2014

Regulators Fear Big Data Threatens Audit Quality

Regulators around the world are worried that a rise in audit firms’ consulting business and a corresponding slowdown in the growth of revenues from traditional audits will hurt the quality of those audits, a member of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board says.“The evidence is very clear ...

By David Katz • April 15, 2014

To Drive Growth, Ask Sales Better Questions

Top-line revenue growth is central to creating shareholder value. Studies consistently show that approximately 60 percent of total shareholder return (equity appreciation plus dividends) is created by revenue growth, nearly triple the contribution of cost reduction.However, revenue growthdoes not...

By Jim Corey • April 15, 2014

Corporate Performance Isn’t All about Financial Results

A look into the crystal ball of global sustainability issues for the next few decades highlights some scary trends that will change how companies do business and deploy resources.By 2050, the World Bank predicts, global population will reach 10 billion, oil reserves and fossil fuels will be deple...

By Kristine Brands • April 14, 2014