Market-Based Pricing Could Lower Cost of Credit

Since 2008, banks have increasingly extended loans to corporations based on the borrower’s credit default swap (CDS) spread, and according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York this market-based pricing could lower the cost of bank credit.Such loans tie the interest-rate spread to t...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 12, 2014

OECD Admits It Flubbed Growth Forecasts

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development openly admitted on Tuesday that it proved to be a lousy forecaster in the years during and following the 2008 financial crisis. The Paris-based institute said that it didn’t expect the 2008 crisis to so severely affect world economies, and...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 11, 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

Can Companies Charge Smokers More for Health Insurance?

CVS made headlines recently with its decision to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products. The company will lose $2 billion in annual sales, but it plans to make some of that money back through smoking cessation programs and other means.Photo courtesy of Flickr user Fried Dough There ar...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 11, 2014

Lease Accounting Changes Could Jar Bank Covenants

Practically lost in the brouhaha concerning the effects of the imminent changes in lease accounting has been the impact they could have on lessees’ relationships with their banks.Bankers are warning that altering lease accounting could significantly change a borrower’s balance-sheet profile, poss...

By David Katz • Feb. 11, 2014

CVS Jettisons a Cash Cow

On Wednesday, CVS Caremark announced that it would stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products, a segment worth $2 billion in annual sales. Much has been written about the decision, which CVS says will erase 17 cents in from its earnings per share annually.CVS Pharmacy in North Carolina. Photo c...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 7, 2014

A New World for Bonds

Imagine that the stock market was divided into two. The big investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch — would create lists of the shares that they liked. These approved shares would be classed as IB, for investment-bank-approved, and would trade on a highe...

By Economist Staff • Feb. 7, 2014

Fed Official Calls for Timely Data-Breach Disclosures

Banking regulators and lobbyists are calling for nonfinancial companies to be held to the same rules financial instutitions are when there is a data-security breach involving customer data. Speaking in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 6, 2014

Five Reasons Why Your Finance Transformation Failed

Apparently, status quo is not a state that big-company finance departments are fond of. In a recent CEB survey, finance leaders at 81 percent of 264 large companies said they were engaged in major finance redesign initiatives.But they weren’t necessarily getting all the benefits they hoped for. I...

By David McCann • Feb. 6, 2014

TripAdvisor Grows From Afar

When you Google “hotels reviews Chicago,” “hotels, New York” or really any other combination of words looking for lodging in a given city, TripAdvisor is going to be one of the first results. The travel website, which launched in 2000 and relies heavily on user-generated content, is in a good spo...

By Marielle Segarra • Feb. 4, 2014

Cooper Tire Aims to Settle China JV Mess

[Editor’s note: The initial version of this story overstated the size of the drop in Cooper Tire’s share price. CFO regrets the error.] Joint ventures can be a headache. Remember this GM-Toyota partnership? But Cooper Tire’s partnership in China proved to be a severe migraine, at least in the end...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 3, 2014

‘Dead Peasant Insurance’ Still Alive in Corporate America

A January 28 article in the Los Angeles Times triggered two effects: a hissy spat with the Times’s rival Southern California news organization, the Orange County Register; and a new spotlight on a once-common but highly controversial corporate practice that had declined in usage the past several ...

By David McCann • Jan. 31, 2014

When To Stop Growing

At CFO, we write a lot about growth. I tend to assume that most companies want to grow, in employee size, revenue, market share, geographical location or another arena.But I’ve also realized that growth looks different to every business. What may seem like a dream opportunity for a smaller compan...

By Marielle Segarra • Jan. 31, 2014

Halliburton Supreme Court Ruling Could Slash Class Actions

Just months after the Supreme Court begins hearing arguments in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund on March 5, CFOs could suddenly find that their companies have much smaller legal risks, fees and insurance costs, attorneys say.The reason? If the nation’s highest court rules in favor of Hallib...

By David Katz • Jan. 30, 2014

As Banks Loosen Underwriting, Credit Risk Rises

Reflecting an increased appetite for risk, U.S. banks continued to ease underwriting standards in 2013, especially in asset-based, leveraged and large-corporate loans, a survey of bank examiners released Thursday found. Partly as a result, examiners expect the credit risk of some business loan ca...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 30, 2014

Excel Tip: The Missing Link

A reader posed the following question: “I pasted hundreds of web site addresses into Excel. They did not turn into hyperlinks (Figure 1). I found that I could select a cell, press F2, then Enter to make the hyperlink. But I don’t want to have to do that hundreds of times.”Fig. 1Solution: Use the ...

By Bill Jelen • Jan. 29, 2014

N.Y. to Propose Regulating Bitcoin Firms

A day after a prominent advocate of virtual currency Bitcoin was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, New York’s banking regulator said he plans to propose regulations for virtual-currency firms that operate in the state. At a hearing Tuesday on online currencies, New York state ba...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 28, 2014

Companies Aim to Reduce Liquidity

Not many organizations shed cash in the final quarter of 2013, but the first quarter of 2014 could be a different story. Twenty-nine percent of the North American finance execs surveyed by the Association for Financial Professionals earlier this month said they would be reducing their cash balanc...

By Vincent Ryan • Jan. 28, 2014

Internet Firms and Taxes: Patch-Up Job

The international framework for taxing multinationals has been tweaked and refined over several decades under the aegis of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. But it remains “a patchwork of national laws and international treaties, frayed by internal and cross-jurisdictional inconsistencie...

By Economist Staff • Jan. 27, 2014

Fixing the Financial Close Process

While most financial organizations have found ways to navigate the convoluted financial close-to-disclose process, it still remains a time-consuming, headache-inducing process — but one that has to be done. However, companies can make the process easier by streamlining efforts, working on the hum...

By Alissa Ponchione • Jan. 27, 2014

Is Sustainability Reporting Sustainable?

Until recently, talk of “integrated reporting” and “sustainability” had a high probability of putting a CFO of a U.S.-based company to sleep. Sure, the corporation’s role in the environment, society and government has long been a hot topic at shareholder meetings. But when it came down to it, why...

By David Katz • Jan. 27, 2014

Special Report: Financial Reporting’s Changing Scene

Pressing for more transparency, various stakeholders are pushing CFOs to broaden the scope of their companies’ financial reporting. Responding to such external pressures, CFOs are turning around and making increasing demands on their staffs to streamline the process of closing the books.Indeed, t...

By David Katz • Jan. 27, 2014

KPMG Settles SEC Auditor Independence Charges

Without admitting or denying the charges, KPMG on Friday settled Securities and Exchange allegations that the firm violated auditor-independence laws by improperly providing barred non-audit services and by loaning employees to corporate audit clients in ways prohibited under U.S. securities law....

By David Katz • Jan. 24, 2014

What Executives Should Know About Open Data

Not all data that’s valuable is internal and proprietary. New initiatives by governments as diverse as those of the United States, Mexico and Singapore are opening the spigots of readily usable public data. Corporate information too is becoming more “liquid,” moving across the economy as companie...

By James Manyika, Steve Van Kuiken, and Michael Chui • Jan. 24, 2014

CFOs Long for Growth But Hesitate to Invest

It’s an age-old question: how can you grow if you don’t invest? It comes to mind in light of recent survey results from Ernst & Young that show companies are focused on growing but seem to be eschewing the investments that would spark long-term growth.In EY’s latest CFO Capital Confidence Bar...

By Marielle Segarra • Jan. 23, 2014

Will Congress Tilt Patent Law in the Right Direction?

Over the two years since the last patent reform legislation passed Congress, the fight against companies that misuse patents as a business strategy has kicked up. Several bills pending in Congress would protect small firms targeted by these so-called “patent trolls.” Lobbying for new patent refor...

By Marielle Segarra • Jan. 22, 2014