Equifax to Pay Up to $700 Million Over 2017 Hack

Equifax agreed to pay $575 million, and possibly as much as $700 million, over its 2017 hacking incident.The settlement includes $300 million for a fund to provide restitution to consumers harmed by the hack, a payment of $175 million to 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and p...

By Lauren Muskett • July 22, 2019

American Express Beats Q2 Earnings Estimates

On Friday, American Express reported second-quarter income of $1.8 billion, up 9% from $1.6 billion a year ago, and diluted earnings per share was $2.07, up 13% from $1.84 per share a year ago.Second-quarter consolidated total revenues net of interest expense were $10.8 billion, up 8% from $10 bi...

By Lauren Muskett • July 19, 2019

Boeing to Take $4.9B Charge for MAX Grounding

Boeing is heading for the largest quarterly loss in its history due to a huge earnings hit from the grounding of its 737 MAX jets.Ahead of next week’s second-quarter earnings report, the company announced Thursday it will take a $4.9 billion after-tax accounting charge “in connection with an esti...

By Matthew Heller • July 19, 2019

EU Fines Qualcomm for ‘Predatory Pricing’

European regulators fined chipmaker Qualcomm $271 million after a long-running antitrust investigation into the company using predatory pricing about a decade ago.The fine represents 1.27% of the company’s global revenue for 2018. Qualcomm was also ordered not to engage in abusive pricing practic...

By Lauren Muskett • July 18, 2019

SAP Software Sales Dip in Asia Amid Trade Feud

SAP posted a 40% jump in cloud revenue on Thursday but its shares dipped as the U.S.-China trade conflict dampened software license sales in the Asia region.For the second quarter, the enterprise software giant said total revenue increased 11% to 6.6 billion euros, with revenue from the cloud seg...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2019

EBay Shares Rise After Earnings Beat

EBay outperformed its second-quarter projections with revenues of $2.7 billion. Shares rose 7% in extended trading, the global online retailer announced on Wednesday.This is an increase of 2% on an as-reported basis and 4% on a foreign exchange neutral basis, primarily driven by gross merchandise...

By Lauren Muskett • July 18, 2019

Netflix Posts First-Ever Drop in U.S. Subscribers

Netflix shares plunged in extended trading Wednesday after the streaming giant reported its first-ever decline in U.S. subscribers and significantly lower-than-expected growth overseas.According to The New York Times, “The second quarter is typically Netflix’s weakest time of year, but its perfor...

By Matthew Heller • July 18, 2019

FASB Gives Private Companies Breathing Room on Lease Accounting

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to propose delaying the effective date of some of its major accounting standards, including ASC 842, Lease Accounting, for privately held companies, nonprofits, and small reporting companies.The delay means those organization...

By Vincent Ryan • July 17, 2019

United Airlines Profit Rises 54% to $1.05 Billion

United Airlines posted quarterly earnings that beat estimates on strong domestic travel demand and the second-largest U.S. carrier raised the low end of its full-year guidance.United’s second-quarter net income jumped 54% to $1.05 billion even though it was forced to cancel flights due to the gro...

By Matthew Heller • July 17, 2019

CFOs Remain Cautious With Corporate Cash

Credit may be bountiful and cheap, but finance chiefs refuse to play fast and loose with the cash on their balance sheets or spend big on capital investments that will deplete liquidity.Restraint characterized the strategies for cash deployments and short-term investments for the bulk of 2018 and...

By Vincent Ryan • July 17, 2019

Ebix Agrees to Buy Yatra

Atlanta-based software company Ebix has reached an agreement to acquire Indian online travel booking company Yatra Online through a merger with an estimated enterprise value of $337.8 million.Under the terms of the deal, each ordinary share of Yatra would be worth 0.005 shares of a new class of p...

By Lauren Muskett • July 17, 2019

Wells Fargo Profit Jumps 20%, Beats Estimates

Wells Fargo beat quarterly earnings estimates but its stock fell as the bank reported a decline in net interest income and warned that 2019 expenses would be at the high end of its target.For the second quarter, Wells Fargo, which has been seeking to rebound from its fake-accounts scandal, earned...

By Matthew Heller • July 16, 2019

Goodwill Impairment Testing: Time to Revisit?

As far back as the spring of 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board was telling CFO that it planned to take another look at goodwill accounting for public companies. At the time, FASB had issued its proposal to change the guidance for goodwill impairment, which later was adopted.The next ...

By Vincent Ryan • July 12, 2019

Metric of the Month: Total Cost to ‘Manage Taxes’

Taxes are a complicated area of business that often requires carefully designed strategy and planning. In addition to income taxes, an organization has to be mindful of regulations involving property taxes, sales and use taxes, and excise taxes, among others. The situation is even more complicate...

By Perry D. Wiggins • July 9, 2019

Calculate the Real Cost of Catastrophe

If we have one job as CFOs, it’s protecting the value of our companies. One of the most insidious threats to corporate value is sudden disruption from events like fire, hurricane, flood, earthquake, or cyberattack — disruption that is ostensibly insured. The problem is, there’s always a portion o...

By Vincent Ryan • July 9, 2019

Are Women CFOs Less Prone to Financial Misreporting?

Over the years, CFO has reported on several studies concluding that women outperform men at key aspects of finance and business.One suggested that the stock market reacts more favorably to acquisition announcements and secondary equity offerings by companies with female finance chiefs. Another do...

By David McCann • July 2, 2019

U.S. Proposes $4B More European Tariffs Over Aircraft Subsidies

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) proposed a list of products that could be hit with new tariffs, as part of a long-running dispute with the European Union over aircraft subsidies.The products, which include olives, Italian cheese, and Scotch whiskey, could be worth $4 billion. They would be i...

By Lauren Muskett • July 2, 2019

TPG to Buy Crunch Fitness

Private equity firm TPG Growth will acquire Crunch Fitness through its growth-equity unit. The sale includes the company-owned “Signature” facilities and its global franchising business.The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.Crunch is managed by Mark Mastrov and Jim Rowley, the...

By Lauren Muskett • July 1, 2019

Pier 1 Stock Plunges as Sales Slump Continues

Pier 1 Imports shares dipped for a second straight day on Friday on news of another weak earnings report and additional store closures.The home goods retailer has been pursuing a turnaround strategy amid shrinking sales due in part to online competition. But in the first quarter, the slump contin...

By Matthew Heller • June 28, 2019

Working Capital Scorecard: The Hard Part of Boosting Liquidity

What CFO doesn’t want working capital to generate cash rather than consume it? To not have to answer pesky analyst questions about lower quarterly cash levels? To not have to draw on a line of credit because customers are paying on time?No, CFOs would rather be confident that the accounts receiva...

By Vincent Ryan • June 27, 2019

Moody’s, Israel’s Team8 to Offer Global Cyber Risk Standard

Moody’s and Israeli cybersecurity platform Team8 are joining together to establish a global standard for evaluating and assessing cyber risk for businesses.The joint venture will focus on ways to effectively measure and analyze cyber risks facing global corporations, ways to better understand a c...

By Lauren Muskett • June 27, 2019

Walgreens Stock Jumps 4% on Earnings Beat

Walgreens Boots Alliance shares got a boost on Thursday from a better-than-expected earnings report but analysts remain skeptical about the drugstore chain’s outlook.For the third quarter, Walgreens reported adjusted earnings of $1.47 per share on revenue of $34.59 billion, beating analysts’ esti...

By Matthew Heller • June 27, 2019

Breaking The Budget

Despite the constantly churning mechanisms of business, the traditional budgeting process has changed little since the 1920s. An organization can spend months creating a blueprint for the next year and then expend even more effort to stay on that defined path—regardless of whether the initial ass...

By Lauren Muskett • June 26, 2019

FedEx Sues U.S. Government Over Export Rules After Huawei Dispute

FedEx filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government on Monday, arguing that it should not be required to enforce the recent federal government export bans.The move comes after FedEx mishandled a couple of deliveries for Huawei and failed to deliver a Huawei smartphone shipped from London to the Uni...

By Lauren Muskett • June 25, 2019

Botox Maker Allergan Sold to AbbVie for $63B

Pharmaceutical company AbbVie has reached an agreement to buy Allergan, the maker of Botox, in a cash and stock transaction.Under the terms of the deal, Allergan shareholders would receive 0.8660 AbbVie shares and $120.30 in cash for each share that they hold, a 45% premium to the stock’s closing...

By Lauren Muskett • June 25, 2019