CFOs On the Move: Week Ending September 24

Tiziana Figliolia Hootsuite appointed Tiziana Figliolia as the social media manager’s new finance chief. Most recently, Figliolia was vice president of finance at InterDigital, a mobile and video technologies developer. Before that, she spent 10 years in Shanghai working with software companies P...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 24, 2021

Amazon’s Warehouse Productivity Measure Sparks New California Law

Amazon and other companies are mandated to disclose any quotas or workplace productivity measures for their workers in the state under a new California law, The Wall Street Journal reports. Other states could also follow suit. The law follows Amazon warehouse and other employees’ complaints about...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 23, 2021

Get Ready for Loan Enforcement

The pandemic has hurt many companies. Fortunately, at the urging of the Federal government and with relief from regulators, many secured lenders have refrained from taking action against borrowers in default under the terms of their loan. However, lenders are now becoming less patient and more en...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 23, 2021

Chaos Reigns in Corporate Tax Departments

From the global push for a corporate minimum tax to a dizzying array of acquisitions to macro-changes related to politics and the economy, tax departments are feeling the heat, and it comes at a time when bandwidth is already stretched to the limit.Thomson Reuters’ 2021 State of the Corporate Tax...

By Vincent Ryan • Sept. 21, 2021

CFO Taskforce Launches Global SDG Initiative

The 60 CFOs in the UN Global Compact CFO Taskforce committed to invest more than $500 billion over the next five years towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as they try to promote further integration of the SDGs in corporate finance.The task force also committed to link ...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 20, 2021

Facebook Unveils $100M Trade Finance Program

Facebook has unveiled a trade finance program to support small businesses owned by women and minorities.Under the Facebook Invoice Fast Track program, the social media giant will buy invoices from participants, sparing them from having to wait the usual 60 to 120 days to get paid by customers.Fac...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 14, 2021

Intuit to Buy Email Marketing Firm Mailchimp for $12B

Financial software company Intuit has agreed to buy privately-held email marketing firm Mailchimp for $12 billion in cash and stock, a deal that would leverage on the growth of small and midsize businesses, the companies said on Monday.What Happened: Intuit, which is known for supplying customers...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 14, 2021

Walmart Confirms No Partnership With Litecoin

A press release put out by one of the leading global newswires was believed to be true and was reported by major media outlets, sending a cryptocurrency soaring.What Happened: The price of Litecoin quickly gained over 26% hitting a high of $233.06 this morning because a press release stated Walma...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 13, 2021

Bank of America Names New CFO

Alastair Borthwick Bank of America announced a management overhaul on Friday, replacing its finance chief and adding five new members to the senior management team. Alastair Borthwick, president of global commercial banking, will be promoted to CFO in the fourth quarter. Borthwick joined the comp...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 10, 2021

A New Planning Paradigm for CFOs

“I’m going to need those TPS reports ASAP.” — Bill Lumbergh, Office SpaceTPS reports are an actual “thing.” But, since the movie Office Space became a cult hit, the term has become the codeword for any meaningless or antiquated reporting exercise.Budgeting is, of course, no TPS report. Instead, i...

By Sanjeev Parlikar and Udit Sharma • Sept. 9, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending September 3

Dave Dowrich Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) named Dave Dowrich as finance chief. Dowrich joins the retirement services and investment firm on November 1 from Prudential Financial, where he was CFO for the company’s international business based in Japan. Dowrich previ...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 3, 2021

Capital One CEO Fined for Antitrust Violations

Capital One Financial CEO Richard Fairbank has agreed to pay $637,950 to settle charges that he failed to comply with antitrust rules when he acquired additional shares of the bank.The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Fairbank’s purchase of 101,148 shares in March 2018 — which brought his holdi...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 2, 2021

SPAC Activity Falls in Q2

The number of SPAC IPOs and announced deals hit a downtrend in the second quarter and could show signs of further declines going forward.What Happened: SPAC IPOs peaked in the first quarter of 2021, hitting a total of 275. The second quarter saw 52 SPAC IPOs, according to a new S&P Global rep...

By Lauren Muskett • Sept. 2, 2021

How Many of Your Primary Controls Are Preventive?

When I started my auditing career during the rollout of Sarbanes-Oxley, there was sustained debate within the industry as to which type of internal control was better: preventive or detective. While preventive controls are intended to prevent unauthorized or unwanted activities and variances from...

By Perry D. Wiggins • Sept. 1, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending August 27

Bennett Nussbaum CFO Craig Phillips will leave Purple Innovation on August 31. Phillips was appointed finance chief of the mattress manufacturer in October 2019 after serving as interim CFO since March 2019. Before that, he was a managing director at FTI Consulting. The company has appointed Benn...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 27, 2021

Forbes Media Going Public Via SPAC

An iconic financial media brand is going public with plans to continue its digital transformation.The SPAC Deal: Forbes Global Media Holdings announced Thursday a SPAC deal with Magnus Opus Acquisition Limited. The deal values the company at a pro forma enterprise value of $630 million. A $400 mi...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 26, 2021

FactSet Appoints Former MSCI Exec as CFO

Linda Huber Linda Huber will take over as finance chief at financial information company FactSet in early October. She succeeds Helen Shan, who has taken leadership of FactSet’s sales organization as chief revenue officer. Huber brings over 30 years of experience in the financial services industr...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 25, 2021

CFOs: Prepare for Changes in Global Tax Rules

You hear it everywhere: U.S. corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes. They’ve hollowed out domestic industry by moving to cheaper, more tax-friendly countries. Whether or not you believe this narrative, it’s built on criticism that’s persisted for years. And now, the raft of tax policy p...

By Bill Henson • Aug. 24, 2021

CFOs On the Move: Week Ending August 20

Navdeep Gupta Navdeep Gupta will take over as executive vice president and CFO of Dick’s Sporting Goods on October 1. Gupta has worked at Dick’s since November 2017 as senior vice president of finance and chief accounting officer. Before joining the retailer, Gupta spent 11 years at Advance Auto ...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 20, 2021

U.K. Grocer Morrisons Accepts Bid From CD&R

In the latest twist in  a takeover battle over Britain’s fourth-largest grocery chain, Morrisons has agreed to be sold to U.S. private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice for about $9.5 billion (6.97 pound sterling).CD&R’s offer, worth 285 pence per share, topped a 272 pence per share bid...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 20, 2021

Petco Promotes Finance Exec to CFO

Petco Health and Wellness Company promoted its senior vice president of finance, Brian LaRose, to finance chief. In his new role, LaRose, who joined the pet health and wellness retailer in September 2020, will oversee Petco’s corporate strategy, financial strategy, performance, reporting, and lon...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 19, 2021

COVID Delays Apple’s Production Shift Away from China

Apple is slowing plans to shift production from China to Vietnam as governments tighten border controls to contain outbreaks of new variants of the coronavirus, Nikkei Asia reported on Tuesday, citing sources. What Happened: The Cupertino, California-based tech giant plans to start mass productio...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 18, 2021

Bill Ackman’s SPAC Hit With Lawsuit

An investor in activist Bill Ackman’s giant SPAC has accused it of illegally operating as an investment company so he can extract “astronomical” compensation from it. SPACs invest in securities but have been able to avoid being regulated as an investment company as long as their primary purpose i...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 18, 2021

Spirit Slashes Guidance After Flight Disruptions

Spirit Airlines has lowered its guidance for the third quarter, citing the negative impact of its massive flight disruptions in recent weeks.The discount carrier said Monday the disruptions cost it about $50 million and that it was continuing to experience “some amount of short-term brand impact ...

By Matthew Heller • Aug. 17, 2021

Pearson to Pay $1M Fine for Misleading Investors About Cyber Breach

London-based education publisher Pearson agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges that it misled investors about a 2018 cyber intrusion involving the theft of millions of student records, including birth dates and email addresses. According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the da...

By Lauren Muskett • Aug. 16, 2021