Walgreens Slashes 2019 Outlook, Shares Dip 12%

Walgreens Boots Alliance shares had their worst day since August 2014 on Tuesday after the pharmacy chain missed earnings estimates and slashed its outlook for 2019 amid shrinking profits from the sale of generic drugs.Walgreens CEO Stefano Pessina called the second quarter “the most difficult qu...

By Matthew Heller • April 2, 2019

Metric of the Month: Percentage of Approved Capital Projects Considered Within or On Budget

Capital projects often require significant investments of an organization’s finances, time, human capital, and other resources. These projects are significant undertakings that can cost tens of millions of dollars or even more. When capital projects go off the rails and over budget, the consequen...

By Perry D. Wiggins • April 1, 2019

Lawmakers Reintroduce IRS Overhaul Measure

Leaders of the House and Senate’s main tax-writing committees have reintroduced bipartisan legislation to modernize the Internal Revenue Service and improve taxpayer services.The Taxpayer First Act of 2019 includes more than 40 provisions, tackling how taxpayers file taxes, retrieve information, ...

By Matthew Heller • March 29, 2019

EU Fines Nike Over Restrictions On Cross-Border Sales

The European Commission has fined Nike $14.14 million, saying the sportswear company illegally blocked cross-border sales of soccer merchandise between 2004 and 2017.A two-year investigation focused on Nike’s role as a licensor of merchandise that featured soccer clubs’ branding. EU regulators sa...

By Vincent Ryan • March 25, 2019

Nike Shares Fall 4% Despite Q3 Earnings Beat

Nike’s quarterly earnings beat analysts’ estimates but its shares dipped in extended trading Thursday amid lower-than-expected sales in North America.The world’s largest sportswear maker earned 68 cents per share in the third quarter compared to estimates of 65 cents. Revenue just about met expec...

By Matthew Heller • March 22, 2019

Numbers Don’t Lie, Until They Do

For many years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has required the CFO of a public company to certify the accuracy of the organization’s financial statement, providing confidence to investors in the report’s quality. This much-valued guarantee of corporate responsibility testifies to th...

By Vincent Ryan • March 21, 2019

FedEx Falls on Earnings Guidance

FedEx shares fell about 7% prior to opening of the market Wednesday after the company cut its profit forecast for 2019.FedEx said it expects to now earn between $15.10 and $15.90 per share this year, versus earlier analyst expectations of $15.97.The company attributed the cuts to slowing growth o...

By Lauren Muskett • March 20, 2019

Audit Committees Warned on Meeting with PCAOB

This year’s Staff Inspections Outlook published by the Public Company Accounting Standards Board had an interesting wrinkle: the PCAOB said it would pursue “enhanced external engagement and more proactive communication with our stakeholders, including audit committees.”In particular, the PCAOB sa...

By Vincent Ryan • March 19, 2019

The New Accounting for Collaborative Arrangements

The Financial Accounting Standards Board recently issued guidance on how to account for consideration received pursuant to a contractual arrangement known as a “collaborative arrangement.”Until now and due to the lack of clear guidance, this was an area where entities had significant latitude to ...

By David McCann • March 19, 2019

For Management Accountants, Gender Pay Gap Is Closing

Within the ranks of management accountants, the gap between the compensation of women and men is narrowing.In the United States, median total pay for women in 2018 was 88% of what men earned, according to the latest annual compensation survey by the Institute of Management Accountants.That was up...

By David McCann • March 15, 2019

GE Shares Rise on Hopes for Rebound in 2020

General Electric on Thursday forecast another year of falling profits and negative cash flow in 2019 but investors appeared to be cheered by its assurances that things would be “significantly better” in 2020.The struggling conglomerate, which is in the midst of a major turnaround under new CEO La...

By Matthew Heller • March 14, 2019

The Simple Secret Behind Why Acquisitions Fail

Corporate acquisitions often fail for a simple reason: the buyer pays too much. An old Wall Street adage comes to mind: “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”When our investment firm purchases shares of a stock, we pay a price that is within pennies of the last trade. But when a company ...

By David McCann • March 14, 2019

Insys Shares Dive on ‘Going Concern’ Doubts

Shares of Insys plunged on Wednesday after the scandal-plagued biotech firm disclosed that its auditor had raised doubts about its ability to continue as a concern.In its opinion on Insys’ 10-K financial statements for the 2018 fiscal year, the auditor, BDO, noted that the company “has suffered l...

By Matthew Heller • March 14, 2019

Boeing Shares Continue to Fall as More Countries Ban 737 MAX 8 Planes

Shares of Boeing were down more than 6% in early afternoon trading as more countries announced they were grounding commercial flights of the 737 MAX 8 following a crash on Sunday in Ethiopia that killed 157 people.DZ Bank placed a “sell” rating on Boeing stock, the first brokerage to do so in two...

By Lauren Muskett • March 12, 2019

Stopping Brand Theft

Charles Colton famously quipped, “Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery.” But pirated brands cannot survive by such flowery platitudes.Companies carefully guard their brand names because they communicate certain value to the consumer. Building a brand name requires time, money and enormou...

By Vincent Ryan • March 11, 2019

Is Tax Reform Spurring Companies to Use Robots?

More companies are finding more uses for robots, a broad trend that certainly will further expand. Many factors explain it — including a perhaps surprising one: the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.A key provision of the tax reform law allows companies to deduct 100% of the cost of equipment in the year of ...

By David McCann • March 11, 2019

Dollar Tree To Close 390 Family Dollar Stores

Discount retail chain Dollar Tree announced it plans to close 390 Family Dollar stores this year. The company took a $2.73 billion charge against the Family Dollar business during the fourth quarter.“We are confident we are taking the appropriate steps to reposition our Family Dollar brand for in...

By Lauren Muskett • March 7, 2019

Chief Audit Execs: Internal Audit Can Do Better

In this time of fluid dynamics around disruptive technologies, geopolitical uncertainty, and threatening global economic conditions, optimal performance is a moving target for every business function.Nowhere is that more evident than in the internal audit function. Most chief audit executives (CA...

By David McCann • March 6, 2019

IRS Releases Final Rules on Corporate Tax Break

The Internal Revenue Service has proposed final regulations governing a new tax break aimed at encouraging U.S. multinationals to locate more of their assets and operations used in serving overseas markets back to the U.S.The FDII (Foreign-Derived Intangible Income) deduction is part of the Trump...

By Matthew Heller • March 5, 2019

How to Future-Proof the Tax Professional Role

The tax profession is experiencing a profound impact from multiple regulatory changes, innovative service models, and disruptive technologies. Through successive waves of change, the model of a new and different kind of tax professional is emerging.It’s clear that technical tax competencies will ...

By Kelli Knoble • March 4, 2019

Could This Be the Recession That Wasn’t?

CFOs may be preparing for a recession in the near future — but will one actually happen?While most observers had believed that a recession in 2019 or 2020 was inevitable, signals have very recently grown more mixed, notes Charles Mulford, accounting professor at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of...

By David McCann • March 1, 2019

ERP: Enterprise Reporting Partner or Problem?

Technically, “ERP” stands for enterprise resource planning. That said, given its importance to the CFO, to the efficiency and effectiveness of the finance team, and to the health of a company’s broader financial systems, it should really stand for “Everyone’s Reporting Partner.” But, if we’re bei...

By Vincent Ryan • Feb. 28, 2019

Square Shares Dip 6% on Weak Q1 Guidance

Square Inc. delivered an earnings beat on Wednesday but its shares tumbled in after-hours trading on a lower-than-expected outlook.The payments firm said it earned 14 cents per share in the fourth quarter as adjusted revenue rose 64% year over year to $464 million. Analysts had expected earnings ...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 28, 2019

Lowe’s Posts Mixed Results, Sees Spring Surge

Lowe’s Companies said Wednesday it was making progress in turning around its business, citing comparable sales growth and optimism about the coming spring season.For the fourth quarter, the home improvement chain reported a net loss of $824 million, or $1.03 per share, due to restructuring charge...

By Matthew Heller • Feb. 27, 2019

Recurring Revenue Rising

Recurring revenue business models, also known as subscription or usage-based models, are opening up new opportunities across many industries — even in sectors where they haven’t traditionally. For example, the subscription model has taken root in industrial sectors, like heavy equipment manufactu...

By Gerry Marletta • Feb. 27, 2019