Audit Deficiencies Linked to M&A Surge

A new analysis of recent Public Company Accounting Oversight Board inspections suggests corporate auditors are continuing to struggle to keep up with the uptick in mergers and acquisitions following the financial crisis.Consulting firm Acuitas reports in its 2015 Survey of Fair Value Audit Defici...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 16, 2015

Beware ‘Starving’ Cyber Risk Budgets, CFOs Warned

With cyber risks looming ever larger, CFOs must avoid “starving” information technology security budgets, the author of a recently released survey concerning cybersecurity and corporate governance warns.“When you start looking at why [a] company had a weak security program, it usually comes down ...

By David Katz • Oct. 16, 2015

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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

Accounting and Finance Roundup for Executives

What’s Going on In Finance TodayInvestors remain concerned as Walmart Stock suffers its worst fall since 2000. As of Wednesday, the stock has fallen 9%. Very disappointing news for those investors who were hoping for growth. More in the link below.Walmart is not the only one to experience follies...

By Kerry Maruna • Oct. 15, 2015

Capital Still Flowing Into Venture-Backed Firms

Money continued to pour into venture-backed companies in the third quarter, while concerns over valuations and exits grew.U.S. venture investments rose to $19.05 billion in the third quarter and to $54.6 billion for the first nine months of the year, according to industry tracker Dow Jones Ventur...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 15, 2015

Restatements Infect Reporting at Peer Companies

Financial restatements may be contagious, serving as a “handbook of trickery” for peer companies unless the restating company faces regulatory discipline or an investor lawsuit, according to a new study.When a company restates earnings, it may actually prompt its peers to imitate the publicly ann...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 14, 2015

Three Rules for Navigating the Global Tax Maze

The recent volatility experienced in global markets has prompted U.S. businesses to reevaluate and refine their investment and growth strategies. This is visible in emerging markets like China, where a decrease in foreign investment is notable and a contributing factor to the country’s economic s...

By Carl Allegretti • Oct. 14, 2015

MetLife Stock Falls on News of Accounting Error

MetLife shares fell Wednesday on news that the insurer’s combined risk-based capital (RBC) ratio was lower than reported due to accounting blunders tied to annuity claims.MetLife disclosed in a regulatory filing late Tuesday that the ratio — a key measure of the financial solvency of insurers — w...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 14, 2015

Accounting and Finance Roundup for Executives

What’s Going on in Finance Today Failure to pay travel reimbursements in a timely manner may be costing companies more than they think. 25% of the companies that take longer to pay (nine days or more) end up paying nearly four times the amount out of their annual revenue compared to the 25% of co...

By Kerry Maruna • Oct. 14, 2015

Buffett: Wall Street No Help in Beating Activists

Companies can stay off the radar of activist investors without having to enlist the services of Wall Street advisers, Warren Buffett said Tuesday.The billionaire CEO of Berkshire Hathaway told Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington that he had “zero” interest in joining the ranks of a...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 13, 2015

California Treasurer Wants Private Equity Firms to Disclose Pension Fees

California State Treasurer John Chiang is calling on the state’s two major pension funds to join his lobbying efforts to force fee disclosures by private equity firms that the funds invest in.In a letter to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California State Teachers’ Reti...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 13, 2015

Meg Whitman: Dell-EMC Deal Spells Opportunity for HP

Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman thinks Dell’s planned acquisition of EMC will present an opportunity for her company because of the large debt load arch-competitor Dell likely will be taking on.Whitman on Monday told employees in a memo that the Dell-EMC deal, announced earlier that d...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 13, 2015

Metric of the Month: Travel Reimbursement

Many a business traveler has lived in fear of the expense report deadline: Running to catch the next plane with a briefcase full of receipts, hoping to arrive and check into the hotel in time to log it all into the spreadsheet and get it to the overnight drop box in time.But woe to the weary road...

By Mary C. Driscoll • Oct. 13, 2015

Restructuring Gaining Steam at European Banks

After lagging behind U.S. banks that restructured quickly after the global financial crisis, European banks are finally beginning to overhaul themselves amid concerns over profitability, according to The Wall Street Journal.Credit Suisse, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank are among European ba...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 9, 2015

Audit Fees for Public Companies Up 3.4%

Audit fees for public companies rose 3.4% last year, reflecting in part the impact of completed mergers or acquisitions, according to a new survey by the trade group Financial Executives International.More than 7,000 SEC filers paid external auditors an average of $1.5 million in 2014, with a med...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 9, 2015

Abenomics: Less of the Same

After four months battling to pass unpopular security legislation, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, lost no time in returning to somewhat safer ground: the economy. On September 24 he fired off what he called “three new arrows” in service of Abenomics, his program of monetary easing, fiscal st...

By Economist Staff • Oct. 8, 2015

Everything the Finance Exec Needs to Know About Cyber Security

The importance of cybersecurity is no secret to anyone who watches the nightly news. Senior executives at businesses of all sizes understand all too well that today’s global economy is still not adequately protected against cyberattacks, despite years of effort and spending in the multi-billion d...

By Alexander Johnson • Oct. 7, 2015

Mortgage Servicer to Pay $1.5M Fine Over Ocwen Deals

Home Loan Servicing Solutions has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges over its relationship with former Ocwen Financial Chairman William Erbey and its valuation of billions of dollars in mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) it acquired from Ocwen.The charges are the latest fallout from regul...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 6, 2015

Largest Multinationals Avoiding $90B in U.S. Taxes

Most of America’s largest corporations maintain subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, enabling them to avoid an estimated $90 billion in federal income taxes annually. That is equal to the U.S. government’s entire budget for transportation and water infrastructure in 2014.The study that produced t...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 6, 2015

Bristol-Myers Squibb Settles FCPA Charges

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said that Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to pay more than $14 million to settle SEC charges that the New York City-based company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and reaped more than $11 million in profits from its misconduct in China.Betwee...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 5, 2015

OECD Releases Final Measures on Tax Avoidance

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Monday released 15 recommendations for combating corporate tax avoidance as part of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project. The measures included instituting country-by-country reporting, clamping down on “treaty s...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 5, 2015

ContinuityX Execs Charged With Faking Revenue

The former CEO and former CFO of ContinuityX Solutions have been charged with defrauding investors in a private bond offering by fabricating nearly all of the Internet services company’s revenue using straw buyers and forged documents.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged Wednesday ...

By Matthew Heller • Oct. 1, 2015

ConAgra Embraces Zero-Based Budgeting

ConAgra Foods on Thursday said it was cutting 1,500 jobs – about 30% of its office-based workforce — and moving its headquarters from Omaha to Chicago, as part of its plan to realize at least $300 million of efficiency benefits within the next three years.Roughly $200 million in cost savings are ...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Oct. 1, 2015

Forces Join to Fight the ACA’s ‘Cadillac Tax’

Opposition to the Affordable Care Act-mandated excise tax on high-cost health-benefits plans, scheduled to be implemented in 2018, is gathering force.On Tuesday, both House Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clin...

By David McCann • Sept. 30, 2015

Credit Managers’ Index Continues to Decline

The U.S. economy seems to have hit the pause button again, according to the latest report by the National Association of Credit Management.NACM’s monthly Credit Managers’ Index continued to decline in September, falling to 52.9 from 54.2 in August. A reading above 50 is growth and one under 50 is...

By Katie Kuehner-Hebert • Sept. 30, 2015

IMF Sees Trouble in Emerging Markets’ Debt Load

A move to raise interest rates in the United States and other advanced economies could spell trouble for emerging markets where companies have bulked up on cheap debt, the International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday.In a report released ahead of next week’s annual meetings of the IMF and World Ban...

By Matthew Heller • Sept. 29, 2015