CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives articles from April 2005

CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives archives from April 2005

Endangered species.(Whaling Manufacturing Company Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... AT ITS PEAK IN 1857, WHALING WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT and profitable industry in New England. The New Bedford, Massachusetts, fleet alone boasted 329 sailing vessels worth $12 million, employed more than 10,000 men, and supported a host of...

Working on relationships.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... THANK YOU FOR THE ARTICLE TITLED "Love-Hate Relationship" in the March issue of CFO. I am writing to correct the caption to the photograph on page 31 of that article, which said "... modeling banks' return on capital lessens Worthington...

The other side of the coin.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... YOUR ARTICLE "BIG CITY BLUES" (February) was well written and insightful. However, although it clearly articulated the problem, it did little to offer any paths forward. It would be great to see the other side of the coin. Anytime someone...

Nontech financing blues.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... YOUR RECENT ARTICLE ON CAPITAL acquisition ("Finders Keepers," February) was excellent. I have personally searched for start-up/seed capital for a new E-recycling company for close to a year with no luck. In my opinion, the need for these...

Heavy metal.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... IN THE ARTICLE "HARD TIMES" (November 2004), the author tells the sad tale of Mr. Robert Nolan, who was working 80 hours a week as a CFO for Metalor Technologies. Based on Mr. Nolan's input, the precious-metals industry is defined as a...

Holding the CEO accountable.(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... THE LETTER TO THE EDITOR BY JOE Moran ("Holding Government Accountable," January) forgets who is the CEO of the executive branch--it's the President. Sarbanes-Oxley correctly assigns the responsibility to the CEO. I assume he advocates that the...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2005... Our recent story on preference payments ("Bad Debt and Then Some," Newswatch, March) incorrectly cited David Carere's company and title. Carere is with Rich Products Corp., not Rich Foods Corp. His full title is vice president, finance-credits...

Secret rewards.(incentives to come under tax regulations)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Companies have always enjoyed the enticements that states dish out to lute them to relocate. What they don't like is the backlash that can occur when the public feels a company is getting a cushy deal. A law proposed in Georgia could change...

Proper recognition.(Securities and Exchange Commission makes rule for revenue recognition)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... ON FEBRUARY 28, THE DAY INVESTORS EXPECTED NCO GROUP Inc. to release earnings results for fourth-quarter 2004, the provider of business-process outsourcing services instead issued some bad news: it was delaying the release of its financials and...

A license to print money?(financial printing)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... ARE FINANCIAL PRINTERS CONSISTENTLY exceeding the initial estimates they give clients? The answer seems to be yes--particularly for such transactions as initial public offerings, mergers, or debt offerings. Consider a few examples. When...

The right to whisper.(REG FD)
April 1, 2005... Executives at Siebel Systems Inc., including CFO Kenneth Goldman, are following in the footsteps of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. No, they're not going into the porn industry, but, like Flynt, they are trying to turn allegations of...

Light up and you're fired!(Law)
April 1, 2005... IT'S NOT JUST DONALD TRUMP WHO'S throwing around the "F" word these days. It seems that Corporate America is adding to the list of fireable offenses. In recent months, workers have been fired, or threatened with termination, at companies for...

The danger of deferrals.(rules on bonus given by companies)
April 1, 2005... Deferred-compensation plans could soon become more trouble than they're worth. To comply with new federal rules, most large U.S. companies will have to change their plans by the end of 2005. And since many companies make customized deferral...

A little bit softer now.(Business Outlook Survey)
April 1, 2005... ALMOST UNNOTICED, THE ECONOMIC expansion reached the ripe old age of 40 months this month--at least according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is the official arbiter of such periods. Before the anomaly of the 1990s, the...

People problems: what will Oracle do now that it's finally bought PeopleSoft? PeopleSoft customers want to know.
April 1, 2005... IN THE SOFTWARE UNIVERSE, A WARM FUZZY PLACE filled with flextime and endless rows of foosball tables, acquisitions are generally lovey-dovey affairs, gentle bondings that produce synergies and shareholder value and rivers of free fudge for all...

Pay-per-view budgeting?(rented software available)
April 1, 2005... OTHER THAN IRON LUNGS AND BOWLING shoes, few things in this world are best rented. That statement extends to business software as well. Thin-client computing did spark some interest in rentable software in the late 1990s, but other than some...

Honest shell games? Despite the stigma of past trading abuses, small companies still go public by merging with existing shells.(new deals)
April 1, 2005... THERE WAS NO ROAD SHOW, NO BANKER, AND NO UNDERWRITER when Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc. went public last October. And no initial public offering, for that matter. Instead, the Foxborough, Massachusetts, medical-device company...

The coming tax hike: simplification is the stated goal of President Bush's tax commission. But the more likely outcome is a tax increase for business.(SPOTLIGHT: federal tax)
April 1, 2005... THE U.S. TAX CODE, AS ANY politician will tell you, has some problems. First, it's long: the code now weighs in at an impressive 60,000 pages, almost twice the length of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is also intricate. Completing tax forms...

The turning point: what options do companies have when their industries are dying?(Blockbuster Inc. cannot cope with the emerging technologies)
April 1, 2005... Blockbuster Corp. has looked at life from both sides now. When it leaped out of the gate in 1985, it quickly swallowed its mom-and-pop competitors to become the dominant player in the fast-growing video-store industry. Today, it faces the...

Who'll stop the rain? Mother Nature is business's biggest saboteur.(International Rectifier Corp. plans for disaster management)
April 1, 2005... Terrorists and hackers may spook corporate managers, but the forces of nature remain the biggest threat to the daily operations of most companies. It didn't take much besides fallen trees, after all, to knock out electrical power throughout the...

The limits of mercy: the cost of cooperating with the SEC is high. The cost of not cooperating is even higher.
April 1, 2005... WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KINDER, gentler Securities and Exchange Commission? Less than four years ago, then-chairman Harvey Pitt wanted an agency that favored cooperation over confrontation. The SEC seemed headed in a business-friendlier direction,...

Make it automatic: to boost retirement savings, future plans may turn every step--from enrollment to rollover--into a "default" choice for employees.(Buyers Guide)
April 1, 2005... Rule No. 1: Inertia dominates human actions. Rule No. 2: People fear loss much more than they value gain. As two tenets of behavioral finance, these principles are still largely confined to being studied in the world's business schools....

A human inventory: new software can help companies map their corporate DNA.(knowledge management)
April 1, 2005... IN THE LATE 1990s, CONSULTANTS AND academics began talking incessantly about the ascent of the "knowledge economy." This invisible system, they posited, encompassed the collective set of ideas and innovations generated by a global workforce. As...

Gaining currency? Currency is being billed as a source of higher returns for corporate pension plans. But sponsors remain skeptical.(pensions)
April 1, 2005... WANT TO BE LIKE WARREN BUFFETT? Don't pitch softball in Omaha; bet against the dollar in the global currency markets. The chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who says he is hard pressed to find something better to do with the money, has almost half...

Devil in the details.(employment contracts)
April 1, 2005... AFTER MORTGAGE LENDER FANNIE MAE FOUND ITSELF embroiled in an accounting scandal last year, former CEO Franklin Raines walked out the door with a $1 million-plus annual pension payment. Retiring CFO Timothy Howard was right behind him with a...

CFO internet address directory.(financial companies)(Directory)
April 1, 2005... Ace Group www.acelimited.com Aetna www.aetna.com American Express www.americanexpress.com/BusinessExtrAACard Arch Insurance Group www.archinsurance.com Ariba www.ariba.com/analyze Atradius ...

Medtronic Inc.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... Robert Ryan, veteran finance chief at medical-devices maker Medtronic Inc., is retiring this month. Medtronic corporate controller and treasurer Gary Ellis will succeed him.

Tenet Healthcare Corp.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... Tenet Healthcare Corp. has added a new member to its revamped management team, naming Robert Shapard, a former energy-industry executive, to head up its finance group.

Corinthian Colleges.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... For-profit education company Corinthian Colleges has appointed Kenneth Ord CFO.

Global Crossing Ltd.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... Jean Mandeville will be the new CFO at troubled telecom Global Crossing Ltd.

PalmSource Inc.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... Software maker PalmSource Inc. named Jeanne Seeley to the CFO post.

R.R. Donnelley & Sons.(CFOs On The Move)
April 1, 2005... Glenn Richter is leaving Sears, Roebuck & Co. to become the new finance head at printer R.R. Donnelley & Sons.

Take this job.(David Welch of Cardinal Bankshares Corp. fired from his job)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... THE FATE OF DAVID Welch, the first CFO to file for Sarbanes-Oxley whistle-blower protection, is one step closer to being decided. In February, administrative law judge Stephen Purcell upheld his 2004 decision that Welch, the former finance...

The art of white-collar crime.(Jean-Marie Messier accused of stealing paintings)
April 1, 2005... WHILE NOWADAYS ACCUSATIONS of corporate fraud seem almost routine, an allegation of purchasing stolen artwork can still raise eyebrows. Jean-Marie Messier, former Vivendi Universal chairman and CEO, has been alleged to know the whereabouts of...