CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives articles from April 2007

CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives archives from April 2007

The end of GAAP?(CFO.com)
April 1, 2007... The SEC plans to allow foreign companies that list in the United States to use international financial reporting standards as soon as 2009. But what if U.S. companies could make the same choice? Would that mean the end of U.S. GAAP? ...

Most-read articles?(CFO.com)
April 1, 2007... 1. Will the SEC Let U.S. GAAP Die? 2. CFOs: 404 Compliance Back at Square One 3. Good employees Don't Grow on Trees 4. Fraud Detection: The New 404? 5. How to Beat Hedge-Fund Bullies For the latest "Most Read" list, go to...

Secrets of hedge funds.(CAPITAL MARKETS)
April 1, 2007... First invented in 1949 (by a financial journalist, believe it or not), hedge funds have only recently caught the attention of the general public. The 1998 meltdown of Long-Term Capital Management highlighted the risk to the financial system,...

The three-year itch?(from the editor)
April 1, 2007... FOR YEARS, COMPANIES HAVE COMPLAINED about the short-term focus of Wall Street. Now Wall Street has good reason to complain right back about them. Reeling from the Sarbanes-Oxley blues, backdating scandals, and intense pressure to perform, CFOs...

A vet's true tale: "Your article hones in on the facts of life with the VA and its attempts to give Vietnam Vets the proverbial 'scraps.'".(letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... Your article "Support Our Ex-Troops" (March) was excellent, 100 percent accurate, and in my case, very personal. In 1967 I was hospitalized at Philadelphia Naval Hospital after literally being blown up. The prognosis was that one day I would be...

Debating the merits.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... Your article "Reform Effort Rebuked" (Topline, February) failed to engage the recommendations or methodology of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation on their merits. The article instead calls into question the committee's independence...

Start at the top.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... The concept of rewards for a job well done versus nothing for a job poorly done is important ("Just Rewards," February). A key concept in supporting a meritocracy is that base compensation and rewards should be a "full glass" for employees....

Both sides of retention.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... As the vice president of HR for a Fortune 130-something corporation before it was acquired by a competitor, I observed the upside and downside of exit interviews ("Parting Shots," February). Bottom line? I believed then, and still do, that exit...

Don't blame the software.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
April 1, 2007... I am shocked at the lack of adequate planning and budgeting by so many companies ("The Last Mile," January). More than 40 years ago, we put together effective business plans, including budgets, and line personnel were intimately involved. And...

Corrections.(Correction notice)
April 1, 2007... In the article "It's Not Who You Know, It's How Many" (Your Move, January), the database program ACT was incorrectly cited as a Microsoft product. It is, in fact, from Sage Software. In "Private Equity Attracts Public Scrutiny," Bruce...

Naked hunch.(WALL STREET)
April 1, 2007... OVERSTOCK.COM CEO PATRICK BYRNE, who made headlines last year when he blasted Wall Street short-sellers, has put his lawyers where his mouth is. In February, his company filed suit against 10 prime brokers, accusing them of intentionally...

Debating a policy for honesty.(REGULATORS)
April 1, 2007... THE PUBLIC COMPANY ACCOUNTING OVERSIGHT BOARD is convinced that fraud is a major problem for U.S. firms and is determined to do something about it. That leaves audit and financial professionals worried about exactly how the PCAOB will tackle...

Mixed results.(WALL STREET)(stock values )
April 1, 2007... THE RECENT VOLATILITY on Wall Street manifested itself in two ways for companies: stock values plunged, but some listing fees increased. Effective January 1, annual fees for companies that list on Nasdaq increased from $75,000 to $95,000 (for...

Paperless proxies.(INVESTOR RELATIONS)
April 1, 2007... THE LONG-ANTICIPATED "eProxy" ruling from the Securities and Exchange Commission will go into effect on July 1, to the relief of companies and their investor-relations departments. The new rule may allow companies to almost entirely bypass the...

Fill 'er up.(E-PAYMENTS)
April 1, 2007... PURCHASING CARDS ARE GETTING a makeover. Several banks, including PNC and SunTrust, are now peddling so-called unfunded p-cards that streamline vendor payments and disperse the ability to pay bills across the enterprise white providing...

States of health.(LEGISLATION)
April 1, 2007... WHILE PRESIDENT BUSH DEVOTED a portion of his State of the Union address to the issue of health care, many Beltway observers expect federal gridlock for the next 20 months. "It's difficult to have dramatic change when the White House and...

Nix degrees of separation.(EMPLOYEE BENEFITS)
April 1, 2007... TUITION-ASSISTANCE programs (TAP) are an often overlooked employee benefit--overlooked by employers, that is. Employees understand the value of such programs all too well, often using them to underwrite a degree that will lead to a new job or...

Will ESOARS fly?(STOCK OPTIONS)(fair value accounting)
April 1, 2007... THE PUSH TOWARD FAIR-VALUE ACCOUNTING continues its fitful progress as a new method for valuing stock options wins approval but also raises concerns. In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission signed off on the approach, dubbed...

Business Outlook Survey: CFOs are gearing up for growth, slowly.(by the numbers)
April 1, 2007... IT'S SPRINGTIME AND FINANCE EXECUTIVES are ready to sow a few seeds. With renewed confidence in the economy, companies report that they are investing in their businesses--ramping up hiring plans and increasing projections for capital spending....

View from China: investigations of multinationals suggest it's time to take a close look at internal controls in the People's Republic.(top line)
April 1, 2007... A COLORFUL EMBEZZLEMENT scandal has toppled political and business leaders in Shanghai and elsewhere in China as the country launches a major drive to stop white-collar crime. For CFOs of multinational corporations, the drama has played out at...

A sense of validation: rented software can help lighten regulatory burdens.(in tech)
April 1, 2007... PURVEYORS OF HOSTED SOFTWARE HAVE long touted the virtues of their distribution model. There are plenty, too. A rented application, delivered direct to desktop via the Internet, reduces the need for IT staff. Monthly subscription fees are...

Certifiable: a hosted application helps one insurer keep up with a welter of state regulations.
April 1, 2007... Making sure employees are legally qualified to perform their tasks can be a huge headache in highly regulated industries. It's a particularly vexing problem in the insurance business, where sales representatives must be certified in each state...

Take a piece of me: why shedding parts of a merged entity can make a company whole.(deals)
April 1, 2007... IN LATE FEBRUARY, THE FORMER WPS Resources Corp. announced that it had completed its $1.8 billion acquisition of Chicago-based Peoples Energy Corp. and changed the company name to Integrys Energy Group. At the same time, it decided to divest...

Google's George Reyes.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
April 1, 2007... NOT SINCE FEDERAL EXPRESS BURST on the scene in the 1970s has a company had the good fortune to become a verb. Today you'd be hard-pressed to find a sentient being who hasn't Googled something, probably within the hour. So ubiquitous is the...

The buyout binge: private-equity firms are gobbling up everything in sight. How long can it last?(Cover story)
April 1, 2007... * SEATED ON THE stage of the Empire State Ballroom in New York's Grand Hyatt Hotel, Bill Conway talked of missed opportunities. A featured speaker at January's Private Equity Analyst Outlook Conference, the cofounder and managing director of...

Cleaning up carbon: pressure to curb carbon emissions is mounting. How companies respond will affect much more than their bottom lines.
April 1, 2007... In January, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change--a group of scientists and government officials from 113 countries --issued its much-anticipated fourth report on global warming. In it, the panel not only indicated that...

Say again? An explosion in accounting errors--in part reflecting the difficulties of today's complex rules--has forced nearly a quarter of U.S. companies to learn the art of the restatement.
April 1, 2007... When Mark Blinn became Flowserve Corp.'s finance chief in November 2004--10 months after the company uncovered accounting errors and announced that it would restate past results--his first job was to help staffers shake off the negativity. "I...

A new start: under the pension protection act, companies play a key role in keeping employee retirement savings on track.(in practice: BUYER'S GUIDE: 401(k) PROVIDERS)
April 1, 2007... SINCE THE LAUNCH of the 401(k) in 1982, participants have been required to make most of the major decisions about funding and managing their plans themselves. Twenty years of evidence shows they nearly always do it badly, but until now the law...

Transfer students: companies must study their options or risk a painful lesson in the perils of transfer pricing.(in practice: spotlight)
April 1, 2007... LAST SEPTEMBER, GlaxoSmithKline settled a 17-year-old dispute with the Internal Revenue Service over transfer pricing. The pharmaceutical giant agreed to pay the government $3.4 billion, the largest tax settlement in IRS history. The payment,...

Investing in oils: indulging your passion for the finer things in life may help you collect handsome returns.(in practice: your money)
April 1, 2007... TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, AS A nearly broke graduate student, Walter Manninen gazed upon a dreamy vision of four courtesans and knew he had to have them. So the aspiring banker borrowed $2,000 and purchased a 1914 Theresa Bernstein oil painting...

Keeping off-sites on target: it may cost up to six figures, but that executive retreat can pay off--if you do it right.(in practice: your move)
April 1, 2007... When Experian Interactive Group's 12-member executive team jetted off to a Napa Valley, California, resort last May, no one expected to have a miserable time. After all, as CFO Laura Conrad says, "Everyone here likes wine." But there was...

AOL.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
April 1, 2007... Nisha Kumar has been named CFO of AOL. Kumar will succeed Steve Swad, who is leaving for an undisclosed private-equity firm. Kumar was most recently AOL's VP of operations....

Brian McKeon.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
April 1, 2007... Brian McKeon will be trekking on over to Iron Mountain as its new CFO. He joins the company from The Timberland Co., where he was CFO....

Amedisys.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
April 1, 2007... Amedisys, a provider of home nursing services, has named Dale Redman, formerly the managing director at Windward Capital Consulting, as interim CFO. He succeeds John Giblin, who resigned to become CFO of BlueCross/BlueShield of Tennessee....

Edward Parry III.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
April 1, 2007... Edward Parry III will resign as EVP and CFO of Hanover Insurance Group in June; a search for his successor is under way....

Vijay Tharani.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
April 1, 2007... Vijay Tharani resigned as VP, CFO, and treasurer of Baldwin Technology, a maker of printing-press accessories and controls....

Emerson Radio.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)(Greenfield Pitts)(Ivan Lau )(Brief article)
April 1, 2007... Emerson Radio has retuned its senior finance team; it has named Greenfield Pitts as its new CFO and has made John Florian, formerly the company's deputy finance chief and controller, the CFO of Emerson North American operations, a new post. The...

The tenure track.(grapevine)
April 1, 2007... THESE DAYS CFOs seem to exit their jobs even before the ink is dry on their business cards, which is all the more reason to applaud a handful of veterans who are retiring after long tenures. Among them: Robert Wayman, 61, who retired from...