CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives articles from February 2009

CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives archives from February 2009

Offshoring's uncertain future.(Accounting)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Moving work overseas is a slam-dunk cost-cutting move in the midst of financial crisis, right? Not so fast. The $1 billion accounting scandal at India's Satyam Computer Services--provider to the likes of Cisco...

SEC: fair value's savior.(Accounting)
February 1, 2009... The SEC ruined the New Year's Eve celebrations of many a banker by informing Congress on December 30 that it would not suspend mark-to-market accounting. In a 211-page report required as part of the giant bailout passed this fall, SEC staff...

CFO Rising.(Conferences)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] >> Don't Miss This CFO Rising is our signature conference and largest annual event, being held this year at the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, Orlando, March 8-11, 2009. To see the full agenda or to...

Have cash, won't borrow.(Cash Management)
February 1, 2009... A new Georgia Tech Financial Analysis Lab report looks at the "free cash growth profile" of 59 IT firms and suggests which ones may be able to grow without the help of bank loans or other outside funding. Companies whose profiles have...

Straight from the students' mouths.(Education)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What's the matter with kids today? Actually, they seem OK--at least the accounting majors. Students from The College of William & Mary told our editors that they view accounting as an ultra-flexible career choice....

Soft is hard.(from the editor)
February 1, 2009... ANALYTICAL AND PRECISE by nature, CFOs are famously averse to anything that can be deemed "squishy." Subjectivity, vagueness, wiggle room, these are qualities that CFOs routinely attempt to expunge from budgets, briefings, and business plans....

Who's your banker?(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Your January feature "All Eyes on Treasury" was excellent. Regarding your point about banking relationships, we have found that many companies are still overbanked with what could be "inefficient" banks; however,...

Bad news, good news.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... Just because stocks are cheap, that's no reason to buy now ("And Now for the Good News..." January). There is no effective, meaningful P/E. "E" is now nonexistent! "Past performance is not a guide..." as the Wall Street saying goes....

People get ready.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... "Which One When?" (January) was a nice article, but you forgot one big change. You didn't mention the recasting of U.S. generally accepted accounting principles--which is almost upon us. Whether we finally converge with international...

At risk.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... We know from studying trade credit receivables practices all over the world that most corporations, large and small, don't have credit-risk procedures any more sophisticated than the subprime lenders did ("Rethinking Risk," January). If the...

Understanding fossil-fuel betas.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... I read with great interest your article on fossil-fuel betas ("What Goes Down Will Come Up," December 2008). I am the energy director for Macy's and am in charge of our Risk Management Program. I have struggled to communicate this...

More wireless tips.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
February 1, 2009... Your article "Off the Hook" (InTech, December 2008) gave some good, general tips to manage the wireless expense. But these ideas are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of reducing and managing this expense. I would like to add five more...

Corrections.(letters)(Correction notice)
February 1, 2009... CORRECTIONS: In our December 2008 story "And in This Corner, the Price Fighter," we mistakenly included Kohl's among a list of retailers that have entered Chapter 11. In our January story "The Year That Was," we failed to note that Wells...

Delisting dilemmas.(WALL STREET)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FROM RETAILERS and rent-a-car companies to banks and radio networks, the number of companies facing stock-exchange delisting is mounting by the day. Nasdaq booted a total of 85 companies...

The SEC under Schapiro.(REGULATION)
February 1, 2009... CAN MARY SCHAPIRO change the Securities and Exchange Commission from hapless bystander to tough cop? A seasoned career regulator, the 53-year-old Schapiro was tapped by President Barack Obama to succeed Christopher Cox as chairman of the...

Moving on, happily.(FINANCE)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the high rate of CFO turnover, often with the implication that finance executives are bailing out or being sent packing. But new research from KPMG suggests that behind the numbers...

Getting smaller, but not quieter.(HEDGE FUNDS)
February 1, 2009... THE WORLD OF high finance had already been brought low before the Madoff scandal rocked Wall Street in December. Even so, corporate finance officers shouldn't write off the hedge-fund industry, which still serves as a hotbed of activist...

Plenty of pain, a dash of relief.(PENSIONS)
February 1, 2009... WHEN THE FINAL TALLIES ARE COMPLETE, 2008 results for company-funded pension plans are sure to be dismal--so dismal, in fact, that Congress stepped in with some relief right before its holiday break. The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery...

Masters of their domains?(E-BUSINESS)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TO GUARD ITS BRAND, Verizon Communications built a gargantuan portfolio of 10,000 domain names (such as verizoncentral.com and many other permutations). Last summer, though, company executives began "thinking like...

Farewell to finance jobs.(OFFSHORING)
February 1, 2009... ALTHOUGH THE FALLOUT from the Satyam scandal, in which the Indian outsourcing giant admitted to massive fraud, has yet to be fully understood, one study found that U.S. firms plan to embrace offshoring to a remarkable degree. A survey of 200...

Sound familiar? Cost-cutting, layoffs, and a stimulus package: welcome to China.(global view)
February 1, 2009... SO MUCH FOR CHINESE EXCEPTIONALISM. The financial crisis continues to ripple across the economy, leaving many CFOs here shaken, particularly those who until very recently thought the country would emerge unscathed. The slowdown has been...

Have they got a deal for you: it's a buyer's market in IT. But landing a good deal requires knowing where vendors are flexible--and what the risks are.(in tech)(Industry overview)
February 1, 2009... LAST YEAR, GUARDIAN LIFE Insurance was approached by one of its IT vendors with a very attractive offer to replace its leased equipment a year ahead of schedule. The deal ultimately let Guardian reduce its expenses by $6 million, netting a 25...

ERP made easy? Software developers are rediscovering the virtues of user-friendliness.(Emerging Technology)
February 1, 2009... IN THE EARLY 1980S, THE DESIGNERS of Kwik-Chek, Intuit's first personal-finance package, set a bold goal: a novice PC user should be able to install the software and print a check within 15 minutes. Developers whisked people off the streets of...

You oughta plea in pictures: to make a stronger business case, put away the spreadsheets and get out your pencil.(insight)
February 1, 2009... IN 2007, AS A MAJOR U.S. PUBLISHING company contemplated going public, it realized it had a problem: no one had ever heard of it. Despite broad market penetration and an impressive breadth to its product line, the company feared that its...

Out from under: deeply discounted corporate debt may tempt companies to buy it back or exchange it, but such deals are far from easy.(credit & capital)
February 1, 2009... LAST FALL, AS THE CEOs OF the Big Three automakers were preparing to journey to Washington, D.C., in search of a bailout, auto supplier Metaldyne Corp. pulled off a minor miracle. The $1.7 billion company wiped out a crippling debt load by...

"I like innovative disruptive businesses": can an online jeweller survive the massive pullback in consumer spending?(ON THE RECORD: Marc Stolzman, CFO, Blue Nile Inc.)(Interview)(Company overview)
February 1, 2009... Nothing can scratch a diamond except another diamond, but a recession can carve deep gouges in the diamond-jewelry business. Take the holiday season that just ended: sales of luxury goods, including jewelry, fell 34 percent. Still, Marc...

The art of conversation.(SPECIAL REPORT: HUMAN CAPITAL)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HUMAN CAPITAL MAY NOT HAVE BEEN FOREMOST in the minds of many finance executives in 2008 as they scrambled to keep their companies afloat, but the economic...

How to talk about layoffs: most CFOs say that making job cuts is the single most difficult part of their jobs, but there are ways to manage this painful process more effectively.(HUMAN CAPITAL: MANAGING LAYOFFS)(Cover story)
February 1, 2009... ON THE SAME DAY IN NOVEMBER that it reported record revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2009, Aruba Networks announced it was laying off 9 percent of its more than 500 employees. In an earlier time the conjunction of good news and bad news...

Scoping out the talent: it's a buyer's market, but making smart hires remains far from easy.(HUMAN CAPITAL: THE SEARCH FOR TALENT)
February 1, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DAVID BRONSON IS READY TO POUNCE. Other companies may be laying off workers by the hundreds or even thousands, sending the U.S. unemployment rate to its highest level in nearly two decades, but at PSS World Medical,...

Prognosis: negative: rising health-care premiums have companies shifting costs, pushing "wellness," and punishing unhealthy behavior.(HUMAN CAPITAL: RETHINKING BENEFITS)
February 1, 2009... WHEN CFO TONY AUKETT WENT SHOPPING for company health insurance last May, he paid careful attention to how each plan would treat employees. No, he wasn't worried about whether the doctors knew what course of action to take for a given illness...

I don't see how a board can show mercy on executives.(in practice)
February 1, 2009... "I don't see how a board can show mercy on executives when shareholders and employees... are bearing that same pain." CHARLES NOSKI, FORMER CFO OF AT&T

The next wave: in hard times the last thing a company needs is legal trouble. Unfortunately, that may be just what it gets.(in practice)
February 1, 2009... The wounds of recession often encounter a particularly painful form of salt: litigation. Corporate attorneys stand ready to pour it on if they sense weakness in a rival, or as a way to compensate for their own economic woes. At the same time,...

Finance keeps cranking away: when cost pressures reach finance departments, small improvements go a long way.(management)
February 1, 2009... WITH RECESSION starting to slice into sales of his firm's flagship software suite, Adobe Systems CFO Mark Garrett looked for ways to cut costs. In the end, Adobe trimmed capital investment, combined departments, and reluctantly laid off about...

Losing it: holding a personal financial stake in their companies has cost many managers a bundle.(compensation)
February 1, 2009... IN OCTOBER 2007, Steven Crane aimed to align himself with shareholders in a big way. The CFO of ModusLink Global Solutions bought 10,000 shares of company stock at $13.80 a share. If the decision made him a better CFO, as management gurus would...

The long view.(the quiz)
February 1, 2009... AS ONE SIGN OF THE TIMES, consider that in the first seven years of this decade the phrase "The Great Depression" appeared in the New York Times at a very consistent average of 98 times a year. Last year that figure quadrupled, with the Great...