CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives articles from January 2008

CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives archives from January 2008

You special day.(chief financial officers)(Editorial)
January 1, 2008... IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT, New Year's Eve should be the signature holiday for finance executives. It is, after all, the occasion to remember auld lang syne (the annual report) and make new resolutions for the future (the forecast and budget). In...

Talking the talk, but not walking the walk.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Thanks as always for providing a bird's-eye view of financial stories critical to top management. December 2007's issue offered CFO'S trademark blend of focus, optimism, and insight. What CFO's heart isn't warmed by...

CFOs and the environment.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... A longtime challenge for corporate environmental departments has been the ability to measure their work in monetary terms ("Earth in the Balance Sheet" December 2007). The increased demand for sustainability reporting and the increased role of...

Taking notice of 401(k)s.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Thanks for the great information on 401(k) plans ("The New Mix," December 2007). These issues are becoming more important as lawsuits progress and Congress takes notice. CHIP HARDY Via E-mail

Turbulence ahead.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Your recent interview with Delta Air Lines president and CFO Edward Bastian ("On the Record," November 2007) stated his deceptive inference that, when it comes to funding for the Federal Aviation Administration, Delta passengers would somehow...

Telecommuting & working women.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Regarding "See You at the Office" (Topline, November 2007), which described the slow pace of telecommuting's progress, while it is true that telecommuting can provide an important form of flexibility across a broad portion of the workforce, it...

"The Long Trail" update.(letters)(Cobell v. Kempthorne case)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In our October 2007 issue, we reported on the controversy surrounding the accounting of Indian trust funds being conducted by the Department of the Interior ("The Long Trail"). Officials at the DoI argue that a fuji accounting of the...

Long live the king?(ACCOUNTING)
January 1, 2008... EVEN BEFORE THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION made a key move in November to advance the convergence of generally accepted accounting principles and international financial reporting standards, many leaders in the accounting world were...

IFO sightings.(MANAGEMENT)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHICH COMPANIES OUTPERFORM THEIR PEERS and manage risk better? When IBM surveyed more than 1,200 CFOs in 79 countries, it found that the companies that fared best on those two criteria had something in common: a high...

Bring your own pretzels.(TRAVEL)
January 1, 2008... HIGHER BUSINESS-TRAVEL costs may force finance departments to run just to stay in place. The cost of the average U.S. domestic business trip, including airfare, hotel, and car rental, is projected to climb 6 percent this year; for...

A meter for meetings.(NON-TRAVEL)
January 1, 2008... IF TIME IS MONEY, then wasted time is wasted money, and the wasted time of many people is a pile of money indeed. At least that's the theory behind Meeting Miser, a free Web software tool from PayScale Inc. that gauges the cost of meetings...

And not a moment too soon.(ETHICS)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EVEN AS ONE NEW SURVEY finds business ethics slipping to pre-Enron levels and another suggests that America's teens are a little too willing to bend the rules in order to get ahead, a Big Four auditing firm has come...

Verbatim.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Are soaring CEO pay packages earned, or are they the result of a rigged process?" --REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D-CALIF.) DURING A CONGRESSIONAL HEARING IN DECEMBER ON THE ROLE OF COMPENSATION CONSULTANTS

Virtuality check.(TECHNOLOGY)(virtual deal rooms )(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... THE PHYSICAL GRIND OF M&A due diligence, marked by paperwork and appointments, is increasingly giving way to the use of virtual deal rooms (VDRs), secure Websites that allow authorized users to review confidential data online. In a recent...

Saving face time.(INVESTOR RELATIONS)(Regulation FD)
January 1, 2008... DESPITE THE DIRE PREDICTIONS that accompanied the introduction of Reg FD eight years ago, face time apparently hasn't lost its value. Institutional investors say that a broker's ability to provide access to a company's senior management...

Business outlook survey: with worries about the costs of labor, fuel, and credit, CFOs' expectations for the economy hit a new low.(by the numbers)
January 1, 2008... FINANCE CHIEFS ARE NOT PREDICTING a very happy new year. A recordbreaking 72 percent of them say they are less optimistic about the economy than they were last quarter, while just 9 percent are more optimistic, according to the latest Duke...

View from China: if you're counting on growth in China, be prepared for a wake-up call.(top line)
January 1, 2008... THERE'S A STRONG SENSE among foreign multinational executives that the door of opportunity is wide open in China, even as fears of recession have clouded growth prospects in the United States and Europe. This optimism is increasingly at odds...

The emergence of convergence: the effort to combine governance, risk, and compliance into a single software platform marches on.(in tech)
January 1, 2008... THREE YEARS AGO, WHEN managers at SunTrust Banks Inc. began searching for software that might help them cope with new regulatory requirements, they kept their demands to a minimum. Although the financial-services company had just endured a...

A hedge-fund mystery: why did a number of equity hedge funds suffer big losses in August 2007--and what do those losses say about systemic risk?(insight)
January 1, 2008... LAST AUGUST WAS A BAD MONTH for the hedge-fund industry. According to fund tracker Barclay Hedge Ltd., about 75 percent of the 2,600 or so hedge funds that reported results for the month showed a loss, of about 1.4 percent on average. The week...

Lessons from adversity: the split personality of 2007 dealmaking, with its dramatic highs and lows, could teach a few things about M&A in the year ahead.(deals)(National Grid Company PLC)(KeySpan Corp.)
January 1, 2008... WHEN LONDON-BASED National Grid agreed in 2006 to a $12 billion deal for East Coast energy giant KeySpan, National Grid CFO Steve Lucas couldn't have known that lending markets would collapse in mid-2007--just a few months before his merger...

Kocn Industries' Steve Feilmeier.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
January 1, 2008... AS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND CFO OF KOCH INDUSTRIES INC., the largest private company in the United States, Steve Feilmeier enjoys certain benefits. "We don't worry about our earnings," says the former PepsiCo executive. "We care deeply what...

Carbon trading: the carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?(Cover story)
January 1, 2008... IN NORTHERN LOUISIANA, ECOLOGISTS are creating a new forest--one Beetle at a time. In a floodplain known as the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, nearly 250,000 trees are being planted by a not-for-profit group called Carbonfund.org. Funding...

Small business, big problems: lousy morale, decrepit systems, and a crushing workload: can a private-sector CFO save the SBA?
January 1, 2008... STEVEN PRESTON IS NOT ONE to refuse a thankless task. While transitioning out of the CFO role at $3.6 billion ServiceMaster, he agreed to stay on after the implosion of the firm's auditor, Arthur Andersen, and then through what he calls the...

Foreign intelligence: CFOs need to be smart about overseas operations--or risk paying a heavy price.
January 1, 2008... Overseas markets seem to grow by the minute, luring ever smaller and younger U.S. companies with the promise of booming economies and lower costs. But for these relatively inexperienced firms, the dream of international expansion soon collides...

Why VSOE spells trouble: as software becomes more ubiquitous, many CFOs must now confront the nightmare of revenue recognition.(in practice)
January 1, 2008... EVER SINCE 1963, the year it first issued shares in New York, Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. has proudly reported its financial results according to U.S. generally accepted accounting principles. The $42 billion (in revenues) maker of...

Gaming the system: how a small outsourcing firm uses competition to unite its global community.(innovation)
January 1, 2008... WIG-29 is on fire: three consecutive wins for nearly 1,700 points have moved the Russian into fourth place, and he's gaining on two Americans, duner and aubergineanode, who don't seem to have much fight left in them. But MiG-29 remains nearly...

Lifting the handicap: by lowering the corporate tax rate, can the United States regain a competitive edge?(tax)
January 1, 2008... THE RACE IS ON TO CUT corporate tax rates around the world. Last year, eight countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, cut their corporate tax rates. The year before, five countries did the same. Now the question is: Will the United...

Conference confidential: on the analyst circuit, it's all about meeting the right investors.(your move)(Conference news)
January 1, 2008... ALL HOLLYWOOD may clamor for tickets to the hottest Oscar soirees, but CFOs yearn for entree into a different sort of party: the broker conference. "Conferences are an efficient way to talk to investors," says Mark W. Joslin, CFO of Pool Corp.,...

Tropicana Casinos & Resorts.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Ted Mitchel has been named CFO of Tropicana Casinos & Resorts. Previously secretary treasurer of Tropicana affiliate Columbia Sussex, Mitchel succeeds john G Jacob, who left the company after serving as CFO for less than five months.

National Coal.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... National Coal has appointed Michael R. Castle as its new CFO, replacing Mike Love, who is pursuing other opportunities. Castle joins from his own practice, where he specialized in management advisory and consulting services for coal...

Ensynch.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Rick Winterich is the new CFO at IT services firm Ensynch. He most recently founded a niche Internet business and before that was CFO for Horizon Services.

The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary Foundation.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary Foundation has named Charles Figliozzi to its CFO post. The former acting finance chief and treasurer at the Brooklyn Hospital Center, Figliozzi succeeds Vincent Raab, who is retiring.

Immucor.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Richard A. Flynt is the new CFO of Immucor, a pretransfusion diagnostics company. Joining from McKesson, where he was VP, finance, Flynt replaces Patrick Waddy, who resigned.

Baird & Warner Holding.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Baird & Warner Holding has selected Warren Habib as its new CFO. He takes the reins from Martin Bozarth, who was appointed COO of Profit Recovery Partners. Habib was previously finance chief of the consumer and mortgage-lending servicing...

CSK Auto.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... James D. Constantine has been named CFO at CSK Auto, joining the automotive aftermarket retailer from ShopKo Stores, where he was also CFO.

Eddie Bauer.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Specialty retailer Eddie Bauer has appointed Mary Totand as CFO. He is the former CFO at Iconix Brand's London Fog Group.

Intuit.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... R. Neil Williams has been appointed CFO at Intuit. He succeeds Kiran Patel, who in June was named SVP and GM of the software company's TurboTax division. Williams was most recently CFO for Visa U.S.A.

Acorn Media Group.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Acorn Media Group has chosen Bruce Belliveau as its CFO. He was group CFO at Georgeson, now part of Computershare.

Host Hotels & Resorts.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Larry K Harvey, treasurer at Host Hotels & Resorts, has, in addition, been named to the CFO post. He succeeds W. Edward Walter, who has been appointed president and CEO.

Mastercard.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... Mastercard has selected Martina Hund-Mejean to succeed Chris A, McWilton as CFO. Hund-Mejean was previously treasurer at Tyco International.

Hertz Global Holdings.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
January 1, 2008... After serving as interim CFO since the retirement of Paul J. Siracusa, Elyse Douglas has been appointed CFO of car-rental company Hertz Global Holdings.

Refusing to roll over.(grapevine)
January 1, 2008... THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION has been gaining ground with its backdating cases, with the December $468 million settlement from UnitedHealth Group Inc. ex-CEO William McGuire setting a new record. But one target--Carl W. Jasper, ex-CFO...

A loss worth reporting.(grapevine)(wellness program at Wesley Willows Corp.)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATON OMITTED] FEEL FREE TO CALL Mark Ticknor a big loser. He won't mind. The 54-year-otd CFO of Wesley Willows Corp., a Rockford, Illinois-based adult-care community, dropped 12 pounds after joining a companywide weight-loss...