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

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

Lease or liability?(CFO.com)
July 1, 2007... A recent study of retailers showed that moving operating leases back onto their balance sheet--as FASB plans to do---would increase liabilities, reduce reported income, and cause profitability measures to drop significantly. What would happen...

(Don't) read all about it.(CFO.com)
July 1, 2007... Are you the tax guy? The merger manager? Does FASB get your blood going, but the IRS leave you cold? At CFO.com, you can choose the topics relevant to your job--and avoid those that aren't. Just go to our Alerts page, select your favorite...

Most-read articles.(CFO.com)
July 1, 2007... 1. Whistle-blowers Never Win 2. Painful Memories: SEC Grilled on 404 Costs 3. Why Danny Ocean Won't Go Back to the Bellagio 4. PCAOB: Can Auditors Handle Fair Value? 5. Coming This Summer: 404 for All For the latest "Most...

Whistle-blowers never win.(SARBANES-OXLEY)
July 1, 2007... Whether they're valiant watchdogs of capitalism or disgruntled nut jobs, one thing is certain: whistle-blowers have a lousy track record. In the five years since Sarbanes-Oxley offered to shield financial whistle-blowers from employer...

Color bind.(from the editor)
July 1, 2007... INFORMED THAT WE WERE devoting our cover story to a look at the five-year anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, attorney Stephen Poss, a staunch critic of the legislation, responded: "Are you going to drape the issue in black ribbon?" We...

Getting past the gap.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... The June article "Gap Analysis" correctly links minorities' scarce presence in senior corporate-finance positions to their underrepresentation in college accounting and business programs. The writer also notes that minorities have traditionally...

Another ultra heard from.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... Given that your review seems to target ultraportables ("For Road Warriors, Lightening Strikes Again," InTech, June), I feel I have to comment on the omission of the most relevant Fujitsu model, the Lifebook Q2010. Having just purchased...

Privatization of water.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... In response to your article "Water for Profit" (February), I think the privatization of a common resource like the water supply is at odds with the principles of our democratic society. Consider the following quote from Milton Friedman: ...

Wary of integration.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2007... Even though several service offerings to improve visibility and velocity to supply-chain finance have been around for a long time, the lack of access to basic technology (such as a computer and broadband access) in low-cost countries initially...

Clarification.(letters)(Correction notice)
July 1, 2007... The September 2005 article "The 411 on 404" listed several CFOs whose resignation closely followed announcements of internal-control material weaknesses. In the case of National RV's former CFO Joseph Hansen, Mr. Hansen's resignation was...

Correction.(letters)(Correction notice)
July 1, 2007... In our May article "The Departed" (Grapevine), we incorrectly identified David Cosper's departure date from Ford Motor Credit Co. It was in March 2006, not 2007.

Blowin' in the wind.(topline)
July 1, 2007... Blowin' In The Wind How 947 Sarbox whistle-blower cases have fared Dismissed 70% Proceed to DoL administrative law judges 2% Withdrawn by complainant 13%...

Cheap talk or deaf ears?(WHISTLE-BLOWERS)
July 1, 2007... IF THE SAGA OF DAVID WELCH is any example, corporate employees who witness or suspect financial wrongdoing may want to think twice before speaking up. In 2002 Welch became the first person to seek whistle-blower protection under Section 806 of...

Marching to different drummers.(HEDGE FUNDS)(Report)(Brief article)
July 1, 2007... A REPORT BY THE NEW YORK FEDERAL RESERVE on hedge funds set off alarm belts recently when the bank seemed to suggest that funds were stockpiling too many eggs in one basket. Headlines based on the paper, by Federal Reserve economist Tobias...

A toxic mess.(LITIGATION)
July 1, 2007... IT WAS A RARE EXAMPLE of large companies banding together with environmental groups--not to mention landowners and the states--against the federal government. Last month the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the groups' favor in United States v....

Do companies do good well?(THE TRUST GAP)
July 1, 2007... LARGE GLOBAL COMPANIES ARE DOING A FINE JOB of serving the public good--according to executives at those companies, anyway. Consumers are much less impressed, and likely to express their displeasure by avoiding the products and services of...

Patents bending.(INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY)
July 1, 2007... THE U.S. SUPREME COURT RECENTLY put the pedal to the metal in a case that many patent experts say will accelerate a drive toward a more rigorous interpretation of "obviousness." In KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., the Court ruled...

If it's Tuesday, this must be ...(LOGISTICS)
July 1, 2007... DATA-ENTRY ERRORS, subcontractor snafus, three-day lags in "real-time" Web tracking systems, and the occasional head-scratcher as to where in the world a given place actually is--such were the perils and pitfalls of the annual "Great Package...

Backstage pacification.(PROXY SEASON)
July 1, 2007... BEHIND-THE-SCENES AGREEMENTS SEEM to have kept annual shareholder meetings relatively drama-free this year, although the proxy season did offer a few onstage highlights. Corporate governance was the most common battleground, as more than 140...

How green was my tally.(ENERGY)
July 1, 2007... NO SOONER HAD TARGET CORP. announced in April that it had installed solar systems atop 4 California retail stores (with plans for more) than Wal-Mart announced a similar project for 22 of its stores. Last year a nearly identical battle took...

Business outlook survey: CFOs don't like what they see, and are reining in spending.(by the numbers)
July 1, 2007... FINANCE EXECUTIVES ENTERED THE SUMMER DOLDRUMS early this year as their optimism about the U.S. economy approached a five-year low. They predict slower growth in capital spending, technology spending, and advertising spending, and they have...

The Chinese people's embrace of the stock market tests the government's tolerance for criticism.(VIEW FROM China)
July 1, 2007... THESE DAYS EVERYONE IN Shanghai seems to own stock shares, including my barber. A man in his late 60s, he owns a small shop in a part of Shanghai once known as the French Concession. A week before the big stock-market dive that hit the Shanghai...

The onus of bonus: getting a handle on incentive compensation is no small task. Software can help.(in tech)
July 1, 2007... ASK CFOs TO DRAW A PICTURE of themselves when they are calculating incentive compensation and they inevitably draw an angry, two-headed monster with red question marks shooting out of their mouths like flames. Or offer words to that...

You oughta be on YouTube.(VIDEO ANNUAL REPORTS)
July 1, 2007... DAUGHTRY AND BON JOVI AREN'T the only outfits promoting hip new videos these days. In an odd twist on financial reporting, a handful of companies are imploring shareholders to check out their videos. Management at marquee businesses such as...

A shell by any other name? "Special purpose" companies offer an intriguing prospect for going public in this conservative IPO market.(deals)
July 1, 2007... PITY THE YOUNG COMPANY READY to take the big leap into the capital markets. Pick the traditional initial-public-offering route and you enter a still-lackluster IPO market with uncertain prospects for all but the hottest corporate candidates. Go...

Tangled up in tasks: multitasking and frequent interruptions are inescapable aspects of office life, but they can exact a toll.(insight)
July 1, 2007... THE ESTIMATE IS STARTLING. Naturally, upon reading it, I have to leave my office and tell a colleague about it. According to Basex Inc., a knowledge-management research firm, work interruptions cost the U.S. economy at least $650 billion a...

Sempra Energy's: Mark Snell.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
July 1, 2007... IT LOOKS LIKE THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM were not at Enron but at Sempra Energy. The San Diego--based energy services holding company does what the cowboys from Houston could not do: generate an honest profit. In fact, says CFO Mark Snell,...

5 years and accounting: Part 1 of 3: in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, the policies, politics, and practices that shape corporate finance remain far from settled.
July 1, 2007... IN JULY OF 2002, President Bush traveled to New York and spoke to a rapt audience just a stone's throw from Ground Zero. Pledging to punish those wrongdoers whose misdeeds and acts of destruction threatened the American way of life, he unveiled...

Give them credit: before GE could reach out to Chinese consumers, it had to learn to work with Chinese banks.(Company overview)
July 1, 2007... LAST JANUARY, Michael Barrett stood before a group of more than 20 Chinese bank employees in a Guangzhou conference room. Barrett, the CEO of GE Money China, was there to direct what GE calls a "workout session"--the lively brainstorming...

Drowning in data: the new compensation disclosure rules deliver plenty of information. Too bad much of it doesn't make sense.
July 1, 2007... MONTHS LATER and you're still recovering from proxy season? No worries: you're not alone. The fact is, anyone who had anything to do with filing a corporate proxy statement this year--the first year under new Securities and Exchange Commission...

Growing problems: focused on growth and more reliant on overseas suppliers, companies have let inventories swell.(working capital)
July 1, 2007... MAYBE IT'S globalization. As U.S. companies source more goods from the far corners of the world, it makes sense that they would stock more inventory as a guard against potential breakdowns in their supply chains. Or maybe it's economic...

This land is your land: changes afoot in lease accounting will have dramatic effects on retail and REIT balance sheets.(in practice: real estate)
July 1, 2007... IMAGINE A WORLD IN WHICH AMB Property Corp., which owns more than 100 million square feet of real estate, appears to lose all of the property on its balance sheet overnight. Or where Walgreen Co., the giant drugstore chain, suddenly sees $26...

Slow justice.(grapevine)
July 1, 2007... AFTER FOUR YEARS OF BATTLING charges that he manipulated earnings, former Gateway CFO John Todd may be off the hook--for now. The Securities and Exchange Commission accused Todd, along with former CEO Jeffrey Weitzen and ex-controller...

Glazed over, in a good way.(grapevine)(Brief article)(Statistical data)
July 1, 2007... Best Buy CFO Darren Jackson may not sugarcoat financial results, but he knows how to dish out the quarterly numbers. For the past two years, Jackson has been serving employees everything from crullers to Bavarian creams along with his earnings...