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

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

The last mile.(from the editor)(Editorial)
June 1, 2008... WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME A CFO? That was the question we put to nearly a dozen women who ascended to the top finance positions at U.S. multinational companies in the past year, and their answers are instructive for men and women alike...

Room for a view.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... Jerry Boerner and the AT&T team discovered measurable value of integrated corporate data as they prepared for the Apple iPhone launch ("General Ledger vs. Major Opportunity," Topline, May). It is not uncommon for companies that have created a...

The truth about security.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... "Firewall of Silence" (InTech, April) highlights some of the unspoken truths about the current climate of data breaches and security incidents. Like the fact that employers are constantly blaming hackers because they don't want customers,...

The French connection.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... The French government requires that a set of book be kept in the government-dictated chart of accounts. Will international financial reporting standards simplify the international situation ("Goodbye GAAP" April)? Not if countries don't go...

Keep on not truckin'.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... The different approach to transportation costs discussed in "Sucking It Up" (April) reminded me of when I was an accountant with a chemical subsidiary of Union Oil Co. of California in the 1960s. The company sold many of its products to...

Hiding in the [sar]box.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... The process that is laid out in Standard & Poor's draft on assessing companies' enterprise risk management ("No Cakewalk," Topline, March) should accomplish what it is intended to do--provide visibility into a company's ERM efforts. The...

Encouraging companies to stay.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2008... The U.S. government definitely must take more regulatory action on the outsourcing of American jobs ("Offshoring Spreads Its Wings," March). It's a fine balancing act keeping our global cost competitiveness, but, by the same token, I have seen...

Better safe than underfunded.(PENSIONS)
June 1, 2008... [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RATHER THAN CHASE BIG GAINS in the stock market, a new study finds, many corporate sponsors of traditional pension plans are adopting a lower-risk strategy of pursuing returns that match plan...

A perceptive postmortem.(BANKING)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ALTHOUGH ONLY TIME WILL TELL if it remains at the top of the subprime-loss heap, UBS takes the prize for the most forthcoming mea culpa. In April it published a 5D-page document titled "Shareholder Report on UBS's...

Suddenly, it's here.(XBRL)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAYING THAT IT WILL "let the sun shine in as never before," Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox announced last month that the SEC had voted unanimously to propose a rule that will require...

The PCAOB turns 5.099.(ACCOUNTING)(Public Company Accounting Oversight Board)(Organization overview)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Among the many changes spawned by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was the designation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board as audit firms' new watchdog. The organization celebrated its fifth anniversary on April 25. Here's a look at...

Not-so-modest proposals.(GOVERNANCE)
June 1, 2008... DIRECTORS WOULD DO WELL to heed their shareholders, if only out of concern for their jobs, according to new research by a trio of business school professors. The study, which examined the results of 620 majority-vote proposals (all dealing with...

Principles vs. practices.(IFRS)
June 1, 2008... RULES SEEM ONEROUS until you contemplate life without them. That seems to be one message uncovered in a survey of more than 20o CFOs and senior comptrollers recently conducted by accounting firm Grant Thornton. Asked whether today's financial...

Verbatim.(topline)
June 1, 2008... "Right now, there is a lull because multinational banks and broker-dealers have... written down only their equity tranches. If these banks properly marked their AAA holdings to current valuations they would probably all be insolvent." ANN...

Waste management hauls SAP to court.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2008... LET THE TRASH TALK BEGIN. In March, Waste Management Inc. flied a lawsuit against SAP, accusing the enterprise-resource-planning-software powerhouse of fraud. The suit claims that SAP deliberately misrepresented a revenue-management...

The pause that refreshes.(BENEFITS)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JUNE BRINGS WITH IT thoughts of summer vacation, and David Hayob is unlikely to forget the one he took last year. First he traveled from his home in Houston to the East Coast with his sons, visiting four cities and...

What's wrong with subprime accounting?(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When push came to shove and U.S. homeowners were in danger of losing their houses, the government swooped in to rework accounting rules and save the day, or try to. That was great for vulnerable mortgage holders, and...

Spreadsheets "worst practices".(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
June 1, 2008... Finance executives may rove electronic spreadsheets, but they are also guilty of abusing them. In an examination of common pitfalls--many of which entail treating spreadsheets as little more than glorified calculators--Babson College professors...

Rare career path: CPA, JD, CFO.(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
June 1, 2008... Once upon a time a fellow named Rick Ramps wasn't happy in his work. He was a KPMG associate but he dreamed of being a CFO. A sensible person might simply wait to make partner, and maybe earn an MBA on the side. But Ramps took the path less...

Bankers: fair value is like throwing gasoline on a fire.(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... Fair-value measurements of financial instruments may be the hottest topic in accounting today, but banks aren't having any of it. Not known for their love of accounting rules in general, banks have a particular gripe with fair value, which they...

When I think back on all the GAAP I learned in grad school ...(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
June 1, 2008... Accounting standards-setters on both sides of the Atlantic may think the embrace of principles-based standards is a done deal but apparently they haven't asked for sign-off from the accountants of tomorrow. Julie Erhardt, deputy chief...

ROC solid: why return on capital could be the metric that best helps companies achieve higher returns.(by the numbers)
June 1, 2008... IN THEIR NEVER-ENDING QUEST TO DRIVE shareholder value, CFOs have a bevy of favorite performance gauges to point them in the right direction. But do popular metrics such as return on equity (ROE) and return on net assets (RONA) truly focus CFOs...

View from Europe: goodbye Anglo-Saxons, hello emerging markets?(top line)
June 1, 2008... WHEN SAUDI ARABIA'S GOVERNMENT announced last month that it would join the list of Middle Eastern and Asian countries that have launched sovereign-wealth funds (SWFs), CFOs in Europe had more than just a passing interest. These SWFs--from the...

How bad will it get? the subprime-mortgage meltdown is strikingly similar to major financial crises in other countries. Will the aftermath be as costly?(insight)
June 1, 2008... IS THE U.S. ECONOMY IN A RECESSION? By a well-known rule of thumb--two or more consecutive quarters of negative growth--no. Gross domestic product grew an estimated 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2008, the same pace as in the fourth...

But for you I'll charge an additional 10%: pricing software can spot pointless discounts and other profit-killers, but it isn't cheap.(in tech)(Company overview)
June 1, 2008... IN 2003, SENIOR MANAGEMENT at Emerson, a diversified manufacturing and technology company, realized there was a short circuit in its operations. Prices for the company's broad line of electrical products were declining year after year, and...

Pressure from above: with new deals falling off, private-equity firms are hovering over portfolio-company CFOs like never before.(deals)
June 1, 2008... IN YOUR FACE, THAT'S THE NEW GAME plan at many private-equity firms as deal volumes decline and the focus shifts to maximizing the efficiencies of the companies they already control. Through April, deal activity was down to levels not seen...

Microsoft's Chris Liddell.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
June 1, 2008... IT HAS BEEN, TO SAY THE LEAST, an interesting year so far for Microsoft Corp, Even as the company was rebuffed by Yahoo (ultimately abandoning its months-long effort to buy the online giant in May) its newest operating system, Vista, faced a...

Secrets of their success: how the top women in finance staked their claims to the C-suite.(Cover story)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THINGS WERE GOING VERY WELL FOR CHRISTA DAVIES. She'd been recently promoted to a plum divisional-CFO post at Microsoft, charged with everything from integrating the company's largest-ever acquisition to helping...

Counterattack: as phony goods flood the market, companies fight to protect their brands.
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOST RETAILERS want you to come to their checkout Lines with as much merchandise as you can carry. Not Abercrombie & Fitch. The $3.75 billion apparel retailer actually Limits the number of items customers can buy to...

The way forward: surviving a recession.(SPECIAL SECTION)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WETHER YOU CALL IT A RECESSION, a downturn, or "a slow-moving chain-reaction car crash that is happening in the fog [and] no one can see when it will end" (our thanks to Greenwich Treasury Advisors managing partner...

Keeping cash safe: as the economy sputters, companies are striving to maintain their liquidity.(SPECIAL SECTION)
June 1, 2008... Amid immense uncertainty, the conservation of cash is in full swing. Managing working capital tightly, "de-risking" cash investments, increasing credit lines--you name it, companies are doing it. In fact, many balance sheets are now brimming...

Staying on course: it's hard to weather an economic slowdown without a sound budget to steer by.(BUDGETING AND PLANING)
June 1, 2008... CaseCentral, a San Francisco-based litigation support firm, may seem as recession-proof as a business can be. It provides an electronic platform for evidence management to companies battling lawsuits--not a sector likely to see a precipitous...

Less bleeding more edge: runaway IT spending is out, creative cost control is in.(INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
June 1, 2008... Most analysts expect information-technology spending to increase about 2 percent this year, and in April research firm IDC found evidence that spending may actually decline slightly. Either way, IT still represents a huge corporate expense,...

Time to buy: tight credit markets plus a down economy add up to a buyer's market.(MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS)
June 1, 2008... Economic gloom abounds these days, but there is one ray of sunshine: the mergers-and-acquisitions market. Companies have more acquisition opportunities now than a year ago, when deep-pocketed private-equity firms dominated the scene and steep...

Capex caution: bracing for a recession, many companies are reining in capital spending. But some say they must forge ahead.(CAPITAL SPENDING)
June 1, 2008... Capital spending generally goes as the economy goes--which means it's currently in the doldrums. Growth of U.S. capital expenditures (capex) has slowed from a robust 21 percent in 2006 to 13 percent in 2007 to nominal growth projected for 2008,...

From wall street to main street: as financial firms downsize, some investment bankers will be eyeing CFO positions.(your move)
June 1, 2008... DOES A CFO'S OFFICE befit someone who drives a Bugatti Veyran, drinks Dam Perignon champagne, and smokes $400 cigars? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some companies may soon find out. More than 50,000 investment bankers could be pruned from...

Seagate Technology.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Charles Pope has retired as finance chief of disk-drive maker Seagate Technology, but remains EVP of the company's Seagate Storage division. Patrick O'Malley, who was the company's SVP, finance treasury, was named CFO.

Cooley Godward Kronish.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Lisanne Fegan Morales is the new CFO at Cooley Godward Kronish, joining from law firm Arnold & Porter, where she was also CFO.

Eagle Rock Energy Partners.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Eagle Rock Energy Partners has appointed Darin G. Hotderness to the CFO post. He succeeds Alfredo Garcia, who continues as SVP of corporate development. Holderness was previously chief accounting officer of Pioneer Natural Resources.

PEP Boys.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Ray Arthur is the new CFO at auto-parts retailer PEP Boys. The former CFO at Toys "R" Us, Arthur takes the reins from Harry Yanowitz, who announced his planned departure in January.

Wolverine World Wide.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Footwear and apparel marketer Wolverine World Wide has named Don Grimes to be its new CFO. He replaces Steve Gulls, who continues as president, global operations group, and an EVP of the company.

Keystone Automotive Operations.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Grimes was previously CFO of Keystone Automotive Operations, a subsidiary of Bain Capital.

Patriot Transportation Holding.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Ray M. Van Landingham is retiring as VP and CFO of transport and real-estate company Patriot Transportation Holding; John D. Milton Jr. will succeed him. Milton was CFO of Florida Rock Industries until its merger with Vulcan Materials in...

Vicor.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Power systems company Vicor has chosen James A. Simms to be its CFO. Simms takes over from Richard J. Nagel Jr., who was serving in the interim and continues as VP and chief accounting officer. Simms was a managing director of Needham & Co.

School Specialty.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... David N. Vander Ploeg is the new CFO of School Specialty, a pre-K-12 education company. Most recently COO of Dutchland Plastics, he replaces David Gomach, who retired last year.

DigitalBridge Communications.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
June 1, 2008... Wireless Internet service provider DigitalBridge Communications has selected Scott R. Royster as its first-ever CFO. Royster was previously finance chief of Radio One.

Still searching.(grapevine)
June 1, 2008... WHEN GOOGLE'S CFO, George Reyes, announced his retirement last August, the company expected to fill his shoes by year-end. Reyes is still there, however, and the company synonymous with Web search--not to mention online advertising, satellite...

Going public.(grapevine)(BlueRay v. Yetena Simonyan)(Brief article)
June 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When must a private company make its internal records available? That's a question digital-disk manufacturer BlueRay Technologies is facing--in court. The person asking that question is the company's former CFO,...