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

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

Above the fray.(from the editor)
May 1, 2007... FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS: Despite a tumultuous proxy season in which boards, investors, and senior management squared off over any number of issues, finance executives report that they are getting along with their boards quite well, thank you. In...

Warming to the debate.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... It's time the Bush Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency followed the law and cleaned up their act ("Cleaning Up Carbon," April). They can no longer reject global warming as a hoax. There are real problems with greenhouse...

Is Six Sigma the way?(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... I am writing in response to the article "Six Stigma?" (Topline, March). The article refers to the so-called study by QualPro that purports to show that most companies using Six Sigma are doing poorly relative to the average firm. In fact,...

The art of "presence".(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... In terms of how cultivating "presence" helps accelerate results ("Being Here," Insight, March), I'm reminded of the approach used by a coach of world-class sprinters. He had his runners observe every movement they made to launch themselves off...

Putting deferred comp in its place.(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2007... "Reams Deferred" (Topline, March) leaves the impression that nonqualified deferred compensation is something new, or that it is proliferating wildly. Nothing could be further from the truth. Various forms of nonqualified deferred...

Correction.(letters)(Correction notice)
May 1, 2007... CORRECTION: In the February Topline article "Fear of FIN 48," Marian Rosenberg was referred to as a tax analyst for Thomson Financial. She is actually a tax analyst for Thomson Tax & Accounting.

A growing chorus.(topline)(recent events in financial services)(Calendar)
May 1, 2007... November 2006 Committee on Capital Markets Regulation calls for clearer SEC guidance on Sarbox and securities-litigation reforms, including an arbitration option for shareholders, liability caps for auditors and better indemnification for...

Critical masses.((ANTI)REGULATION)
May 1, 2007... THE MOVEMENT TO SCALE BACK recent financial reforms has turned into a veritable book-of-the-month club as one organization after another issues reports that call for major changes to everything from Sarbanes-Oxley to shareholders' rights. On...

Rebalancing act.(topline)
May 1, 2007... Every week seems to usher forth a new committee, report, or meeting aimed at revisiting the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other financial regulations. The efforts have united a range of politicians, business leaders, academics, and others, but have...

Board of objectors.(GOVERNANCE)(significance of directorial board and shareholders in company management )
May 1, 2007... CALL IT THE SARBOX TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT: As corporate boards have become more active in company management (see "Board Battles," page 61), shareholders have become more eager to exercise control over boards. Of the five most common proposals put...

Helping employees understand fees.(401(K) PLANS)
May 1, 2007... EXPECT TO SEE PLENTY OF NEWS come out of Washington, D.C., during the next few months as all three branches of government zero in on the fees that 401(k)-plan participants pay, often unknowingly. The judicial branch is the most active thus...

Not contagious.(report on consumer-driven health plans )(Report)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... BY ONE MEASURE, consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs) are booming; by another, they appear to be nearly DOA. A survey by the National Business Group on Health and Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that 38 percent of the 573 large companies studied...

Insider raiding.(SECURITY)(data security by credit card companies)
May 1, 2007... DESPITE ALL THE ATTENTION GIVEN to filched credit-card numbers and other damage wrought by computer hackers, a new University of Washington study puts hard numbers to what security experts have long claimed: you have more to fear from insiders...

I'll keep my remarks brief ...(TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT)
May 1, 2007... WHO DO CORPORATE boards took to for help in understanding a company's IT strategy? Very often the CFO, according to a new survey from Deloitte and Corporate Board Member magazine. But don't spend too much time concocting PowerPoint slides that...

Second thoughts.(BUYBACKS)
May 1, 2007... AMERICAN COMPANIES HAVE BEEN ON A BUYBACK TEAR, snatching up stock with cheap capital and bulging balance sheets. Sagging share prices and new regulations have made buybacks even more alluring. But white many companies have been doting out cash...

Global norming.(LEGISLATION)
May 1, 2007... FOR GLOBAL COMPANIES, taxation offers a strong dose of good news/ bad news. "Complexity and asymmetry across jurisdictions," says a recent report from Ernst & Young, present "problems for an increasing number of companies and can result in...

Trends with benefits.(topline)(a report on employee satisfaction)(Report)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Most employees report a decline in satisfaction with their company benefits, but senior execs are happier than ever. Satisfaction also varies by industry. % change in workers who view their company benefits favorably in 2005 vs. 2001 ...

A big leap for Web conferencing? Analysts see Cisco's move as a bold effort to confront Microsoft in the emerging "unified messaging" arena.(COLLABORATION)
May 1, 2007... CISCO SYSTEMS'S $3.2 BILLION purchase of Web-conferencing leader WebEx was more than just another deal for the acquisition-mad networking giant. In shelling out so much for an established Web-services firm, Cisco made it clear that it intends...

Meanwhile ...(topline)
May 1, 2007... Even as Cisco Systems moved to expand its unified-messaging product line, a major competitive threat emerged in the form of Google. In February, it announced a partnership with communications company Avaya that would combine Google's...

Finance vs. marketing: why they still don't see eye to eye on measures of return.(by the numbers)
May 1, 2007... COMPANIES ARE STILL STRUGGLING to measure their returns on marketing investments, and two recent studies shed some light on why. For one thing, marketing and finance disagree as to how well current programs to measure the ROI of expenses such...

View from Asia: why you should worry about the Shanghai stock market.(topline)
May 1, 2007... IT ALREADY FEELS LIKE ANCIENT HISTORY, TWO months ago the Shanghai stock market stumbled, falling 9 percent in a single day, and immediately pulling several major Western markets with it. Suddenly, every market analyst was talking about Chinas...

Multifunction junction: a home-office staple finds favor with Corporate America.(in tech)
May 1, 2007... TALK ABOUT A PAPER JAM: two years ago, power producer Progress Energy was up to its smokestacks in office machinery. The Raleigh, North Carolina, company deployed nearly 2,700 printers, copiers, scanners, and fax machines in more than 200 sites...

The bright side of bubbles: despite their cost, speculative bubbles may have an enormous upside, a new book argues.(insight)
May 1, 2007... THE AMERICAN ECONOMY is forever blowing bubbles. Housing seems to be the investment bubble du jour, coming on the heels of the Internet bubble, which popped seven years ago. The two are linked: as the dot-com economy slowed, Federal Reserve...

Divining Oracle's latest gambit: by snapping up Hyperion, Oracle intensifies its war with SAP, even as it pledges to play nice with others.(deals)
May 1, 2007... WHEN THE VORACIOUS Oracle Corp. acquisition machine consumed Hyperion Solutions Corp. in March for $3.3 billion, Wall Street cheered. So did Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who described the combination as creating "an end-to-end...

Merrill Lynch's Jeffrey Edwards.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
May 1, 2007... VOLATILITY IN THE CAPITAL MARKETS might roll some executives, but not Jeff Edwards. In his 20 years with Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch, Edwards has seen plenty of market corrections, but he remains a firm believer in the value of long-term...

The long view: companies are trying to shift investors' focus from short-term results to long-term goals.
May 1, 2007... WARREN BUFFETT may be the most celebrated stock picker of our time, but many investors ignore his advice. Instead of taking long-term positions in undervalued businesses, they fixate on short-term performance and clobber companies that miss...

Going away: the doubts that finance executives once had about offshoring are quickly disappearing as savings and process improvements become too good to pass up.
May 1, 2007... Frank Cocuzza's first visit to an outsourcing vendor in India seven years ago left him intrigued but not ready to jump. "Nice story," the senior vice president of finance for Penske Truck Leasing Co. recalls thinking. "But we weren't going to...

Board battles: even as conflicts between CEOs and directors erupt, finance chiefs can wield influence on both sides.
May 1, 2007... You could have cut the tension with a putty knife. As one share-holder group was squeezing Home Depot Inc.'s board to divest a major unit last winter, other investors tried to chip away at CEO Bob Nardelli's $38 million pay package. ...

To rollover, or not? Why retirees should think twice before shifting 401(k) assets into an IRA.(BUYER'S GUIDE: 401(k) PROVIDERS, PART II)
May 1, 2007... SOME 16.7 MILLION baby boomers will retire by 2010. As they dial up their hearing aids to groove to their old Beatles CDs, many will be drawing income from a combination of Social Security, traditional pensions, and one or more 401(k) savings...

The 2007 401(k) providers guide.(Buyers guide)
May 1, 2007... The 2007 401(k) Providers Guide MARSHALL & ILSLEY TRUST Milwaukee (866) 418-9339 ...

Long-term thinking: if you think contemplating your mortality is unpleasant, try shopping for long-term-care insurance.(your money)
May 1, 2007... SPEND ENOUGH TIME SORTING through the intricacies of long-term-care insurance and you may decide that John Maynard Keynes's famous axiom, "In the long run, we are all dead," is positively comforting. While almost no one would dispute that...

The replacements: with staff defections on the rise, CFOs are paying more attention to new hires.(your move)
May 1, 2007... IF EVER A MOVE WAS GUARANTEED to fan the flames of worker cynicism, this was it. In March, embattled retailer Circuit City announced it was laying off about 3,400 employees. The company's management went on to note that it planned to...

Bausch & Lomb.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Efrain Rivera, a longtime veteran of Bausch & Lomb, is now the company's CFO. He succeeds Stephen McCluski, who will serve as SVP of corporate strategy until he retires on June 30.

Eaton Vance.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Eaton Vance has named Robert Whelan as its new director of finance and soon-to-be CFO when William Steul retires in October. Whelan was CFO of Boston Private Wealth Management Group.

Datawatch.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Murray Fish is the new CFO of Datawatch; he joins the company from Cymfony.

IDT.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Telecommunications company IDT appointed Stephen Brown to its top finance spot; Brown succeeds Marcelo Fischer, who assumed the role of SVP of finance.

McDermott International.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Michael Tall, who had been serving as chief accounting officer at McDermott International, will now be its CFO; he replaces Francis Kalman, who is retiring.

Synnex.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Thomas Alsborg, formerly with Solectron Global Services, is the new CFO at IT/ supply-chain services firm Synnex; he succeeds Dennis Polk, who remains as COO.

Intelli-Check.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Intelli-Check named Peter Mundy, who had most recently been the CFO at Sentry Technology, as its new CFO; he succeeds Ed Winiarz.

Infowave Software.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
May 1, 2007... Leonard Cox has joined Infowave Software from Protox Therapeutics, assuming the CFO post, which has been open since last August.

The departed.(grapevine)
May 1, 2007... AT A TIME WHEN FORD needs all the help it can get, its finance executives seem to be taking off faster than a Shelby Cobra. In March, two more resigned from the beleaguered company. Anne Marie Petach, former vice president and treasurer,...

A roll of the dice.(Station Casinos)(Brief article)
May 1, 2007... Anyone want to wager on the outcome? If a pending deal for Station Casinos to be acquired by a private-equity group goes through, CFO Glenn Christenson will probably stay retired. If not, who knows? "This has been the best CFO job in the...