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

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

Meanwhile....(career of chief financial officers)(Editorial)(Cover story)
November 1, 2008... AT THE RISK OF APPEARING FRIVOLOUS, can we talk about your career? And your compensation? True, the markets are in turmoil and the outlook for 2009--to the extent that one can even have an outlook--is far from rosy. But to a large degree this...

Election results.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] My concern isn't how CFOs are going to vote ("Dear Mr. President," October), but rather how the "Joe Six-Pack and hockey moms" group is going to vote. The economic interpretation from the uninformed or the...

Don't blame the politicians.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... There's a lot of finger-pointing going on as a result of all the turmoil in the financial markets. Political parties are blaming each other, former Federal Reserve chairman Man Greenspan is under attack, the President is under attack. No one...

Undeserving from the start.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... Great article on the subprime/debt-ratings fiasco ("Over Rated?" September). However, I believe that financial-analysis tools were available to get these securitizations' debt ratings correct in the first place. If debt ratings had been...

Taking it to the cloud.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2008... I found your article "A Place in the Cloud" (InTech, September) interesting, yet in some ways it smacked of fear marketing. Slowly taking low-priority business tasks to the cloud is similar to each and every new business idea--start with a...

Correction.(letters)(Correction notice)
November 1, 2008... CORRECTION: In "Swing Time" (Topline, October), we misstated a company's name. The correct name is Overseas Shipholding Group.

The dollar may be up, but are you?(FOREIGN EXCHANGE)
November 1, 2008... [GRAPHICS OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ONE BENEFICIARY of Wall Street's bailout is the dollar, which is hot again. The greenback rose 12 percent against the euro between July and October, and is likely to get stronger over the next...

Going, going, gone.(BANKRUPTCIES)
November 1, 2008... IF EVERY WEEK BRINGS A NEW CHAPTER in the financial crisis, then we appear to be up to Chapter 11, and it may take a while to slog through. The $639 billion Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing in September--the largest bankruptcy on record, as...

"With the benefit of hindsight, I can now say that I and many others were wrong.".(topline)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "With the benefit of hindsight, I can now say that I and many others were wrong." RICHARD FULD JR., CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS, BEFORE A HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE LAST...

Small companies will lag, but by how much?(IFRS)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LET THIS BE A WARNING to CFOs of private companies: The shift to new global financial reporting standards may yet happen during the Bush Administration. That would be the Jenna Bush Administration. Such was the...

No market, no problem.(FAIR VALUE)(United States. Securities and Exchange Commission)(Financial Accounting Standards Board)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... USE YOUR OWN JUDGMENT. Seriously. That was the message from regulators as they scrambled to address allegations that fair-value accounting caused the credit crisis by forcing banks to overdiscount mortgage-related assets. In early October,...

Swiping nest eggs?(401(K) PLANS)
November 1, 2008... MOST COMPANIES encourage employees to put money into their 401(k) plans. Now employees can get that money out again--with a debit card. A company called Reserve Solutions (an affiliate of asset-management firm The Reserve) has been marketing...

Or we could just teleconference ...(TRAVEL)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YET ANOTHER SIGN OF THE TIMES: no more fancy steak dinners on the company's tab. Morton's Restaurant Group, which derives 80 percent of its revenues from business travelers, stands to take a hit in 2009, thanks to...

Boutique mystique.(BANKING)
November 1, 2008... THE IMPLOSION OF Wall Street's large investment banks may well be a boon for smaller ones. The financial crisis "has created...unprecedented opportunities for midtier firms," Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Lauren Smith recently advised...

Misery loves comedy.(THE CRISIS)
November 1, 2008... Bleak times inspire comic relief, and there is currently a bull market in one-liners. "It's the old axiom: tragedy plus time equals comedy," says Tom Yorton, president of The Second City, the legendary improvisation and comedy group. OK, but...

Strange bedfellows: fair value and the bailout plan.(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
November 1, 2008... Can FAS 157, the controversial Financial Accounting Standards Board stricture, coexist with the federal government's bailout plan? Many banks contend that lowered asset values spawned by mark-to-market accounting have deterred them from...

The bailout: what's the real price?(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So what's it gonna cost? That's the question every skeptical consumer asks before making an important purchase, and it's the same question Harvard taw professor Hal Scott posed when the Treasury Department announced...

Where will all the bankers go?(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... The fate of the swelling hordes of financial workers being shed by the financial-services industry is not a topic likely to generate much sympathy these days, but the question remains: Will they try to take their act to industry? Few...

CFOs react to the financial crisis: a sampling from our continuing series of interviews with CFOs in all industry sectors.(Best of the Web: A SNAPSHOT OF SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR STORIES FROM CFO.COM)
November 1, 2008... ON CORPORATE PERFORMANCE "People look for a place that they're comfortable with. From a client perspective, the challenges that Lehman and others have faced have been helpful to us." --STEVEN FRADKIN, Northern Trust "We're very...

Top concerns of CFOs: CFOs worry about consumers, credit, and volatile markets.(by the numbers)
November 1, 2008... REST ASSURED, another Great Depression is not on the way. That's because it's already here--at least as an accurate description of the psychological state of most finance executives. In fact, even before the latest round of bad news from...

View from China: why the credit crunch may soon force China to toughen its export terms.(top line)
November 1, 2008... FOR YEARS THE UNITED STATES has blamed its huge trade deficit on China. What many haven't appreciated is that underneath China's export surplus lies a problem--for China. Chinese manufacturers have long provided financing to U.S. buyers--the...

Can companies excel at fair value? Finance departments are using spreadsheets to tackle FAS 157, an approach few regard as optimum.(in tech)
November 1, 2008... WHEN FAS 157 TOOK effect last November, many finance departments and business units faced a new accounting requirement but lacked any new technology with which to address it. To determine the fair value of a wide range of balance-sheet items,...

The great green hope: is massive investment in green jobs the answer to our economic woes?(insight)
November 1, 2008... A MID MUCH TALK IN this election year about blue states and red states, another color is being heard from: green. Politicians, mindful of soaring unemployment and wildly fluctuating oil prices, are advocating job creation in...

The hitmakers: for some useful lessons on how to be more nimble, look no further than the video-game industry.(deals)
November 1, 2008... WHEN THE DARK KNIGHT was released in July, the much-hyped Batman flick grossed more than $155 million in its opening weekend, a box-office record. Yet three months earlier, the release of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV hauled in twice that...

Tenneco's Kenneth Trammell.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
November 1, 2008... THE U.S. AUTO INDUSTRY IS SPUTTERING IN LOW GEAR, as tight credit and consumer fears choke Detroit's sales. Kenneth Trammell, CFO of Tenneco Inc., a $6.2 billion maker of automotive emission- and ride-control systems, watched the industry make...

Making the leap: there are many ways to get to the top spot in finance.(MAKING IT: CAREERS)(Cover story)(Company overview)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Faster than a speeding bank run, more powerful than a loan officer, able to lease tall buildings in a single bound: finance executives practically need to be superheroes to make it to the CFO's chair these days. So...

Things are looking up: CFOs are enjoying larger pay gains than other c-level executives, for good reason.(MAKING IT: COMPENSATION)
November 1, 2008... Even before 2008 gave us a September to Remember on Wall Street, CFOs were enjoying t a notable rise in compensation, with the increases to their pay packages outpacing those of other C-level executives. From the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley...

Flexing your muscle: how to craft an employment contract that gives you the best deal.(MAKING IT: CONTRACTS)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] WHAT SOFT ECONOMY? With your talent and track record, plenty of employers would jump at the chance to sign you up. That's the frame of mind you should put yourself in when you're negotiating a new employment...

Rethinking capital: to weather the credit crisis and a recession, CFOs will have to unlearn much of what they thought they knew about capital structures.(spotlight)
November 1, 2008... IT MAY BE THE WORST CONTRACTION of credit since the Great Depression. As the mortgage crisis has deepened, banks have been reluctant to lend money to anyone, including each other. Debt investors have fled to the safest corners of the bond...

Slow with the flow: most companies applied the brakes to capex as recession lurked. Don't expect them to accelerate soon.(capital spending)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] VALERO ENERGY CORP., a $95 billion oil refiner headquartered in San Antonio, funneled only a tiny fraction of its cash into capital spending last year. Stingy by comparison with rivals in the North American...

Local knowledge: to thrive in Asia, headquarters needs to understand the financial conditions on the ground.(global business)(Company overview)
November 1, 2008... THE SHINING GLASS BUILDING that houses the offices of ICI India would blend in perfectly in a U.S. suburban office park. But it's located in Gurgaon, India, a so-called special economic zone more than an hour's drive from Delhi. Inside an...

Happy feat.(grapevine)(Michael C. Fina Co.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I'M NOT FEELING TOO BAD," Mark Ellis, CFO of specialty retailer Michael C. Fina, told us in October. He wasn't talking about market conditions but his own physical condition: he had just finished a 16-mile run, part...

Feeling the burn.(grapevine)
November 1, 2008... AMONG THE EARLY VICTIMS OF WALL STREET'S meltdown were several high-profile CFOs, and there are likely to be more, says Scott Simmons, an executive recruiter at CristlKolder Associates. "When companies miss earnings forecasts and fail to match...