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

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

A turning point.(from the editor)
October 1, 2007... EXACTLY 20 YEARS AGO, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 500 points in one day. Black Monday marked a turning point, both in confidence and in an exuberant economy fueled by junk bonds, leveraged buyouts, and corporate raiders. Although...

The battle for influence.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... I read "The SEC Rules" (August) with interest. You mapped the battle for influence between contending parties (the SEC, FASB, the PCAOB, the IASB, the "Big Four," the MCPA, Congress, the President) and the importance of individual personalities...

Far from settled.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... Your July article on the fifth anniversary of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act ("Five Years and Accounting," which inaugurated a three-part series that concludes in this issue on page 66) was right to note that many issues "remain far from settled:' ...

Still hitting the ceiling.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... Although "Gap Analysis" (June) is a great representation of the facts and circumstances, it never really moves forward with the core issues. In the accounting profession, minorities are in the position that women were in 20 years ago. Yet male...

As time goes by.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... I'm writing this letter in regards to "I'll Keep My Remarks Brief" (Topline, May). It is 1973: an accountant starting his corporate career is busy producing analytical reports (spreadsheets) about all types of operational procedures, from power...

Correction.(letters)(Correction notice)
October 1, 2007... "Back to the Big Eight?" (By the Numbers, September) incorrectly stated that KPMG employed 13,000 professionals worldwide. KPMG employed some 13,000 nonpartner professionals in the United States as of the end of fiscal year 2005. (All data in...

Thomas and his Washington friends.(SUPPLY CHAIN)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FOLLOWING THE SUMMER OF THE RECALL, a reliance on Chinese suppliers may get more costly if the political response to recent food and toy debacles gains traction. At press time, members of Congress were hard at work...

Crisis? What crisis?(INVESTOR RELATIONS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHETHER IT'S A PRODUCT RECALL, service outage (Internet phone company Skype experienced a two-day blackout in August affecting 220 million-plus users), or another crisis du jour, knowing when and how to communicate...

Amicus interruptus.(GOVERNANCE)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... IF BOARDS ARE IN BED WITH MANAGEMENT, recent Delaware Chancery Court rulings may go some way toward pulling back the sheets. Recent decisions suggest that the judges' patience has worn thin when it comes to stock-option dating games, executive...

Appraising the roof.(INSURANCE)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DESPITE EARLY PREDICTIONS of an unusually active season, most hurricane coverage this year (as of press time, anyway) has been devoted to Katrina retrospectives rather than the chronicling of flesh disasters. If...

Fees under fire.(401(K))
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EVEN AS CONGRESS examines current 401(k) plan fee structures, companies may have plenty of incentive to revisit the issue now rather than wait for any resulting legislative changes. That incentive comes in the form...

Wellness may get better.(HEALTH)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... ALTHOUGH THE CONCEPT MAY BE AMORPHOUS, "wellness" programs may get a very tangible boost from Congress. Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Gordon Smith (R-Oreg.) are cosponsoring a bill that would provide tax credits of up to $200 per employee...

Another (small) step.(XBRL)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CFOs MAY NOT BE ABLE to avoid the topic of XBRL for much longer. A new and more comprehensive version of the data tags that turn financial statements into "interactive data" has been completed and goes into...

Include me out.(TERRORISM)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION'S attempt to publicize a list of companies with business ties to terrorist-sponsoring states caused quite a stir this summer. The list of more than 90 companies included a number of household names, from...

Business outlook survey: CFO optimism hits a record low as credit-market worries spread to the finance department.(by the numbers)
October 1, 2007... CFO OPTIMISM PLUNGED TO A SIX-YEAR LOW in this quarter's Duke University/CFO magazine Business Outlook Survey, with a record 62 percent of U.S. finance executives saying they felt more pessimistic about the economy than last quarter. Ongoing...

The Beijing Summer Olympics will undoubtedly be a success--but at what cost?(VIEW FROM china)
October 1, 2007... EXACTLY ONE YEAR BEFORE THE START of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which begin on the auspicious date of August 8, 2008 (the Chinese regard eight as a lucky number, and a triple eight compounds its value), state media is dominated by reports of...

If you build it, will they come? Despite declarations that geography no longer matters, finance centers are wing for supremacy.(insight)
October 1, 2007... WHEN THE TOWERING SHANGHAI World Financial Center is completed next year, it will not only rank among the world's tallest skyscrapers but will also embody Shanghai's bid to become a major financial center. (Indeed, the smoke pouring from the...

Audio now visual: the venerable office telephone finally joins the digital age.(in tech)
October 1, 2007... WHEN IT COMES TO RATING THE technological progress of office equipment, the telephone probably runs a close second to the stapler. Walk in to almost any place of business and you'll see the same rectangular boxes companies have been using for...

No big deal: the credit crunch may have knocked the blockbuster out of favor, but middle-market M&A remains quite healthy.(deals)
October 1, 2007... WHEN CITRIX SYSTEMS Inc. announced its $500 million deal to buy XenSource Inc. in August, it seemed to be bucking a trend. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By most accounts, the merger-and-acquisition market had turned ice cold. After a...

Second Life's John Zdanowski.(ON THE RECORD)(Interview)
October 1, 2007... JOHN ZDANOWSKI, 39, LIVES IN TWO WORLDS. He spends up to 15 hours a week working "in-world" as the handsome avatar Zee Linden, who bears a striking resemblance to Brad Pitt. In the real world, he rungs the finances for one of Silicon Valley's...

The long trail: the government's tallying of Indian trust money may well be the most ambitious accounting project in U.S. history. It's also the most controversial.(Cover story)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Deep underneath an industrial park in Lenexa, Kansas--not far from Shawnee Mission Lake and Arapaho Park--the work goes on. In a vast underground warehouse, historians and archivists carefully unpack endless rows of...

Who owns your stock? For CFOs, it's a critical question that doesn't always have an easy answer.
October 1, 2007... When asked who owns his company's stock, CFO David Bronson laughs. "I wish I knew," he says. Despite an active investor-relations program at the company, medical-supply distributor PSS/World Medical, plenty of shares change hands without...

Rewriting the rules: everything you thought you knew about accounting is about to change. Is there any reason to smile?(5 Years & Accounting: Part 3)
October 1, 2007... Now the hard part begins. Five years after the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed, its raison d'etre--to improve corporate transparency and thus boost investor confidence-has been realized, at least to a degree. Debates still rage about how much...

The age of anxiety.(banking & finance)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "You roll back the stones, and you find slithering things," 1950s Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson once said. That's as apt a description as any of the transformation in the financial markets; a period of...

Only the strong shall thrive: financially sound companies find gold in credit Mayhem even as weaker players fear the game is up.(banking & finance)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AS THE FINANCIAL MARKETS squealed in pain last August and frozen leveraged-buyout deals had bankers pulling their hair out, health-care distributor Henry Schein was in a different frame of mind. It was extending a...

Fear factors: six banking executives discuss their concerns about the credit crunch and its ever-widening implications.(banking & finance)(Discussion)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We don't place much faith in the collective wisdom of crowds. If large groups are so remarkably intelligent, why do half of New York City's 2.9 million office workers go outside at 12:30 P.M. every day and wait in...

Land of opportunity: can foreign banks succeed where U.S. megabanks failed to tread?(banking & finance)(Company overview)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Two years ago, as Micki Hidayatallah scouted potential acquisitions, he knew he needed more cash. But when the CEO of Houston-based Allis-Chalmers Energy Inc. met with RBC Capital Markets, its head of energy banking...

One nation left behind: the race to cut compliance-based capital has begun, and U.S. banks are trailing the pack--badly.(banking & finance)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] U.S. banks want to go on a diet, but regulators are telling them they must remain chunky, even as their international competitors get captivatingly thin. [??] The diet in question is the internationally negotiated...

Money sense overseas: how to secure your finances when on assignment abroad.(your money)
October 1, 2007... IN THE COURSE OF HIS 26-YEAR FINANCE career, Dean Gardner has lived in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America, for a total of 9 years abroad. While it may sound surprising, Gardner, a partner with Tatum LLC who is the current CFO of...

Board buddies: directors with finance expertise often form bonds with management's CFO.(your move)
October 1, 2007... EVEN THE BEST OF US CAN use some coaching. In the CFO suite, increasingly that coaching comes from the finance expert serving on the company's board of directors. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With 17 years' experience as a CFO, Earl Fry,...

PetSmart.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Lawrence "Chip" Molloy is the new CFO at retailer PetSmart. Previously CFO with Circuit City Stores, he succeeds Timothy Kullman, who joined Dick's Sporting Goods as CFO in April....

IDT.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Telecom company IDT has named Marc Oppenheimer as its CFO. After serving as an independent director, Oppenheimer takes the reigns from Steve Brown, who continues as chairman of the IDT Carmel subsidiary....

Jenny Craig.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Jim Kelly returned to the CFO post at weight-management company Jenny Craig after a three-year hiatus. Previously CFO from 1999-2003, he replaces Cynthia Kellogg, who resigned earlier this year to become CFO of Palace Entertainment Holdings.......

Blue Nile.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Online diamond and jewelry retailer Blue Nile has appointed Robin Easton as its CFO. He most recently served as treasurer with Paccar and succeeds Diane Irvine, who will continue as president....

Univest.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Jeffrey Schweitzer is the new CFO of holding company Univest. A former senior manager with Ernst & Young, he replaces Wallace Bieter, who announced his retirement effective January 31, 2008....

Transmeta.(CFOs ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... Sujan Jain was named CFO of Transmeta, a developer of microprocessor technology. Most recently CFO at NanoAmp Solutions, Jain succeeds Ralph J. Harms, who left to pursue other interests.

Pointing fingers.(grapevine)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ALREADY, DOZENS OF subprime-mortgage companies have either filed for bankruptcy or gone out of business altogether thanks to the faltering housing market. Not surprisingly, the ones that remain are quietly hoping the...

Tying the knot.(grapevine)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... It's no secret that Nasdaq has had a tough time making a match. First, the London Stock Exchange spurned its multiple overtures to join forces to create a global exchange. Now, potential suitor Borse Dubai is trying to break up Nasdaq's...