When accounting goes unaccounted for
It boils down to this: if something has less than eight appendages, it’s cool; greater than eight or more is to be avoided.
“Our business is really pretty simple,” Sloan, 50, said in an interview last week at the bank’s San Francisco headquarters. “When you look at the deal and its structure looks like an octopus or a spider, just don’t do it. That kept us out of a lot of things.”
Wells Fargo’s Sloan Avoids Spiders, Octopuses in Rise to CFO [Bloomberg]
As the National Football League and the players union continue contract talks, Walt Disney Co. Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo was pressed Tuesday to answer questions about how a potential strike or lockout would impact sports juggernaut ESPN. Rasulo expressed confidence that Disney’s lucrative sports network, which has the rights to “Monday Night Football,” could weather the loss of games, telling the audience at Credit Suisse’s Global Media and Communications Convergence Conference that “we’re not that concerned.” [LAT]
We’re not very good at math or statistics so perhaps our numbers are off a bit, but how do 89% of CFOs expect their firms to grow in the second quarter of 2011 while 85% also do not expect to add any new full-time accounting and finance professionals? It doesn’t take a mathlete to figure out what that means for those of you lucky enough to work for these CFOs, so you better get to slacking off now before they come down to your cube and kindly inform you you’ll need to go ahead and come in on Saturday.
Robert Half interviewed 1400 CFOs across the country for their Robert Half Financial Hiring Index and here’s what they came up with:
Most (85 percent) chief financial officers (CFOs) interviewed for the Robert Half Financial Hiring Index said they expect to make no changes to their current staffing levels during the second quarter of 2011. Seven percent anticipate adding full-time accounting and finance professionals, while another 7 percent plan personnel reductions. The net 0 percent projection is down two points from the first-quarter 2011 forecast.
As businesses navigate the current economy, they remain optimistic about the outlook for their own companies. Eighty-nine percent of CFOs expressed confidence in their firms’ growth potential in the second quarter, up one point from the first-quarter survey.
Looking to relocate? Try the Pacific or Mid-Atlantic regions. Twelve percent of CFOs plan to add full-time accounting and finance professionals and 5 percent foresee cutbacks, a net 7 percent increase.
“Many Pacific-region companies, particularly those in the manufacturing and technology sectors, are rebuilding their teams to meet renewed demand for their products and services,” said Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International. “In particular, firms are looking for skilled financial analysts to help them control costs and prepare for potential growth.”
In the end, a net 0 hiring projection is a lot better than previous recent surveys which were in the negative however we’d be remiss if we did not point out that the last time the survey showed a net 0 projection was for 3rd quarter 2008. And we all know how that particular period of time went.
What does this mean? New grads who are still waiting around for jobs can keep waiting, and more seasoned professionals who have been out of work for quite some time should probably just give up. Thanks for the great news, RH!
WTF WFT CFO Andrew Becnel needs a hug:
Weatherford International Ltd. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Becnel called a $500 million accounting error disclosed by the oilfield-service company late Tuesday an “embarrassment,” the damage of which is “impossible to quantify.”
But you know who’s taking this whole snafu in stride? CEO Bernard Duroc-Danner that’s who! BDD told investors on a conference call today that nothing is fucked and that this will all be yesterday’s news in no time:
Chief Executive Bernard Duroc-Danner said there is no risk of a U.S. government investigation or of any tax penalties or fines related to what he characterized as a mistake in calculating the tax rates on dividends moved from one subsidiary to another.
Geez. Give the SEC some credit wouldja? Just because they missed a few things here and there doesn’t mean they won’t ask any questions about your material weaknesses.
Weatherford Finance Chief Calls Accounting Error an ‘Embarrassment’ [WSJ]
This was sent to me by my 69-year-old landlord who is spending his winter in Florida and we humbly present it to you now for your reading pleasure during this lovely busy season.
At the end of the tax year, the IRS office sent an inspector to audit the books of a local hospital. While the IRS agent was checking the books he turned to the CFO of the hospital and said, “I notice you buy a lot of bandages. What do you do with the end of the roll when there’s too little left to be of any use?”
“Good question,” noted the CFO. “We save them up and send them back to the bandage company and every now and then they send us a free box of bandages.”
“Oh,” replied the auditor, somewhat disappointed that his unusual question had a practical answer. But on he went, in his obnoxious way. “What about all these plaster purchases? What do you do with what’s left over after setting a cast on a patient?”
“Ah, yes,” replied the CFO, realizing that the inspector was trying to trap him with an unanswerable question. “We save it and send it back to the manufacturer, and every now and then they send us a free package of plaster.”
“I see,” replied the auditor, thinking hard about how he could fluster the know-it-all CFO. “Well,” he went on, “What do you do with all the leftover foreskins from the circumcisions you perform?”
“Here, too, we do not waste,” answered the CFO. “What we do is save all the little foreskins and send them to the IRS office, and about once a year they send us a complete dick.”
Last week, we told you about Wells Fargo’s announcement that their CFO gave himself an early birthday gift by throwing a retirement party for himself. As previously mentioned, Howard Atkins’s departure was a little mysterio and no one had any theories (crackpot or otherwise) on the Atkins’s march in. That all changed yesterday when Christopher Whalen, an analyst at Institutional Risk Analytics issued a report that stated that he, for one, wasn’t buying the “personal issues” story put out by the bank:
“The departure of Atkins, we are led to believe, was not merely the result of personal issues, but reflects an ongoing internal dispute within [Wells Fargo’s] executive suite regarding the bank’s disclosure,” he writes.
Whalen then goes on to argue that Wells Fargo’s “public behavior suggests significant problems in the bank’s internal systems and controls as defined by the Sarbanes-Oxley law. We further understand that some officials of [Wells Fargo], increasingly uncomfortable with the bank’s aggressive public disclosure regime, have reached out to regulators because of concerns regarding accounting issues.”
The Stagecoach Gang, for their part, is sticking to their story citing the “personal reasons” and their spokesman dismissed Whalen’s report with “pfffft” and a wave of the hand, saying, “I haven’t heard anything like that. It’s speculation. I’m not going to comment on it.”
Wells Fargo CFO Exit Tied to Disclosure: Analyst [The Street]
Howard Atkins turns 60 this week but is calling it quits, citing “personal reasons”:
Wells Fargo & Company announced today that Timothy J. Sloan, the company’s current chief administrative officer and a senior executive vice president, has been named its new chief financial officer, effectively immediately. He succeeds Howard I. Atkins, who turns 60 this week and is retiring as CFO and senior EVP for personal reasons. Atkins’ retirement is unrelated to the company’s financial condition or financial reporting.
The retirement is effective in August but Atkins is taking “an unpaid leave of absence he will begin immediately,” according to reports. Maybe this is typical and we’re sure he’s not starving but that still kinda sucks, especially since we don’t see any cake – neither day of birth nor of the retirement variety – in his future. Theories about motives are welcome, especially from any Klynveldians on the audit team or others familiar with the sitch.
Frankly, it’s bad for business:
“The political turmoil in North Africa, especially Egypt, is of course hurting our business,” said Vasant Prabhu, vice chairman and chief financial officer of the hotelier during a post-earnings conference call Thursday. He noted Starwood has 16 hotels across North Africa that generated between $10 million to $12 million in fees last year.
“We expect that our fees will be hit in North Africa,” he added. “It is too early to tell how we will be impacted, but this is clearly a risk that needs to be closely monitored.”
Is “bridezilla” appropriate here?
The controversial chief financial officer (CFO) of Nkomazi municipality in Mpumalanga, Sheila Mabaso, allegedly submitted a sick note laying her off for three months – only to hold her wedding during that period. Mabaso might be charged with dishonesty after the Mpumalanga municipality discovered that the sick note booking her off for September, October and November was “actually meant for her to prepare for the wedding”. Though Sowetan could not establish who Mabaso got married to, it can reveal that she got married to a pastor from the North West and that the wedding took place in Nelspruit on September 25 last year. Mabaso apparently flew to Malaysia for the honeymoon but allegedly told the municipality she was going to see a specialist doctor.
We’ve never known a CFO to be “controversial” to the point that it goes into print so we Googled “controversial CFO” and it came up with less than 100 items (although Erin Callan did sneak in there). Although, if you read further, one would discover that Ms Mabaso is nothing if not a little sassy:
[She] told Ziwaphi, a local fortnightly newspaper, that getting married while sick was none of anybody’s business. “It’s true that I was sick for three months and I have a doctor’s note to prove it. If I got married in that period, it’s none of their business. Who said a person can’t get married when they are sick?” Mabaso was quoted as saying.
Your Big Mac Attack will be costing more very soon.
Food prices are rising around the globe and the world’s biggest restaurant chain expects its costs to rise 2 percent to 2.5 percent this year in the United States and 3.5 percent to 4.5 percent in Europe. Chief Financial Officer Pete Bensen said McDonald’s would “raise prices where it makes sense” to offset some, but not all, of the cost increases. Diners around the world remain cautious with their spending on food away from home and McDonald’s will be very careful not to turn customers off with higher prices, Bensen said.
Hopefully this won’t eliminate Mickey D’s from your eligible take-out options this busy season.
McDonald’s likely to raise prices in 2011 [Reuters via DB]
Question: Who says “no” to Apple when offered a job? Answer: Blackstone Group CFO Laurence Tosi.
And what does one do when you commit an act of such allegiance? You tell the boss, natch:
Apple Inc. approached Blackstone Group LP Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi to become its finance chief, three people with knowledge of the matter said.
Tosi told Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman that he plans to stay, rather than join Apple, said two of the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks were private.
The ‘Berg reports that because Apple has cash burning a hole in their pocket, they may be looking for a CFO who has acquisition experience and in case you haven’t heard, that’s sorta what Blackstone does. Apple gave the classic “non-denial denial” telling Bloomberg that they are “not conducting a CFO search,” and Pete “loves the company and is extremely happy in his role.”
But that doesn’t make him Laurence Tosi, does it?
Patrick Pichette admits that, despite some less than ideal position on censorship, the GOOG still has a mad crush on those 1.2 billion searchers and their right to know who won the Nobel Peace Prize:
Pichette told The (London) Times that it was not the end. “China has 1.2 billion people. For Google to say, ‘We’re going to live on our mission, but not serve 1.2 billion people’ — it just doesn’t work. China wants Google.”
He spoke of the “great firewall of China,” where censors filter the information that China’s internet users can view.
He said: “[If] you were in China last week, two weeks ago, and you typed in Nobel Peace Prize — there were no results. Think of Google’s brand now. You’re Chinese, you know that’s not true, that the Nobel Peace Prize has not disappeared from the face of the earth. There lies the issue of brand. There lies the issue of our mission.”