U.S. companies are sharing more details about employee turnover as part of new disclosure requirements. But for some investors, the effort doesn’t go far enough because finance chiefs handpick the information they provide. Workforce spending is usually the biggest expense for companies, making up on average 57% of total operating costs for S&P 500 companies,…
The struggles of Greensill Capital have shone a light on the increasing use of supply-chain financing, a tool that gives companies the ability to extend their payment terms to vendors. Regulators and standard-setters are closely watching if and how companies disclose their use of the financing tool, which has come into focus amid the recent problems…
After its business was hit by the pandemic, retailer Ulta Beauty Inc. ULTA -0.82% appears to have used some accounting cosmetics to add a gloss to its financial results. Operating income at the once-fast-growing chain, which temporarily closed stores during the health crisis, plummeted to $13 million for the nine months through October, a fraction of the $613 million earned in the…
More chief financial officers resigned from large U.S. companies in 2020 than in previous years, as the pandemic put pressure on corporate balance sheets and the executives who manage them. Thirty-seven companies in the S&P 500, including General Motors Co. and HP Inc., last year said that their CFOs would quit, up 27.6% from 2019. The figure for 2020 is higher…
Companies are revising their plans for bonuses and other incentive compensation as the coronavirus pandemic upended financial forecasts and executives managed through a once-in-a-lifetime economic downturn. The pandemic has had a disparate effect on companies’ balance sheets, leading to soaring profits in some industries, such as online retail and groceries, and steep losses in others, for example hospitality and travel….
If corporate life is a pyramid, for Black Americans, it is one with the steepest of peaks. Out of the chief executives running America’s top 500 companies, just 1%, or four, are Black. The numbers aren’t much better on the rungs of the ladder leading to that role. Among all U.S. companies with 100 or…
Plenty of CEOs remain stuck working from home and boards may still be meeting virtually, but companies are shifting their sights from surviving the coronavirus pandemic to charting new courses through it. Verizon Communications Inc. is jumping into the low end of the wireless market. Clorox Co. directors picked their next leader. A railroad set a new profit goal for…
Companies are finding virtual shareholder meetings to be cheaper and less time-consuming, but shareholders complain they don’t get as much time to ask their questions. A majority of the companies in the S&P 500 this year have decided to move their shareholder meeting—usually an in-person event—online due to coronavirus-related restrictions on large gatherings. Faced with…
Finance chiefs are changing jobs again after a slowdown in exits and recruitment in thespring, as the pandemic is forcing them to rethink their business models and adding to an already high workload. Three big public companies this week said their CFO would exit. General Motors Co.’s Dhivya Suryadevara is joining Stripe Inc., while Kelly Kramer,…
As the downturn has affected a growing number of companies, it has become plain that “no one is immune” from letting workers go, in the words of Richard Florida, who teaches economic policy at the University of Toronto. Yet as our most recent research shows, some companies are better inoculated than others from having to…