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Sharia law, the Muslim code of conduct, prohibits lenders from charging interest or trading in debt. Islamic bonds called sukuk comply with sharia, and they enjoy rising popularity in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia. Rising demand for sukuk is outstripping supply.
This month’s column is based upon my discussion with Paul Walsh, chief executive of Diageo, the world’s largest and most respected premium drinks company, responsible for iconic brands such as Johnnie Walker and Baileys.
Older workers are staying longer in jobs, resulting in top-heavy companies whose per-employee cost in Europe has risen 16% since 2009. Productivity is down, and younger workers are having a tougher time finding work, according to a PwC report.
Internal audit is evolving from a strict compliance function, but its strategic alignment with business strategy has yet to be formalised and documented in many organisations. Here are four steps to develop a formal strategy document for the internal audit function.
How do leading finance chiefs measure and tackle risk within their organisations? We quiz David Horan, CPA, CGMA, the CFO at Dealer Services Corporation; Atul Patel, group FD at IT security firm NCC Group; Jeff van der Eems, COO of United Biscuits; and Jackie Hunt, CFO at Standard Life.
Although the release of a long-awaited US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff report discussing IFRS adoption is imminent, uncertainty over the issue appears certain to linger.
Europe is holding up as a key destination for foreign investors despite the euro-zone crisis and competition from the world’s rapid-growth economies, an Ernst & Young study suggests.
Although the financial crisis has strengthened the role of corporate treasurers, they face cash management difficulties while using outdated technology and are experiencing difficulty recruiting talented employees, according to a new survey.
Private equity executives say they are facing increased scrutiny from limited partners, according to a new survey. That’s good news for finance and accounting professionals. More than one-third of private equity execs plan to increase their staffs in 2012.
The finance department has a key role to play in areas such as capturing good financial data and setting up strong relations with partners in the supply chain.
Accountants and other finance professionals are increasingly taking on more strategic and risk-management responsibilities, particularly when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Find out what skills you should learn for the new M&A landscape.
With cash piling up on some corporate balance sheets, it’s only a matter of time before the M&A market comes back. But dealmakers may struggle unless they can convincingly point to a long-term, recurring growth story.
The economic and financial ingredients for an M&A boom are all there. But large corporations aren’t taking the plunge – and many are backing away from combination plans. New research explains why.
Venture capital firms in established markets are increasingly looking for investments in emerging economies. Meanwhile, China is poised to pass Europe to take the No. 2 spot in terms of VC dollars invested this year.
Americans are more willing to give up eating out at restaurants and technology such as mobile phones and digital TV than to stop saving for retirement in a financial pinch, a survey conducted for the AICPA by Harris Interactive for the US’s National Financial Literacy Month shows.
As a CFO, would you like to know how your peers feel about IFRS or what parts of the finance and accounting functions they outsource? “Benchmarking the Finance Function 2012”, a recently released research report, has some answers.
A long-established trend of limited progress in Canadian business-sector productivity threatens the nation’s standard of living, research shows. Canada has implemented tax incentives for businesses to stoke activity, and a significant quarterly gain in productivity at the end of 2011 brought at least temporary relief to the trend.
CFO optimism remains low worldwide, dampening expectations for 2012 in many countries. CFOs in Europe and the Middle East feel the most pessimistic as they brace for fallout from sovereign debt troubles in the euro zone, social upheaval in the Middle East and dwindling global demand, surveys showed. CFOs in the US, meanwhile, expect some revenue growth.
Optimism for the US economy among CPA financial executives in the United States rose in the first quarter of 2012 over the previous quarter, according to results of the latest “AICPA Business and Industry Economic Outlook Survey”. Despite the improved outlook, though, just 14% of CPA decision-makers said they expect to hire in the short term.
Four upcoming reports will offer glimpses of how much the global economic slowdown and the continued euro-zone debt troubles are affecting economies in EU countries.
