Administration January 30, 2008

CFOs Get Behind Proposal to End Quarterly Earnings Guidance

January 30, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.COM) - A recent proposal to have public companies stop the long-standing process of providing quarterly earnings guidance to Wall Street has drawn widespread support from chief financial officers (CFO).

Reported by

Fred Schneyer

A news release about the latest survey conducted by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business said 81% of the responding CFOs backed the proposed end to the quarterly guidance. The current system forces companies to manage Wall Street’s expectations on a short-term basis and takes up too much management time, the finance executives complained.

According to the announcement, six in 10 CFOs also backed a proposal to go to a semi-annual financial reporting system.

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In general, the survey found CFOs gloomy about the prospects for the immediate future. The survey’s latest CFO Optimism Index for the U.S. economy was 56.26, dropping significantly to fall even further past last quarter’s three-year low of 62.85.

CFOs’ outlook toward their own companies decreased again, as the Optimism Index of CFOs’ own companies sank to 70.26, 1.4 points lower than last quarter’s 71.68, which itself was a three-year low.

Finally, more than 47 % of those CFOs surveyed said they consider economic growth to be the biggest economic worry.

The CFO Outlook Survey interviewed 361 corporate CFOs electronically the week of January 7.

Full survey results are available at www.cfosurveys.com .