Editor's page.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Dialogue with Ellen Heffes of Pulte Homes Inc. - Interview

Think of two of the biggest challenges facing any CFOs out there, and you might think of the housing industry and the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Those are precisely the CFOs that Executive Editor Ellen Heffes interviewed for this issue's cover story: the CFO of Pulte Homes Inc., a major homebuilder, and the finance chief of the New Orleans school district. In extended interviews, FEI members Roger Creeg of Pulte and Stan Smith, a longtime FEI leader in the Gulf Coast region, talk about the issues they face and the strategies and tactics they have put in place to weather hard times.

The move toward convergence in international accounting standards is raising a host of questions, as writer Glenn Cheney notes. Among them: Assuming that U.S. companies are allowed to report in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), would that create two sets of standards in the U.S., at least for a while? And would convergence create a standard-setter (the International Accounting Standards Board, or IASB) that would be beyond the reach of U.S. securities regulators?

Money may be the mother's milk of politics, but considerably less of it is coming from corporations these days. That's due largely to the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, which, as writer Gregory Millman notes, barred direct company contributions to federal candidates. But political activity is very much on shareholders' minds, and companies are increasingly electing to disclose the contributions they are making.

The recent wave of leveraged buyout and other private equity deals appears to have crested, but the approach taken by those firms holds important teachings for public companies, argues Justin Pettit of Booz Allen Hamilton. He offers six lessons that CFOs of registered companies should absorb. While none are revolutionary, Pettit constructs them in a highly compelling way that...