New! Survey results on audit fees, compensation and ERM.

• Position: FERF NEWS & RESEARCH - Enterprise risk management. - Survey

Financial Executives Research Foundation has released three timely surveys on audit fees, compensation and enterprise risk management.

Reflecting a stagnant economy, a majority of the financial executives responding to the 2010 Financial Executive Compensation Survey are still not receiving salary increases. While many executives report bonus awards, increases to average base salaries that were awarded during the past year were significantly less than those awarded in the previous year. The profession has also fallen victim to job cuts, with respondents indicating a drop in finance staff, compared to the past years of the survey.

For the fourth year, the survey provides a year-to-year comparison of compensation for finance professionals. This research study examined salaries, bonuses, long-term incentives and retirement benefits of more than 1,100 financial executives from both public and private companies, nearly half of which were chief financial officers.

The annual Audit Fee Survey polled nearly 350 executives, representing U.S. publicly held companies (85 percent accelerated filers with total market capitalizations of more than $75 million), privately held and foreign companies, to examine the total fees companies paid to external auditors in 2009 and their overall satisfaction with their audit firms.

The survey took a close look at companies' perceptions of their external auditors and the auditor relationship in general. By and large, respondents expressed satisfaction with their current auditor, and very few revealed intentions to change--only 11 percent of private companies and five percent of public companies plan to make a switch. On average, both public and private companies gave their auditors positive marks. Public companies also reported an average 16-year relationship with their current auditor.

Enterprise Risk Management: Insights & Operationalization, a survey conducted for FERF by BMR Advisers, reveals that ERM programs are still in a highly developmental stage in many corporations, while interest in...