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The Morning Ledger: GSK CFO Hands Over Reins as Centralization Efforts Boost Visibility
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GlaxoSmithKline CFO Simon Dingemans hands over the reins on Monday after eight years in the role. PHOTO: LORIENE PERERA/REUTERS
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Hello. Tasked with providing visibility into a company's finances, CFOs often lack the right tools to reveal pain points requiring management attention. This was very much the case at GlaxoSmithKline PLC: When Simon Dingemans took over as chief financial officer eight years ago, the pharmaceuticals company didn’t have a unified information technology system or standardized financial processes.
"Completely unmaintainable:" The British company was running 37 separate SAP SE software systems in Europe alone, alongside numerous other applications and programs in other parts of the world. The systems didn’t talk to each other, and data collection was often manual, said Mr. Dingemans.
[Continues below…]
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Only one EPR system, please: Since Mr. Dingemans came aboard, the pharmaceuticals giant’s finance organization is now much improved, operating on a single enterprise resource management system that ties together a range of business processes in a common infrastructure.
Next chapter: On Monday, eight years to the day later, the finance chief will hand the reins to Iain Mackay, who is joining GSK from HSBC Holdings PLC. “I am handing over a very energized leadership team for the finance organization to take us to the next stage, but it is probably a two- or three-year journey,” Mr. Dingemans said. “I am handing him a plan for a chapter two.”
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The U.S. Commerce Department releases data on retail sales for February. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast retail sales increased 0.2% in February.
The Institute for Supply Management releases its U.S. manufacturing index for March, with economists surveyed by the WSJ expecting the benchmark logged in at 54.4 in March.
Cal-Maine Foods Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co. are among the companies scheduled to release earnings today.
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The Commerce Department releases durable-goods data for February on Tuesday. Economists surveyed by the WSJ forecast a 1.8% decline in durable-goods orders for February.
Trade talks between the U.S. and China continue on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the European Central Bank publishes minutes from its March monetary policy meeting.
The Labor Department releases the March jobs report on Friday. Economists surveyed by the WSJ expect the U.S. economy added 170,000 to payrolls in March. They forecast the unemployment rate held steady at 3.8%.
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An Aramco oil tank is seen at Saudi Aramco’s Shaybah oilfield in Saudi Arabia. PHOTO: AHMED JADALLAH/REUTERS
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Saudi Arabian Oil Co. made $111 billion in net income last year, according to rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, making the oil and gas firm the most profitable company in the world.
Peugeot SA Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said the French car maker is accelerating its timetable for returning to the U.S. market after a nearly three-decade absence.
A federal judge is threatening to prevent PG&E Corp. from resuming dividend payments to shareholders until it reduces its role in sparking California wildfires, an action with little precedent that could have big repercussions for other companies put on probation.
Under pressure from federal regulators and some investors, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is testing tobacco-free stores in the U.S., but the pharmacy chain’s leader has no plans to quit selling cigarettes entirely.
Online child-care marketplace Care.com Inc. scrubbed its site of tens of thousands of unverified day-care center listings just before a Wall Street Journal investigation published March 8, an analysis shows.
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T-Mobile Spells Out CFO Exit Plan
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T-Mobile CFO Braxton Carter, left, and CEO John Legere in 2016. PHOTO: STUART RAMSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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T-Mobile US Inc. on Friday filed an amended employment agreement for its finance chief that spells out a plan for him to leave the company as it awaits regulatory review of a proposed merger with rival Sprint Corp, reports CFO Journal's Ezequiel Minaya.
CFO Braxton Carter has been a key figure in the mobile carrier’s pending deal to buy Sprint. A spokeswoman for T-Mobile declined to comment on whether a successor had been chosen.
Mr. Carter’s last day at T-Mobile will be decided by the status of the merger, the company said in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Carter is scheduled to leave at one of three fixed dates, depending which arrives first: the end of 2019; 20 days after the first quarterly filing of the merged company; or 20 days after an announcement the deal is off.
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U.K. Firms Say New Electronic Tax Reporting Rules Add to Brexit Burden
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The HM Revenue & Customs building in London. The U.K. government tax authority is requiring companies to file value-added tax documents electronically on April 1. PHOTO: REUTERS
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U.K. companies must file value-added tax documents electronically and keep digital records related to the tax starting Monday, a policy shift that is challenging some executives amid the recent focus on Britain’s planned departure from the European Union.
HM Revenue & Customs’s Making Tax Digital initiative has been in the works since 2015, and comes into effect April 1. The rules change how companies report value-added tax information to the U.K. tax authorities. “The timing could not be worse,” said Mike Cherry, chairman of the British Federation of Small Businesses.
Companies across the U.K. have been grappling with the challenge of preparing for a potential no-deal Brexit, in which the U.K. leaves the EU without a trade accord with the bloc. This includes stockpiling goods at record rates, according to the BBC.
The deadline for Brexit was previously set for March 29, but has now been delayed until April 12 and could be postponed even further. Prime Minister Theresa May lost a third vote on her proposed Brexit deal on Friday, prolonging the uncertainty. Brexit has cost the U.K. nearly 2.5% of GDP compared to its growth forecast prior to the referendum, economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimated, Reuters reports.
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13 Days
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Former Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive John Stumpf quit the bank 13 days after a brutal appearance before Congress. His successor, Timothy Sloan, lasted 16 days before stepping down.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called on regulators globally to set clearer rules regarding “harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability.” PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called for global regulators to take a “more active role” in governing the internet, among his strongest remarks yet on regulation that come after more than a year of intense scrutiny over missteps at the social network.
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Tension is simmering between U.S. and Ethiopian officials as investigators prepare to release in the coming days an interim report about the Boeing Co. 737 MAX jetliner that crashed on March 10, according to people from both countries.
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A federal judge in Alaska has reinstated a ban on oil-and-gas drilling in vast swaths of the Arctic Ocean, potentially undermining a central part of the Trump administration’s effort to expand offshore drilling.
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“Token sales as they happened in 2017 and 2018 are pretty much dead."
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— TokenData founder Ricky Tan.
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A man works on the assembly line at a factory in China. March’s factory activity data suggests the government’s efforts to boost lending and cut taxes are taking effect. PHOTO: REUTERS
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An official gauge of activity in China’s crucial manufacturing sector rebounded strongly in March, suggesting that Beijing’s support policies are gaining traction.
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Investors are putting more money into U.S. stocks as 2019’s rebound continues, a shift that some analysts expect to drive markets higher despite the recent rally in government bonds and an expected slowdown in economic growth.
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The U.S. spring home-buying season is shaping up as the best in years, offering new opportunities after last year’s tough housing market drove away many would-be buyers.
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Already flush with revenue from its healthy economy and growing number of high earners, California is expecting a tax windfall from a slate of initial public offerings that began Friday with Lyft Inc.
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