Compliance fears see CFOs shun outsourcing

Business consultants LogicaCMG highlighted the situation, after questioning FTSE 350 execs.

Its research found that only 7% of respondents currently outsource any finance and accounting functions, with 68% stating that the burden of current financial regimes was holding them back.

Kevin Radley, UK COO & finance director at LogicaCMG, believed that finance bosses wanted to outsource but found themselves caught in a quandary:

‘CFOs face a difficult choice. There is general acceptance at board level that outsourcing is a very valuable business tool. Those who introduce outsourcing have more resource and time to manage the increased regulation and compliance demands,’ Radley said.

The research also found that outsourcing is on the agenda of 84% of leading UK companies and companies that outsource their finance and accounting functions have shown savings of up to 35%. But concerns over the loss of direct control and existing workloads and pressures are stopping them from making the change.

More than 50% of CFOs questioned had outsourced at least one area of their business, and a further 19% planned to use outsourcing in the near future as a means of reducing costs.

But the same CFOs are 66% less likely to outsource their own finance and accounting function than they are to outsource other business areas, because of the bite of compliance and regulation.

Radley added: ‘CFO time is being tied up with the management of work that could potentially be outsourced. They are currently dealing with the day-to-day tasks when time could be spent focusing on medium and long-term issues. This could leave companies short of resource to manage mission critical business opportunities.

‘The number of recent M&A deals and the prevalence of approaches made by private equity companies mean that CFOs need time to develop and defend their business position. They need to be focusing on the future not managing the m inutiae.’

COMPANY REPORTS

Daimler postpones results due to IFRS

German-US carmaker DaimlerChrysler has been forced to postpone publishing its 2007 first-quarter results as a result of its switch from US GAAP to international financial reporting standards. The car maker was among those companies allowed by Germany to put off making the transition to IFRS until 2007 because of its use of US GAAP. The company said it would now publish its interim report for the first quarter of 2007 on 15 May, not on 26 April as was originally planned. ‘This change of date has been caused solely by delays with the preparation of the financial statements for the year 2006 and with the parallel work for the IFRS financial statements,’ Daimler- Chrysler said in a statement.

New FD for Carillion

Infrastructure, building and business services group Carillion has confirmed that new finance director Richard Adam took up his post on 2 April. Adam joined Carillion from Associated British Ports Holdings, where he was group finance director from 1999. He is also currently a non-executive director of SSL International. Current Carillion FD Chris Girling stepped down as group finance director at the beginning of the week, but will remain an executive director of Carillion until his retirement on 30 April.

RBS FD joins Workspace

Graham Clemett, the finance director for UK corporate banking at the Royal Bank of Scotland, has joined business accommodation provider Workspace Group as its FD. Clemett, 46, replaces Mark Taylor who is retiring after 12 years in the role. Tony Hales, chairman of Workspace, said: ‘We are delighted that Graham will be joining us as finance director. He brings considerable experience as a financial director in the financial services sector, both through his time with RBS and at Reuters before this. I am confident that he will bring a new perspective to the group and the role of finance director.’

Former ITV boss given £4.2m pay-off

Charles Allen, the accountant who ran ITV, was paid a hefty £4.2m when he stepped down as chief executive last October. According to the media company’s latest annual report, this pay-off consisted of one year’s basic salary of £1.07m, a bonus of £800,000 and a deferred share award consisting of £400,000 in cash and more than 377,000 ITV shares worth around £400,000.The company also contributed £1.5m to his pension and a payment of £9,000 for benefits in kind. Former BBC chairman Michael Grade ­ the man who has replaced Allen ­has a current remuneration package thought to be around £2m a year taking into account his basic salary, bonus and share options.

FTSE 100 pension deficit at five-year low

A report by Deloitte has found that the total deficit for the final-salary pension plans of the UK’s top 100 companies is at a five-year low of £21bn.The study found that a quarter of the top 100 firms now have a surplus in their schemes relative to the value of their accounting liabilities, as a recovery in the stock market and a fall in the price of bonds cut deficits. ‘For the first time since 2001, we are starting to deal with schemes which have surpluses,’ said David Robbins, a pensions partner at Deloitte.