Think you’re having a bad day? Consider the CEOs and CFOs of the nation’s biggest banks that have been caught up in the robo-signing scandal. They may be personally liable for staggering sums if judges agree that they violated Sarbanes-Oxley and a few other federal regulations by allowing the robo-signing to take place. Their shareholders could be hurt badly, too.

Robo-signing, that funny-at-first moniker, refers to the back-office mess and legal woes created when employees in the mortgage servicing departments signed heaps of foreclosure affidavits without actually checking the information. According to American Banker, a trade newspaper, the three largest loan servicers could be saddled with $13 billion in so-called repurchase losses. One analyst mentioned a range of $55 billion to $120 billion in repurchase losses. At this stage, the exposures are hard to define. But if things go badly for these banks, the repurchase losses will be small compared to the economic punch they could take if buyers of subprime mortgage securities prevail in court. more

A recent survey conducted by APQC revealed that managers of financial shared services operations are keen to deliver “business intelligence” to their internal customers who reside within business units. One example of this would be analyses of customer payment patterns and the reasons for payment slowdowns. Even fancier would be granular analyses of profitability by customer with multiple views of sales volumes in distinct regional markets.

My curiosity was sparked. Shared services delivering financial analytics? Isn’t the enduring goal of shared services to centralize routine transaction processing and drive down activity costs by leveraging economies of scale, integrated IT systems, and inexpensive labor? Are shared services directors changing course? To learn more, I attended a conference called the Finance Transformation 2010 Summit produced by the advocacy and education firm SSON (shared services and outsourcing network). For two days, I listened to detailed presentations by senior people who run shared services at globe-spanning companies ranging from Hewlett Packard to Citibank. Sure enough, there’s change under way. more

Over the next six months, we can expect to hear a lot about beleaguered businesses being snapped up by stronger companies looking to buy some good old-fashioned strategic value. The M&A experts predict a rising tide of so-called “distressed opportunities,” sometimes called good businesses with bad balance sheets. CFOs assessing one of these — maybe a storied brand in an adjacent market — should dissect the revenue and cash flow drivers with great care. Some will be overly tempting, and the pressure will mount to make a fast bid.

As numerous reports have noted, America’s largest companies amassed hefty stockpiles of cash during the recession. They had the scale, in terms of cash flow, to keep the ship afloat while they quickly threw excess inventory and capacity overboard. They were able to make deep cuts in operations without losing momentum. A number of them had the financial moxie to refinance expensive debt by issuing newer, lower-priced debt. more

How good are North America’s largest companies when it comes to detecting and dodging risks that can disrupt the hunt for growth and profit? It turns out that they have a long way to go before achieving a true standard of excellence. Indeed, BP is not the only firm that needs to head back to the risk management drawing board.

This view stems from the results of a survey that APQC (my firm) designed and executed in collaboration with IBM’s Institute for Business Value just after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April. A full research report is in the works, but at this stage I can offer a few tidbits, along with a few words of caution: more