CFO Quarterly Outlook Report: May 2011

©May 2011, 27 pages

Economic and business confidence among Chief Financial Officers in Europe demonstrates slight signs of improvement in Q1, but for the second straight quarter, remain behind their U.S. counterparts, found the most recent survey of CFOs conducted by Financial Executives International (FEI) and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business. Despite a small dip in confidence, U.S. executives’ optimism remains stable as they expect large gains in net earnings in the next 12 months. With expectations of substantially higher oil prices for the immediate future, CFOs overall see inflation as a mounting concern but have yet to experience a widespread impact from other world events, such as the Japanese earthquake. This quarter, the CFO Outlook Survey, conducted by Financial Executives International and Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business, interviewed 300 corporate CFOs from the United States, 96 corporate CFOs from Italy and 67 corporate CFOs from France electronically from April 5-17. CFOs from both public and private companies and from a broad range of industries, revenues and geographic areas, including some off-shore companies, are represented. The U.S. survey respondents are members of Financial Executives International; France survey respondents are members of Association Nationale Des Directeurs Financiers Et Du Controle De Gestion (DFCG) and Italy survey respondents are members of Associazione Nazionale Direttori Amministrativi E Finanziari (ANDAF).