Could CFO forecast Credit Crisis ?

It is expected from a Chief Financial officers to forecast the economic trends and prepare for the worse . However , present Credit Crisis , has put a question mark on the job of high profile CFO's, while the large scale global financial corporation, are all in problem .

Though only CFO can not be blamed for the entire soup . There are other factors too. The overly complicated financial instruments which are existing in the market , on which everybody understands that nobody understands, is a reason of concern too.

However, most of the CFO's, pretty well understand there companies financial statements.The problem here is little different . As still,there is a lack of understanding of how the number in the corporate books have relation with the overall figures, existing in National and Global context.

This relation is something which the high profile financial professionals have failed to understand which has deeper cause of such magnimous level of global financial crisis.

Planning for a Holding Company

A holding company is a company that owns part, all, or a majority of other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself, rather its only purpose is owning shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow the ownership and control of a number of different companies. Sometimes a company intended to be a pure holding company identifies itself as such by adding "Holdings" or "(Holdings)" to its name, as in Sears Holdings.

There are obviously certain critical advantages , that a Holding company offers to its promoter. At times holding company stands as a parent company for a large conglomerate present in a multiple Industry . This certainly brings some form of focus in the overall strategic moves of the conglomerate which otherwise can loose its focus on the pressure of diversified operation.

So planning for a Holding company was done keeping different situation in mind . Recently , in Indian Banking sector ,it was seen, that two major banking conglomerate SBI and ICICI is looking for the holding companies structure, for the inherent benefit it brings in restructuring the strategic space.

On other cases , planning for a holding company could bring a strong positional advantage in a particular sector or sub sector. It is definite ,that the planning largely depends on the context of the Organizational and industrial environment.