More than half of companies today cannot immediately name a successor to their CEO should the need arise, according to new research conducted by executive search and leadership consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles and Stanford University's Rock Center for Corporate Governance.

"The lack of succession planning at some of the biggest public companies poses a serious threat to corporate health, especially as companies struggle toward a recovery," said Stephen A. Miles, vice chairman at Heidrick & Struggles in a prepared statement. "Not having a truly operational succession plan can have devastating consequences for companies - from tanking stock prices to serious regulatory and reputational impact."

Submitted by Caleb Newquist, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

It's been nearly three weeks since we last picked up the Koss/Sue Sachdeva beat, when we told you about Michael Koss resigning as the audit committee chair of Strattec Security Corp. At that time, Strattec had also elected to give Grant Thornton the boot as its auditor.

Leadership is changing at First Data, but the company's financial results don't look too different from a year ago.

The tech company, which is still owned by private equity firms including KKR, posted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $530 million for the fourth quarter of 2009, down from $645 million in the same period a year ago, while revenue were about flat at $1.67 billion.

I find this op-ed today on exports more than confusing. Essentially, the author, a business professor and former chief economist at the Dallas Fed named W. Michael Cox, says that President Obama's call for the U.S. to compete more effectively on that basis should not focus on boosting manufactured goods.

But it seems to me that our so-called comparative advantage in services that Cox says is a sufficient source of GDP growth has in fact put us at a disadvantage to countries such as China and Germany.

In the third season of The Simpsons, Mr. Burns sells his nuclear power plant to two German investors, who ultimately wind up selling the plant back to him at a huge loss. After its clear they are going to take a bath on the investment, one of the investors warns Mr. Burns, "Okay, Mr. Burns, you win. But beware. We Germans aren't all smiles and sunshine."

It's safe to say that particular German has no place in the new SAP.

Bank of America's agreement to pay $150 million to settle SEC charges also includes a bunch of corporate governance goodies designed to satisfy the activist shareholder set.

Matt Quinn , of course, told you all about the settlement when it broke last week. The deal stems from charges that the financial giant failed to properly disclose employee bonuses and financial losses at Merrill Lynch before shareholders approved the merger of the companies in December 2008. Bank of America also said it entered into an agreement to settle charges with the Office of the Attorney General for the State of North Carolina related to the Merrill Lynch merger.

Of course, the proposed settlement will be submitted for approval to the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. This is the same judge who last year rejected the original $33 million settlement.

Submitted by Francine McKenna, republished from Going Concern, Accounting News for Accountants and CFOs.

It's sort of sweet to see the CEOs of the Big 4 audit firms being treated like big deals at Davos. In the U.S., the media typically pays no attention to these guys unless there's either a catastrophic accounting related failure - and the recent crisis is not being viewed as such by the media - or some icky accounting issue like mark-to-market or IFRS that necessitates an interview with some accountant. Any accountant.