If you’re thinking of making a M&A deal within the next year or so, be prepared for it to take a lot longer than usual.

That’s because the FTC and DOJ have plans to overhaul the documentation companies must submit to comply with the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act. Enacted in 1976, that antitrust legislation stipulates that, before making a merger or acquisition over a certain threshold ($119.5+ million in 2024), companies must file paperwork with the FTC and DOJ. In June 2023, the agencies proposed sweeping changes to the HSR filing process that would require companies to report much more information on topics such as ownership structures, business operations, investment vehicles, previous acquisitions, and the potential effect a deal could have on competition, supply chain relationships, and labor markets.

“The burden of collecting all those documents is onerous,” Ed Schwartz, a partner in the antitrust and competition group at global law firm Reed Smith, told CFO Brew. The information the agencies are requesting is extremely granular, he said: They’d want to see “narrative descriptions of all business lines,” for example, and locations of business units—down to the longitude and latitude coordinates. Plus, they’d require information about noncontrolling entities and minority stakeholders, which would “have to be collected from third parties,” he said.

The upshot, Schwartz said, is that HSR filings are very likely to take a lot longer—and become a lot more costly. The FTC estimates that the revisions could quadruple the time needed for a company to complete the HSR documents—and Schwartz said many observers think that’s an underestimate. Under the current rules, his firm “can put an HSR [filing] together in a week if we have to,” he said. “Now, we’re talking a month’s worth [of work], maybe longer.”

Click here to continue reading about the new M&A regulations.—CV

That prize being? The ability to identify strategic opportunities that enable your company to capitalize on market trends, customer preferences, and emerging opportunities before your competitors do. Yep, it’s a pretty big prize for any CFO.

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Jurors delivered a guilty verdict last week against Archegos founder Bill Hwang on 10 of 11 charges including market manipulation, fraud, and racketeering conspiracy for his scheme that caused more than $100 billion in damage when it unraveled over several days in 2021. Prosecutors alleged that Hwang lied to banks about how heavily his family office was betting on certain companies, including ViacomCBS, to get capital it needed to jack up their share prices.

But it wasn’t just Hwang who was found guilty. Prosecutors convinced the jury that the fraud, which also played a role in sinking Credit Suisse, couldn’t have taken place without Archegos’s former CFO, Patrick Halligan.

Unlike his former boss, Halligan wasn’t charged with market manipulation, but the lies of both made it possible for the company to get the credit it needed to puff up the stocks, which “fraudulently inflate[d]” Archegos’s portfolio from $1.5 billion to $36 billion, US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement after the verdict.

Halligan, 47, could face a 60-year prison sentence for his conviction on two counts of fraud and one count of racketeering conspiracy.

For more on the Archegos convictions, click here.—GD

Though the accountant shortage is still a concern, a shortage of AI and tech skills might be a more pressing issue right now. That’s according to a pulse survey by consulting firm RGP and YouGov, which polled 213 US financial professionals at the director level and above this June.

About a quarter (26%) of the respondents chose cybersecurity and risk management as their biggest talent gap, followed by digital transformation skills (23%). A slightly smaller percentage (21%) named accounting services as the area where they most lacked talent.

Talent itself took a back seat to digital transformation as finance leaders’ top concern. Almost a third (30%) of respondents said “digital strategies,” such as implementing AI and automation, was the most pressing issue for them in the second half of 2024, while slightly more than a quarter (26%) said it was attracting and retaining talent. Their third most prevalent concern was fraud prevention and cybersecurity (17%).

Interestingly, finance professionals also saw technology as a solution to the accountant shortage. About four in 10 respondents (43%) said they were investing more in AI and automation due to the shortage. But they’re also pursuing talent-based solutions: three in ten said they were turning to consulting talent to update their finance functions, and 27% said they were using more interim staffing.

Continue reading here.—CV

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