Opinion
How the Institutional Secondaries Market Is Reshaping Continuation Vehicles: Evolution from "Lemons" to Core Tools
Continuation vehicles (CVs) were once viewed as "lemons" in the private equity space—attractive on the surface but fraught with underlying issues. However, marked by EQT's acquisition of Coller Capital, the rise of institutional secondary investors has completely changed this landscape. Through specialized due diligence and independent valuations, institutions like Coller have effectively resolved information asymmetry and adverse selection problems, turning CVs from a refuge for distressed assets into a legitimate tool for long-term holding of high-quality assets. In 2024, the secondaries market reached $162 billion in volume, with GP-led CV transactions totaling approximately $75 billion, and in the first half of 2025, CVs accounted for 19% of PE asset sales.
Three Strategic Transformations for CFOs in Response to Market Volatility
Traditional financial planning models have proven inadequate in an era where a single trade announcement can revalue an entire supply chain. Yvette Connor, leader of CohnReznick's risk consulting practice, and Drew Illingworth, managing director of CxO advisory, point out that top-performing CFOs are driving three key shifts: upgrading scenario planning from a quarterly exercise to a standing mechanism, extending supply chain due diligence to Tier 2/3 levels, and replacing month-end lagging feedback with near-real-time cost tracking. These transformations aim to move the finance function from passively explaining variances to proactively anticipating actions.
Closing the Post-Merger Integration Investment Gap: A CFO's Essential Course in Capital Allocation
In M&A transactions, budgets for transaction advisory fees are precise, but the integration budget for the first year after closing is often overlooked, creating an "integration investment gap." This article analyzes its causes and costs, proposes the integration investment ratio as an anchoring metric, and recommends that CFOs set the budget at transaction approval, designate a responsible person, implement weekly leading indicator reporting, and disclose investment adequacy to the board.
AI-Driven Disinformation Risk Escalates, CFOs Must Lead Corporate Response Strategy
Artificial intelligence has elevated disinformation from a reputational concern to a major global financial and enterprise risk. Gartner's 1Q26 Emerging Risks Report shows that information integrity is the top emerging risk facing public and private sectors, but fewer than half of executives have established response mechanisms. Leveraging their responsibilities for business resilience and compliance, CFOs need to coordinate the C-suite to assess gaps and invest in a unified disinformation security system. The article outlines the three core elements of disinformation security, investment evaluation methods, execution levers, and pitfalls to avoid.
Why some CFOs stay far away from the R&D credit
R&D tax credits are intended to incentivize corporate innovation, yet many CFOs choose to forgo them due to high consulting fees from Big Four accounting firms, IRS compliance burdens, and concerns over audit risks. Through the lens of a former IRS engineer, the article dissects three major barriers—structural design, IRS friction, and organizational perception—and contrasts them with the positive experience of startup BadVR, pointing out that cognitive bias may limit the policy's effectiveness more than the facts themselves.
Tax Considerations in Tariff Refund Planning: Key Points for CFOs
On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs and invalidated the related tariffs. CBP has initiated the first phase of refunds, involving 330,000 importers and $166 billion. This article discusses the tax implications of refunds, planning for various parties, and the future legal framework for tariffs.
Why Corporate AI Investments Still Struggle to Translate into Financial Returns
Despite the surge in corporate AI investments, most organizations still struggle to achieve measurable financial returns. The core issue is that AI deployment has not been accompanied by a reshaping of operational models. This article proposes positioning AI through the metaphor of a "digital intern," emphasizing human-machine collaboration and financial anchoring, and offers four practical pathways.
Best AI models still have a 20% failure rate on accounting tasks
DualEntry tested 19 mainstream AI models on 101 real-world accounting workflows. Results showed that the best model, Claude Opus 4.7, achieved 79.2% accuracy, GPT-5.4 reached 77.3%, and GPT-4 scored only 39.8%. Despite significant improvements in model capabilities, the best model still made errors on about one-fifth of tasks, especially in critical operational areas like bank reconciliation and month-end closing. The author urges CFOs to focus on task-level accuracy rather than overall scores, and to emphasize human review and system controls over AI outputs.
Chief Financial Officer: The De Facto Chief Risk Officer of the Family Office
Family offices typically do not appoint a Chief Risk Officer because the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) already assumes this function. The CFO holds comprehensive data on the portfolio's cash flows, debt, capital commitments, and operations, providing the best vantage point for integrating risk. The article proposes four practices: liquidity stress testing, scenario analysis, counterparty risk assessment, and operational risk monitoring, while emphasizing the critical role of governance structures and senior-level culture in embedding the risk function.
Building an Intelligence System from Public Data: A CFO's Practice Record
Niyi Oladepo, Vice President of Finance at Pike Industries, writes in detail about how his team developed an AI-driven pricing intelligence tool based on public bidding results from the New Hampshire and Maine Departments of Transportation. The article introduces the system's three-tier architecture (historical baseline pricing, estimator dynamic judgment, and relevance deduplication logic) and emphasizes the contribution of early failed iterations to the system's ultimate value.