Large US companies are bolstering their adjusted earnings per share by excluding items such as litigation expenses and amortization of intangible assets from their net income, even as regulators scrutinize such practices, a new analysis finds.

“When we think about M&A, we need one and one to equal three.” ExxonMobil CFO Kathryn Mikells talked me through the oil giant’s outlook for deals and how to achieve $2 billion in synergies a year.

More firms are going public to raise capital for debt reduction. Companies completed $28.5 billion of IPOs in the year through April citing debt repayment as one of the uses of proceeds, an increase of 56% from the prior 12 months, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

With rates expected to stay high for a while, corporate finance chiefs have a strong incentive to skip debt markets and free up more of their companies’ cash instead. And it turns out, they have plenty of it.

It’s been roughly two-and-a-half years since Zoom’s shareholders rejected the nearly $15 billion takeover of call-center provider Five9. Now, Zoom is reopening the door to larger deals, CFO Kelly Steckelberg tells Bloomberg News.

Honeywell has been busy striking deals. CFO Greg Lewis said the conglomerate wants to pursue additional acquisitions while also shedding some assets, as about 10% of the portfolio don’t fit its strategy.

Carrier in April 2023 agreed to spend more than $10 billion to acquire Germany’s Viessmann Climate Solutions business and launched a revamp of its portfolio, which included selling its security business to Honeywell. Here’s how CFO Patrick Goris thinks about the current shape of the business and the potential for share repurchases.

Lumen plans to focus on stabilizing its business after finalizing a restructuring deal with creditors that slashes its debt, its finance chief said.

Prologis has been spending big on M&A in recent years. The company continues to scout for potential targets and hopes to one day be able to leverage AI for that, its CFO Tim Arndt and Managing Director Chris Caton said in an interview.

For Cisco, the $28 billion acquisition of Splunk marks not only its biggest diversification effort to date but a historic shift to a net debt capital position, after three decades of having net cash.