Writing the finance story

Our news editor, Forrest Jones, has an MBA. That doesn't mean you couldn't have written his excellent treatment of the effect U.S. accounting regulations are having on Latin American companies.

How did he tackle something as complex as Sarbanes-Oxley? By talking to the right sources. He walked through the TV Azteca case, which was the genesis of the idea. Got a no comment from Azteca's mouthpiece and a great stinging statement from Salinas Pliego ("It's absurd for the SEC to use a Mexican company and Mexican citizens to try to impose U.S. regulations in an extraterritorial manner...") from their official communications. But then he stepped in deep, talking the U.S. stock market regulator itself, a Chilean company CFO and lawyers who tracking the issue for their multinational clients. End result: News you can use, with a nice breaking news sheen from the Azteca side but also real, actionable information from sources close to the issue.

And, as any good story does, it looks forward. One lawyer says the U.S. rules could push Latin American borrowers into the European markets. The CFO suggests that risk ratings are more of an issue than additional hurdles in U.S. capital markets. The seeds for the next story (or two) are already planted.