Deals Q2

Course Number 2265

Professor Guhan Subramanian

Fall; Q2; 1.5 credits
14 Sessions (120 minutes, across two time slots)
Paper
Enrollment: Limited to 42 HBS and 42 HLS students

This advanced negotiation course examines complex corporate deals. Many of the class sessions will be structured around actual corporate deals, selected for the complex issues of law and business that they raise. Students will research and analyze these transactions in order to present their most important aspects and lessons to the class. The goal is to help students develop their transactional instincts, better prepare them to anticipate deal challenges, and equip them with the skills to creatively address those challenges through contract and deal design.

Topics developed throughout the course include: how negotiators create and claim value through the setup, design, and tactical implementation of agreements; complexities that can arise through agency, asymmetric information, moral hazard, and adverse selection; structural, psychological, and interpersonal barriers that can hinder agreement; and the particular challenges inherent in the roles of advisors as negotiators. The course will also explore the differences between deal-making and dispute resolution; single-issue and multiple-issue negotiations; and between two parties and multiple parties.

The class will be comprised of approximately an equal number of students from HBS and HLS. For HLS students, the basic course in Corporations, Corporations taken concurrently, or permission of the instructor is a prerequisite. A familiarity with basic business concepts will be assumed throughout the course. For HBS students, in addition to the first-year curriculum, a basic Negotiations course is recommended though not required.

Evaluation will be on the basis of class participation and a final paper or project.

Students in this course may also be interested in Mark Gordon and Meng Lu’s Mergers and Acquisitions Workshop: Boardroom Strategies and Deal Tactics at Harvard Law School. Prof. Subramanian encourages students to register for both courses. The classes complement each other substantively and the timing works out in that the workshop takes place in the same time slot as Deals but during the first half of the semester, with no overlap.