Publications

November 2019 (Revised December 2019)
Case

Marcus by Goldman Sachs

By: Rory McDonald, Samir Junnarkar and David Lane

Five years on from the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs remained wounded. Revenues at the global investment bank had stagnated below pre-crisis levels, and the firm had yet to rebound from a substantial decline in securities-trading revenues. Marcus by Goldman... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom

19 Feb 2012
News

Time to tighten rules on US pensions

29 Sep 2009
First Look

First Look: September 29

opportunities—led to vastly increased systemic risk in the financial system. Individually, each of these trends is benign, but when they occur simultaneously, as they did over the past decade, they impose an... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2018 (Revised June 2019)
Case

Oaktree: Pierre Foods Investment

By: Victoria Ivashina and Mike Harmon

This case is a setting to discuss “loan to own” investment strategy that is often pursued by distressed investors. The aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis left many companies with poor liquidity and limited ability to obtain credit. One of these companies was Pierre... View Details

Keywords: Distress Investing; Investment; Debt Securities; Strategy; Restructuring

Article

Meaning and Momentum in the Integrated Reporting Movement

By: Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus and Sydney Ribot

In this summary of their recently published book, the authors provide an update of the state of the integrated reporting (or ) movement, whose aim is to persuade companies to provide fuller disclosure of material nonfinancial (or "ESG") factors and how they are... View Details

Keywords: Integrated Reporting; Integrated Corporate Reporting

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May–June 2021
Article

Why Start-ups Fail

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann

If you’re launching a business, the odds are against you: Two-thirds of start-ups never show a positive return. Unnerved by that statistic, a professor of entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School set out to discover why. Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Problems and Challenges; Failure

04 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles based on a Harvard Business School working paper by Karen Mills that analyzes the current state of availability of... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Financial Services; Financial Services

September 1991 (Revised March 2005)
Case

WPP Group and Its Acquisitions

By: William J. Bruns Jr.

WPP Group acquired J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather, paying high premiums in relation to earnings. In each acquisition the goodwill acquired was immediately charged off against owners' equity. Then, WPP Group established a value for the brand names of the two... View Details

Keywords: Goodwill Accounting; Accounting; Brands and Branding; Product Positioning; Market Transactions; Equity; Private Equity; Relationships; Mergers and Acquisitions; Management Style; Consumer Products Industry; United States; United Kingdom

Sandra Sucher, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, is an internationally recognized trust researcher. The Power of Trust, her third book, is based on two decades of global research on how companies build stakeholder trust and how,... View Details

Keywords: financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services; financial services

September 1999
Case

Sally Jameson - 1999

By: George C. Chacko, Henry B. Reiling, Peter Tufano and Matthew Bailey

Sally Jameson has a large block of appreciated stock, which she is contemplating selling to purchase a home. She is comparing an outright sale, borrowing against the stock, shorting against the box, and a stock loan proposed by a small financial services firm. View Details

Keywords: Asset Pricing; Asset Management; Financial Liquidity; Stocks; Stock Options; Financing and Loans; Financial Services Industry

01 Oct 2019
News

Competing for deposit growth

March 2008 (Revised April 2009)
Case

Eliot Spitzer: Pushing Wall Street to Reform

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella and Jonathan Schlefer

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer faced a decision about how to stop wrongdoing committed by major Wall Street firms during the Internet boom. The equities analysts of Merrill Lynch and other Wall Street firms were charged with objectively advising retail... View Details

Keywords: Crime and Corruption; Decisions; Financial Institutions; Stocks; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Laws and Statutes; Lawsuits and Litigation; Conflict of Interests; Internet; Financial Services Industry; United States

2023
Working Paper

What Do Impact Investors Do Differently?

By: Shawn Cole, Leslie Jeng, Josh Lerner, Natalia Rigol and Benjamin N. Roth

In recent years, impact investors – private investors who seek to generate simultaneously financial and social returns – have attracted intense interest and controversy. We analyze a novel, comprehensive data set of impact and traditional investors to assess how the... View Details

Keywords: ESG; Socially Responsible Investing; Investment Decisions; Public Goods; Impact Investment; Investment; Private Equity; Venture Capital

SSRN

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October 2021 (Revised February 2023)
Case

Ant Group (A)

By: Krishna G. Palepu, Feng Zhu, Susie L. Ma and Kerry Herman

In 2004, Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba created Alipay, an app to facilitate payments on its e-commerce sites. As Alibaba grew, so did Alipay, until Alipay spawned its own ecosystem of financial technology products and services under the name of Ant Group. By 2020,... View Details

Keywords: Payment Systems; Information Technology; Value Creation; Network Effects; Strategy; Disruptive Innovation; Initial Public Offering; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry; China

Web

Class Profile - MBA

Admissions Admissions Class of 2026 Profile A Mosaic of Perspectives Harvard Business School A truly diverse student body — in experience, nationality, interests, and ambitions — is the foundation View Details

June 2013
Case

Hess Corporation

By: Jay W. Lorsch and Kathleen Durante

On January 29, 2013, Elliott Management, a hedge fund run by Paul E. Singer, which owned 4.5% of Hess Corporation stock, put forward a slate of five independent directors it wanted elected to improve the company's performance. Elliott argued that Hess lacked focus and... View Details

Keywords: Takeover Attempt; Board; Hess; Governing and Advisory Boards; Organizational Structure; Acquisition; Financial Services Industry; Financial Services Industry

February 2011 (Revised July 2011)
Supplement

Aluar: Aluminio Argentino S.A. (B)

By: David F. Hawkins, Hernan Etiennot, Gustavo A. Herrero and Hugo Pentenero

Argentine government claims inflation rate is 8 percent but others claim it is double that rate. Analysts' attempts to adjust the company's financial statements for inflation. View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Inflation and Deflation; Argentina

April 2010
Background Note

Securities Trading: Front-, Middle- and Back Office

By: Francois Brochet and Rakeen Mabud

This note explains the basic structure of the trading floor in a typical financial institution and how the front, middle and back offices interact to ensure a functioning trading system. View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Financial Institutions; Financial Services Industry