Publications

November 1992
Case

Primerica: Sandy Weill and His Corporate Entrepreneurs

By: Andrall E. Pearson and Philip M. Rosenzweig

As CEO of Primerica, Sandy Weill has built a $6.6 billion company from acquisitions and underperforming firms. The case examines Weill's distinctive approach to building, managing, and leading an organization that seeks the benefits of scale without the problems of... View Details

Keywords: Management Style; Business or Company Management; Acquisition

August 2021
Case

Wymsee

By: Julia Austin, Sarah Mehta and Tom Quinn

Wymsee was a company that aimed to develop a mobile application (app) that would allow television audience members to identify and purchase clothing or accessories worn by characters in the program they were watching, with the Wymsee founders taking a percentage of... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Plan; Business Startups; Film Entertainment; Television Entertainment; Technological Innovation; Knowledge Acquisition; Product Positioning; Opportunities; Adaptation; Mobile Technology; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; Technology Industry; United States; New York (city, NY)

July 2001
Teaching Note

Newell Company: Corporate Strategy TN

By: Cynthia A. Montgomery

Teaching Note for (9-799-139). A rewritten version of an earlier teaching note. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy; Strategy; Diversification; Strategic Planning; Acquisition; Business Conglomerates; Horizontal Integration; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Mergers and Acquisitions; Retail Industry

October 2012 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Altoona State Investment Board: July 2012

By: Josh Lerner and Nathaniel Burbank

Considers the decision faced by state pension fund manager Rod Calhoun as he decides whether to invest $200 million in Bain Capital's eleventh global buyout fund: Bain Capital Fund XI. For the fund, Bain was offering its limited partners a choice between three... View Details

Keywords: Management Fees; Bain Capital; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Banking Industry; Boston

01 Dec 1998
News

Goodbye and Hello to MBAs

released these statistical profiles of the two classes. Class of 1998 Placement Employment by Industry* Consulting: 30% Investment Banking (including Sales & Trading): 15% High Tech & Telecommunications: 13% Venture Capital: 10%... View Details

01 Mar 2019
News

The HBS Fund

Most alumni gifts go to the HBS Fund, which provides flexible resources the School can spend immediately on both core priorities and new initiatives. Your gifts support the people and programs that have a tremendous impact on business... View Details

01 Jun 2012
News

Jump-Start

student teams, says Rock Center executive director Mike Roberts. “These are many of the same firms that regularly assist in our Business Plan Competition. They just want to see HBS students succeed.” Accel Partners Bain Capital Charles... View Details

Keywords: contests; Finance

March 2016 (Revised October 2023)
Case

Central European Distribution Corporation: Hostile Takeover, Bankruptcy Makeover

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

In early 2013, Central European Distribution Corporation (CEDC), a large publicly traded producer and distributer of vodka and spirits in Eastern and Central Europe, has suffered significant declines in its financial performance, is at risk of defaulting on its debt,... View Details

Keywords: Hostile Takeover; Accounting Restatement; Activist Shareholder; Restructuring; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Statements; Corporate Governance; Investment Activism; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States; Russia; Europe

2009
Simulation

Finance Simulation: Blackstone/Celanese: No. 3712.

By: Nabil N. El-Hage and Timothy A. Luehrman

The Finance Simulation: Blackstone/Celanese is based on the landmark acquisition of Celanese AG by the Blackstone Group in 2003. Students play the role of either Celanese or Blackstone and conduct due diligence, establish deal terms, respond to bids and counter-bids,... View Details

Keywords: Bids and Bidding; Finance; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Leveraged Buyouts; Negotiation

February 2001 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Apax Partners and Dialog Semiconductor: March 1998

By: G. Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner, Antonio Alvarez-Cano and Borja Martinez

Apax Partners is considering a complex buyout of a semiconductor manufacturer. The firms must assess in a compressed timeframe the complex technological, financial, and operational risks that the proposed transaction poses. View Details

Keywords: Market Transactions; Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Time Management; Production; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; Semiconductor Industry

01 Oct 2001
News

New Economy Notables: Peter C. Wendell

Park, California, company boasts an impressive list of multibillion dollar market cap successes, including Healtheon, Intuit, Micromuse, and Strata- Com. Wendell passes his craft on to students enrolled in a popular second-year venture... View Details

Keywords: Young, Susan; Finance

September 2012
Article

The Size and Composition of Corporate Headquarters in Multinational Companies: Empirical Evidence

By: David J. Collis, David Young and Michael Goold

Based on a six-country survey of nearly 250 multinationals (MNCs), this paper is the first empirical analysis to describe the size and composition of MNC headquarters and to account for differences among them. Findings are as follows: MNC corporate headquarters are... View Details

Keywords: Headquarters; Subsidiaries; Multinational Corporations; Organization Design; Administrative Heritage; International Strategy; Business Subsidiaries; Organizational Design; Multinational Firms and Management; Size; Business Headquarters; Global Strategy

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March 2001
Case

Sime Darby Berhad (C): Responding to the Asian Crisis

By: Tarun Khanna and Danielle Melito Wu

Supplements the (A) case. View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Conglomerates; Economy; Capital Markets; Emerging Markets; Business and Government Relations; Corporate Strategy; Value Creation; Financial Services Industry; Malaysia

October 2018 (Revised October 2018)
Teaching Note

La-Z-Boy (A)

By: Joseph B. Fuller and Julia Kelley

Kurt Darrow, CEO of La-Z-Boy furniture, must decide whether to continue an overhaul of the company's strategy in the face of a collapse in demand during the great recession. Having pared back La-Z-Boy's portfolio of brands and manufacturing network, he intends to... View Details

2017
Working Paper

Knowledge Flows within Multinationals—Estimating Relative Influence of Headquarters and Host Context Using a Gravity Model

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury, Mike Horia Teodorescu and Tarun Khanna

From the perspective of a multinational subsidiary, we employ the classic gravity equation in economics to model and compare knowledge flows to the subsidiary from the MNC headquarters and from the host country context. We also generalize traditional economics gravity... View Details

Keywords: Multinationals; Knowledge Flows; Cosine Similarity; Gravity Model; Multinational Firms and Management; Knowledge Dissemination; Business Headquarters; Immigration

October 2011 (Revised December 2011)
Case

Vignette: Alternative Liquidity Options

By: Felda Hardymon, Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon

The growth of companies that facilitate the sales of unregistered stock, such as that granted to employees of successful but long-private companies, has raised a number of questions among regulators, investors, and company founders. This brief vignette sketches out... View Details

Keywords: Financial Liquidity; Private Equity; Stocks; Business Growth and Maturation; Sales

August 2009 (Revised August 2010)
Case

Calera Corporation

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, Thomas J. Steenburgh and Lauren Barley

Brent Constantz, founder, CEO, and president of Calera Corporation, felt a surge of optimism as he gazed at the recently commissioned prototype flue gas processing line at Calera's R&D facility in Moss Landing, California. It was late May 2009, and Calera was an... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Product Design; Product Development; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Green Technology Industry

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October 1997 (Revised July 1999)
Case

Best Buy

By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Balaji Chakravarthy

Documents the evolution of Best Buy, an electronics retailer, from its founding in 1966 to its very successful "Concept 2" strategy in 1996, boosting its sales ($7.2 billion) past industry #1 Circuit City. Its CEO Richard Schulze offers a new vision (Concept 3) to... View Details

Keywords: History; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Adaptation; Customer Focus and Relationships; Customization and Personalization; Retail Industry

January 2004 (Revised June 2004)
Case

Citigroup 2003: Testing the Limits of Convergence (A)

By: Lynda M. Applegate

Examines Citigroup's strategic transition and highlights issues that its newly announced CEO Charles Prince will face as he assumes leadership of this global financial corporation upon the retirement of its charismatic CEO, Sandy Weill. View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Globalized Firms and Management; Management Succession; Transformation; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry