Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(5,165)
- Faculty Publications (1,062)
- January 2009 (Revised May 2010)
- Case
Altoona State Investment Board: December 2008
By: Josh Lerner
Rod Calhoun, the head of the Altoona State Investment Board's private equity investment program, considered the communication he had just received. It was from Permira, the leading European buyout fund, and concerned its fourth fund, to which Altoona had made a £ 100... View Details
- Article
Investor Activism and Takeovers
By: Robin Greenwood and Michael Schor
Recent work documents large positive abnormal returns around the time that a hedge fund announces its activist intentions with a publicly listed firm. We show that these returns are largely explained by the ability of activists to force target firms into a takeover: In... View Details
- December 2008 (Revised October 2009)
- Case
Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)
By: David E. Bell and Brian Matthew Milder
In 2006, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation joined together to form a new organization, AGRA, to tackle the historic challenge of increasing agricultural production in Africa. Launched with much fanfare and led by former U.N.... View Details
- December 2008 (Revised July 2010)
- Case
TravelCenters of America
By: Robin Greenwood, Daniel Jacob Goldberg and James Quinn
A New York-based hedge fund must decide whether to invest in TravelCenters of America (TA), a recent spin-off from a U.S.-based real estate investment trust. The case confronts students with the question: To what extent is this spin-off opportunity attractive from a... View Details
- December 2008 (Revised March 2009)
- Case
Rosetree Mortgage Opportunity Fund
By: Victoria Ivashina and Andre F. Perold
In December 2008, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Rosetree Capital Management was evaluating the purchase of a pool of U.S. residential mortgages. The firm had formed an investment vehicle to acquire troubled residential mortgages... View Details
Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Mortgages; Investment; Housing; Valuation; United States
- December 2008 (Revised October 2010)
- Case
Paul Capital Partners: Secondary Limited Partnership Investing
This case examines the proposed purchase by Paul Capital Partners of a limited partnership (LP) interest in a private equity fund. Paul Capital has a fund dedicated to buying these "secondary" LP interests. The case is intended as a vehicle for discussing the secondary... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised January 2012)
- Case
Teena Lerner: Dividing the Pie at Rx Capital (Abridged)
By: Boris Groysberg, Victoria Winston and Robin Abrahams
Teena Lerner, the CEO of Rx Capital, had a problem. Her three-year-old hedge fund was highly profitable, but in 2004, one of her four equities analysts lost a lot of money for the firm. If Lerner followed her existing compensation system, designed to reward teamwork,... View Details
- November 2008 (Revised January 2009)
- Case
The Restructuring of Daiei
In 2004, the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ) was given the task of restructuring Daiei, one of the largest Japanese retailers and the country's most prominent zombie companies. The IRCJ was a government-sponsored organization that was funded with... View Details
- November 2008
- Supplement
NEC Electronics (CW)
By: C. Fritz Foley, Robin Greenwood and James Quinn
Why do shares in NEC Electronics, a publicly listed subsidiary of Japan conglomerate NEC trade at a discount to their fundamental value? Can Perry Capital, a U.S. hedge fund, restructure this subsidiary and generate significant returns? This case provides students with... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised November 2010)
- Case
NEC Electronics
By: C. Fritz Foley, Robin Greenwood and James Quinn
Why do shares in NEC Electronics, a publicly listed subsidiary of Japan conglomerate NEC, trade at a discount to their fundamental value? Can Perry Capital, a U.S. hedge fund, restructure this subsidiary and generate significant returns? This case provides students... View Details
- October 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
PlanetTran
By: Lauren H. Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy
PlanetTran is an environmentally-friendly car service that utilizes a fleet of hybrid cars in providing livery service to corporations and individuals. The founder, Seth Riney, is evaluating outside funding options in order to expand the company, and has met several... View Details
- October 2008
- Article
The Small World of Investing: Board Connections and Mutual Fund Returns
By: Lauren Cohen, Andrea Frazzini and Christopher J. Malloy
This paper uses social networks to identify information transfer in security markets. We focus on connections between mutual fund managers and corporate board members via shared education networks. We find that portfolio managers place larger bets on firms they are... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Case
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A1)
By: Fabrizio Ferri, V.G. Narayanan and James Weber
Two activist investors, one a founder and one a hedge fund manager, seek to improve board oversight at a chain restaurant company. Prestley Blake founded Friendly Ice Cream in 1935 with his brother, and the two created a chain of full-service restaurants. In 1979, they... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised October 2008)
- Supplement
Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A2)
By: V.G. Narayanan, Fabrizio Ferri and James Weber
The A1 and A2 versions of the “Shareholder Activists at Friendly Ice Cream (A)” split the original A case into two parts. The A1 case ends as activists Sardar Biglari and Phil Cooley prepare to meet with CEO Don Smith at Friendly's headquarters in September 2006. The... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Khosla Ventures: Biofuels Strategy
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
By 2008, a number of the firm's early cleantech investments were showing promise, and the companies were starting to need significantly more money to create the massive scale required in the energy sector. As Khosla thought about the hundreds of millions of dollars... View Details
Keywords: Entrepreneurial Marketing; Entrepreneurial Finance; New Product Development; Partnerships; Entrepreneurial Management; Venture Capital; Strategy; Partners and Partnerships; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Environmental Sustainability; Product Development; Biotechnology Industry; Financial Services Industry
- September 2008 (Revised September 2010)
- Case
Ithmar Capital
By: Josh Lerner and Ann Leamon
The founders of Ithmar Capital, a mid-market private equity fund targeting businesses in and addressing the Gulf Co-operation Council countries, are about to raise their third fund, targeting $1 billion. The firm's current strategy as demonstrated in Funds I ($70... View Details
- 2008
- Chapter
A New Generation of Pension Fund Management
By: Robert C. Merton
In talking about pension plans at this point in American economic and corporate history, we need to discuss three linked issues: the defined-benefit (DB) corporate plans that worked for our parents; the defined-contribution (DC) plans we're getting today because... View Details
- August 2008 (Revised June 2012)
- Case
Martingale Asset Management LP in 2008, 130/30 Funds, and a Low-Volatility Strategy
By: Luis M. Viceira and Helen Tung
In early July of 2008, William (Bill) Jacques, Chief Investment Officer at Martingale Asset Management, a quantitative value-oriented investment manager in Boston, Massachusetts, was busy preparing for an upcoming meeting with the group that made new product decisions... View Details
- August 2008 (Revised May 2009)
- Case
Kmart and ESL Investments (A)
By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah Abbott
A major bankrupt retailer is poised to emerge from Chapter 11. Two activist hedge funds ("vulture investors") will own over 50% of reorganized Kmart's common stock, based on prior investments in Kmart's debt claims, and an infusion of new equity financing. The Chapter... View Details
- August 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Finland's S Group: Competing with a Cooperative Approach to Retail
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Tarun Khanna, Samuli Skurnik and Jordan Mitchell
The case looks at the two dominant Finnish retailers: S Group and Kesko. S Group is a customer-owned cooperative, which has a unique holding structure whereby 1.7 million residents (or 70 percent of Finnish households) own 22 regional cooperatives. In turn, the... View Details