Publications

June 2007 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Nordic Telephone Company's Bid for TDC

Nordic Telephone Company, formed by a consortium of private equity firms, has made a public tender offer for Denmark's leading telecommunications company, TDC. TDC's board of directors approved the take-private transaction, and 88% of shareholders have accepted the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Communication Technology; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Offer; Privatization; Telecommunications Industry; Denmark

Research Summary

Survivorship and the Economic Grim Reaper

Robert E. Kennedy and George P. Baker III are studying the long-term equity market performance of firms that are no longer public entities. Firms are delisted for a variety of reasons, including liquidation, merger, and leveraged buyout. Although the short-term... View Details

October 2009
Article

Influence and Inefficiency in the Internal Capital Market

By: Julie Wulf

I model inefficient resource allocations in M-form organizations due to influence activities by division managers that skew capital budgets in their favor. Corporate headquarters receives two types of signals about investment opportunities: private signals that can be... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Resource Allocation; Business Processes; Capital Budgeting; Business Headquarters; Investment; Opportunities; Cost; Value; Motivation and Incentives; Equity

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June 2005 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Investment Policy at the Hewlett Foundation (2005)

By: Luis M. Viceira

In early January 2005, Laurance Hoagland Jr., VP and CIO of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (HF), and his investment team met to finish their recommendations to the HF Investment Committee for a new asset allocation policy for the foundation's investment... View Details

Keywords: Investment Portfolio; Risk and Uncertainty; Public Equity; Globalization; Investment; Property; Risk Management; Asset Management; Financial Services Industry

Career Coach

Kaushal Mehta

Kaushal enjoys helping students explore opportunities available to students in the US Private Equity and Hedge Funds space. Having worked across Private Equity and Public... View Details

June 2021
Article

Short-Termism, Shareholder Payouts, and Investment in the EU

By: Jesse M. Fried and Charles C.Y. Wang

Investor-driven "short-termism" is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered—rising levels of repurchases and dividends—is incomplete and... View Details

Keywords: Short-termism; EU; Payout Policy; Innovation; Investment; Corporate Governance; Investment Return; Acquisition; European Union

SSRN

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September 2017 (Revised February 2019)
Case

Blackstone's GSO Capital: Crosstex Investment

By: Victoria Ivashina, John D. Dionne and Jeffrey Boyar

This case focuses on the Blackstone credit arm, GSO Capital as it evaluated a proposal for an equity investment into the distressed company, Crosstex Energy L.P., an integrated midstream energy company, that was hit hard by declining natural gas prices during the 2008... View Details

Keywords: Distress Investing; Rescue Financing; Investment; Borrowing and Debt; Financial Condition

May 2011
Case

Oriental Fortune Capital: Building a Better Stock Exchange

By: Josh Lerner and Keith Chi-ho Wong

When ChiNext opened in October 2009 as the second tier market of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), it aimed to provide Chinese entrepreneurs with equity capital and to facilitate the exits of venture capital firms and other investors which had previously relied on... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Stocks; Financial Markets; Venture Capital; Private Equity; International Finance; Financial Services Industry; China

April 2021
Case

Etsy: Crafting a Turnaround to Save the Business and Its Soul

By: Ranjay Gulati, Luciana Silvestri and Monte Burke

Etsy, the online seller of handmade goods, was founded in 2005 on an almost utopian ideal—a responsible, caring company that offered individual crafters a place to sell their wares, a wholesome alternative to companies that sold mass-manufactured products. The company... View Details

Keywords: Turnaround; Organizational Culture; Financial Condition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Mission and Purpose; Transformation; Leadership

April 1996 (Revised January 2006)
Case

Times Mirror Company PEPS Proposal Review

By: Peter Tufano

Times Mirror Co. (TMC) owns a substantial block of Netscape common stock purchased prior to Netscape's IPO, on which it has substantial unrealized gains. TMC is restricted from selling the stock in a public offering and is therefore considering a proposal by Morgan... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Stocks; Taxation; Corporate Finance; Telecommunications Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States

Teaching Interest

Demystifying the Family Enterprise

By: Christina R. Wing

This course is primarily designed for students who are pursuing a career in family run businesses, family owned businesses, investment roles in family offices, or students that might invest in or wholly purchase a family owned business through a private equity firm,... View Details

30 Nov 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID Not Slowing VC Investment

expect their investments to outperform major equity indexes going forward, and they’re continuing to fund new endeavors. “It’s sort of the opposite of doom and gloom,” Gompers says. “We were surprised by how relatively unaffected the... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost; Financial Services; Banking

16 Feb 2004
Research & Ideas

European Private Equity—Still a Teenager?

restructuring opportunities or divestitures or even, more recently, public-to-privates. But I think increasingly what happens in our industry—and in Europe more recently than in the U.S. —is that private equity has become the long-term... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

November 2016 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Square, Inc. IPO

By: Ramana Nanda, Robert White and Lauren G. Pickle

In November 2015, Square, Inc. launched its initial public offering (IPO). The IPO had an offering price of $9 per share, lower than the $11 to $13 estimate that had been outlined in the preliminary prospectus and 42% below the $15.50 share price in its most recent... View Details

Keywords: Business Finance; Initial Public Offering; Equity; Capital Markets; Public Equity; Stocks; Venture Capital; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 1986 (Revised December 1986)
Case

British Telecommunications, PLC

Presents a description of international equity markets, including comparisons of the U.S., Japanese, and British markets and recent trends toward deregulation of these markets. The decision focus of the case is on the initial public offerings of British... View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Initial Public Offering; Capital Markets; Canada; London; Tokyo

January 2019 (Revised November 2019)
Case

Ajeej Capital: Investing in Emerging Markets

By: Luis M. Viceira and Eren Kuzucu

In October 2007, Tarek Sakka and Fouad Dajani launched Ajeej Capital, the first independent investment advisory in the MENA region. Fittingly named ajeej, an Arabic word that translates to “growth and propagation in a chaotic setting,” the firm’s AUM grew from $20... View Details

Keywords: Security Selection; Investments; Growth; Culture; UAE; Finance; Asset Management; Emerging Markets; Capital Markets; Investment; Growth Management; Risk Management; Middle East; Saudi Arabia; Dubai; United Arab Emirates; Egypt; North Africa