Publications

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19 Oct 2022
Op-Ed

Cofounder Courtship: How to Find the Right Mate—for Your Startup

founding team worthy equity grants and, in earlier stage businesses could be anointed as “co-founder” down the road if the relationship blossoms over time. The cofounder courtship If you’ve decided that you really want and/or need a... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

2010
Other Unpublished Work

Why Takeover Vulnerability Matters to Debtholders

By: Joan Farre-Mensa

Recent work documents that firms that are more vulnerable to takeover have higher borrowing costs. This paper investigates the reasons behind this stylized fact. My results show that firms with few antitakeover defenses face a higher cost of debt because lenders are... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Borrowing and Debt; Cost; Equity; Banks and Banking; Investment Portfolio; Risk Management; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict and Resolution

SSRN

March 2011 (Revised January 2015)
Case

H Partners and Six Flags

By: Robin Greenwood and Michael Gorzynski

Rehan Jaffer, the founder of hedge fund H Partners, is considering what to do with his investment in Six Flags. H Partners had invested a significant amount of the firm's capital in the senior bonds of U.S.-based Six Flags, following that company's bankruptcy filing. View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Finance; Private Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Bonds; Investment; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

29 Sep 2020
News

James Cash Honored in HBS Building Renaming

17 Jun 2021
News

Diversifying Our Case Protagonists: How is HBS Doing a Year Later?

01 Oct 1997
News

W. Hall Wendel, Jr.

years of 35 percent compounded increases in sales and earnings. Now on the New York Stock Exchange, with revenues of $1.2 billion, profits of $62 million, and a return on equity of 43 percent, the diversified company is the world's... View Details

Keywords: James E. Aisner; mountain; adventure; climbing

01 Sep 2023
News

Made in Italy

globalization—was what the Medici family created.” — PAUL STYSLINGER (MBA 2023) Italy’s layers of history and business resonated with Basak Sunar (MBA 2023), who worked in private equity prior to enrolling at HBS and returned to the... View Details

Keywords: April White

Web

Faculty - Creating Emerging Markets

equity Interviews Dr. Ahmed Heikal Ouided Bouchamaoui Asim I. Khwaja Visiting Professor of Business Administration John Jong-Hyun Kim Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Research Interests : education , entrepreneurship ,... View Details

02 Apr 2020
What Do You Think?

What Are Lessons for Leaders from This Black Swan Crisis?

that of Gaetan, who said, “we can prepare to be prepared we should stimulate the use of less debt and more equity and therefore accept a lower return or otherwise fully accept regular destruction of businesses, unemployment, etc ” Jan was... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

23 Apr 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Corporate Financial Policies in Misvalued Credit Markets

Keywords: by Jarrad Harford, Marc Martos-Vila & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf; Financial Services; Banking

December 2006 (Revised October 2016)
Case

eClinicalWorks: The Paths to Growth

By: Robert F. Higgins and Mark Rennella

In January 2006, eClinicalWorks (eCW) had an acquisition opportunity that could fundamentally change the way they had done business since the inception of the company in 1999. eClinicalWorks was a privately run business in the healthcare information technology field... View Details

Keywords: Young Companies; Strategic Revelation; Strategy And Execution; Strategy Development; Strategy And Leadership; Financing Strategy; Financing Risk; Financing; Expansion; Business Growth and Maturation; Organizational Culture; Financing and Loans; Customer Focus and Relationships; Acquisition; Growth and Development Strategy; Information Technology Industry; Health Industry; Massachusetts

Web

Research Design - Impact Investments

of the fund managers. The goal of this project is to build upon previous work from the Private Capital Research Institute (PCRI) and the Harvard Business School Private Capital Project which has spent years matching private equity funds... View Details

09 Nov 2023
Blog Post

The No. 1 Character Trait You Will Need to Succeed in Business

in a thriving business when a job offer comes from a company you’ve always admired that’s on the brink of bankruptcy. The risks are tremendous but so are the potential rewards – to you and society. This situation brings to mind the experience of James Mwangi, CEO of... View Details

March 2008 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Transparent Value LLC

By: Sharon P. Katz, Krishna G. Palepu and Aldo Sesia, Jr.

Leading index company Dow Jones recently signed a license and joint marketing agreement with Transparent Value LLC, the creator of a new fundamentals-based valuation methodology. The agreement allowed Dow Jones to offer a family of indexes based on the Transparent... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Stocks; Price; Performance Expectations; Mathematical Methods; Valuation

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

For better or worse, in today's world everyone is a brand. Whether you're applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So, you need to get comfortable marketing yourself. In... View Details

January 2009
Case

Berkshire Hathaway

By: Bharat N. Anand and Samhita Patwardhan Jayanti

Berkshire Hathaway describes the history and strategy of one of the best known investment firms over the last forty years. The case describes the investment philosophy of Warren Buffett, its legendary chairman and CEO, the gradual diversification of its portfolio, its... View Details

Keywords: History; Private Equity; Diversification; Resource Allocation; Investment Portfolio; Corporate Strategy; Investment; Corporate Governance