Publications

Teaching Interest

MBA Elective Curriculum: Investment Strategies

By: Malcolm P. Baker

This is a CORE course for students pursuing careers in finance. Thus, students interested in pursuing careers in mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, endowments, wealth management, financial consulting, marketing and client service, sales and trading,... View Details

July 2010
Supplement

Marketing Analysis Toolkit: Customer Lifetime Value Analysis (CW)

By: Thomas J. Steenburgh and Jill Avery

Customers are increasingly being viewed as assets that bring value to the firm. Customer lifetime value is a metric which allows managers to understand the overall value of their customer base and relate it to three customer strategies firms employ: asset acquisition -... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Customer Relationship Management; Customer Value and Value Chain; Decisions; Framework; Management Practices and Processes; Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Strategic Planning; Mathematical Methods; Value

May 2020
Teaching Note

Kraft Heinz: The $8 Billion Brand Write-Down

By: Jill Avery

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 519-076. On Friday, February 22, 2019, following an unexpected and disappointing earnings report, The Kraft Heinz Company’s stock price fell 27%, wiping out $16 billion in market value. CEO Bernardo Hees had announced that the company had... View Details

Keywords: Marketing; Marketing Strategy; Brands and Branding; Consumer Products Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Marco Sammon is an assistant professor in the Finance Unit at Harvard Business School. He teaches FIN2 in the required curriculum.

His research is focused on asset pricing. Currently, he is working on several projects regarding the factors that affect the... View Details

July 1997 (Revised August 1997)
Case

numeric investors l.p.

By: Andre F. Perold and Brian J. Tierney

Numeric Investors manages equity portfolios with the use of a momentum model and a value model. The momentum model is based on earnings surprise and analysts' revisions of their earnings estimates. The firm offers long-short as well as long-only strategies, and its... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Cost; Equity; Financial Strategy; Investment; Investment Portfolio; Management; Product Development; Performance Efficiency; Business Strategy

Adi Sunderam is the Willard Prescott Smith Professor of Corporate Finance at Harvard Business School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Economics department. He teaches Finance 2 in... View Details

Keywords: asset management; asset management; asset management; asset management; asset management; asset management

2008
Working Paper

Inexperienced Investors and Bubbles

By: Robin Greenwood and Stefan Nagel

We use mutual fund manager data from the technology bubble to examine the hypothesis that inexperienced investors play a role in the formation of asset price bubbles. Using age as a proxy for managers' investment experience, we find that around the peak of the... View Details

Keywords: Investment; Stocks; Information Technology; Price Bubble; Asset Management; Experience and Expertise

SSRN

February 1997 (Revised April 1997)
Case

Harrington Financial Group

By: Robert C. Merton and Alberto Moel

In early 1997, Harrington Bank, a small Indiana savings and loan (thrift) wondered what its next move should be. Harrington was acquired in 1988 by the principals of Smith Breeden Associates, a money-management and consulting firm specializing in the application of... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Mergers and Acquisitions; Price; Risk Management; Mortgages; Contracts; Asset Management; Investment; Financial Services Industry

September 2018
Case

Granite Equity Partners

By: Victoria Ivashina and Jeffrey Boyar

This case follows Rick Bauerly, CEO of Minnesota-based Granite Equity Partners, a private equity firm that specialized in buying out retiring business owners in the Minnesota community. In 2007, Granite Equity was considering an investment in Tyrell Corp. (name... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Exit; Investing; Fund Exit; Fund Management; Wealth Management; Liquidity; Buyout; Exit Strategy; Preferred Shares; Convertible Notes; Finance; Private Equity; Investment; Asset Management; Wealth; Management; Financial Liquidity

15 Feb 2016
Working Paper Summaries

Replicating Private Equity with Value Investing, Homemade Leverage, and Hold-to-Maturity Accounting

Keywords: by Erik Stafford; Banking; Financial Services

25 Jun 2015
News

Responsible investment: Vice versus nice

2016
Article

Cloaked Trading

By: Lauren Cohen, Dong Lou and Christopher J. Malloy

Using a novel, proprietary database of micro-level trading activities by asset managers, we show strong evidence of asset managers engaging in strategic trading in order to “cloak” their most valuable trades. This takes the form, for instance, of a manager who sells... View Details

Keywords: Strategic Trading; Information; Asset Management; Investment

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June 2012 (Revised August 2012)
Case

MF Global: Where's the Money?

By: Clayton S. Rose, Pamela Chan and Raghav Chopra

When MF Global failed in October of 2011, it was discovered that $1.6 billion of segregated customer assets was missing. Safeguarding these assets was the firm's responsibility, and in the words of one SEC official, its "sacred obligation." What is known about the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Firms; Customer Obligations; Bankruptcy; Regulation; Financial Crisis; Brokerage; Asset Management; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Financial Management; Crisis Management; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Services Industry

2015
Working Paper

What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

We survey 79 private equity investors with combined assets under management (AUM) of over $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rate of return (IRR) and multiples to... View Details

Keywords: Governance; Value Creation; Private Equity; Capital Structure; Valuation; Management Practices and Processes

SSRN

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May 2025
Case

The Micro-Family Office: Aamir Rehman

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

With a successful career and strong academic credentials, Aamir Rehman sought to design a life grounded in autonomy. For him, this meant serving on boards, continuing his professorship, and ensuring a secure and comfortable life for his family. While he didn’t possess... View Details

November 2007 (Revised August 2009)
Case

WL Ross & Co. and INVESCO

Wilbur Ross has built a successful private equity firm focused on distressed investing, WL Ross & Co. In 2006, INVESCO, an asset management company, approaches him about acquiring his firm. INVESCO has had weak performance in recent years and is looking to increase its... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Decision Choices and Conditions; Investment; Acquisition; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

October 2006 (Revised October 2007)
Case

Grosvenor Group Limited

By: Andre F. Perold, Arthur I Segel, Oliver Corlette and Soyoun Song

A global real estate investment firm is trying to decide whether to enter into a property-derivative transaction to help it effect a change in asset allocation. The market for real estate derivatives is beginning to grow quite rapidly and the firm is trying to... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Financial Instruments; Financial Markets; Business or Company Management; Property; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry

2009
Book

Financial Economics

By: Zvi Bodie, Robert C. Merton and David L. Cleeton

This book seeks to explain finance through its functions rather than its institutions, concentrating on the three pillars of finance: optimization over time, asset valuation, and risk management. View Details

Keywords: Economics; Finance; Assets; Risk Management; Risk and Uncertainty; Valuation