Publications

May 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

Benetton Group S.p.A., 2012

By: John R. Wells and Galen Danskin

On May 31, 2012, after 36 years on the Milan Stock Exchange, Benetton was officially delisted and taken private by Edizione, the Benetton family's holding company. Since 2000, Benetton shareholders had seen its market value fall from $4.3 billion to $720 million at the... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Fashion; Retail; Privatization; Family Ownership; Performance Improvement; Problems and Challenges; Management Teams; Globalized Firms and Management; Change Management; Restructuring; Competitive Strategy; Retail Industry; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Italy

May 2010 (Revised September 2013)
Case

Friend Bank: The Time for Hope

By: Clayton S. Rose and Aldo Sesia

In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Financial Crisis; Banks and Banking; Growth and Development Strategy; Risk Management; Family Ownership; Competitive Advantage; Banking Industry; Alabama

01 Sep 2003
News

An Electrifying Tale

through it, because my family was absolutely mortified.” In 1989, out of the remains of a bankrupt commercial electric company for which she worked, Cataldo started City Lights Electrical Company. The company grew modestly while she was... View Details

Keywords: Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

03 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Business History around the World

School's Alfred Chandler, the doyen of business historians, famously ascribed Britain's relative economic decline to the United States from the late nineteenth century to that country's proclivity towards family or "personal... View Details

Keywords: by Cynthia Churchwell

February 2005 (Revised June 2006)
Case

JCDecaux

By: John R. Wells and Vincent Dessain

Describes how JCDecaux, the second largest global outdoor advertising company, became the world leader in street furniture advertising in a fast consolidating business environment. Also explains why, in the late 1990s, JCDecaux diversified its activities into... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Global Strategy; Leadership Style; Family Ownership; Strategic Planning; Competitive Strategy; Diversification; Advertising Industry

01 Mar 2019
News

3-Minute Briefing: Richard Edelman (MBA 1978)

Chicago in 1952. His biggest risk was putting me in charge of the New York office in 1981, when I was 27 years old. In five or six years, that office grew from 12 employees to 100. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Part of what keeps me going is that my View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services; Professional Services

26 Jun 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, June 26, 2018

the sale be distributed among family members? If the business is not sold, how should ongoing ownership and control be shared among family members? The exercise, which is... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

September 2006
Supplement

Medco Energi Internasional (CW)

In late 2004, Hilmi Panigoro, CEO of the publicly traded Indonesian oil company Medco Energi Internasional, is striving to regain majority control of the company his brother Arifin founded in 1980. The Asian financial crisis of 1999 led to a major restructuring that... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Family Business; Financing and Loans; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations; Energy Industry; Indonesia; Singapore

17 May 2010
Research & Ideas

What Brazil Teaches About Investor Protection

you think about it, outside the United States corporate ownership is relatively concentrated, so having one-share, one-vote in a company that has 51 percent of the equity owned by a family may not change... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Banking; Financial Services

07 Aug 2019
News

“The Star of the North”

closely held businesses. And they want to grow them right where they are. The firm was founded by a group of 12 family business owners who were interested in creating a local ownership vehicle for retiring... View Details

Keywords: Maureen Harmon

18 Nov 2008
First Look

First Look: November 18, 2008

using a unique dataset of corporate 401(k) retirement plans and their mutual fund family trustees. Families secure substantial inflows by being named the trustee of a 401(k) plan. We find that View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

September 2006
Case

Stedman Place: Buy or Rent?

By: Andre F. Perold and David S. Scharfstein

A couple has to decide whether to continue renting a townhouse or buy the one next door. Allows for a discussion of net present value, internal rate of return, and the costs and benefits of homeownership. View Details

Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Asset Pricing; Investment Return; Housing; Family Ownership; Renting or Rental; Valuation