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Japan - Global

record-breaking profits. Its operations spanned multiple industries—including energy, chemicals, healthcare, and infrastructure—and more than 80% of its profits were generated overseas. The company had evolved from a prewar industrial giant into a globally integrated... View Details

17 May 2012
Working Paper Summaries

Is a VC Partnership Greater Than the Sum of Its Partners?

Keywords: by Michael Ewens & Matthew Rhodes-Kropf; Financial Services

January 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

The Olmos Project: Value Creation and Value Capture

By: John Macomber, Fernanda Miguel, Laura Urdapilleta and Valeria Moy

Private investment in public infrastructure can be encouraged when there are multiple avenues to capture and to share the value created by such a project. Gains in the market value of land adjacent to projects are not customarily channeled back into defraying the... View Details

Keywords: Value Capture; Infrastructure; Decision Making; Agribusiness; Value Creation; South America; Peru

February 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Smith Breeden Associates: The Equity Plus Fund (A)

By: Robert C. Merton and Alberto Moel

In early 1997, Smith Breeden Associates, a money management and consulting firm, was pondering the future of the Equity Plus Fund. The Equity Plus Fund was an S&P enhanced-index fund that tried to outperform the S&P Index by replicating the index using low-cost... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Cash; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Mortgages; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry

C. Fritz Foley is the André R. Jakurski Professor of Business Administration. Foley’s research focuses on corporate finance and the role of the CFO, and he currently teaches Corporate Financial Operations, a second-year MBA elective course he created. He also... View Details

12 Feb 2024
News

Dale LeFebvre to Receive Horatio Alger Award

Dale LeFebvre (MBA 1998), founder and executive chairman of 3.5.7.11 Investments, was recently named by the nonprofit Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans as a recipient of the 2024 Horatio Alger Award. For more than 75 years, the award has been... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

October 2017 (Revised April 2019)
Case

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Management

15 Oct 2024
Cold Call Podcast

What Sequoia Capital Can Teach Leaders About Sustaining Long-Term Growth

Keywords: Re: Jo Tango & Christina M. Wallace; Financial Services

2010
Working Paper

Growth through Heterogeneous Innovations

By: Ufuk Akcigit and William R. Kerr

We study how exploration versus exploitation innovations impact economic growth through a tractable endogenous growth framework that contains multiple innovation sizes, multi-product firms, and entry/exit. Firms invest in exploration R&D to acquire new product lines... View Details

Keywords: Business Ventures; Decision Choices and Conditions; Economic Growth; Investment; Innovation and Invention; Patents; Size; Research and Development; United States

January 2006
Article

Are Perks Purely Managerial Excess?

By: Raghuram G. Rajan and Julie Wulf

A widespread view is that executive perks exemplify agency problems--they are a route through which managers misappropriate a firm's surplus. Accordingly, firms with high free cash flow, operating in industries with limited investment prospects, should offer more... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Cash Flow; Business or Company Management; Situation or Environment; Performance Productivity; Investment; Executive Compensation

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08 Dec 2006
Working Paper Summaries

When Learning and Performance are at Odds: Confronting the Tension

Keywords: by Sara J. Singer & Amy C. Edmondson

October 2013
Case

Oaktree and the Restructuring of CIT Group (A)

By: Victoria Ivashina and David Scharfstein

CIT's prepackaged bankruptcy marked the first time a major financial institution was able to successfully restructure and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, challenging conventional views that a financial firm could not survive bankruptcy proceedings as a going... View Details

Keywords: Debt Securities; Restructuring; Financial Services Industry

20 Jan 2020
News

Is Venture Capital Worth The Risk?

Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in Emerging Markets

Emerging markets play an increasingly important role in the global economy, accounting for 31% of global GDP and more than 50% of global foreign direct investment in 2012. However, doing business in emerging markets remains subject to a high degree of "policy risk,"... View Details

June 1992 (Revised June 1995)
Case

RJR Nabisco Holdings Capital Corp.--1991

By: Peter Tufano

An investment manager notices a large apparent discrepancy in the prices of two nearly-identical bonds issued in conjunction with a major leveraged buyout. The manager must figure out whether the instruments are mispriced relative to one another, and if so, how to... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Financial Instruments

February 2014 (Revised August 2015)
Case

Mission Produce

By: Jose B. Alvarez and Mary Shelman

As the leading distributor of fresh avocados in the U.S., Mission Produce was at a crossroads in late 2013. Avocado consumption was booming and CEO Steve Barnard wanted to acquire additional land in Peru and develop new avocado farms to help fill a projected supply... View Details

Keywords: Fresh Produce; Food; Peru; Vertical Integration; Supply Chain; Agriculture; Agribusiness; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; Peru

October 2005
Case

Tad Piper and Piper Jaffray

By: William W. George and Andrew N. McLean

In 2005, Tad Piper reflects on the successful spin-off from US Bancorp of Piper Jaffray, the investment bank founded by his grandfather. Profiles the development of Piper Jaffray from a Midwestern brokerage house to a national, diversified financial services firm. In... View Details

Keywords: Crisis Management; Leadership Style; Management Style; Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Financial Services Industry