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Publications
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- Faculty Publications (732)
- December 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
BRF
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
In 2015, BRF's new leadership team is transforming several aspects of the Brazilian protein giant, which had grown sluggish after the 2011 merger that created it. Underlying their reforms are the common goals of reducing bureaucracy, streamlining decision making, and,... View Details
Keywords: BRF; Brasil Foods; Tarpon; Brazil; Marketing; Protein; Commodity; Commodities; Branding; Turnaround; Culture; Transformation; Mergers; Change Management; Private Equity; Distribution; Food; Goods and Commodities; Supply Chain; Mergers and Acquisitions; Trade; Brands and Branding; Food and Beverage Industry; Brazil
- December 2015 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Unigrains
By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred
Unigrains is a French agribusiness-focused private equity firm that has provided specialized financing to France's agribusiness sector for decades and, as a result, cultivated a strong reputation and relationships in that space. Now that the broader investment... View Details
- 2015
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Howard Fischer, Eric Jacobsen, and Gratitude Railroad's Impact Investing
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Daniel Lennox-Choate
In 2013, Howard Fischer (hedge fund founder) and Eric Jacobsen (serial entrepreneur and private equity investor) established Gratitude Railroad as a community of impact investors in nine different "tracks." Each track represented a different concept for using... View Details
- 2015
- Case
Advanced Leadership Pathways: Robert Whelan and the Student Loan Crisis (B)
By: Rosabeth M. Kanter, Grace Sza-Hua Chen and Ai-Ling Jamila Malone
Bob Whelan developed an idea with partners that was a seed before his fellowship year and addressed a significant national challenge - college financing - with a creative concept and experience from his years in investment banking. His nonprofit was called 13th Avenue... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
The Impact of Funds: An Evaluation of CDC 2004-12
By: Josh Lerner, Ann Leamon, Steve Dew and Dong Ik Lee
CDC was founded in 1948 as part of the U.K. government's efforts to develop the economic resources of Britain's remaining colonies. Since then, CDC has pursued a series of strategies to "do good without losing money," as its original mission was phrased. Its approach... View Details
- Article
The Payoff of Pay-for-Success
By: V. Kasturi Rangan and Lisa Chase
Pay-for-success contracts also known as social impact bonds, have been widely touted as a clever way to fill the funding gap plaguing social programs by attracting a tranche of the trillions of dollars in private return-seeking capital. This article takes an in-depth... View Details
- August 2015
- Case
Kjell & Company: Electronics Accessories Retail in the Nordics
By: Krishna Palepu, Das Narayandas and Kerry Herman
Swedish electronics accessories retailer Kjell is considering several issues as it plots its next stage of growth. How should it balance opportunities to expand retail stores into a new market (Oslo, Norway) with additional growth in its home market—Sweden—with... View Details
- July 2015
- Case
Vita: Cosmetics in the Nordics
By: Das Narayandas, Krishna Palepu and Kerry Herman
Vita is a Norwegian cosmetics retailer owned by FSN Capital, a Scandinavian private equity company. The company has a strong market position in Norway. The case focuses on two strategic issues: how to develop an e-commerce strategy to supplement the company's... View Details
- July 2015
- Case
Private Equity Finance Vignettes: 2016
By: Paul A. Gompers and Victoria Ivashina
This case contains four vignettes that provide an introduction to the issues covered in the course, Private Equity Finance. View Details
- June 2015
- Case
The Valuation and Financing of Lady M Confections
By: Mihir A. Desai and Elizabeth A. Meyer
This case explores the decision-making process that small, private businesses must undertake when considering an expansion and when selling equity to outside investors. In the process, students are asked to complete two exercises: a break-even analysis and a valuation... View Details
- May 2015 (Revised October 2015)
- Background Note
Upstream Oil and Gas Private Equity
By: Victoria Ivashina, Graham Patton and Tyler Todd
- Article
Do Private Equity Firms Have Better Management Practices?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
Using an innovative survey measure of management practices on over 15,000 firms, we find private equity firms are better managed than government, family, and privately owned firms, and have similar management to publicly listed firms. This is true both in developed and... View Details
- Article
Does Management Matter in Schools?
By: Nicholas Bloom, Renata Lemos, Raffaella Sadun and John Van Reenen
We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden,... View Details
Keywords: Management; Education; Business Strategy; Education Industry; Germany; Sweden; India; Canada; Italy; Brazil; United Kingdom; United States
- 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
- April 2015
- Case
Accor: Designing an Asset-Right Business and Disclosure Strategy
By: Mozaffar Khan and George Serafeim
Sebastien Bazin was now in charge of Accor, the world's largest French hotelier, a CAC 40 company with 3,600 hotels in 92 countries and a market cap of €10 billion. Previously as the European head of Colony Capital, one of the largest private equity groups and the... View Details
- April 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Yale University Investments Office: February 2015
By: Josh Lerner
David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments—hedge funds, private equity, real estate—given the impact of the recent market turmoil. The case explores the risks... View Details
- Article
The Disintermediation of Financial Markets: Direct Investing in Private Equity
By: Lily Fang, Victoria Ivashina and Josh Lerner
We examine twenty years of direct private equity investments by seven large institutions. These direct investments perform better than public market indices, especially buyout investments and those made in the 1990s. Outperformance by the direct investments, however,... View Details
- February 2015
- Supplement
MuMaté Tool: Evaluating Financing Alternatives
By: Joseph B. Fuller
"MuMaté Tool: Evaluating Financing Alternatives" walks students through the considerations in allocating equity amongst the members of a startup's founding team. This exercise is designed to be used in conjunction with: Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph B. Fuller, Thomas E.... View Details
- February 2015 (Revised April 2018)
- Supplement
Dalian Wanda Group: The AMC Entertainment Acquisition (B)
By: Willy Shih
When Dalian Wanda Group of China announced its plan to acquire the AMC Entertainment theatrical exhibition chain in the United States, many people in the U.S were mystified. Unlike China where theatrical exhibition was experiencing rapid growth, the U.S. market was... View Details
Keywords: AMC Entertainment; Wanda Group; Wang Jianlin; Theater Entertainment; Film Entertainment; Acquisition; Mergers and Acquisitions; Foreign Direct Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Growth and Development Strategy; Business Strategy; Expansion; Motion Pictures and Video Industry; China; United States
- January 2015 (Revised April 2015)
- Case
Lagkagehuset: Building a Bakery Chain
By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney
A Danish bakery chain that was acquired by a private equity firm in 2008, and has grown from 3 to 31 stores, plans to address reoccuring operational and organizational issues before growing further. View Details