Publications

March 2021 (Revised January 2022)
Case

Revlon: Surviving Covid-19

By: Kristin Mugford and Sarah Gulick

In October 2020, Revlon faced a crossroads. While it had been struggling with high levels of debt before COVID-19, the pandemic had caused it to go further into debt. Unlike other financial crises, many consumers had stopped buying skincare or cosmetics, and sales of... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Leveraged Buyouts; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financial Liquidity; Bonds; Corporate Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Beauty and Cosmetics Industry; Financial Services Industry; United States

July 2005 (Revised December 2005)
Case

General Motors U.S. Pension Funds

By: Luis M. Viceira and Helen Tung

In June 2003, General Motors Corp. (GM) successfully marketed the largest corporate debt offering in U.S. history, worth $17.6 billion. The offering included $13.6 billion worth of debt denominated in dollars, euros, and pounds and $4 billion dollars denominated in... View Details

Keywords: Decisions; Bonds; Investment Return; Policy; Borrowing and Debt; Corporate Finance; Auto Industry; United States

March 1996 (Revised August 1997)
Case

Recycling Problem: International Bank Lending in the 1970s

By: Huw Pill

Provides a brief overview of international bank lending to developing countries in the 1970s and its culmination in the Third-World debt crisis after 1982. View Details

Keywords: International Finance; Financing and Loans; Borrowing and Debt; Developing Countries and Economies; Financial Crisis; Banking Industry

August 2012 (Revised March 2013)
Supplement

Preem (B)

Preem's creditors and owners made a deal with an 18 month extension of debt maturities and a minor equity injection in 2009. Now, in 2010, the new maturity is approaching, and refinancing is again unlikely. This time, all the firm's debt is coming due. What went wrong... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Equity; Problems and Challenges; Mining Industry; Energy Industry; Europe

Research Summary

Multilateral Bankruptcy Rules

By: Jerry R. Green

A classic problem in economics is the selection of a bankruptcy rule with good normative properties. The problem as usually specified is given by the “estate” E which is to be divided among the “claims” c= (c₁,... View Details

February 1992 (Revised February 1996)
Case

Jupiter Management Co.

The manager of a small company growth fund considers relative merits of investing in a company's convertible debt versus its common. View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment Portfolio

December 2012 (Revised January 2015)
Technical Note

Early Career LBOs Using the Search Fund Model

By: Howard Stevenson, Michael Roberts and Jim Sharpe

The funded search model is one alternative for individuals who, at some point in their career, want to run their own companies. This note looks at the funded search, as a means to entrepreneurship through acquisition and describes the path to buy and run a business... View Details

Keywords: Search Funds; Search; Entrepreneurial Finance; Investor Behavior; Career Planning; Entrepreneurial Management; Fundraising; Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Capital Structure; Borrowing and Debt; Personal Development and Career; Private Ownership; Acquisition; Finance; Leveraged Buyouts

February 1992 (Revised July 1993)
Case

Telefonica de Argentina S.A.

Deals with the privatization of the Argentine telephone industry. Focuses on the restructuring aspect. Commercial banks owned sovereign debt of Argentina trading at a deep discount to par. The question is whether the banks should exchange their sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Financial Instruments; Restructuring; Privatization; Commercial Banking; Telecommunications Industry; Argentina

Find at Harvard

October 2013
Module Note

Note on LBO Capital Structure

By: Victoria Ivashina, Paul A. Gompers, Paul A. Gompers, Victoria Ivashina, Joris Van Gool and Joris Van Gool

This note discusses the capital structure often found in LBO transactions. Although the specifics of each capital structure vary case by case, in any given year, there is a great deal of similarity in the capital structure of these buyouts. These similarities exist... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital Structure

21 Aug 2015
Blog Post

My Fear of Student Debt: Funding the HBS/HKS Joint Degree

How do you decide whether taking on student debt outweighs the professional and personal benefits of graduate school? This decision was hard for me. I spent four years after my undergraduate studies working for low pay at non-profits... View Details

December 2007 (Revised December 2021)
Case

The South Sea Company (A)

By: David A. Moss, Eugene Kintgen, Agnieszka Rafalska and Kimberly Hagan

In early 1720, the South Sea Company and the Bank of England were cometing for the right to issue new shares and to exchange those shares for government bons that were then in the hands of the public. The British government had already executed two such debt conversion... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Stock Shares; Financial Strategy; Bids and Bidding; Business and Government Relations; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Great Britain

Research Summary

Tom's current research interests involve the role of accounting information in contracting, particularly in the setting of accounting based covenants in debt contracts. View Details

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

March 1993 (Revised July 2008)
Case

Liability Management at General Motors

By: Peter Tufano

An analyst at General Motors charged with managing the structure of the automaker's debt must decide whether and how to modify the interest rate exposure of the firm's most recent debt offering. The analyst must take into consideration GM's liability management policy... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Financial Management; Interest Rates; Risk Management; Auto Industry; North America

25 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How Chapter 11 Saved the US Economy

the airline to work with the court to restructure and unload a significant amount of its debt, giving an iconic company "a second bite of the apple," says Gilson. An unabashed advocate of Chapter 11 and debt restructuring,... View Details

Keywords: by Kim Girard; Financial Services

11 Dec 2012
News

Measuring Bank Credit Supply

January 2013 (Revised June 2017)
Case

The Perfect Storm: What Happens When the Market Moves Four Standard Deviations?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz

Adam Carter was the portfolio manager for Tate Modern Finance III, L.P. (“Tate” or the “Fund”), the third in a series of U.S. commercial real estate debt funds sponsored by the London-based Tate Partners. The Fund was capitalized with $700 million of equity... View Details

Keywords: CMBS; CLO; Repo Financing; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Financing and Loans

July 2018
Teaching Note

The Perfect Storm: What Happens When the Market Moves Four Standard Deviations?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree

Adam Carter was the portfolio manager for Tate Modern Finance III, L.P. (“Tate” or the “Fund”), the third in a series of U.S. commercial real estate debt funds sponsored by the London-based Tate Partners. The Fund was capitalized with $700 million of equity... View Details

Keywords: CMBS; CLO; Repo Financing; Real Estate; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Financing and Loans

2014
Working Paper

Saving More to Borrow Less: Experimental Evidence from Access to Formal Savings Accounts in Chile

By: Felipe Kast and Dina Pomeranz

Poverty is often characterized not only by low and unstable income, but also by heavy debt burdens. We find that reducing barriers to saving through access to free savings accounts decreases participants' short-term debt by about 20%. In addition, participants who... View Details

Keywords: Saving; Poverty; Borrowing and Debt; Chile