Publications

28 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

Amazon, eBay and the Bidding Wars

Beware of competitors lying in the grass, says Harvard Business School professor Alvin E. Roth. His study of bidding practices on eBay suggest that those who wait until the last minute to bid—a practice called sniping—is an effective way... View Details

Keywords: by Sara Grant; Web Services; Technology

April 2005 (Revised August 2011)
Case

Berkshire Partners: Bidding for Carter's

By: Malcolm P. Baker and James Quinn

A five-member team from Berkshire Partners must recommend a final bid and financial structure for a leveraged buyout of William Carter Co., a leading producer of children's apparel. Investorcorp, a global investment group, has put the company up for auction. Goldman... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital Structure; Private Equity; Financing and Loans; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Apparel and Accessories Industry

winter 2005
Article

Financing Auction Bids

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and S. Viswanathan

In many auctions, bidders do not have enough cash to pay their bid. If bidders have asymmetric cash positions and independent private values then auctions will be inefficient. However, what happens if bidders have access to financial markets? We characterize efficient... View Details

Keywords: Financing and Loans; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Financial Markets; Valuation; Cash; Capital Markets; Profit; Competition

November 1957
Case

Competitive Bid (B)

April 1995 (Revised May 1995)
Teaching Note

Bidding Exercise (TN)

By: David E. Bell

October 2011 (Revised August 2012)
Case

INNOVA-MEX's Bid for ENKONTROL

By: Ramana Nanda, William R. Kerr and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In their second year, two Mexican HBS MBAs joined forces to start a search fund based in Mexico City. They had raised money to acquire an existing private company in Mexico with an initial enterprise value between $5 million and $15 million. Just seven months after... View Details

Keywords: Business Exit or Shutdown; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Investment Funds; Corporate Finance; Mexico City

May 2016 (Revised September 2017)
Case

Canadian Pacific's Bid for Norfolk Southern

By: Benjamin C. Esty and E. Scott Mayfield

In December 2015, Canadian Pacific Railroad (CPR) has just made its third bid to acquire Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC), one of the largest railroads in the United States. Having rejected the prior offers, NSC’s CEO James Squires and the NSC board must now value... View Details

Keywords: Capital Structure; Cash Flow; Cost of Capital; Financial Strategy; Investment Activism; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Corporate Strategy; Rail Transportation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Transformation; United States; Canada

December 2003
Case

Fox Bids for the NFL-1993

By: Bharat N. Anand and Catherine M. Conneely

The Fox television network, launched in 1987 by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was in a precarious position in 1993. Although it had met its business plan targets, its ratings in the recently concluded November "sweeps" were indifferent, several of its newly launched... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Competitive Strategy; Financial Reporting; Bids and Bidding; Revenue; Television Entertainment; Media and Broadcasting Industry

January 2004
Article

Precautionary Bidding in Auctions

By: Péter Esö and Lucy White

Keywords: Bids and Bidding; Auctions

Read Now

February 2011 (Revised September 2016)
Case

Investcorp and the Moneybookers Bid

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Nori Gerardo Lietz

In January 2007, Hazem Ben-Gacem, managing director and co-head of Investcorp Technology Partners (ITP), needs to decide what to bid at an auction for Moneybookers Limited, one of the top three e-payment solution providers in Europe. However, approximately 70% of... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Private Equity; Investment; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Europe; United States

2007
Article

Greedy Bidding Strategies for Keyword Auctions

By: Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna Karlin, Claire Mathieu and Michael Schwarz

How should players bid in keyword auctions such as those used by Google, Yahoo! and MSN? We consider greedy bidding strategies for a repeated auction on a single keyword, where in each round, each player chooses some optimal bid for the next round, assuming that the... View Details

Keywords: Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Strategy; Revenue; Search Technology

Read Now

06 Feb 2008
Working Paper Summaries

On Best-Response Bidding in GSP Auctions

Keywords: by Matthew Cary, Aparna Das, Benjamin G. Edelman, Ioannis Giotis, Kurtis Heimerl, Anna R. Karlin, Claire Mathieu & Michael Schwarz; Technology

April 2016 (Revised June 2017)
Teaching Note

Dollar General Bids for Family Dollar

By: Jonas Heese, Paula A. Price and Suraj Srinivasan

In spring 2015, Dollar General CEO Rick Dreiling was looking ahead to retiring at year's end but worried about ensuring continued growth for the company he had built since 2008 into a market leader in the U.S. discount retail world. Dollar General operated over 11,500... View Details

Keywords: Dollar General; Family Dollar; Dollar Tree; Antitrust; Board Of Directors; Activist Investors; Federal Trade Commission; Acquisition; Valuation; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry

July 2007 (Revised February 2010)
Case

Saffronart.com: Bidding for Success

By: Mukti Khaire and R. Daniel Wadhwani

Saffronart, a five-year-old online art auction company, leads the market for modern Indian art and now faces competitors in the market it created. Established in 2000 by the wife-and-husband team of Minal and Dinesh Vazirani, Saffronart.com is an innovative online... View Details

Keywords: Arts; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Auctions; Industry Growth; Competition; Online Technology; Fine Arts Industry; India

25 Jan 2016
Research & Ideas

When Negotiating a Price, Never Bid with a Round Number

Here’s an easy tip for anyone negotiating to buy a car, a house, or even a company. When you make an initial offer, don’t bid with a round number like $10,000 or $1 million or $15 per share. Rather, bid with... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

November 1957 (Revised November 1984)
Case

Competitive Bid (A)

October 2008 (Revised September 2011)
Supplement

PepsiCo's Bid for Quaker Oats (B)

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Leonid Soudakov

Second in a series on PepsiCo's bid for Quaker Oats. Describes the negotiations between PepsiCo and Quaker including due-diligence process, first bid, and counteroffer. Quaker's counteroffer included a collar on equity consideration, and thus the case offers an... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Equity; Bids and Bidding; Negotiation Offer; Negotiation Preparation; Valuation; Food and Beverage Industry