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- September 2024
- Supplement
Anker Innovations (B)
By: Feng Zhu, Jiangyong Lu and Nancy Hua Dai
An Amazon-native brand, Anker is the world’s No. 1 mobile charging brand and a leading consumer electronics company. Over the years, Anker developed an effective model of proving new products online first by leveraging customer insights from its proprietary Voice of... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Fire Sales of Safe Assets
By: Gabor Pinter, Emil Siriwardane and Danny Walker
We use trade-level data to study price pressure effects in the UK gilt market from September to October 2022. During this period, forced sales by liability-driven investment funds (LDIs) led to price discounts on the order of 10%, accounting for roughly half the total... View Details
- August 2024 (Revised December 2024)
- Case
Influencer-Led Brand Building: Hairitage and the McKnights
By: William R. Kerr, Daniel O'Connor and James Palano
Longtime hairstyle influencer Mindy McKnight had been building her “Cute Girls Hairstyles” audience across numerous online platforms for nearly two decades. Brand incubator Maesa took an innovative approach to producing successful brands: identifying white space in the... View Details
- 2024
- Case
EPCorp: What Story Does the Data Tell?
By: Jacob M. Cook
In EPCorp: What Story Does the Data Tell?, the Quick Case begins with Shivani Bahl researching problems with her company's website so that she can begin to analyze which option would help EPCorp most: selling all its products on Amazon or improving its own data... View Details
- August 2024 (Revised October 2024)
- Case
Discerene Group: Long-Term Public-Markets Investing
By: Luis M. Viceira and Brent Schwarz
This case discusses active investing based on fundamental valuations and price distortions created by market events, and whether contractual terms between investment managers and their investors can help align incentives between long-term investors and active managers.... View Details
- 2024
- Working Paper
Creditor-on-Creditor Violence and Secured Debt Dynamics
By: Samuel Antill, Neng Wang and Zhaoli Jiang
Secured lenders have recently demanded a new condition in distressed debt restructurings: competing secured lenders must lose priority. We model the implications of this “creditor-on-creditor violence” trend. In our dynamic model, secured lenders enjoy higher priority... View Details
- July 2024 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Dynamic Pricing at Wendy's: Where's the Beef?
By: Elie Ofek, Alicia Dadlani and Martha Hostetter
In early 2024, Wendy’s new CEO announced on an earnings call that the company would install digital menus in its US locations so it could begin testing dynamic pricing—changing prices up or down in response to shifts in supply and demand – as well as allow engaging in... View Details
- July 2024
- Case
Negotiating in a Hurricane: John Branca and the Michael Jackson Estate
By: James K. Sebenius and Alex Green
When the "King of Pop," Michael Jackson, unexpectedly died in 2009, he left behind an estate that was over $500 million in debt, with largely illiquid assets, and legions of creditors poised to begin to seize assets in as soon as 60 days. The task of managing Jackson’s... View Details
- July–August 2024
- Article
Disclosing Downstream Emissions
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
An increasing number of companies are using the E-liability carbon-accounting method as an important tool for tracking progress toward reducing global emissions in their supply chains. The system does not require formal accounting for downstream emissions—those... View Details
- June 2024
- Case
Caesars Entertainment: Governance on the Road to Bankruptcy
By: Kristin Mugford
Caesars Entertainment was a large casino operator in the United States that had been purchased in a 2008 leveraged buyout by Apollo and TPG. In January 2015, Caesars Entertainment Operating Company (CEOC), its largest subsidiary, filed for Chapter 11. This set up a... View Details
Keywords: Gaming; Chapter 11; Fraudulent Conveyance; Apollo; TPG; Bankruptcy; Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Private Equity; Financial Management; Lawsuits and Litigation; Negotiation; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Borrowing and Debt; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Las Vegas
- June 2024
- Case
Alignvest Student Housing: Keep Building or Time to Sell?
By: Shikhar Ghosh and Patrick Sanguineti
Sanjil Shah, Managing Partner of Alignvest Student Housing REIT (ASH), faces the most significant decision thus far in his career: is it the right time to sell the company? Together with his partner Reza Satchu, Shah had developed ASH into the largest student housing... View Details
- June 2024 (Revised September 2024)
- Case
Driving Scale with Otto
By: Rebecca Karp, David Allen and Annelena Lobb
This case asks how startup founders make scaling decisions in light of their priorities for their business and for themselves. Otto was a technology company that applied artificial intelligence technology to sales. It deployed natural language processing to find sales... View Details
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Natural Language Processing; B2B; B2B Innovation; Scaling; Scaling Tech Ventures; Business Startups; AI and Machine Learning; Finance; Sales; Business Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Information Technology Industry; United States; Cambridge; New York (city, NY); Spain
- June 2024
- Article
Information Spillovers in Experience Goods Competition
By: Zhuoqiong Charlie Chen, Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas
When experience goods compete, consuming one product can be informative about value for similar untried products. We study a two-period model of duopoly competition in markets that have this feature and where firms can price discriminate between consumers based on... View Details
- 2024
- Case
EPCorp: Sell on Amazon or Invest in Our Data?
By: Jacob M. Cook
Amidst a history of exponential growth, Electronic Products Company (EPCorp) finds itself at a crossroads as its once thriving retail presence faces a downturn, despite hefty investments into a promising new direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform. Shivani, EPCorp s... View Details
- May 2024
- Background Note
Pricing Strategy and Channels of Distribution: Where Value Delivery and Value Capture Intersect
By: Elie Ofek
Channels of distribution are a critical component of a firm’s go-to-market strategy. A company may elect to sell its products directly to customers (DTC) without the assistance of any intermediaries or, alternatively, it may seek several channel partners to help it... View Details
- April 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
Market Dynamics and Moral Dilemmas: Novo Nordisk’s Weight-Loss Drugs
By: Joseph L. Badaracco, Tom Quinn and John Schultz
Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk was owned by a charitable foundation, and since its founding in the 1920s had focused on producing insulin to treat diabetes. In 2017, however, it released Ozempic, a diabetes treatment with the revolutionary side effect of... View Details
Keywords: Cost vs Benefits; Decisions; Judgments; Values and Beliefs; Global Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Patents; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Product Positioning; Supply and Industry; Supply Chain; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Opportunities; Social Issues; Equality and Inequality; Pharmaceutical Industry; Health Industry; Denmark; United States; Europe; China; India; Middle East; North Africa
- March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
WeightWatchers: Promoting Weight Health
In December 2023, the 60-year-old weight management industry stalwart WeightWatchers announced the launch of WeightWatchers Clinic, which incorporated GLP-1s , a new class of prescription weight-loss medications, into the company’s portfolio of products and mobile app... View Details
- March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
- Case
AMC: The Zero Revenue Case
By: C. Fritz Foley and Donal O'Cofaigh
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic put theatre company AMC’s already perilous financial situation under even further strain. The company’s high levels of debt resulted in a monthly cash-burn which left it facing an imminent Chapter-11 filing in the absence of... View Details
- March 2024
- Case
Nomad: A License to Bank
By: Paul A. Gompers and Pedro Levindo
In late 2023, Lucas Vargas, CEO and co-founder of Nomad, a fintech that offered financial services in the United States for Brazilian residents, had to decide what to do to ensure the company’s continued expansion. Nomad launched its first product, a U.S. digital bank... View Details
Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business Startups; Customer Satisfaction; Decision Making; Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Initial Public Offering; Global Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Organizational Culture; Going Public; Ownership Stake; Innovation and Invention; Strategic Planning; Business and Government Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Diversification; Expansion; Vertical Integration; Leadership; Law; Banking Industry; Technology Industry; Service Industry; Brazil; United States; North America; Latin America
- 2024
- Working Paper
When Insurers Exit: Climate Losses, Fragile Insurers, and Mortgage Markets
By: Ishita Sen, Pari Sastry and Ana-Maria Tenekedjieva
This paper studies how homeowners insurance markets respond to growing climate losses and how this impacts mortgage market dynamics. Using Florida as a case study, we show that traditional insurers are exiting high risk areas, and new lower quality insurers are... View Details