Publications

January 1999 (Revised April 2004)
Case

Infox System GmbH

Apax, a private equity firm, has an opportunity to invest in a travel-related print-materials distribution business in Germany. Infox is typical of many buyout opportunities. One of the founders seeks to exit the business, and recently hired managers will have to... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Financial Services Industry; Germany

22 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

The Hedge Fund as Activist

counterintuitive to us that a portfolio manager with a short investment horizon would be willing to devote time and energy to a task delivering long-term value. After all, there are no guarantees that the effort will pay off, or that... View Details

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood; Financial Services

2021
Working Paper

Going by the Book: Valuation Ratios and Stock Returns

By: Ki-Soon Choi, Eric So and Charles C.Y. Wang

We study the use of firms’ book-to-market ratios (B/M) in value investing and its implications for comovements in firms’ stock returns and trading volumes. We show B/M has become increasingly detached from common alternative valuation ratios over time while also... View Details

Keywords: Valuation Ratios; Book-to-market Ratios; Investment Return; Investment; Decision Making

SSRN

Read Now

October 1986 (Revised February 2008)
Case

Congoleum Corp. (Abridged)

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Describes the development and terms of the largest leveraged buyout up to the date of the case. The main problem is to value the positions of the various participants: lenders, equity holders, investment bankers, and management. This is an abridged version of an... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Management; Negotiation Participants; Valuation

01 Mar 2012
News

Does America Really Need Manufacturing?

January 2018
Case

Blue Harbour's Activism at Babcock & Wilcox

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

The case describes Blue Harbour Group's investment in Babcock & Wilcox and its transformation into BWX Technologies. In 2004, activist hedge fund Blue Harbour Group invested in Babcock & Wilcox, an energy and construction company. Blue Harbour developed an investment... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Governance; Investment Activism; Leading Change; Energy Industry; Construction Industry; United States

07 May 2021
News

From Dutch Tulips to Internet Stocks, How to Spot a Financial Bubble

January 2018
Case

PrimeStone Capital and dormakaba

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Quinn Pitcher

London-based activist hedge fund PrimeStone Capital identifies a potential investment in Swiss security company Kaba. PrimeStone believes that the company is undervalued because it has been pushing back various financial targets and thinks it can help by proposing a... View Details

Keywords: Investment Activism; Value Creation; Executive Compensation; Performance Improvement

July–August 2014
Article

The Crisis in Retirement Planning

By: Robert C. Merton

Corporate America began to really take notice of the looming retirement crisis in the wake of the dot-com crash, when companies in major industries went bankrupt in large part because of their inability to meet their pension obligations. The result was an acceleration... View Details

Find at Harvard

Kristin Mugford is the Melvin Tukman Senior Lecturer of Business Administration in the Finance Unit at the Harvard Business School and the Senior Associate Dean for Culture and Community. She previously served as Faculty Chair for field-based learning and... View Details

September 1998
Case

Anheuser-Busch and the U.S. Brewing Industry

Presents an analytical report on the company's competitive position and on the industry structure in 1991. Used to show how a company can generate value through steady, incremental investment over a long period in a business model tailored to the industry context. Also... View Details

Keywords: Competition; Industry Structures; Growth and Development Strategy; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

May 2007 (Revised January 2009)
Case

Stryker Corporation: In-sourcing PCBs

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

This case examines a proposed investment in the capability to manufacture printed circuit boards (PCBs) in-house rather than buying them from third-party contract manufacturers. Stryker Corporation's Instruments business is considering the proposal in response to... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Capital Budgeting; Investment; Investment Return; Production; Valuation

Sara Fleiss was the co-founder and co-portfolio manager of Emeth Partners, an emerging markets arbitrage hedge fund. Prior to founding Emeth, Sara was the lead analyst on the Emerging Markets Equities portfolio at Harvard Management Company (HMC). At HMC, Sara... View Details

Forthcoming
Article

Catching Outliers: Committee Voting and the Limits of Consensus When Financing Innovation

By: Andrey Malenko, Ramana Nanda, Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Savitar Sundaresan

We document that investment committees of major VCs use a voting rule where one partner `championing' an early-stage investment is sufficient to invest. Their stated reason for this rule is to `catch outliers'. The same VCs use a more conventional `majority' rule for... View Details

Keywords: Optimal Voting Rules; Innovation and Invention; Venture Capital; Investment; Decision Making; Voting

SSRN

Read Now

July 2017
Case

Centerbridge Partners and Great Wolf Resorts: Buying from a Highly Regarded Competitor

By: Josh Lerner, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal

The case examines the March 2015 Centerbridge Partners investment decision regarding whether to acquire Great Wolf Resorts, a North American family-oriented indoor water parks and hotel operator, from a private equity (PE) competitor, Apollo Global Management. The case... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity Financing; Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities; CMBS; Secondary Buyouts; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Cost; Cost of Capital; Equity; Private Equity; Financial Instruments; Debt Securities; Accommodations Industry; Entertainment and Recreation Industry; Financial Services Industry; North and Central America; United States