Publications

October 2022
Supplement

Beam Dental (B)

By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani

In May 2016, venture-backed Beam Dental was on the brink of financial collapse. Cofounder and CEO Alex Frommeyer weighed the unattractive terms of a bridge loan offered by Beam’s largest investor. Frommeyer needed to decide whether to accept the terms or concede defeat... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Business Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; Insurance Industry; United States; Kentucky; Ohio

February 2007 (Revised June 2009)
Case

Edelnor (A)

By: Jordan I. Siegel

Fernando del Sol, president of F. S. Inversiones in Chile, had just bought himself a headache as a New Year's present. On December 31, 2001, he purchased a Chilean electricity generation and transmission company called Edelnor that was in danger of becoming insolvent... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Courts and Trials; Business Strategy; Energy Industry; Chile

18 Jul 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research and Ideas, July 18, 2017

customer value propositions. However, this proved difficult to sustain over the long run, and the business ultimately went into bankruptcy in 2001. How did Polaroid rise to a position of such preeminence, and was its downfall inevitable?... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Apr 2013
First Look

First Look: April 2

in the north of Spain, physically separated from it by the Pyrenees Mountains. Presents the history of the region-highly prosperous at the turn of the 20th century but nearing bankruptcy by the 1950s. By 2001, the Basque GDP per capita... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

03 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Lehman Brothers Plus Five: Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?

In September 2008, Lehman Brothers went under—the largest bankruptcy in American history. But that was just the beginning of the story. What followed was the Great Recession, a gargantuan financial crisis that affected the entire world... View Details

Keywords: Re: Multiple Faculty; Banking; Financial Services; Construction; Real Estate

01 Mar 2009
News

Damon Silvers

congressional bailout than Wall Street? No. The reason Congress voted in October to allot $700 billion for financial institutions was the risk that multiple bankruptcies would place the economy in jeopardy. Let’s apply that reasoning to... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Administration of Economic Programs; Government; Transportation Equipment Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Transportation

April 2023
Case

Burning the Sails to Save the Ship: The Pilati Family Dilemma

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger

Octavian Graf Pilati, rising generation member of an Austrian princely family, prepared to sell the palace his family had held for over three hundred years. In recent years, the Pilati family lands had been leveraged as loan collateral for an international venture that... View Details

Keywords: Family Office; Family; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Agribusiness; Family Business; Property; Identity; Culture; Ethics; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governance; Crisis Management; Family and Family Relationships; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Real Estate Industry; Austria

March 2009 (Revised November 2009)
Case

WL Ross and Plascar

By: C. Fritz Foley and Linnea Meyer

How can distressed investors take advantage of the procedures governing an international bankruptcy? Wilbur L. Ross, chairman and CEO of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., LLC, has the opportunity to bid for debt and equity claims on Plascar Industria e Comercio... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Private Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Globalized Firms and Management; Globalized Markets and Industries

fall 2010
Article

Lawsuits and Empire: On the Enforcement of Sovereign Debt in Latin America

By: Faisal Z. Ahmed, Laura Alfaro and Noel Maurer

The re-occurring phenomenon of sovereign default has prompted an enormous theoretical and empirical literature. Most of this research has focused on why countries ever chose to pay their debts (or why private creditors ever expected repayment). The problem originates... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Sovereign Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Debt Securities; Motivation and Incentives; Markets; Equity; Banking Industry; Latin America

Find at Harvard

Read Now

01 Mar 2010
Op-Ed

A Golden Opportunity for Ford and GM

Having weathered the 2008 crisis without U.S. government support, Ford has $23 billion in cash in the bank and a lineup of eco-friendly automobiles to which U.S. consumers are gravitating. GM only emerged from bankruptcy last July, when... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Auto

06 Jan 2003
Research & Ideas

Why Expensing Options Doesn’t Solve the Problem

company to transfer assets and liabilities to certain so-called special purpose entities (SPEs). According to the Powers report, which was published by a special committee of Enron's board after the company entered bankruptcy protection... View Details

Keywords: by William Sahlman

24 May 2017
News

John H. McArthur, MBA 1959, DBA 1963

keep the faculty engaged in something that is interesting and important.” McArthur’s influence outside of HBS is also significant, focusing on large-scale institutional reorganization. In the 1970s he served as a Trustee in Bankruptcy of... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young

01 Dec 2003
News

Rural Renewal

was thoroughly engaging intellectually,” says Reade of her years in the investment business. “We were detectives, piecing together the information to figure out the value of basic businesses.” Ultimately, however, she felt dissatisfied, in part because the View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Crop Production; Agriculture

03 Jun 2016
News

Again in a Great City

investments in the city do, starting with the lowest point in Detroit’s financial history: In July 2013, the city filed for Chapter 9; it was the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in US history. “Uncertainty is a horrible constraint for... View Details

Keywords: April White; photographed by Brian Kelly

April 2006 (Revised December 2006)
Case

The Barber of Buenos Aires: Argentina's Debt Renegotiation

By: Noel Maurer and Aldo Musacchio

Tells the story of Argentina's aggressive strategy for renegotiating its sovereign debt from 2003 to 2005. Most creditors accepted the offer to swap their debt for new securities worth 35 cents on the dollar, with no recognition of all past-due interest. Many holdouts,... View Details

Keywords: Private Sector; Borrowing and Debt; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Sovereign Finance; Government and Politics; Negotiation Tactics; Outcome or Result; Situation or Environment; Argentina

12 Feb 2001
Research & Ideas

Creating Value Across Borders

riches" is instilled in people very early. But in other countries, no such role model exists. The stigma attached to failure is not just cultural; it's also reflected in bankruptcy laws. For example, in Switzerland, where military... View Details

Keywords: by Staff

February 2010
Teaching Note

Saginaw Parts Co. and the General Motors Corp. Credit Default Swap (TN)

By: William E. Fruhan

Teaching Note for [210056]. View Details

Keywords: Credit Derivatives and Swaps; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Law; Cost of Capital; United States

March 2011
Supplement

Countrywide plc (CW)

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah L. Abbott

One of the world's leading investors in distressed companies, Oaktree Capital Management is contemplating a "loan to own" investment in the debt f Countrywide plc, a financially troubled residential real estate agent based in the U.K. Only sixteen months earlier,... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Restructuring; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Assets; Borrowing and Debt; Private Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment Portfolio; Crisis Management; Strategy; Valuation; Real Estate Industry; United Kingdom