Publications

June 2007 (Revised November 2008)
Case

Nordic Telephone Company's Bid for TDC

Nordic Telephone Company, formed by a consortium of private equity firms, has made a public tender offer for Denmark's leading telecommunications company, TDC. TDC's board of directors approved the take-private transaction, and 88% of shareholders have accepted the... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Communication Technology; Decision Choices and Conditions; Negotiation Offer; Privatization; Telecommunications Industry; Denmark

August 2002 (Revised June 2003)
Case

New Wachovia (A), The

By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and Jeremy Swinson

In April 2001, First Union Corp. announced an agreement to merge with Wachovia Corp., a fellow North Carolina-based commercial bank. While the banks were preparing to consummate the merger, SunTrust Banks, Inc. of Atlanta, made a hostile offer for Wachovia, setting in... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Mergers and Acquisitions; Conflict and Resolution; Banks and Banking; Banking Industry; Atlanta; North Carolina

25 Oct 2014
News

Executive pay: Moneybags

20 Jul 2022
News

Might Elon Musk Be Forced to Buy Twitter?

Research Summary

The Talent at the Table: Business Expertise and Share Ownership in Fortune 500 Boardrooms

This paper examines the relationship between corporate value and "vestige" directors, defined as directors who own sizeable shareholdings but lack salient business experience relative to their peers on Fortune 500 boards. These people come to serve on... View Details

Price Anchors and Mergers and Acquisitions

Prior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a... View Details

20 Dec 2006
Op-Ed

Investors Hurt by Dual-Track Tax Reporting

Since when do the taxman and the shareholder agree? IRS Commissioner Mark Everson and SEC Chairman Christopher Cox (HBS MBA '76) have advanced a simple, but controversial proposal. Companies would be required to disclose how much they pay... View Details

Keywords: by Mihir Desai

April 2011
Article

Ownership Structure and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing

By: Chen Lin, Yue Ma, Paul Malatesta and Yuhai Xuan

This article identifies an important channel through which excess control rights affect firm value. Using a new, hand-collected data set on corporate ownership and control of 3,468 firms in 22 countries during the 1996-2008 period, we find that the cost of debt... View Details

Keywords: Borrowing and Debt; Cash Flow; Cost; Financing and Loans; Governance Controls; Ownership Stake; Business and Shareholder Relations

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September 1991
Case

Kaiser Steel Corporation, 1984

By: Timothy A. Luehrman

In 1984, Kaiser's shareholders were asked to approve a complicated leveraged buyout of the company. Students are asked to analyze the proposed transaction and make a recommendation. To do this, they must determine who gets what in the deal, whether and how any value is... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital; Value Creation; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Steel Industry

March 2002
Case

Unified Energy System at Russia

On April 4, 2000, at a board of directors' meeting, CEO Anatoly Chubais, Russia's legendary reformer, announced his plan to break up the Russian joint stock company Unified Energy System (UES). The plan envisioned breaking up the giant energy monopoly along two lines... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Energy Industry; Russia

21 Jul 2020
News

Risk, Reward, and Impact

21 Mar 2018
News

Facebook critics assail CEO Zuckerberg

02 Nov 2017
HBS Seminar

Florian Ederer, Yale University

January 2017
Case

T. Rowe Price and the Dell Inc. MBO (A)

By: Lena G. Goldberg

T. Rowe Price’s mutual funds, separate accounts, institutional investors, and retirement accounts were, in the aggregate, Dell Inc.’s third largest shareholder in 2013 when Dell announced a management-led buyout, or MBO, structured as a merger. In considering whether... View Details

Keywords: Fiduciary Duties; Management Buy-out; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Services Industry; Computer Industry; Delaware

22 Aug 2007
Research & Ideas

The Hedge Fund as Activist

performance, most investors have found it easier to vote "with their feet" by selling shares, rather than making formal complaints. Large shareholders, however, have stronger incentives to monitor management. The conventional wisdom is that because these... View Details

Keywords: by Robin Greenwood; Financial Services

Research Summary

Overview

In the light of multiple corporate debacles, financial crises and environmental disasters across the globe, the need for corporate goals to transition from simply maximizing shareholder wealth to optimizing stakeholder welfare is being echoed in various quarters. Dr.... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Responsibility; Stakeholder Management; Social Enterprise; Inclusive Growth; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; India

October 2012
Article

The Effect of Reference Point Prices on Mergers and Acquisitions

By: Malcolm Baker, Xin Pan and Jeffrey Wurgler

Prior stock price peaks of targets affect several aspects of merger and acquisition activity. Offer prices are biased toward recent peak prices although they are economically unremarkable. An offer's probability of acceptance jumps discontinuously when it exceeds a... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Stocks; Price; Valuation; Negotiation