Publications

December 2008 (Revised March 2009)
Case

Rosetree Mortgage Opportunity Fund

By: Victoria Ivashina and Andre F. Perold

In December 2008, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Rosetree Capital Management was evaluating the purchase of a pool of U.S. residential mortgages. The firm had formed an investment vehicle to acquire troubled residential mortgages... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Mortgages; Investment; Housing; Valuation; United States

December 2009 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Lyondell Chemical Company

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Sarah Abbott

Hit with an industry recession and the global financial crisis of 2008, in January 2009 LyondellBasell Industries AF S.C.A., one of the world's largest internationally diversified chemical companies headquartered in The Netherlands, placed its U.S. operations and a... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Capital Structure; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Financing and Loans; International Finance; Crisis Management; Chemical Industry; Netherlands; United States

January 2024 (Revised February 2024)
Case

TPG Rise Climate: Deploying 'Climate Capital'

By: Vikram S. Gandhi, David Allen, Sarah Mehta and Shannon Roche

This case is about TPG Rise Climate, a $7.3 billion climate impact fund launched in 2021 by alternative asset manager TPG. Climate investing is a complex, capital-intensive endeavor; entering it has forced TPG to think and act differently. Relative to other funds, Rise... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Environmental Management; Ownership; Science; Value; Asset Management; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Financial Markets; Financial Services Industry; California; San Francisco; New York (city, NY)

28 Oct 2013
Research & Ideas

Responsible Leadership in an Unforgiving World

isn't about creating large hierarchical organizations with huge factories—it's about learning to combine and recombine dozens of "modules" both internally and externally to achieve goals. "What leaders are... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July 2004 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Man Group plc

By: Andre F. Perold and Herve Duteil

In 2004, Man Group was the world's largest packager and distributor of investment vehicles tied to hedge funds. The firm had an equity market capitalization of $10 billion and funds under management of $38 billion. Man's offerings spanned a wide range of risk/reward... View Details

Keywords: Capital Markets; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Funds; Global Strategy; Distribution; Product Development; Financial Services Industry

Find at Harvard

January 2007 (Revised February 2009)
Case

Austin, Blakeley, & Cambridge, LLC

The founding partners of ABC, LLC, one of the leading private equity firms in the world, are trying to understand why some of the other top firms in the business, such as KKR and Apollo, have been tapping the public equity markets for their own funds, and whether they... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Public Equity; Investment Funds; Going Public; Financial Services Industry

September 2017 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Asset Allocation at the Cook County Pension Fund

By: Emil Siriwardane, Juliane Begenau and Yuval Gonczarowski

Nickol Hackett, chief investment officer of the Cook County Pension Fund, is responsible for investing the fund’s $9 billion worth of assets on behalf of the employees of Cook County, Illinois. Like many other defined-benefit pensions at the time, the Cook County... View Details

Keywords: Asset Management; Investment Funds; Financial Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions

2023
Working Paper

Flow-Driven ESG Returns

By: Philippe van der Beck

I show that the recent returns to ESG investing are strongly driven by price impact from flows towards ESG funds. Using data on institutional trades, I estimate the market’s ability to accommodate the demand of ESG funds, which is given by the elasticity of... View Details

Keywords: Investment Funds; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Markets; Investment Return

Read Now

September 2010 (Revised March 2012)
Case

AQR's Momentum Funds (A)

By: Daniel Baird Bergstresser, Lauren H. Cohen, Randolph B. Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy

AQR is a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut, that is considering offering a wholly new line of product to retail investors, namely the ability to invest in the price phenomenon known as momentum. There is a large body of empirical evidence supporting momentum... View Details

Keywords: Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Product Development; Financial Services Industry; Greenwich

16 Aug 2024
In Practice

Election 2024: What's at Stake for Business and the Workplace?

Sucher: Dust off that COVID playbook After the June 27 debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, 64 percent of 1,024 US workers surveyed reported suffering—or seeing others... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

27 Jul 2010
First Look

First Look: July 27

damaged financial markets. As an alternative to the patchwork solutions and ideologically charged proposals that have dominated other discussions, the Squam Lake group sets... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

February 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Case

Smith Breeden Associates: The Equity Plus Fund (A)

By: Robert C. Merton and Alberto Moel

In early 1997, Smith Breeden Associates, a money management and consulting firm, was pondering the future of the Equity Plus Fund. The Equity Plus Fund was an S&P enhanced-index fund that tried to outperform the S&P Index by replicating the index using low-cost... View Details

Keywords: Assets; Cash; Financial Markets; Financial Strategy; Mortgages; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Marketing; Performance; Consulting Industry