Publications

February 2022
Supplement

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

Article

What Do Private Equity Firms Say They Do?

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

We survey 79 private equity investors with combined assets under management (AUM) of over $750 billion about their practices in firm valuation, capital structure, governance, and value creation. Investors rely primarily on internal rate of return (IRR) and multiples to... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Valuation; Capital Structure; Value Creation

Find at Harvard

September 2017
Case

Blackstone's Julia Kahr at the Summit

By: Paul A. Gompers, John D. Dionne and Amram Migdal

In 2009, Blackstone, the New York-based alternative asset and financial services firm, committed to invest up to $750 million into Summit Materials, a new company in the aggregates sector (i.e., construction materials, such as crushed stone, sand, gravel, cement,... View Details

January 2022
Supplement

Kornit Digital: The Amazon Warrants (C)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

2002
Other Unpublished Work

Market Liquidity as a Sentiment Indicator

By: Malcolm Baker and Jeremy Stein

We build a model that helps to explain why increases in liquidity—such as lower bid–ask spreads, a lower price impact of trade, or higher turnover—predict lower subsequent returns in both firm-level and aggregate data. The model features a class of irrational... View Details

Keywords: Price; Financial Liquidity; Trade; Valuation; Markets; Forecasting and Prediction; Equity; Stock Shares; Investment Return

Read Now

09 Aug 2016
First Look

August 9, 2016

Abstract—We examine immigrant entrepreneurship and the survival and growth of immigrant-founded businesses over time relative to native-founded companies. Our work quantifies immigrant contributions to new firm creation in a wide variety of fields using View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Nov 2010
First Look

First Look: November 9, 2010

versus exploitation innovations impact economic growth through a tractable endogenous growth framework that contains multiple innovation sizes, multi-product firms, and entry/exit. Firms invest in exploration R&D to acquire new... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 May 2005
Research & Ideas

Four VCs on Evaluating Opportunities

between us and some other firms relates to how we think about the CEO. A couple of years ago, we analyzed our successful companies across multiple dimensions. The one trait of all our successful companies was that the CEO we backed at... View Details

Keywords: by Lauren Barley

15 Jul 2014
First Look

First Look: July 15

(Search-Based Peers or SBPs) are fundamentally similar on multiple dimensions. In direct tests, SBPs dominate GICS6 industry peers in explaining cross-sectional variations in base firms' out-of-sample (a) stock returns, (b) View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

08 Sep 2014
Research & Ideas

The Strategic Way To Hire a Sales Team

Google and Groupon, for instance, a higher percentage of employees work in sales than engineering or data mining. And at Facebook the salesforce's ability to translate 'likes' into advertisers will make or break that company's valuation... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

05 Mar 2013
First Look

First Look: March 5

of Einhorn's arguments and the counter claims. The case exposes students to a detailed strategic, financial, and accounting analysis of a business and provides an example of how a thorough business and accounting analysis using primarily public information can change... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

24 Apr 2012
First Look

First Look: April 24

case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/web/product_detail.seam?E=3985220&R=112702-MMC-ENG&conversationId=189822 China Magic Going Home Li Jin, Zhihong Yi, and Jun JiangHarvard Business School Case 211-036 The largest Chinese energy company is thinking about a... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

January 2018
Case

Ak Gıda: IPO or Strategic Sale

By: Suraj Srinivasan and Eren Kuzucu

In 2015, Yıldiz Holding, one of the world’s largest producer of confections, biscuits and crackers, was at the end of its divestiture process from Ak Gida, one of the leading dairy companies in Turkey. The company had adopted a dual track process, pursuing an initial... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Business Model; Business Strategy; Competitive Advantage; Growth and Development Strategy; Value Creation; Decision Making; Growth Management; Mergers and Acquisitions; Initial Public Offering; Business Conglomerates; Business Exit or Shutdown; Family Business; Joint Ventures; Food and Beverage Industry; Turkey

January 2022
Case

SpartanNash Company: The Amazon Warrants (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty, E. Scott Mayfield and Daniel Fisher

As of 12/31/21, Amazon held $22 billion of equity and warrants in related companies. In fact, it often requests a free grant of warrants when it enters into a new commercial agreement with a supplier. Over the past 20 years, Amazon has gotten warrants in almost 20... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Value Creation; Consumer Behavior; Negotiation; Distribution; Ownership; Partners and Partnerships; Business Strategy; Equity; Distribution Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States