Publications

December 2014
Article

The Real Product Market Impact of Mergers

By: Albert Sheen

I document sources of value creation in mergers by analyzing novel data on the quality and price of goods sold by merging firms. When two competitors in a product market merge, their products converge in quality, and prices fall relative to the competition. These... View Details

Keywords: Value Creation; Quality; Price; Goods and Commodities; Mergers and Acquisitions

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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

September 2003
Case

Valuing a Cross-Border LBO: Bidding on the Yell Group

By: Mihir A. Desai, Paolo Notarnicola and Mark Veblen

A team of private equity investors must value the leveraged buyout of a Yellow Pages business that operated in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In the process, they must wrestle with issues of how to conduct cross-border valuations and how to value a... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Cash Flow; Private Equity; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Valuation

December 1988 (Revised March 1989)
Case

Pabst Brewing Co.

At the end of 1984 the Pabst Brewing Co. was the object of a takeover contest for the second time in three years. Nearly two years after a reorganization in early 1983 Pabst still suffered from low margins and high debt service costs. This case describes the takeover... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Restructuring; Bids and Bidding; Acquisition; Manufacturing Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States

September 1996 (Revised June 1998)
Case

InterSoft of Argentina (B)

By: Linda A. Hill and Stacy Palestrant

Focuses on InterSoft of Argentina, a growing software company in Argentina. In 1993, InterSoft acquires a Russian software company and Emilo Lopez, the vice president and director of InterSoft's Systems Software Lab, must manage a creative, cross-cultural, "virtual"... View Details

Keywords: Applications and Software; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Business Growth and Maturation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Management Teams; Groups and Teams; Partners and Partnerships; Conflict Management; Information Technology Industry; Argentina; Russia

February 2021
Background Note

Jobs to Be Done: A Toolbox

By: Derek C. M. van Bever, Bob Moesta, Iuliana Mogosanu, Shaye Roseman and Katie Zandbergen

The Jobs to Be Done methodology is both a theory and a practical approach for understanding customer behavior and why people make the choices they make. Many practitioners, whether they work for startups or incumbent businesses, find Jobs to Be Done useful because it... View Details

Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Decision Choices and Conditions; Knowledge Acquisition; Attitudes; Perception; Theory; Behavior; Customer Relationship Management

April 1991 (Revised December 1997)
Case

Southland Corp. (A)

By: Richard S. Ruback

Examines the Thompson's $4.9 billion leveraged buyout of the Southland Corp. in 1987. As the original founders of Southland, the Thompsons were concerned about losing control over the company upon learning of the Belzberg family's acquiring interest. The teaching... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Governance Controls; Corporate Governance; Bids and Bidding; Valuation; Forecasting and Prediction; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Strategy; Cash Flow

December 2003
Case

Antitrust Regulations in a Global Setting: The EU Investigation of the GE/Honeywell Merger

By: Mihir A. Desai, Belen Villalonga and Mark Veblen

Helps students understand the principles underlying competition and antitrust policy in the context of the proposed GE-Honeywell merger. The U.S. Department of Justice has already approved the transaction and it is being considered by the European Commission. The... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decisions; Economy; Fairness; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Competition; Aerospace Industry

16 Sep 2014
First Look

First Look: September 16

Publications September 2014 The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management Mergers and Acquisitions and Innovation By: Ahuja, Gautam, and Elena Novelli Abstract—This article (a) identifies the different theoretical perspectives and... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Working Paper

Initial Offer Precision and M&A Outcomes

By: Petri Hukkanen and Matti Keloharju

Building on recent research in social psychology, this paper analyzes the link between the precision of initial cash offers and M&A outcomes. About one-half of the offers are made at the precision of $1 or $5 per share, and an additional one-third at the precision of... View Details

Keywords: Price; Mergers and Acquisitions; Negotiation Offer

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31 Aug 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Exclusivity and Control

Keywords: by Andrei Hagiu & Robin S. Lee; Entertainment & Recreation

12 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 12, 2008

Politics and Economics of Accounting for Goodwill at Cisco Systems (A) Harvard Business School Case 109-002 Studies the role of Cisco in setting current U.S. accounting standards for acquisitions and goodwill. Students are asked to View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

17 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

What the Stockdale Paradox Tells Us About Crisis Leadership

don't work out.” How does it apply? (or, Why there is no “normal” to come back to) Your state, industry, organization—or unconscious mind—may be pinning hopes on some other event or date after which some version of “rescue” will come: a vaccine, a cure, a reliable and... View Details

Keywords: by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams

13 Dec 2021
Research & Ideas

The Unlikely Upside of Mergers: More Diverse Management Teams

workers. Specifically, M&A deals can help women and people of color who are stuck in lower-level positions move up the ladder, according to research by Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Letian Zhang. In analyzing more than... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert

21 Jun 2010
Research & Ideas

Strategy and Execution for Emerging Markets

regulatory framework, and adjudication capability; but in the private sector there is also the need for a tremendous number of institutions and intermediaries such as information analyzers and advisors, transaction facilitators,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

03 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 3

loyalty, differential impacts of government sanctions, and standardization and internal monitoring of operations. We test our theory in the context of vehicle emissions testing in a state in which the government has outsourced inspection and enforcement to private... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 10

Publications 2006 Regional Studies Spatial Determinants of Entrepreneurship in India By: Ghani, Ejaz, William R. Kerr, and Stephen O'Connell Abstract—We analyze the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship in India in the manufacturing... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

May 2011
Article

Consequences and Institutional Determinants of Unregulated Corporate Financial Statements: Evidence from Embedded Value Reporting

By: George Serafeim

I analyze Embedded Value (EV) reporting by firms with life insurance operations to assess the impact of unregulated financial reporting on transparency and to examine the institutional characteristics that promote unregulated reporting. Under EV accounting the present... View Details

Keywords: Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Financial Reporting; Cash Flow; Contracts; Equity; Profit; Value; Corporate Disclosure; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Business and Shareholder Relations; Business Earnings

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December 2014
Article

Private Equity, Jobs, and Productivity

By: Steven J. Davis, John Haltiwanger, Kyle Handley, Ron Jarmin, Josh Lerner and Javier Miranda

Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses. To investigate this claim, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers U.S. private equity transactions from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Performance Productivity; Jobs and Positions; United States

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