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- Faculty Publications (289)
- October 2020
- Case
TowerBrook: ESG in Action (A)
By: Victoria Ivashina, Brian Trelstad and Meaghan Conway
This case is the first of a two-part series that follows Ramez Sousou and his team at TowerBrook Capital Partners as they face a challenging investment decision in February of 2013. Since its founding, TowerBrook has prided itself on its purpose-driven investing... View Details
Keywords: ESG; Finance; Private Equity; Corporate Governance; Value Creation; Investment; Decision Making
- October 2020 (Revised November 2020)
- Case
Wilderness Safaris: Impact Investing and Ecotourism Conservation in Africa
By: James E. Austin, Megan Epler Wood and Herman B. "Dutch" Leonard
In 2018 the majority ownership of publicly owned Wilderness Safaris, the leading high-end ecotourism company in Africa with safari operations in eight countries, was acquired by The Rise Fund, one of the world’s largest private social impact investing funds, and by FS... View Details
Keywords: Investing; Investing For Impact; Ecotourism; COVID-19; Equity Financing; Strategy Formulation; Profitability; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Sustainability; Conservation Planning; Corporate Social Responsibility; Investment; Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Strategy; Financing and Loans; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Health Pandemics; Tourism Industry; Africa; Rwanda; Angola
- 2021
- Working Paper
Two Case Studies on the Financing of Forest Conservation
By: Andrew Baxter, Connor Cash, Josh Lerner and Ratnika Prasad
A variety of factors is leading to fresh approaches to the ownership and management of forestland, with an emphasis on the combination of conservation goals and private investments. But the barriers to successfully achieving attractive financial returns and desirable... View Details
- December 2019
- Case
WeWork Files for an IPO
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
For the board of The We Company—better known as WeWork—August 14, 2019, promised to be a pivotal day. It was then that WeWork’s IPO prospectus, known as an S-1 filing, would be made public, giving potential investors, the media, and the general public a window into the... View Details
- November 2019 (Revised January 2025)
- Case
Russia: A Drama In Three Acts
By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella, Galit Goldstein, Sogomon Tarontsi and Lavinia Teodorescu
The collapse of central authority in the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in a period of revolutionary transformations for the states that emerged in its wake. The leaders of Russia, the USSR's successor, struggled to reestablish central authority while also seeking to... View Details
Keywords: Government Policy; Policy Change; Policy Making; Economic Systems; Economics; Globalization; Emerging Markets; Privatization; Non-Renewable Energy; Governance; Global Strategy; Corporate Governance; Policy; Business History; Lawfulness; Problems and Challenges; Business and Government Relations; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategy; Change Management; Developing Countries and Economies; Russia; Moscow
- August 2019
- Background Note
Note on Shared Ownership
By: Ethan Bernstein and Nick Rekenthaler
While several tactics can drive company performance by instilling a sense of shared ownership among employees, perhaps the most direct is to actually share ownership with employees. Many public and private companies across industries have done just that, and studies... View Details
- August 2019 (Revised July 2023)
- Course Overview Note
Demystifying the Family Enterprise
By: Christina R. Wing and Madeline Keulen
90% of the GDP in the world is created through family-owned businesses. Family businesses are frequently thought to be exclusively mom-and-pop, small businesses. Most fail to realize that Walmart, Fidelity, Cargill, Koch Industries, and Ford, to name a few, are all... View Details
- February 2019
- Article
Does It Matter If Your Health Insurer Is For Profit? Effects of Ownership on Premiums, Insurance Coverage, and Medical Spending
By: Leemore S. Dafny
There is limited empirical evidence about the impact of for-profit health insurers on various outcomes. I study the effects of conversions to for-profit status by Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) affiliates in 11 states, spanning 28 geographic markets. I find both the... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Does Public Ownership and Accountability Increase Diversity? Evidence from IPOs
By: Rembrand Koning and John-Paul Ferguson
Does public ownership improve employment diversity? Organizational researchers theorize that increased transparency to regulators and the public should lead firms to conform to legal and social norms—but that social closure and decoupling should preserve the status... View Details
Keywords: IPO; Initial Public Offering; Employees; Diversity; Gender; Race; Entrepreneurship; United States
- January 15, 2019
- Article
Is Your Company's Strategy Aligned with Your Ownership Model?
By: Josh Baron
The legacy of Vanguard founder John Bogle has brought attention to the transformative influence of ownership structures within the business world. Bogle's revolutionary insight into the limitations of active fund management led to the widespread adoption of index... View Details
- December 2018
- Case
CIR Group: Passing Wealth through the Generations
By: Lauren Cohen, Christopher J. Malloy and Elena Corsi
Rodolfo, Marco, and Edoardo De Benedetti had received from their father his controlling shares in COFIDE, a publicly listed holding company that held 45.8% of CIR Group, another publicly listed holding. The latter held majority shares in GEDI, Italy’s largest print... View Details
- November 2018
- Teaching Note
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Sayiddah Fatima McCree
Teaching Note for HBS No. 218-077. This teaching note provides the back up analysis for the various alternatives to be considered in choosing the optimal investment structure for the real estate acquisition. It contrasts the interests of the tax exempt investors... View Details
- 2018
- Other Teaching and Training Material
Finance Reading: Corporate Governance
By: John Coates and Suraj Srinivasan
Core Curriculum Readings in Finance cover the fundamental concepts, theories, and frameworks in finance. This reading presents an overview of corporate governance, focusing on for-profit businesses that are privately owned by dispersed investors—that is, not owned by a... View Details
- September 2018 (Revised August 2021)
- Teaching Note
Blackstone at Age 30 and Blackstone at 35
By: Josh Lerner
This teaching note is meant to guide in the instruction of HBS No. 316-013 "Blackstone at 30" case. It examines the process of institutionalization and scaling in private equity and alternative investments more generally, looking specifically at how Blackstone's size... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised April 2018)
- Case
Yunnan Baiyao: Transforming a Chinese State-Owned Enterprise
By: Michael Chu, William C. Kirby, Nancy Hua Dai and Yuanzhuo Wang
This case tells the story of how Wang Minghui, Chairman of Yunnan Baiyao Group since 1999, transformed a single-product traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a major diversified consumer health player in China's highly competitive... View Details
Keywords: State-owned Enterprise (SOE); Traditional Chinese Medicine; Yunnan; Yunnan Baiyao; Consumer Health; Enterprise Transformation; Transformation; Health; Business History; State Ownership; Private Ownership; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Competition; Consumer Products Industry; Health Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; China
- February 2018 (Revised December 2019)
- Case
The Tax Man: Taxes in Private Equity Real Estate
By: Nori Gerardo Lietz, Timothy J. Becker, Ricardo Andrade and Sayiddah F. McCree
In January 2018, Caelan Langan, an associate at KSW Partners LLC (“KSW”), was asked by Katherine Scott, the partner for whom he worked, to recommend a proposed structure to acquire a prominent office building in San Francisco for their most recent fund. Caelan was... View Details
- February 2018 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
Blue Haven Initiative: The PEGAfrica Investment
By: Vikram S. Gandhi, Caitlin Reimers Brumme and Amram Migdal
This case examines Blue Haven Initiative (BHI), an impact investing fund and family office, and one of its investments, PEGAfrica (PEG). BHI founder Liesel Pritzker Simmons’ motivations for using her family wealth to start a family office focused on impact investing,... View Details
Keywords: Impact Investing; Family Office; Development; International Development; International Development Investing; Development Fund; Sustainability; Solar Energy; Solar; Pay As You Go; PAYG; MFI; Social Venture; Business Ventures; Acquisition; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Economics; Development Economics; Energy; Energy Conservation; Energy Sources; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Finance; Assets; Asset Pricing; Capital; Capital Budgeting; Capital Structure; Venture Capital; Cash; Cash Flow; Currency; Currency Exchange Rate; Equity; Private Equity; Financial Instruments; Debt Securities; Stock Shares; Financing and Loans; Microfinance; International Finance; Investment; Investment Return; Investment Activism; Investment Funds; Investment Portfolio; Price; Geography; Geographic Location; Emerging Markets; Ownership; Ownership Stake; Private Ownership; Social Enterprise; Value; Valuation; Value Creation; Energy Industry; Financial Services Industry; Green Technology Industry; Africa; United States
- January 2018 (Revised March 2018)
- Case
Wenzhou Kangning Hospital: Changing Mental Healthcare in China
By: William C. Kirby, Wei Zhang, Yuanzhuo Wang and Nancy Hua Dai
The city of Wenzhou in the Province of Zhejiang, long known in China for entrepreneurship, now hosts the country’s largest privately owned mental health hospital group. This case traces the development of Wenzhou Kangning Hospital Co, Ltd. from founding to just before... View Details
- January 2018
- Case
Environmental Technology Fund Partners and E-Leather
By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Aldo Sesia
It is 2014 and Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF) Partners, a UK-based venture capital firm, has an opportunity to invest in a privately held UK company that manufactured engineered composition leather extracted from waste leather using an environmentally friendly... View Details
- December 2017
- Case
Piracy in Somalia (A)
By: Sophus A. Reinert and Alissa Davies
A Somali fisherman stands on a beach in early 2011, considering his options: should he embark in his tiny fishing vessel or join a nearby pirate crew? His war-ravaged country, entering its 20th year of civil war, was in the midst of a famine that had claimed hundreds... View Details