Publications

June 2025
Case

TfL Pension Fund and the 2022 Gilt Market Crisis

By: Emil N. Siriwardane, Vincent Dessain, Emer Moloney and Carlota Moniz

On September 27, 2022, Padmesh Shukla, CIO of the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, was keeping a careful eye on the turmoil in the U.K. sovereign bond (or gilt) market. When the new government announced the largest tax cuts the U.K. had seen in half a century,... View Details

30 Jun 2009
First Look

First Look: June 30

short-term volatility of inflation-indexed bond returns do not invalidate the basic case for these bonds, that they provide a safe asset for long-term investors. Governments should expect inflation-indexed bonds to be a relatively cheap form of View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2011
Supplement

H Partners and Six Flags (B)

By: Robin Greenwood and Michael Gorzynski

Rehan Jaffer, the founder of hedge fund H Partners, is considering what to do with his investment in Six Flags. H Partners had invested a significant amount of the firm's capital in the senior bonds of U.S.-based Six Flags, following that company's bankruptcy filing. View Details

Keywords: Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Price; Acquisition; Decisions; Borrowing and Debt; Investment Funds; Opportunities; Bonds; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; United States

March 2006 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Hexcel Turnaround — 2001 (A)

By: Paul W. Marshall, James Quinn and Reed Martin

Hexcel's new CEO is faced with deciding how to "take out" $60 million in cash costs in fiscal 2002, as two of the company's end markets—electronics and commercial aerospace—are expected to decline precipitously. Options include closing plants, exiting a business, or... View Details

Keywords: Private Equity; Negotiation; Management Teams; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Strategy; Change Management; Crisis Management; Borrowing and Debt; Aerospace Industry; Electronics Industry; United States

March 2010
Teaching Note

Rosetree Mortgage Opportunity Fund (TN)

By: Victoria Ivashina and Andre F. Perold

Teaching Note for [209088]. View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Crisis Management; Capital; Mortgages; Mergers and Acquisitions; Valuation; Borrowing and Debt; Cash Flow; Bids and Bidding; Financing and Loans; Restructuring; Financial Markets; United States

February 2008 (Revised November 2011)
Case

The International Monetary Fund in Crisis

By: Rawi Abdelal, David Moss and Eugene Kintgen

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn became the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund in late 2007, he faced a number of significant changes. The organization had lost much of its legitimacy over the previous decade, and countries seemed increasingly reluctant to... View Details

Keywords: History; Globalized Economies and Regions; Problems and Challenges; Developing Countries and Economies; Borrowing and Debt; Government and Politics; Financial Institutions; Business Strategy; Macroeconomics; Financial Services Industry

25 Oct 2004
Research & Ideas

Planning for Surprises

benefit. The area of decision bias has grown as an important lens of analysis in many areas of business, from finance to marketing to negotiations. We also believe that cognitive biases explain why we allow predictable surprises to occur.... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

March 2005
Article

Short- and Long-term Demand Curves for Stocks: Theory and Evidence on the Dynamics of Arbitrage

By: Robin Greenwood

I develop a framework to analyze demand curves for multiple risky securities at extended horizons in a setting with limits-to-arbitrage. Following an unexpected change in uninformed investor demand for several assets, I predict returns of each security to be... View Details

Keywords: Limits To Arbitrage; Event Studies; Demand Curves; Portfolio Choice; Framework; Demand and Consumers; Change; Risk and Uncertainty; Debt Securities; Forecasting and Prediction; Stocks; Assets; Investment Portfolio; System Shocks; Price; Japan

Find at Harvard

Read Now

25 Mar 2014
First Look

First Look: March 25

Harvard Business School Case 214-027 ISS A/S: The Buyout Provides the opportunity to value a leveraged buy-out and to examine the nature and extent of a company's responsibilities to its bondholders. Here, the context is a "going private" transaction in... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

13 Sep 2011
First Look

First Look: September 13

the predictions of the neoclassical model; and (3) public debt flows are negatively correlated with growth only if government debt is financed by another sovereign and not by... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 2010 (Revised May 2011)
Case

Dubai in Crisis

By: Noel Maurer

On November 25, 2009, the small city-state of Dubai shook financial markets across the world when the Dubai World holding companies announced that it would ask its creditors to standstill its debts. After three decades of phenomenal growth, something had gone off the... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Development Economics; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Business History; Business and Government Relations; Dubai

Find at Harvard

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

12, 2012, BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, announced an offer to buy Media General's (MEG) newspaper division for $142 million in cash and provide debt financing to the... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

July 2025
Teaching Note

Silicon Valley Bank: Gone in 36 Hours

By: Jung Koo Kang, Krishna G. Palepu and Charles C.Y. Wang

Keywords: Accounting Standards; Bank Runs; Financial Accounting; Financial Reporting; Social Media; Banks and Banking; Financing and Loans; Investment Portfolio; Interest Rates; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Statements; Risk Management; Financial Services Industry; United States

15 Jun 2010
First Look

First Look: June 15

identifying the effects of bank credit supply. First, we focus on firms' choice between two close forms of external financing: bank debt and public bonds. By conditioning the sample of firms raising new debt, we can rule out a demand... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

07 May 2013
First Look

First Look: May 7

during peaks of the private equity market, when the parent banks arrange more debt financing for in-house transactions yet have the lowest exposure to debt. Using financing... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

December 2004
Teaching Note

Yield Curves and Bond Ratings Tutorial (TN)

By: William E. Fruhan Jr.

Teaching Note to (9-204-712). View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Education; Debt Securities; Service Operations; Measurement and Metrics; Performance Evaluation; Education Industry

May 2008
Teaching Note

Subprime Meltdown: American Housing and Global Financial Turmoil

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Teaching Note for [708042]. View Details

Keywords: Mortgages; Debt Securities; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Markets; Financial Crisis; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Central Banking; Policy; United States; Europe

21 Jul 2014
Research & Ideas

Is a Gap in Small-Business Credit Holding Back the American Economy?

access to public institutional debt and equity capital markets and the uncertainty of small business profits makes retained earnings a necessarily less stable source of capital. About 48 percent of business owners report a major bank as... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Manufacturing

July 2000 (Revised November 2001)
Case

Catalyst Medical Solutions

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Richard M.J. Bohmer and Naomi Atkins

Faced with a drop in the NASDAQ, four eHealth entrepreneurs must decide between two distribution strategies for their new company's technology. The team, comprised of three full-time resident physicians and an MBA, has developed software to enable electronic... View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Health Care and Treatment; Distribution; Strategy; Venture Capital; Applications and Software; Partners and Partnerships; Borrowing and Debt; Information Technology Industry; Service Industry