Publications

December 1997 (Revised September 1998)
Case

Yale University Investments Office: November 1997

By: Josh Lerner

David Swensen, chief investment officer at Yale University, reviews the $6 billion endowment strategy, which places an unusually heavy emphasis on private equity and other illiquid securities. Changing market conditions in November 1997 cause him to rethink... View Details

Keywords: Change; Private Equity; Financial Liquidity; Investment; Marketing Strategy; Strategy; Education Industry

05 Mar 2015
Video

EiR Jim Sharpe, former president of Extrusion Technology

October 2018 (Revised February 2018)
Case

Masayoshi Son and the Vision Fund

By: Tom Nicholas, Ramana Nanda and Benjamin N. Roth

In October 2016, SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese conglomerate giant caused a significant shock to the worldwide market for venture capital and private equity by announcing the Vision Fund, the largest tech investment fund in the world at close to $100 billion. The... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Entrepreneurship; Competitive Strategy

21 Jan 2016
News

Private Equity's Golden Age Wasn't So Golden After All

05 Sep 2007
Working Paper Summaries

Global Currency Hedging

Keywords: by John Y. Campbell, Karine Serfaty-de Medeiros & Luis M. Viceira; Financial Services

January 2013 (Revised June 2017)
Case

The Perfect Storm: What Happens When the Market Moves Four Standard Deviations?

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz

Adam Carter was the portfolio manager for Tate Modern Finance III, L.P. (“Tate” or the “Fund”), the third in a series of U.S. commercial real estate debt funds sponsored by the London-based Tate Partners. The Fund was capitalized with $700 million of equity... View Details

Keywords: CMBS; CLO; Repo Financing; Financial Strategy; Investment Funds; Financing and Loans

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

Find at Harvard

November 2002 (Revised December 2002)
Case

Calvin Klein, Inc. v. Warnaco Group, Inc.

On May 30, 2000, Calvin Klein, Inc. (CKI) filed suit against Warnaco Group, Inc. and Linda Wachner, its CEO, for breaching its jeanswear licensing and distribution contract and, in so doing, diluting the equity of its brand. On June 26, 2000, Warnaco countered with its... View Details

Keywords: Lawsuits and Litigation; Distribution Channels; Brands and Branding; Manufacturing Industry; Distribution Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry

Eva Sudol is a Senior Lecturer in the Finance Unit at HBS, teaching Finance 1 in the required curriculum of the MBA program. She is also a Retired Partner at the Capital Group, a global investment management company, where she worked from 1994 – 2023 as an... View Details

September 2020
Case

West Side United: Hospitals Tackle the Racial Health and Wealth Gap

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter and Paul Stramaglia

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. David Ansell, Darlene Hightower, and Ayesho Jaco, leaders of West Side United (WSU), a coalition of Chicago hospitals, community residents, banks, and small businesses conceived in 2016, reviewed progress toward WSU’s goal of ending... View Details

Keywords: COVID; COVID-19; Hospital; Coalition; Health Pandemics; Race; Health; Wealth and Poverty; Equality and Inequality; Change; Leadership; Chicago

January 2015 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Lagkagehuset: Building a Bakery Chain

By: Krishna G. Palepu and Emer Moloney

A Danish bakery chain that was acquired by a private equity firm in 2008, and has grown from 3 to 31 stores, plans to address reoccuring operational and organizational issues before growing further. View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Chain; Retail; Bakery; Operations; Retail Industry; Denmark

September 2016
Case

Partners Group: Ain't No Mountain High Enough

By: Nori Gerardo Lietz and Ricardo Andrade

Partners Group (PG), a Swiss-based PE manager, initiated a series of strategic shifts and evolved from a predominately fund-of-funds manager into a large, multi-asset class PE firm focused on direct investments. PG was the first PE firm to go public in 2006. A number... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Management Practices and Processes; Entrepreneurship

20 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 20

case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/212001-PDF-ENG Abraaj Capital and the Karachi Electric Supply Company Josh Lerner, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Ann LeamonHarvard Business School Case 812-019 In 2008, the Dubai-based private equity... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

Erik Stafford

Erik Stafford joined the faculty at HBS in July 1999, where he has taught finance in the required and elective curricula of the MBA Program and in the CFA Investment Management Workshop.

Erik's research efforts focus on investment management, capital... View Details

Keywords: financial services

March 2011 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Bridging the GAAPs

By: Gwen Yu

Inconsistencies in accounting treatment across countries are a major obstacle for global equity investment. Adoption of a single accounting standard (IFRS) has been received with much excitement, where apples to apples comparison across countries will become easier.... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; International Accounting; Private Equity; Investment; Globalized Markets and Industries; Information Management; Standards; Valuation

21 Feb 2005
Research & Ideas

The VC Quandary: Too Much Money

home run" or for U.S. firms that need to penetrate the European market. Mullen spoke as a member of the panel "State of the Venture Capital Industry: Past, Present and Future" at the 11th Annual Venture Capital & Private View Details

Keywords: by Julie Jette; Financial Services

April 2020
Teaching Note

Cambridge Franchise Partners

By: Richard S. Ruback, Royce Yudkoff and Ahron Rosenfeld

Teaching Note for HBS No. 217-082. Cambridge Franchise Partners (CFP) was established by Matt Perelman and Alex Sloane (both HBS ’15) to pursue a roll-up strategy in the quick service restaurant (QSR) sector. Burger King (BK) approved CFP’s request to become a... View Details

Keywords: Roll-up; Franchise; Franchise Management; Small Firms Management; Franchise Ownership; Small Business; Management; Acquisition

31 Oct 2021
News

Kominers’s Conundrums: Can You Escape the Conjurer’s Curse?

April 2014 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Texas Teachers and the New Texas Way

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Luis M. Viceira, John D. Dionne and Nathaniel Burbank

In 2011 Britt Harris, the Chief Investment Officer for the $107.4 billion Teachers Retirement System of Texas (TRS), was considering whether to pursue strategic partnerships with a group of large private equity firms. After spending four years aggressively moving the... View Details

Keywords: Texas; TRS; Texas Teachers; Private Equity; Texas