Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(1,020)
- Faculty Publications (162)
- October 2015 (Revised July 2017)
- Case
OMV Petrom: Investment as Partnership—When It Takes Three to Tango
By: Dante Roscini, Emer Maloney and Daniela Beyersdorfer
Petrom was privatized by the Romanian state in 2004 and acquired by Austrian oil company OMV, with the state retaining a 20.6% stake in the company. The situation was particularly challenging for the foreign investor since the sector in which the company operated was... View Details
- October 2015 (Revised January 2017)
- Case
UPower Technologies Inc.
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III, William A. Sahlman and Liz Kind
The UPower founders, Jake DeWitte and Caroline Cochran, were recent graduates from MIT's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department. They chose to attend Palo Alto–based Y Combinator's accelerator program to focus on building a "mini" nuclear reactor that would produce... View Details
Keywords: Nuclear; Nuclear Energy; Nuclear Power; Energy Markets; New Nuclear; Entrepreneurial Finance; Entrepreneurial Marketing; Business ＆ Government Relations; Off-grid; Energy; Renewable Energy; Energy Generation; Energy Sources; Entrepreneurship; Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Energy Industry; Utilities Industry; United States
- 2015
- Working Paper
Customers and Investors: A Framework for Understanding Financial Institutions
By: Robert C. Merton and Robert T. Thakor
Financial institutions have both investors and customers. Investors, such as those who invest in stocks and bonds or private/public-sector guarantors of institutions, expect an appropriate risk-adjusted return in exchange for the financing and risk-bearing that they... View Details
Keywords: Financial Institutions
- Article
Integrated Reporting and Investor Clientele
By: George Serafeim
In this paper, I examine the relation between Integrated Reporting (IR) and the composition of a firm's investor base. I hypothesize and find that firms that practice IR have a more long-term oriented investor base with more dedicated and fewer transient investors.... View Details
- 2015
- Working Paper
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
- 2015
- Working Paper
Client Service, Compensation, and the Sell-Side Analyst Objective Function: An Empirical Analysis of Relational Incentives in the Investment-Research Industry
By: David A. Maber, Boris Groysberg and Paul M. Healy
This paper investigates how sell-side analysts build and sustain their client networks; the economic gains to successfully managing this challenge; and the metrics through which these incentives are delivered. In a typical semiannual period, the average analyst... View Details
- May 2014
- Article
How to Outsmart Activist Investors
By: Bill George and Jay W. Lorsch
We offer opinions on how management and corporate boards of directors can best manage investor relations with activist stockholders such as hedge funds who are demanding major changes within a corporation to improve stockholder return. Beverage industry firm PepsiCo is... View Details
Keywords: Investment Activism
- Spring 2014
- Article
Attracting Long-Term Investors Through Integrated Thinking and Reporting: A Clinical Study of a Biopharmaceutical Company
By: Andrew Knauer and George Serafeim
Faced with a large percentage of investors that chase short-term returns, companies could benefit by attracting investors with longer-term horizons and incentives that are more consistent with the long-term strategy of the company. The managers of most companies take... View Details
Keywords: Investing; Asset Management; Long-term Investing; Short-termism; Sustainability; Integrated Reporting; Leadership & Corporate Accountability; Pharmaceuticals; Leadership; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Investment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Finance; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry
- April 2014
- Article
Golden Parachutes and the Wealth of Shareholders
By: Lucian A. Bebchuk, Alma Cohen and Charles C.Y. Wang
Golden parachutes (GPs) have attracted substantial attention from investors and public officials for more than two decades. We find that GPs are associated with higher expected acquisition premiums and that this association is at least partly due to the effect of GPs... View Details
- March 2014 (Revised September 2019)
- Teaching Note
Say on Pay: Qualcomm, Inc. Shareholders Vote 'Maybe'
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Charles C.Y. Wang
This case centers around Qualcomm shareholders' 2012 Say-on-Pay vote and the dispute between the Institutional Shareholder Services and management regarding the appropriateness of the CEO's compensation plan. Was ISS right that Qualcomm CEO's pay was inflated and... View Details
- January 2014 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
Showdown at Cracker Barrel
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Tim Gray
In the fall of 2011, activist investor, Sardar Biglari, has acquired nearly 10% ownership in the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. He believes that the board and senior management have failed and the company has underperformed relative to its peers. When he is denied a... View Details
Keywords: Boards; Activist Investors; Proxy Battles; Shareholder Activism; Peer Firm; Ratio Analysis; Financial Accounting; Financial Analysis; Board Of Directors; Boards Of Directors; Financial Intermediaries; Financial Analysts; CEO Turnover; New CEO; Peer Groups; Hedge Fund; Hedge Funds; Proxy Contest; Proxy Fight; Proxy Advisor; Proxy Battle; Financial Statement Analysis; Financial Strategy; Corporate Governance; Corporate Disclosure; Governing and Advisory Boards; Competition; Valuation; Business Strategy; Value Creation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Retail Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; United States
- July 2013 (Revised September 2019)
- Case
Say on Pay: Qualcomm, Inc. Shareholders Vote 'Maybe'
By: Suraj Srinivasan, Charles C.Y. Wang and Kelly Baker
This case centers around Qualcomm shareholders' 2012 Say-on-Pay vote and the dispute between the Institutional Shareholder Services and management regarding the appropriateness of the CEO's compensation plan. Was ISS right that Qualcomm's CEO's pay was inflated and... View Details
Keywords: ISS; Proxy Advisor; Investor Communication; Investor Relations; Peers; Say-on-Pay; Benchmarking; Peer Group; Compensation Committees; Board Of Directors; Governing and Advisory Boards; Executive Compensation; Corporate Governance; Business and Shareholder Relations; Telecommunications Industry
- 2013
- Working Paper
Accountability of Independent Directors—Evidence from Firms Subject to Securities Litigation
By: Francois Brochet and Suraj Srinivasan
We examine which independent directors are held accountable when investors sue firms for financial and disclosure related fraud. Investors can name independent directors as defendants in lawsuits, and they can vote against their re-election to express displeasure over... View Details
- 2013
- Working Paper
Improving Store Liquidation
By: Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman
Store liquidation is the time-constrained divestment of retail outlets through an in-store sale of inventory. The retail industry depends extensively on store liquidation, not only as a means for investors to recover capital from failed ventures, but also to allow... View Details
- December 2012
- Case
Blink Booking
By: William R. Kerr, Magnus Thor Torfason and Alexis Brownell
Rebeca Minguela hopes to create an arbitrage platform, similar to Rocket Internet, that can bring start-up ideas and opportunities to Spain. However, Blink Booking, her first venture and proof of concept, is rocked by a co-founder's breach of confidence and departure.... View Details
- December 2012
- Article
Shareholder's Value?: Reassessing Investors' Functions
By: Jay W. Lorsch and Justin Fox
This article examines the three functions shareholders are supposed to provide: money, information, and discipline. View Details
- June 2012
- Article
Short Termism: Don't Blame the Investors
By: Francois Brochet, George Serafeim and Maria Loumioti
The article presents research on executives and corporation investor relations. A study is conducted of the language used by executives in conference calls discussing earnings with investors and financial analysts. A correlation was found between the use of language... View Details
- May 2012
- Article
Global, Local, and Contagious Investor Sentiment
By: Malcolm Baker, Jeffrey Wurgler and Yu Yuan
We construct investor sentiment indices for six major stock markets and decompose them into one global and six local indices. In a validation test, we find that relative sentiment is correlated with the relative prices of dual-listed companies. Global sentiment is a... View Details
- January 2012 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
Mexico City Water Shortage
By: John D. Macomber, Regina Garcia-Cuellar, Griffin H. James and Frederik Nellemann
In this case, a property company, a water privatizer, and municipal engineers explore the causes of and solutions to a severe water shortage in Mexico City, a great global capital. The protagonist is a real estate investor doing due diligence on the magnitude of the... View Details