Asset Sales - Publications - Faculty & Research

28 May 2020
Research & Ideas

Coronavirus Could Create a 'Bankruptcy Pandemic'

filing for bankruptcy in the courts often results in a forced wind-down of the business. Management is replaced by a trustee or administrator (who is often an accountant or lawyer by training), the firm’s assets are sold off, and proceeds... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Financial Services; Banking

06 Oct 2003
Research & Ideas

The Problem with Hedge Funds

fund for management. For a percentage of the assets managed, or a percentage of the investors' gain, the bank places investors' money in other funds for management. The fee the investor pays the bank is for expertise the investor lacks in... View Details

Keywords: by D. Quinn Mills

16 Aug 2022
Op-Ed

Now Is the Time for Entrepreneurs to Play Offense

most talented entrepreneurs, I have been thinking more and more about what playing offense looks like in 2022-2023. Here’s the six-part playbook I’m hearing: 1. Acquire talent A few years ago, it was impossible to acquire talent. The best engineers, View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang

28 Nov 2005
Research & Ideas

Unilever: Transformation and Tradition

Unilever's sales and profits performance were flat, and it was underperforming its major competitors. Unilever was sustained by strong positions in the detergents and personal care markets of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey Jones; Consumer Products

30 Oct 2019
Research & Ideas

How to Recover Gracefully After Shutting Down Your Startup

more than 230 creditors, including a bakery owner who held a special bake sale to express her outrage. Did a company that had raised more than $120 million in venture capital need to stiff so many people? Tom Eisenmann, the Howard H.... View Details

Keywords: by Danielle Kost

15 Jul 2019
Book

Many Executives Are Afraid of Finance. Here's How They Can Gain Confidence

systematically overpaying? The answer is, they must be doing something wrong in valuation: Ignoring incentives The first, and most pervasive, mistake is that it is easy to ignore the incentives of the people involved in an acquisition. Certainly, sellers of View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

06 Mar 2012
First Look

First Look: March 6

requirements, reorienting the discussion around housing finance reform from keeping mortgage credit cheap to ensuring financial stability, and instituting measures that compel asset managers to compete on the true value of the services... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

09 Jun 2008
Lessons from the Classroom

Monetizing IP: The Executive’s Challenge

directly competitive product, if the rival introduces an inferior substitute, it may damage consumers' perceptions and depress sales in the entire product category. As a result, intellectual property protection must be seen as not a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Video Game; Web Services

06 May 2021
HBS Case

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

performance demands were exhausting. But she wanted to show the assets that Miami had. Hatcher also wanted to change the narrative, not just for Miami but for the inner city. For too long, Kanter observes, attention to left-behind groups... View Details

Keywords: by Carolyn DiPaolo

06 Sep 2004
Research & Ideas

The Innovator’s Battle Plan

least attractive. Sales can go up (high price points replace low price points). Margins typically go way up. The incumbent stops worrying about disloyal, dissatisfied, low-paying (overshot) customers whom outsiders may term... View Details

Keywords: by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony & Erik A. Roth

Research Summary

Mastering Strategy Execution

By: Robert Simons

Professor Robert Simons’ research encompasses three areas of management accountability that are the foundation for successful strategy execution: organization design, performance measurement and control, and risk management. In addition, Simons is interested in the... View Details

24 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Developing Your Next CEO for the Family Business

industry, such changes are more common. The Family Outsider Family Outsiders who make good CEO candidates can be entrepreneurs like Alejandro Birman, whose startup was so successful that it added more than $200 million to the sales of his... View Details

Keywords: Retail; Auto

23 Jun 2008
Research & Ideas

Innovative Ways to Encourage Personal Savings

savings difficult by changing the savings decision-making process, the time and place for savings, or the cost-benefit of savings itself. Such ideas could help low- to moderate-income households, and anyone else, build assets and put... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

November–December 2000
Article

Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing

By: F.H. Abernathy, J.T. Dunlop, J. Hammond and D. Weil

Keywords: Assets; Sales

Citation

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February 2005
Article

An Econometric Analysis of Inventory Turnover Performance in Retail Services

By: Vishal Gaur, Marshall L. Fisher and Ananth Raman

Keywords: Mathematical Methods; Assets; Performance; Sales; Retail Industry

Citation

Find at Harvard

04 Aug 2014
Op-Ed

Why Small-Business Lending Is Not Recovering

because of a perfect storm of their falling sales and weakened collateral, and growing risk aversion among lenders. Those days are not over. While lingering cyclical factors from the crisis may still be constraining access to bank credit,... View Details

Keywords: by Karen Mills; Banking; Financial Services

04 Apr 2000
Research & Ideas

The Right Way to Restructure Conglomerates in Emerging Markets

handle. It also poses practical problems. For instance, how easy is it to estimate a reliable breakup value for a business group in the middle of a fire sale and in the absence of a well-developed market for View Details

Keywords: by Tarun Khanna & Krishna Palepu

02 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

‘Retail Revolution’ Excerpt: The Scale of the Ecommerce Threat

barring radical changes, stores with long-term leases are largely at the mercy of the deteriorations in same-store sales and gross margin caused by eCommerce. As brick-and-mortar sales per store decline,... View Details

Keywords: Re: Rajiv Lal; Retail

30 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Preparing to Sell

year or two, to develop. 2. Redeployment. Consistent with the family's strategic plan, they redeploy the proceeds of a business sale in assets (usually more diversified assets) that match the family's... View Details

Keywords: by Jonathan Pellegrin; Food & Beverage; Retail

14 Feb 2007
Op-Ed

Tata-Corus: India’s New Steel Giant

Tata-Corus is the largest out of India, and is done by a private sector entity of its own volition, away from the shadow of state influence. For these reasons, it bears noticing. The same euphoria surrounded Shenzhen-based TCL Multimedia when it acquired the French... View Details

Keywords: by Tarun Khanna

Publications