Publications

October 1991 (Revised November 1996)
Case

Gordon Cain and the Sterling Group (A)

By: Michael C. Jensen

A Houston-based LBO firm makes two petrochemical acquisitions that benefit from improved industry conditions and improved organizational performance. The LBOs generate huge increases in value, creating problems for managers, who have large, undiversified equity... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Change and Adaptation; Value Creation; Business Exit or Shutdown; Leveraged Buyouts; Chemical Industry; Houston

11 Mar 2024
News

In Harmony

Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Spotify More Skydeck episodes Hi, my name is Julia Hanna; I’m an associate editor at the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Last November I flew to Seoul, South Korea to interview Michael Kim (MBA 1990) of MBK Partners. Often referred to as one of... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; photograph by Jun Michael Park

18 Feb 2015
First Look

First Look: February 18

Performance enables future managers and business owners to attain the core skills they need to become integral members of their company's decision-making teams. This new program from established authors Srikant M. Datar and Madhav Rajan... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

April 2011
Article

Private Equity and Long-Run Investment: The Case of Innovation

By: Josh Lerner, Morten Sorensen and Per Stromberg

A long-standing controversy is whether LBOs relieve managers from short-term pressures of dispersed shareholders, or whether LBO funds themselves are driven by short-term profit motives and sacrifice long-term growth to boost short-term performance. We investigate 495... View Details

Keywords: Patents; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Investment; Innovation and Invention

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Web

2022 Reunion Presentations - Alumni

particularly important to managers and executives who make hiring and promotion decisions. Rather than following a structure of a case discussion, this presentation will focus on insights from experiments with ample time for questions.... View Details

31 Aug 2010
First Look

First Look: August 31

Furthermore, a third experiment shows that people tend to discount the wrongness of crossing ethical boundaries to hurt or help others when the action restores equity. The Private Equity Advantage: Leveraged Buyout Firms and Relationship... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

March 1985 (Revised November 1988)
Case

Precision Parts, Inc. (A)

By: William A. Sahlman

Contains a description of a decision confronting two entrepreneurs in mid-1981. They are considering purchasing a small manufacturer of precision electromechanical parts. Among the issues in the case are the following: 1) Should Taylor and Grayson buy Precision Parts,... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Venture Capital; Financing and Loans; Cost vs Benefits; Investment Return; Strategy; Management Practices and Processes; Risk and Uncertainty; Outcome or Result; Manufacturing Industry

August 2013 (Revised December 2014)
Case

Taking Dell Private

By: David J. Collis, David B. Yoffie and Matthew Shaffer

In July 2012, Michael Dell, CEO and founder of Dell, Inc., met with a representative of Silver Lake Partners to explore taking his company private. The company, which he had founded in his dorm room as a college freshman and which had made him the youngest Fortune 500... View Details

Keywords: Strategy; Going Private; The PC Market; Market For Corporate Control; Corporate Strategy; Leveraged Buyouts; Change Management; Private Equity; Market Entry and Exit; Private Ownership; Information Infrastructure; Applications and Software; Internet and the Web; Computer Industry; Technology Industry; United States