Publications

January 2024
Article

Dog Eat Dog: Balancing Network Effects and Differentiation in a Digital Platform Merger

By: Chiara Farronato, Jessica Fong and Andrey Fradkin

Digital platforms are increasingly the subject of regulatory scrutiny. In comparison to multiple competitors, a single platform may increase consumer welfare if network effects are large or may decrease welfare due to higher prices or reduction in platform variety. We... View Details

Keywords: Platform Differentiation; Digital Platforms; Network Effects; Measurement and Metrics; Mergers and Acquisitions; Outcome or Result

Read Now

December 2008
Case

JBS Swift & Co.

By: David E. Bell and Cathy Ross

Brazilian meat packer JBS surprised many in the U.S. beef industry when it acquired Swift & Co.—a company more than five times its size—in 2007, then moved to acquire the U.S.'s fourth and fifth largest beef producers in 2008. The new JBS Swift slashed costs and... View Details

Keywords: Animal-Based Agribusiness; Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring; Financial Crisis; Borrowing and Debt; Global Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; United States; Brazil

winter 1988
Article

Management Buyouts and Managerial Efforts

By: Robert F. Bruner and Lynn S. Paine

Management buyouts, which have played an important role in the recent wave of corporate restructurings, have been criticized from several directions. This article addresses the problems created by management's conflict of interest. As members of the buyout team,... View Details

Keywords: Buyout; Ethical Decision Making; Management; Leveraged Buyouts; Ethics; Decision Making

October 2013
Module Note

Note on LBO Capital Structure

By: Victoria Ivashina, Paul A. Gompers, Paul A. Gompers, Victoria Ivashina, Joris Van Gool and Joris Van Gool

This note discusses the capital structure often found in LBO transactions. Although the specifics of each capital structure vary case by case, in any given year, there is a great deal of similarity in the capital structure of these buyouts. These similarities exist... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Capital Structure

May 2010 (Revised July 2010)
Supplement

Bank of America Acquires Merrill Lynch (B)

By: Robert C. Pozen and Charles E. Beresford

Supplements to HBS no. 310-092. View Details

Keywords: Banks and Banking; Acquisition; Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry

November 1997 (Revised December 1998)
Case

Woodmere Properties, Inc.

By: William J. Poorvu and John H. Vogel Jr.

In 1996, Woodmere Properties, a REIT owning 198 office and industrial properties in the southeast, is about to acquire Lanier Realty Trust. Nina Zanger, a potential investor in Woodmere, attempts to analyze the stock value of Woodmere both with and without the... View Details

Keywords: Valuation; Size; Acquisition; Real Estate Industry; United States

February 1985
Teaching Note

Duncan Field (A), Teaching Note

By: Howard H. Stevenson and Michael J. Roberts

Teaching Note for (9-382-137). View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Negotiation; System; Personal Development and Career; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

Profile

Daniel Sheyner

As Daniel Sheyner (MBA 2014) tells it, most private equity firms have a very specific target in mind when recruiting: "The best athletes." The highest-ranked investment banking and consulting analysts; the elite. "Goldman Sachs, KKR, Blackstone—they want... View Details

Keywords: Venture Capital / Private Equity; Financial Services; Investment Management / Hedge Fund

January 2014 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Mittal Steel's Pursuit of Arcelor (A)

By: Paul M. Healy and Penelope Rossano

Lakshmi Mittal, CEO of Mittal Steel, a UK-based company with Indian roots, took advantage of a weakened Arcelor that had successfully won a bidding war for Canadian steel company Dofasco, with an unsolicited bid to buy the company. Mittal's plans for acquiring Arcelor... View Details

Keywords: Fiduciary Duty; Steel; India; Europe; Governance; Mergers; Board Decisions; White Knight; Strategy; Negotiation; Mergers and Acquisitions; Corporate Governance; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Steel Industry; Canada; United Kingdom; Russia; India

January 2011 (Revised July 2012)
Case

National Public Broadcasting

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Bob Williams, the CEO of National Public Broadcasting (NPB), was considering an unsolicited offer to purchase the company in the early spring of 2006. The company was a media underwriting representative for public television and radio stations throughout the United... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Management; Ownership; Advertising Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry

February 1998
Teaching Note

Aladdin Knowledge Systems TN

By: Das Narayandas

Teaching Note for (9-598-018). View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition; Marketing; Sales; Distribution; Safety; Globalization; Integration; Information Technology Industry; Europe; United States

21 Apr 2014
News

A lifetime of quiet leadership

which operated in a way that had never been done on Wall Street: Whitehead’s team proactively sought business and also became involved in facilitating mergers and acquisitions and IPOs. This spirit of innovation also informed Whitehead’s... View Details

Web

Analyst Rules Mean More Disclosure, But Less Information | Working Knowledge

Acquisition Affect Analysts’ Attention Allocation? ” shows how this unexpected effect can temporarily diminish the quality of information about the visited company. Forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting Research , the study finds that... View Details

Web

Research & Data Services for HBS Faculty & Doctoral Students | Baker Library

Data Wrangling Information Support for Research Literature & Article Searches Data Licensing & Acquisitions Purchase Requests & (HOLLIS) Book Delivery Other Research Services for HBS Faculty Contact for HBS faculty, research staff, and... View Details

24 Apr 2014
News

A wild ride from adventure travel to social media marketing

which provides a SaaS platform for marketers to manage their presence on social networks, is a division of Google, and is among the largest acquisitions ever made by the Internet giant. Wildfire now has over 25,000 paying customers who... View Details

1998
Chapter

Accessing External Technological Knowledge: An Evolutionary Perspective

By: M. Tripsas

Keywords: Knowledge Acquisition; Knowledge Management; Technology; Technology Industry

30 May 2019
Working Paper Summaries

US Antitrust Law and Policy in Historical Perspective

Keywords: by Laura Phillips Sawyer; Education

August 2018 (Revised April 2021)
Case

The Fuji-Xerox Merger

By: Guhan Subramanian and Annie Zhao

In January 2018, Xerox, a well-known American digital document firm, convened its board of directors to decide whether to approve a merger with Japanese imaging company Fujifilm. Activist Xerox shareholders were suing to halt the transaction, and documents unearthed... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Negotiation Deal; Negotiation Process; Corporate Governance; Law

2007
Book

Mergers: Leadership, Performance & Corporate Health

By: David G. Fubini, Colin Price and Maurizio Zollo

Drawing on their own extensive integration experience, the systematic analysis of 167 mergers, and cutting edge academic research, the authors of this book identify the common leadership challenges to be tackled for the achievement of what we call 'corporate health',... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Health; Mergers and Acquisitions; Leadership; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Success