Publications

July 2021
Case

Bessemer Venture Partners: Century Fund

By: Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In July of 2021, Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) contemplated the future of its growth investing practice, known as “Century.” While still relatively new as a focused initiative, BVP’s growth investing already had significant momentum. The fund’s investment pace had... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Financial Institutions; Growth and Development Strategy; Investment Banking; Competitive Strategy; Public Sector; Venture Capital; Private Equity; Acquisition

23 May 2012
Research & Ideas

Five Ways to Make Your Company More Innovative

crowdsourcing comes in-defining a challenge and offering an incentive, whether in status or money, can get people to self-select as resources to you. You may even want to hire some of them. So this strategy can play into talent View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons, Julia Hanna & Roger Thompson

Web

Business Finance Course Online | HBS Online

Featured Exercises Market-to-book ratios exercises Match companies to their cost of debt and industries to their betas 6-7 hrs Module 5 Valuation Determine how the future affects value today, compare various valuation methods, View Details

25 Apr 2024
News

Origin Stories

Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Spotify More Skydeck episodes Dan Morrell: Hi, this is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck. Where we come from and how we were raised has a profound effect on who we become. The recipients of this year’s Alumni Achievement Award grew up... View Details

02 Apr 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Making the Move to General Manager

first is their "living group," a mixture of participants with whom they live and interact on-campus. "For instance, I might write that my organization is merging and that my leadership... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

May 1989 (Revised August 2006)
Case

RJR Nabisco

By: Richard S. Ruback

Gives students the opportunity to explore issues facing the board of directors in a leveraged buyout. RJR Nabisco is valued under different operating strategies and the source of gains in leveraged buyouts is stressed. View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Profit; Operations; Problems and Challenges; Strategy; Valuation

January 2002 (Revised January 2003)
Case

Finova Group, Inc. (A), The

By: Stuart C. Gilson and Perry Fagan

Finova Group, a $14 billion commercial finance company, filed for Chapter 11 in early March 2001, in what was one of the largest U.S. bankruptcy filings of all time and the largest corporate bond default since the Great Depression. While in Chapter 11, Finova became... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Business Startups; Borrowing and Debt; Equity; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Debt Securities; Price; Crisis Management; Bids and Bidding; Partners and Partnerships; Strategy; Valuation; Financial Services Industry; United States

February 2022 (Revised March 2022)
Case

MicroStrategy's Investment in Bitcoin

By: C. Fritz Foley

At the end of the second quarter of 2020, MicroStrategy, a Virginia based provider of analytics software and services, announced plans to acquire and hold bitcoin as a part of the firm’s treasury reserve policy and corporate strategy. Within a year, the firm purchased... View Details

Keywords: Bitcoin; Corporate Strategy; Acquisition; Investment Portfolio; Capital Structure; Equity

01 Aug 2001
News

Richard B. Fisher (MBA '62)

significance of globalization by taking a much-publicized gamble in relatively untested markets such as India and China. In 1997, getting out in front of the industry's move toward consolidation, he helped negotiate a $10 billion View Details

Keywords: Richard B. Fisher; Warren A. Law; Alumni Achievement Award; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

16 Aug 2022
Op-Ed

Now Is the Time for Entrepreneurs to Play Offense

teams, customer bases, and platforms. "There is a ton of money out there looking for great companies to invest in." One of my portfolio companies has executed three acquisitions in the last six months at... View Details

Keywords: by Jeffrey Bussgang

Web

Morgan Hall | About

and restoring troubled businesses to profitability became widely known, and investors were eager to support his ventures. J.P. Morgan & Company organized and financed some of... View Details

09 Dec 2019
Research & Ideas

Identify Great Customers from Their First Purchase

customers spread over six markets. The researchers extracted six variables to represent first-time customers’ acquisition behavior, including whether the purchase was made online or offline, number of items purchased, prices, discounts,... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz; Retail; Service

01 Feb 1999
News

Too Much of a Good Thing?

solve overcapacity dilemmas elsewhere in the world. Jensen, arguing for the salutary effects of the financial markets, says that merger and takeover activity - "the market for corporate control" - can, if it... View Details

Keywords: Garry Emmons

Web

Research Design - Impact Investments

research is archival and constructs a timeline of how our sampled companies evolved, including key events such as executive hires and departures, mergers View Details

01 Aug 1998
News

Spangler Family Gift Endows New Campus Center

and real-estate firm and in banking, where, among other achievements, he led a merger of the Bank of North Carolina with the North Carolina National Bank Corporation - now... View Details

Keywords: Nancy O. Perry

Web

Investing in Emerging Industries | Baker Library | Bloomberg Center | Harvard Business School

advised on the merger of Keith-Albee and Orpheum theaters in the 1920s, which became RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation), creating a circuit of more than 700 theaters. Lehman Brothers also supported... View Details

October 2006 (Revised September 2014)
Case

Summit Partners - The FleetCor Investment (A)

By: Michael J. Roberts

Part of a 3-case series in which students get to see the unfolding of due diligence on private equity (buy out) deal. In this, the A case, the deal team has negotiated a letter of intent with FleetCor, a firm that operates a fuel payment network for vehicle fleets.... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation Preparation; Private Equity; Leveraged Buyouts; Investment; Negotiation Offer; Service Industry