AXA's friendly bid for MONY is contested by activist hedge funds suspicious of management's generous change in control contracts. Votes trade after the record date. AXA financed the bid using an unusual conditionally convertible bond which may have affected incentives to trade and vote MONY shares.
Harvard President Lawrence Summers had presided over the final interviews of world renowned architects being considered for the science complex planned for Harvard's expanded campus in Allston. The selection process had absorbed nine months in 2005 and amplified the long standing debate about Harvard architecture. How will the proposed new complex be received be faculty, students, alumni, neighbors, and the public?
Describes a practical method for asset allocation that is more robust to estimation errors than the traditional implementation of mean-variance optimization with sample means and covariances. The Bayesian inspired Black-Litterman model is described after introducing the intuition of the Bayesian approach to inference in a univariate setting.
This case is about a marketing research study conducted on brand extensions of Dettol. Dettol as a brand has got immense trust and loyalty from consumers. To achieve fast growth and leverage the Dettol brand name, Reckitt Benckiser India Limited introduced a number of brand extensions. Some of these extensions such as Dettol Soap and Dettol Liquid Hand Wash were are very successful, but most of the other extensions failed to perform in the market. The case discusses how a marketing research study can help in predicting the success of different brand extensions of Dettol.
In a few short months, Motorola went from the darling of the cell phone market-"the cool innovative company with quality to match," according to CEO Ed Zander-to the famously high-share, but unprofitable, handset manufacturer it became by early 2007. Both identities derive from the management of and profitability of the RAZR handset. At introduction, the RAZR was priced at $500-$800; by 2007, it was often free with a service contract. But new Chief Marketing Officer Casey Keller sees a future for the RAZR: "The company plans to maintain the RAZR as a premium brand with frequent upgrades, instead of allowing it to become commoditized and eventually fade away."
In 2005, Anna Amphlett and Andrew Ferris established Aussie Pies to produce and distribute authentic Australian meat pies after observing the popularity of the pot pies on a visit to Australia. Seattle's Pike Street Market was chosen for the location of the first store because it was a favorite destination for international travelers who were ready consumers of new and exotic products. After initiating an aggressive sales and marketing effort, and the introduction of new products, Aussie Pies grew rapidly from a single store and sales of $6 million in 2006 to 10 stores and sales of $10.35 million by 2009. Yet, the company's rapid growth in revenues was accompanied by declining profits and a substantial increase in receivables, inventories, and capital investments in new stores. The resulting cash outflows were financed by increased borrowing from Bank of America as well as stretching the company's payables, i.e., taking longer to pay suppliers. Bank of America reluctantly increased the maximum amount available to the company under its term loan to $3 million from $2 million. In early January 2010, Jan Muska, the company's chief financial officer, was unsure whether the new credit limit would permit the company to implement its growth strategy of opening five new stores in 2010.
Victoria Idea Company Limited was a major network security solution provider based in Zhuhai, China. The company had been facing problems common to many family-owned businesses due to its management style. It was later restructured with the goal of transforming it from a family-run business to a professionally managed one by first removing most family members from the company and then slowly re-building a new, solid management structure. In order to instil a sense of responsibility and accountability in its middle managers, the company promoted staff from within instead of recruiting from outside, sponsored management training courses and made several other changes, including giving out shares to management staff. Despite all the efforts made, middle managers were still reluctant to make decisions on their own and would turn to senior management who used to be the sole decision-makers before the restructuring. Victoria Idea needed to find a way to develop a sense of trust among its middle managers so that the latter would feel confident to make decisions on their own without seeking advice or approval from senior management. A proactive and responsible management team was deemed to be crucial if the company wanted to expand further. This case illustrates how and why changes to long-established practices and operations or management styles can be difficult to implement.
The hot tub division of Surfside Leisurescapes (Surfside), a backyard-living retail store, has consistently failed to meet sales expectations. The general manager must develop a comprehensive marketing plan to boost the division's profitability in a highly competitive environment. Students are asked to analyze the profitability of Surfside's product lines and make recommendations on promotional alternatives to generate increased interest in the products and the store. The analysis involves identifying the specific marketing challenge and analyzing the industry, hot tub consumers, the competition and Surfside's capabilities.
British Land's shares traded below NAV. Laxey investments tried to force British Land into share buybacks and criticized its corporate governance. Laxey voted borrowed shares at the AGM.
China's rapid economic development since the late 1990s makes it one of the most appealing places for international investors. Te Chinese beer industry has tempted nearly every big multinational brewery looking to boost sales away from the relatively saturated markets in the developed countries. At such a contextual time, Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller, the world's top two breweries, involved in a fierce acquisition war for the Chinese fourth-largest brewery and the dominant brewery in the North-eastern region, Harbin Brewery. At the same time the China's largest brewer, Tsingtao, is reorganizing its business after several years of growth through acquisition. How can the company optimize its portfolio of brands and consolidate without loosing ground in the rapidly growing Chinese beer market?
Yinguangxia ("YGX"), a joint stock listed company in China, has captured much media attention since the mid-1990s for its contribution to China's eco-agricultural industrialisation and modernisation of traditional Chinese medicine. The astonishing leap of its share prices, about 440% in 2000, caused journalists at Caijing, a local reputable financial magazine, to be suspicious and they set off to investigate YGX. On 2 August 2001, Caijin published an article alleging YGX's misrepresentation of export activities, which involved its Tianjin subsidiary's sale of biologically extracted products to a German company, Fidelity Trading GMBH. A profit overstatement of US$93 million from 1998 to 2001 was eventually revealed by China Securities Regulatory Commission, and four of the company's senior officials, including the former CEO and CFO of YGX and Tianjin Guangxia, were sent to jail for forging documents and fraudulent misrepresentation of information. The operating licence of the company's external auditors, Zhongtianqin, was revoked and the professional certificates of its two certified public accountants were repealed. The scandal also resulted in the investors' crusading pursuit of private indemnification against their investment loss; the legal protection of private shareholders in China remained an issue of great concern in the country. Having been a top performer on the Chinese stock market, YGX's fallout has revealed the deficiencies of the corporate governance system in China. It also brings to light the problems involved in auditing practices in China.
In November 2006, Harry Sloan, chairman and CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. (MGM) offers movie star Tom Cruise and his business partner Paula Wagner a chance to run United Artists (UA), a dormant studio within MGM's portfolio. Just over two months earlier, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone publicly complained about Cruise's controversial behavior and abruptly ended Cruise and Wagner's 14-year relationship with Viacom's movie studio, Paramount Pictures. Sloan's proposal gives Cruise a chance to strike back. Can Cruise, Wagner, and Sloan, who regards the deal as an "interesting experiment" aimed at aligning the incentives of studios and creative talent, make the partnership work?
Minoru Mori is the CEO of Mori Building, which has built Roppongi Hills, an ambitious large-scale, mixed-use development in Tokyo, Japan that includes high-end retail, restaurants, hotel, office, library, and art museum. A destination site for tourists and local people, the performance of the development was strong, with the exception of the art museum, which posted losses. Also, the branding efforts by Mori was at odds with other tenants and he needed to manage "the town". Last, another competing development was in the works just blocks away and Mori needed to determine how to address this new competitor.
This case is about implementing a strategic initiative at Grand Circle Corporation, one of the largest international tour operators in the US, sending over 1 million retired Americans overseas since 1985. After having launched the Grand Circle Foundation in 1992, the owners come to the realization in 2003 that it is not achieving its original mission. The case describes the challenges that the company is facing in trying to embed corporate philanthropy as part of their business model rather than it being a side show. The reader is left with a number of unanswered issues concerning what the owners, Alan and Harriet Lewis should do.
Describes the issues facing a founder-CEO regarding building a board, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing system development work. The abridged version does not include the introduction and final sections of the full case in order to give casewriting workshop participants practice writing those sections.
Describes the issues facing a Founder-CEO regarding building a board, assembling an executive team, managing tension between co-founders, and outsourcing system development work. The abridged version does not include the introduction and final sections of the full case in order to give case-writing workshop participants practice writing those sections.
Teaches students to diagnose the circumstances under which time pressure can facilitate or hinder creativity. A team's creative "genius", Miles Grady, who previously conceptualized a revolutionary material for an important new product, must now significantly change that material so that the team can create an entirely new business. This early new business development project, while supported by management, has a looming deadline for proof-of-concept. The deadline has already been extended, but the team does not seem close to the breakthrough it needs. The team's leader, Stanley Carmine, who has managed to get a few weeks' extension from management, needs to figure out how best to manage Grady under the looming deadline. He studies Grady's past "daily laboratory logs" to discover the connections, if any, between time pressure, other circumstances, and Grady's level of creativity.
Someone suffering from Munchausen by proxy, a psychological disorder, fabricates or induces illness in another to win attention and praise as a caregiver. A similar pathology in the workplace leads employees to create or exaggerate problems in order to get credit for solving them. Here are some questions to help managers recognize such behavior.
Companies looking to launch a two-sided platform--between, for example, credit card users and merchants or search engine users and advertisers--must overcome the reluctance of one side to sign on until it's confident the other side will be well populated. It's a common business quandary, but Google and Charles Schwab both found a way around it.