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In 2010, Friend Bank was entering the fifth year of Hope Harris Johnson's ambitious 20-year growth plan to transform her family's one-branch community bank into an institution with a substantial presence in southeastern Alabama. Harris Johnson was pleased, so far, with the results. Strategically they had exceeded expectations in opening a second office and execution of the plan was going well. And while the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 had affected the financial results, it also presented Friend with competitive opportunities. Nonetheless, realizing her ultimate goals for Friend would not come easily. This is a shorter version of "Friend Bank: The Time for Hope," HBS No. 310-070.

Aman Resorts (Abridged) describes the operating model and philosophy of this high-end set of global properties. Aman relies on employees taking considerable initiative to deliver the highest quality personalized service in the hospitality industry. The case also highlights Aman's strategy and operations which differ in many ways from industry standards. Aman Resorts (Abridged) is a slightly shorter version of Aman Resorts, HBS No. 111-012.

Wojciech Woziwodzki, co-founder, president, and CEO of Tequila Mobile SA, a mobile games developer, publisher, and service provider, had to make some important strategic decisions. Tequila Mobile SA had already decided to shift to a new "free2play" revenue model but needed to decide whether to focus on building its business in markets where penetration of smartphone devices was high and the economy was developed or in markets where the use of mobile devices was taking off but the economy was still developing. The other critical decision was whether to continue to invest in in-house game development or focus on being a platform providing tools for third-party developers. The mobile game industry had exploded in recent years with the introduction of smartphones, application (app) stores, and cell phone penetration into developing economies. It brought with it a significant increase in the number of mobile games being developed and published, and Woziwodzki wanted to differentiate Tequila Mobile SA from the growing number of players in the quickly evolving industry.

The case studies the decision of the security services corporation Brink's Company to spin-off its home security division from the rest of the company. The decision followed intense pressure on the company by three activist hedge funds who felt that Brink's was chronically undervalued and the individual businesses were worth more than the combined company. The company resisted the decision for over a year before agreeing to the break up. The case follows the argument made by the company and each of the investors. It also describes the actions by the company to convince its shareholders of the merits of keeping the company together, as well as the actions the activist investors took to get the attention of management, the board, and other investors. The businesses, secure transportation and home security monitoring, are described from both a business strategy and a financial perspective so that the potential value of different value enhancing options can be analyzed.

No abstract available.

Chinese government raises barriers to U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board auditing Deloitte's Chinese auditing firms.

No abstract available.

In May 2011, Chairman Chen Yuan of the China Development Bank (CDB) was thinking back on CDB's financing of a major project between Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), Brazil's state-owned oil and gas producer and China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), one of China's largest oil companies. Signed two years earlier, the deal was an oil-for-loan agreement in which Petrobras committed to a 10-year oil supply to Sinopec in exchange for a $10 billion loan from CDB. The case study describes the deal and its importance to both countries. The case also discusses CDB's evolution from a policy bank to more of a commercial enterprise.

Late in 2010, Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan and his team closed in on the decision of whether or not to issue contingent capital, which Swiss regulators would require by 2019. There were a number of substantial issues facing Dougan and his team, including whether contingent capital would provide sufficient loss absorption when called upon, would there be sufficient demand for this new instrument, would it be cost effective capital, and what were the risks to Credit Suisse' reputation with clients and regulators if an issue did not go well? In addition, The Basel Committee, the body that recommended global bank capital standards, had decided that much of the existing bank "hybrid debt" would no longer count as capital for regulatory purposes, meaning banks would need to replace this portion of their equity accounts with some other form of capital. However, Basel had yet to decide whether contingent capital would be allowable in the new "Basel III" regulatory regime.

The B case describes the process and terms of the very successful offerings of contingent capital in February 2011, as well as The Basel Committee's preliminary decision not to allow contingent capital to count as Tier 1 equity.

The (B) case provides information on actions taken by Citigroup management in 2009-2010 in the aftermath of the financial crisis and massive government intervention to save the bank. It is a supplement to the (A) case.

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, focused on building the organizational capabilities of nonprofits that served the disadvantaged youth in the United States, has recently been named an intermediary in the federal government's new social innovation fund (SIF), which is intended to bring together public-private funds to help expand effective solutions across three issue areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. SIF intermediaries would be responsible for directing resources to innovative community-based nonprofit organizations that were seeing results. Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had long been a promoter of evidence-based accountability and grantmaking and saw the absence of an efficient capital market in the nonprofit sector as a major impediment to funding growth, increasing scale, and building the sustainability of successful nonprofit organizations. With its Growth Capital Aggregation Pilot (GCAP), Edna McConnell Clark Foundation had seen positive results in taking a "syndicate" approach to funding a select group of nonprofits. With it being named an SIF intermediary, Edna McConnell Clark was ready to build on its GCAP experience and continue to evolve a model that would provide, at increased efficiency, growth capital for successful organizations. The foundation hoped to build a capital aggregation approach that would serve as a model for philanthropy.

The case describes the process of integrating environmental, social, and governance issues into valuation models and research analyst recommendations.

In 2002, Wendy Lane had been a member of the board of directors at Tyco International a little more than a year when the company's CEO, Dennis Kozlowski, and other top executives were accused of fraud, which ultimately led to resignations, imprisonments, lawsuits, and SEC filings. In a short period of time Tyco lost two-thirds of its market value. Many outside the company questioned the board's leadership and diligence. Lane, who had a successful career in investment banking before becoming a professional director, was caught in the firestorm. The case discusses the events that led to the crisis, her reflections on managing the crisis both personally and professionally, the reputational risk she encountered, and the lessons she learned as a director.

The note provides background on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, brief background on lobbying, and aspects of the lobbying effort by the financial industry and JP Morgan Chase with regard to Dodd-Frank. It is intended as a companion to "The Tip of the Iceberg: JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns (A)," HBS No. 309-001, to facilitate class discussion, and as such provides only an overview of specific aspects of the issues discussed.

Cindy Gallop launched IfWeRanTheWorld (IWRTW) in February 2010, as what the tech world called minimum viable product, in order to real-world test Gallop's "business of the future" concept while development was ongoing. IWRTW was conceived to bring together human good intentions with corporate good intentions, to activate both into shared action, against shared goals, to deliver shared and mutually accountable results. She wanted to make "doing good as sexy as hell" for both individuals and businesses, to make it quicker, easier, and simpler to turn intention into action, one "microaction" at a time. In January 2011, Gallop's key challenge was how to amplify the IWRTW experience in a way that would make it a more valuable-and immediately understandable-business proposition to a brand. The idea behind the venture was only as good as its business model and its execution.

Customer loyalty schemes (or programs) are explicit efforts by retailers to gain long-term patronage from customers. Loyalty schemes are developed for a variety of reasons: to reward loyal customers, to generate more robust information about customer behavior, to influence consumer behavior, and as a defensive measure to combat a competing scheme. The purpose of this note is to describe the objectives of these schemes, including their origin and evolution; to highlight key aspects of their implementation; and to suggest approaches to maximize their impact. While this note focuses on the U.S. and U.K. retail sectors, most of its content is applicable to other economies.

The BP Mexican Gulf Oil spill requires BP to recognize or at least disclose investor-relevant information.

Shenzhen Development Bank, China's first publicly traded company, was undergoing the non-tradable share reform. Its current controlling shareholder, private equity firm Newbridge Capital LLC, needs to negotiate with its diverse minority shareholders to find a compromise on the terms of the conversion of the non-tradable shares held by Newbridge into tradable shares. Further delay in implementing this reform will put Shenzhen Development Bank into jeopardy as the bank will not be allowed to raise the additional capital it very much needed, but the negotiation between Newbridge and other shareholders was breaking down. The case discussed the non-tradable share reform in China, its causes and its implications, and from the perspective of one private equity play, discussed the issues of corporate governance, conflicts of interest, and the fiduciary duty of corporate managers in an emerging market.

Investment manager Eliza Baena confronts an apparent convertible bond arbitrage opportunity when she notices a narrowing spread between two Boston Properties (BXP) bonds, one a convertible bond and the other a straight bond, in the wake of the 2008 Lehman bankruptcy. Baena must decide if there is an opportunity, how to structure a trade to exploit it, and how much of her fund's capital to allocate. Case exposition includes descriptions of basic financing arrangements that support arbitrage strategies, such as rehypothecation and margin lending.