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This case features Monica Issar, then Global Head of J.P. Morgan Endowments & Foundations Group in the Private Bank. In just five years, she and J.P. Morgan have grown the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) business from $5 billion in AUM from primarily family foundations to $30 billion AUM of institutional capital. Increasingly, clients are requesting guidelines that reflect not only their risk and return preferences, but also their social or environmental preferences. Monica Issar contemplates a variety of strategic questions around how best to engage clients and their needs moving forward on these non-traditional financial dimensions while balancing the bank's fiduciary role.

Founded in 2005, Zillow had become the leading online real estate and home-related marketplace. The brand was recognized as a trusted resource for players in the real estate market, providing information and transparency on home prices. Revenue, which was historically derived primarily from advertising fees paid by realtors and mortgage lenders, totaled $1.3 billion in 2018. This was in the process of changing, however. The company had entered the direct home buying and selling market in 2017. To Zillow, the move was a logical extension of its business model. Research showed that there was pent up desire to sell homes, but that sellers disliked the conventional process. Zillow Offers made home selling easy and fast - for sellers of homes that met certain criteria, Zillow Offers made an offer within 48 hours of the seller submitting a request for an offer online. Zillow Offers provided sellers a fair price and a guaranteed cash close, then performed renovations and hoped to sell the home within a target of 90 days, although actual times varied by market. The company's stock was more volatile in the period since launching Zillow Offers and some industry observers wondered if it was in part due to the market's perception of the risks associated with the new business. CEO Rich Barton believed the "instant buyer" or iBuyer market could one day account for up to 30% of all domestic real estate transactions and that Zillow Offers could bring in an additional $20 billion in annual revenue within three to five years. But there remained work to be done to improve transaction metrics, fend off competition from well-funded startups and incumbent realtors, and convince shareholders of the attractiveness of the new businesses.

In October 2007, Tarek Sakka and Fouad Dajani launched Ajeej Capital, the first independent investment advisory in the MENA region. Fittingly named ajeej, an Arabic word which translates to "growth and propagation in a chaotic setting," the firm's AUM grew from $20 million to $1 billion before its 10th anniversary despite a deep-cutting global financial crisis, market turmoil driven by the Arab Spring, and years of weak oil prices. Leveraging deep local knowledge, strong relations in the region, and a "PE investment approach in public equity markets," Ajeej had outperformed its benchmark regional stock indices and attracted investing capital from large institutional investors around the world. The case follows the investment methodology of Ajeej Capital's investment fund, the Ajeej MENA Fund, through the turmoil of Ajeej's first decade. The case then focuses in on September 2016, with Sakka and Dajani facing a historic hurdle: Saudi Arabia, the largest economy in the region, had just announced their first ever public-sector pay cuts, triggered by the Vision 2030 agenda. Ajeej, with 50% of its portfolio invested in Saudi companies, had to decide how to position its investment portfolio to successfully navigate a period of structural change in the region.

In early 2018, Blackstone announced that John McCormick would succeed Tom Hill as President and Chief Executive Officer of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), the largest fund-of-hedge funds in the world by a sizeable margin. As new CEO, McCormick must decide on strategic growth options for the firm as its traditional FOF business is maturing and growth in its nearly $80 billion in assets under management (AUM) is plateauing. In the recent past, BAAM had expanded into other investing businesses, making direct investments, seeding early-stage hedge funds, taking general partner stakes in investment management firms, and offering alternative investment products to retail investors. To determine the appropriate path forward, McCormick must assess whether BAAM has a competitive edge in each of these platforms, as well as if further expansion could create internal conflicts of interest within BAAM and, more broadly, Blackstone.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 216076.

This case features Wealthfront, a Palo Alto California-based financial technology startup. Wealthfront created a fully-automated, low-cost online investment platform targeting the millennial generation. The founders positioned Wealthfront as a disruptive force within the asset management industry. By dramatically lowering the minimum investment required, they sought to democratize access to sophisticated investing. By the fall of 2014, the firm's assets under management (AUM) had surpassed $1.5 billion. CEO Adam Nash contemplates a variety of strategic questions including whether Wealthfront should maintain its focus on the consumer channel or expand into business to business channels in order to increase AUM.

How should a retirement fund that must make fixed payments to retirees invest its portfolio? This case introduces students to a variety of concepts in fixed income investing, focusing how on the need to make fixed payments changes portfolio management strategy. Students consider the advantages and disadvantages of asset-liability matching as an investment strategy and learn how to implement such a strategy in practice.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 216023.

One of the University of Cambridge's Colleges evaluates different asset management options for its endowment fund. The King's College, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in the UK, had most of its endowment invested in equity index funds. Its committee was to discuss whether they should overhaul their investment strategy. The college had three options. One was to invest in a new pooled fund created by the University, in which other colleges were also investing, another was to invest through a private multi-asset investment firm also used by other colleges, Partners Capital, or remain in index funds.

Spreadsheet supplement for case 916516.

NII Holdings, Inc. is a U.S. firm with headquarters in Reston, Virginia, and wireless telephony operations under the Nextel brand in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. During 2012, as the firm struggled with a weak competitive position and a transition to a new 3G platform, its operating results suffered, and a number of analysts were concerned about the firm's liquidity. Against this backdrop, NII decides to refocus its operations on Mexico and Brazil. In April 2013, the company enters into an agreement to sell Nextel Peru to Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones S.A. (Entel) for between $397 million and $415 million. Through the use of Andean Capital Advisors, and its first-year associate Rafael d'Anconia, the case is meant to demonstrate concepts surrounding the derivation of the cost of capital in international settings. The case was designed for use in first-year MBA courses, but it can also be adopted for courses focusing on international finance.