個案總覽

The multi-million dollar technology licensing agreement was in danger of falling apart. It was late September 2001; some months previously, The University of Western Ontario's (UWO's) Industry Liaison Office had signed a conditional agreement with a major pharmaceutical company operating throughout the People's Republic of China (PRC). The agreement permitted the company to utilize specific technology developed at UWO in health products to be marketed throughout the PRC. The agreement was conditional upon ratification being signed not later than October 31, 2001 - but, within that period, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In the months immediately following September 11, 2001, the appetite of the PRC for buying Western technology had greatly diminished, and the PRC Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Development continued to delay ratification of the agreement. UWO's legal counsel, Peter Ross, was asked by his university to lay out the framework and possible alternative courses of action within which a decision could be made as to what the university could do in this situation. The learning objectives of the case are: 1) to become aware of the forms of intellectual property (IP) that can be involved in international cooperation, the potential difficulties and risks involved in sharing IP, the types of agreements that can be drawn up to minimize the risks, and the legal frameworks within which disagreements can be resolved 2) to become aware of how different partner countries respect or allegedly disregard rights to IP and commercial transactions generally 3) to develop strategies for coping in this environment.

On April 22, 2005, Maytag Corporation's stock price fell 28 percent after the company reported disappointing first-quarter results and significantly reduced its earnings outlook for 2005. The company's sales were declining due to increased foreign competition and its production costs were increasing due to higher energy, materials, and distribution costs. Maytag's management and board clearly understood the need to make strategic decisions to turn around the fate of their company. Maytag could propose a drastic turnaround plan and remain independent, sell itself to either a large domestic competitor such as Whirlpool or a foreign firm such as Haier, or it could choose to go private by selling to a financial buyer (Ripplewood).

Freeport-McMoRan's acquisition of Phelps Dodge created the world's largest publicly traded copper company. JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch advised the acquirer and arranged $17.5 billion in debt financing and $1.5 billion in credit facilities. In addition, these two firms underwrote $5 billion in equity capital through simultaneous offerings of Freeport-McMoRan common shares and mandatory convertible preferred shares. These financings created an optimal capital structure for the company that resulted in stronger credit ratings. The activities of the equity capital markets and sales groups at the underwriting firms are explored and the structure and benefits of mandatory convertible preferred shares is explained.

A new statistical technique, called Bayesian shrinkage, can help manufacturers better analyze retail sales data and target marketing programs.