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The collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 was the largest bankruptcy in US history. The case examines the economics of the off-balance sheet transactions Lehman undertook prior to the collapse, and highlights the corporate governance challenges in situations where firms face capital market pressure and market downturns. In particular, the case examines the financial accounting, auditing and internal management control practices around the Repo 105 transactions, which had a significant effect on the leverage position of the company. Based on the findings of the bankruptcy examiner's report, the case focuses on the role that management, external auditors, and the audit committee played in what amounted to a significant control failure.

Eloise Bune successfully turned an idea into a product, but could she persuade angel investors that she had a business worth investing in? The case details her interactions with the angel investors and explores the role of angel investors in providing financial capital, business experience, and other assistance to start-ups.

Having received an extensive critique of her business plan but only a small amount of financing from an angel group she pitched in 2010, Eloise Bune responds to the angels' concerns, refines her presentation, and pitches her company again.

During the summer of 1998, Bob Aston and his partners, all bankers, spent many days discussing their plans to start a bank in the south-eastern region of Virginia, USA. Deregulation was transforming the banking industry. In Virginia, mergers and acquisitions in the industry had led to the emergence of large banks that had headquarters in other states. Aston felt that banking as he knew it was disappearing. However, before they could start a bank, Aston and partners faced many questions and decisions: How would they raise the capital? Who would the bank serve? How would they compete with the larger banks that had emerged due to the deregulation? The decisions they made at the founding had a lasting imprint on TowneBank. This became evident a decade later as financial institutions around the country experienced a severe crisis that was sparked by exposure to risky mortgages, while TowneBank remained relatively unscathed. However, the management team had to consider several issues as the crisis unfolded. Should they accept the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds that the U.S. Treasury had offered to even banks that were unlikely to fail and were adequately capitalized? How could they ensure TowneBank's growth? Should they acquire distressed banks in the local market?

It was August 2011 and Martin Cartier, senior board member of Drowling Mountain, was beginning to feel the pressure of Drowling Mountain Ski Resort’s 2010 general meeting that was coming up in two months. Drowling Mountain had historically been the ski resort of choice for the local residents of Syracuse, New York. However, the company had recorded losses for the past two years. At last year’s annual general meeting, Cartier explicitly stated that he would bring the company to sustainable operations. He felt personally responsible for the company’s struggles, since he was the longest-serving member on the board. Management had been keen on developing a new marketing plan focused on new pricing schemes and increasing sales, but Cartier thought an advance meeting to discuss the plan with select board members would be advantageous. He held significant influence in the forthcoming meeting in October, and any recommendations that he made were likely to determine the future success of the company.

Focuses on a small start-up software company engaged in a negotiation over its software licensing agreement with a very large potential client. The entrepreneur must weigh legal and business issues versus his desire to land the key customer.

This note describes capital efficiency metrics including RONA, ROIC, and EVA. This note is intended to be used with the case "Boeing 737 Industrial Footprint: The Wichita Decision," HBS No. 612-036.

The note discusses the modularization of design, and the modularization of manufacturing in the commercial aerospace industry. It is intended to be taught with the case, "Boeing 737 Industrial Footprint: The Wichita Decision," HBS No. 612-036.

The case examines the circumstances leading up to the Boeing Company's decision to spin-off its Wichita Division. This case is intended to be taught with two other notes: "On the Use of Capital Efficiency Metrics," HBS No. 612-034, "Modularity in Design and Manufacturing: Application to Commercial Aircraft," HBS No. 612-035.

The president and chief executive officer (CEO) of an established Toronto-based boutique consulting firm is in the process of expanding his company’s core competency from the largely mature tech sector to the new and rapidly growing field of clean technology. During this time, the CEO is introduced to an inventor and an entrepreneur who have developed a waveform technology that they claim will instantaneously reduce electricity consumption by 30 per cent or more, when applied to a fluorescent lighting ballast. The two of them present the CEO and his partners with a rough prototype, a handful of patents on the verge of expiring, and mere verbal confirmation that the technology can be proven and certified. The CEO is intrigued by the potential of this radical new technology and must decide whether he and his firm will back the partners.

This supplement to LumiSmart (A): Answering the Call for Negawatts explores how the development of the clean technology might be financed.

The managing director of Apollo Health Street (AHS), a health care business process outsourcing (BPO) company headquartered in Pennsylvania, United States, was pondering two dilemmas: achieving short-term growth for his company, and finding new ways to compete in a changing industry. AHS was itself a subsidiary of Apollo Health Enterprises Ltd., an integrated health care company located in Hyderabad, India. AHS had been growing at an 80 per cent compound annual growth rate since 2005 and aimed to reach $100 million in sales by March 2010. Its target was to increase annual sales to $500 million within three years in a highly competitive space, which if successful would move AHS into the top three BPO companies in the health care sector. How should it secure short-term growth? The second dilemma was how to plan for the future. Industry analysts had predicted that over the next five to ten years, health care BPO would become unrecognizable from its current form. The managing director believed that although scaling up would strengthen the company’s position for the short term, the company should also be looking for solutions to stay relevant to the customer. How should AHS influence the shape of health care BPO in the future? What new ways of competing could the company pursue?

This note was developed to summarize how some managers and firms are approaching risk management, and to provide a risk assessment tool that can be used to complement current risk management frameworks. Leaders are compensated and operate in conditions of risk. The risk assessment tool is based on: identification, information, interests, incentives, and infrastructure.<br><br>The note was developed to provide participants with an integrated framework to identify and manage risk. It clearly shows that risk is endemic to business activities but needs to be managed in a strategic manner. It also points out that risk management has strategic, operational, and tactical dimensions and is much broader than the volatility dimensions of risk stressed in financial management.

Rogers Communications’ new president and chief executive officer (CEO) contemplated the future growth opportunities of the company. The CEO was taking control of Rogers at a high point — it was a powerful player in all areas of the telecommunications sector including wireless, television, Internet telephone, and landline telephone. However, competition in the industry was also at an all-time high and innovations were abounding. The CEO knew that to successfully develop Rogers’ strategic direction for the future, he would have to make tradeoffs that would require a strong understanding of the competitive landscape and the future of the industry. Could Rogers afford to be a leader in all four product areas: wireless, television, Internet, and landline telephone? Where should it be willing to lead and where should it be willing to lag behind competitors? Should it think about its future as four (or less) distinct businesses or as one company? Should it think about entering markets in which it did not currently have a strong presence? How much financial flexibility did Rogers have for enacting any future strategies? In making tradeoffs, Rogers would have to explore its resource strengths and weaknesses: this would allow it to gain an in-depth understanding of its competitive advantage. Understanding its competitive advantage would help it make decisions concerning future resource investments that would allow it to lead the industry. No matter which tradeoffs Rogers considered making, the results needed to help it continue to outperform its competitors by maintaining net margins of at least 20 per cent.

An entrepreneur is at a crossroads. He has successfully executed a pilot event in Las Vegas for THUNDERBALL!, his long-drive golf media property that includes live events, television production, and sports wagering. He has also secured a prime-time airing commitment with The Golf Channel for three episodes. However, he must cover the costs of hosting a live event and producing it as a television show. The business model would combine sponsorship from television, event tickets, commissions for players, merchandise, and a partnership with a licensed casino for wagering. This case exposes readers to the world of television/media production and financing and the challenges entrepreneurs can face in spite of a successful initial effort.

This supplement to Thunderball (A) deals with the entrepreneur’s mission to find a successful business model.

This a supplement to Thunderball (A).

When Diane Paulus, artistic director and CEO of the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T. - also seen spelled as American Repertory Theatre) first started in 2008, she attracted media coverage around an aesthetic that aimed to give the audience more ownership over the theater experience, excited theatergoers by experimenting with new venues and received critical recognition for the breadth and range of the work she staged. Paulus also recognized the changing realities in theater, which included dropping subscription numbers and an increase in single ticket buyers. Paulus, inspired by the mission of the A.R.T. - to expand the boundaries of theater - hastened a shift in the A.R.T. business model. Her new plans included operating two unique segmented venues, creating and presenting varied content that aimed to be both challenging and popular, and driving a sales and marketing campaign focused on single ticket buyers, memberships and dynamic pricing. Early results showed some promise; the A.R.T. was closer to break-even than in previous years. However, some questioned if the A.R.T. was beginning to look like a commercial theater, focused on presenting theater that sold, rather than truly expanding boundaries. Despite the questioning, Paulus remained committed to fulfilling her vision of the A.R.T. mission in order to solidify A.R.T. as a leading and financially stable not-for-profit regional theater.

After working together on a university business plan, two entrepreneurs had worked for three years to develop their venture: Shutout Solutions Inc. Their startup venture was established in response to an issue familiar to most hockey players: notoriously smelly equipment. While their familiarity with hockey equipment helped them identify a specific problem, subsequent research had revealed a much broader issue: the need to clean products that were made of micro-fibre. Utilizing a technology that addressed the micro-fibre odour issue, they believed they had a five year opportunity window to develop and profit from the business before it was imitated or superseded. As the considered their options, they realized that they may have to choose to focus their resources on a single product line rather than continue to develop their current portfolio of a detergent, a body wash and a spray. They also questioned whether they were using the right channel - gyms and sporting goods stores - to reach their customers. The opportunity to pursue bulk institutional sales was also intriguing, though it would require a different sales, pricing and distribution strategy. And they also considered how they might respond to an offer to sell the company in its current form.

McKesson, a large, diversified drug distribution and health care IT company, is considering development of new business offerings to help private practice physicians remain independent. The company, with $122 billion in 2010 revenues, just made its first foray into health care services with the acquisition of U.S. Oncology, an integrated cancer care company, whose expertise it could leverage in offerings catered to other physician specialties. With a vast portfolio of products and services serving a wide spectrum of health care stakeholders, McKesson appears uniquely positioned to understand and capitalize on the needs of health care businesses. With the recent passage of health care reform adding to the pressures already squeezing the health care industry-including new payment models requiring significant coordination and IT capabilities-independent physicians are migrating in droves to large health care organizations, abandoning the private practice model. McKesson could potentially provide them with an alternative. McKesson is an exceedingly large company with somewhat autonomous business units, making the prospect of collaborating to create a "cross-disciplinary" offering for independent practices difficult. Moreover, doing so would potentially extend McKesson into the clinical health services (and potentially risk-sharing) business, the strategic merits of which can be debated. Given the uncertainty surrounding the physician practice environment, the ideal shape of a solution to help these customers remains unclear, and competitors with a different product mix could be better positioned than McKesson to provide it. Finally, it could be too late altogether to reverse the trends eroding the private practice model.