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In 2018, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted 9-0 for a tax that would require companies whose annual revenue surpassed $20 million to pay the city $275 per employee per year. The tax money would then be used to combat homelessness in Seattle. In response, Starbucks Senior Vice President John Kelly released a statement: "There's no reason why one of the wealthiest cities in the world should have children sleeping in cars. But the solution is not to funnel more money through a city council that has thus far failed to show it can spend it effectively." Ultimately, Starbucks, Amazon, and other large Seattle-based companies mounted a campaign to put a tax-repeal referendum on the ballot. The controversy grew, and less than a month after unanimously approving the tax, the City Council voted 7-2 to repeal it. Starbucks has been very public in its commitment to being socially responsible and a good citizen of the communities in which it operates, so how would customers react to the company not wanting to pay local taxes to support social initiatives?

This case details the challenges faced by Marc Jones as the CEO of Aeris Communications (Aeris), a privately owned software company that provided Internet of Things (IoT) networks and services to automotive, fleet, and health care customers. In the case, Jones leads Aeris through a major industry transformation and considers how best to drive continued innovation and growth while navigating increasingly complicated "coopetition" with customers and partners as a result of Aeris's place in the technology stack.

The case describes the growth trajectory of Vodafone Gujarat, one of the most successful circles of Vodafone India. Successive leaders of Vodafone Gujarat followed a highly entrepreneurial approach for building a market leadership position in urban and rural markets. The case provides a detailed description of how to execute growth strategies in the telecom sector, especially by designing a decentralized distribution structure, cementing first-mover advantage through trust, customizing products and services, and integrating with network rollout. The context of the rural market and bottom of pyramid customer segments makes this case relevant to other emerging economies.

The central theme of this case is corporate restructuring; in particular, its thematic unit is the process of financial stress within an organization. The courses and programs are for undergraduate courses such as Finance iii and Financial Strategy, with emphasis on financial analysis and modeling; for postgraduates such as the Masters in Finance in courses such as Financial Analysis and Corporate Finance; in the MBAs in the Financial Management course. These last three courses at the graduate level, although they contemplate financial analysis and modeling within their dynamics, would focus on the evaluation of restructuring alternatives. Likewise, this case can be applied to different executive education programs related to crisis management in family businesses, financial issues in general, and crisis management. In general, the case provides a situation for management decision-making in the process of financial stress, supported by financial modeling tools.

Excited yet apprehensive after being named CEO of P.F. Chang's beginning July 1st, 2020, Damola Adamolekun was well aware of the extraordinary challenges facing the firm. The closure of businesses deemed "nonessential" owing to the COVID-19 pandemic had devastated the restaurant industry in the United States and abroad. The shock had been particularly unwelcome to P.F. Chang's, an upscale-casual restaurant chain known for serving made-from-scratch, wok-cooked Asian cuisine in contemporary bistros. In recent years, P.F. Chang's had shown weak results in restaurant sales and financial performance. Investment management firm Paulson & Co. had joined hands with TriArtisan Capital Advisors to acquire the firm in 2019, determined to turn it around. However, the new leadership team had not anticipated the havoc a pandemic would soon wreak on the economy and the industry. Adamolekun felt that the opportunity to lead the firm at age 31 was extraordinary, but the future was extremely uncertain in this turbulent environment. He was acutely aware that the future of the company, the returns investors hoped for, and perhaps the trajectory of his own career were all riding on the strategic plan he was developing for P.F. Chang's.

Wearable electronics were endpoint devices designed to be worn, sense the human body and interact with the environment around the wearer, connecting humans to the Internet of Things. Wearable technology received a great deal of attention in the past decade and reached a peak state of hype in 2015. After 2015, there was increased doubt in the future of the technology after early product releases were underwhelming. Wearables in 2020 provides an in-depth analysis of wearable development in recent years across eight different form factors.

Litigation finance-also referred to as third party litigation funding-was in its relative infancy as an asset class when Jay Greenberg and Max Volsky made a platform-play in the space. Seven years later, the market was far from "mainstream," but nonetheless had grown significantly, as had the litigation financing platform they founded, LexShares. They faced a cross-roads on what came next for LexShares-whether 1) to continue on with a focus to grow its platform marketplace for legal cases that outside investors could invest in; or 2) put a relatively larger focus on building their own asset management arm that sourced, chose, and invested in hand-picked cases for outside investors in a fund capacity. Greenberg knew that (2) might seriously encroach on (1), and was fraught with missteps shown through past unsuccessful platform transitions-but the potential upside provided by (2) had the potential to be nothing short of company-changing.

Carsten Schmidt, CEO of Sky Deutschland, needs to prepare for the auction of German soccer rights. Much was at stake. Not only was soccer the most widely watched sport in Germany, the company had long advertised that only Sky showed "every game, every goal." In evaluating his company's bid, Schmidt had to consider not only the intrinsic value of the media rights but also how his bidding strategy would influence competition in the German media industry. Was it a good idea to keep OTT players out of the market? What was the right amount to bid?

In December 2018, the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Carrot Rewards (Carrot), a profitable Canadian social enterprise, was facing a turning point. The company, which had been founded three years earlier, was about to implode. Its single largest client had just conveyed its decision to pull out, causing a sudden 65 per cent drop in the company's annual revenue. Should Carrot continue with the prevailing model-one day at a time? Should it launch a freemium version of its app? Should it pivot toward new geographies and new locations? Should it begin to focus on new verticals and go after new clients? Should it go on the auction block and salvage what is left of the original company? The founder and CEO wondered whether the future held workable options other than those he was considering in dealing with the enterprise he had founded, built, and nurtured.

Founded in 2000, Dalian Xinhe Leather Clothing Co. Ltd. (Dalian Xinhe) mainly produced men's and women's leather clothing; it had become the largest leather garment manufacturer in northeast China. At the beginning of 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dalian Xinhe began to produce medical protective clothing, which brought the company through the business challenges created by the pandemic and earned it wide recognition from the government and society. As the pandemic situation evolved, two opinions emerged within the company with regard to Dalian Xinhe's further development. Chun He, the chairman of Dalian Xinhe, needed to determine whether the company should continue to expand production of medical protective clothing or whether it should concentrate on returning to original garment manufacturing and developing the company's own brands.

On March 20, 2020, in an effort to stem the transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic and under the direction of government officials, Canada's Stratford Festival halted work on its 2020 productions and ultimately postponed the entire season. Additionally, social justice issues had come to the forefront with the killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Watching the protests unfold across North America, the Stratford Festival's executive and management team recognized the pain their black colleagues were experiencing and set their sights on doing something meaningful to champion anti-racism. The executive team offered the Black Caucus and the Indigenous Circle-two informal groups of the Stratford Festival artists and administrators-the opportunity to take over the Festival's social media channels for a 48-hour period and to conduct a town-hall session on the Stratford Festival's YouTube channel. The question remained, however, whether turning over the social media channel was a prudent strategy, given the difficulty of predicting the outcomes of activities that start out with good intentions.

After launching a Danish esports company in July 2019, and going public in December 2019 with multiple brands associated with different games, the Astralis leadership team was contemplating a shift to a single, corporate brand. While the original arguments for multiple, team-based brands were that esports fans differed by game and the holding company structure made it easier to acquire and divest teams, Jakob Lund Christensen, the firm's chief commercial officer (CCO), now believed that a single, corporate brand strategy made more sense as the popularity of esports continued to grow-the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was causing interest and participation in esports to grow rapidly. Rather than a holding company, Christensen saw the possibility of creating a leading esports company under the Astralis brand. In addition to being easier to manage corporate resources, he argued it would be easier and more lucrative to monetize a single brand. He was scheduled to meet with the firm's other leaders-CEO Anders Hørsholt and Chairman Nikolaj Nyholm, in just over a week to discuss whether they should indeed change the firm's branding strategy.

In 2017, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) faced the first big investment decision in its new Scaling Solar project. Founded in 1956, IFC was an international investment body with national governments as shareholders, whose mission was to promote economic development. It achieved this primarily through debt financing, which allowed the organization to use covenants to exercise close stewardship of its investments. Beginning in the late 1990s, the organization's mission had evolved to foreground environmental and social sustainability in its development projects. Scaling Solar, launched in collaboration with the World Bank, would be one of IFC's marquis projects in promoting a sustainable energy future. In this case, students will review the history of IFC (a pioneer in the burgeoning field of impact investing), explore the uses of debt as an instrument for development financing, consider how sustainability fits into the impact investing framework, and evaluate a potential new investment in solar power in Zambia.

In October 2020, after spending almost a decade to turnaround Southern Bancorp, an Arkansan bank founded with the mission to provide financial services to rural, underserved communities, CEO Darrin Williams is wondering how Southern Bancorp should continue to grow. Since taking the helm of the bank, Williams has worked with his team to revamp the bank's finances, provide liquidity to its investors, raise new capital, and prove that the bank's operations (dubbed "the margin") reinforced its mission to provide financial services to underserved communities. Williams has several questions to consider in preparing Southern Bancorp's next phase of growth: Should he continue Southern Bancorp's efforts to grow in preparation for a traditional public offering? Or should he take advantage of the increasing public and private capital dedicated to racial equity to deepen the bank's mission and become a central player in the effort to close the racial wealth gap? Would listing Southern Bancorp in public markets disrupt the delicate balance between the mission and the margin? Was Southern Bancorp attractive enough to receive the dedicated capital flooding to close the racial wealth gap?

As one of the world's largest healthcare companies, Philips sought to reach beyond the walls of the hospital and expand its hospital-to-home program to gain future competitive advantage through technology solutions combining predictive analytics with care delivery. By its estimation, 40% of hospital admissions could be avoided, and its variety of home-based resources could be delivered at 30% less cost than the same level of care in a hospital. This tremendous potential left the chief executives at Philips wondering how best to commercialize these solutions. Should they position themselves as a technology-commercializer relying on clinical partnerships to capture value through data insights; or should they own the patient care experience as a clinical enterprise or as a cost-reducer?

In 2020, Triodos Investment Management (Triodos) was a globally active impact investor. It believed the true purpose of investing was to generate social and environmental impact alongside a healthy financial return. Triodos viewed sustainable finance as a driving force in the transition to a more sustainable world. Yamaha Music was a candidate that Triodos was evaluating for inclusion in its investment universe. Henk Jonker, Triodos Investment Management's head of research, decided to pose the challenge to Clarissa Diaz, a Triodos researcher. Yamaha had a positive impact on people (made music, produced musical instruments and provided musical education), but Diaz had to evaluate the company´s supply chain against Triodos's approach to establish if the company's production process was sustainable and contributed to the environment. Diaz had to weigh the controversial ESG issues that merited the exclusion of Yamaha with the company's financial valuation, innovative products and future potential. Students must decide whether Triodos should exclude or invest in Yamaha. If the decision is to invest, they must decide if active engagement is needed on the controversial ESG issues. Students will conduct real ESG research and a portfolio investment analysis. They will also have the opportunity to reflect on the values and leadership implications of a proactive financial sector that drives corporate transformations toward a greener and prosperous society. Investors integrating ESG criteria into their portfolios will find this case useful because they would have to determine whether to exclude or engage with companies that do not fully meet their ESG standards. The case focuses on the nuances of sustainable finance's decision making.

This case explores how Haitong International Securities Group Limited (Haitong, the Group, or SEHK: 665) had been accounting for margin loans under the Hong Kong Financial Reporting Standard 9 Financial Instruments (HKFRS 9) since the mandatory adoption date on 1 January 2018. Haitong belonged to one of the largest financial groups listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in terms of market capitalization. Because of the fame and size of the Group, the protagonist Nancy (regional CFO) made reference to this company in finding out the accounting issues that could potentially occur in starting margin financing business in Hong Kong. Haitong incurred 'impairment charges, net of reversal' (net impairment charges) of HKD238.8mn and HKD634.5mn respectively in the year ended 31 December 2018 (FY2018) and 31 December 2019 (FY2019). The portion attributable to advances to customers in margin financing (margin loans or margin loan receivables etc.) constituted HKD353.7mn (148.1%) and HKD532.3mn (83.9%) of the aforesaid net impairment charges in the respective years. The case seeks to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of entering the securities margin financing business when IFRS 9 is in place. Students will learn the classification of margin loans under IFRS 9 and the measurement of expected credit loss (ECL) of these assets by three "stages" as prescribed by IFRS 9. Students will also grapple with questions on formulating the internal controls in credit risk management under the context of securities margin financing.