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Primo Benzina AG was a retail chain of petrol stations offering petrol, snacks, restaurant meals, and high-quality service in central Europe. The company began operations with four outlets and sales of €2.4 million in 2006, and grew to 24 outlets and sales of €38.1 million in 2009. The company's rapid growth in revenues was accompanied by declining profitability. Dresdner Bank reluctantly increased the maximum amount available to the company to €12 million from €10 million. In early 2010, Otto Schroder, Chief Executive Officer, and Annegret Heuermann, the company's chief financial officer, completed a review of the company's financial situation. The company's executives were unsure whether the new credit limit would permit the company to implement its growth strategy, since the company now had a limited amount of cash available to finance additional outlays for working capital and capital expenditures.

This case could be used in courses about entrenpreneurship and managing small businesses. The founder and patriarch of a family business is confronted by his children regarding succession, equitable distribution of money from the business to nonworking family members, and nepotism. THe transition from first- to second- and third-generation involvement creates major challenges to the family harmony and the business beyond the life of the founding generation. There is a B case [UV2038] that examines these issues further.

This case is suitable for courses in entrepreneurship and growing enterprises and management communication. It follows the step by step process of growing a business built on a strong culture that fostered high employee engagement and loyalty. The result for Leaders was low employee turnover, long-term relationships based on communication and trust, and being finalist on the Wall Street Journal's 2008 Top Small Workplaces list.

This case is appropriate for teaching in entrepreneurship, strategy, marketing, and finance courses. Motor City is the business brainchild of an absentee owner. It is a new business model for selling used cars and requires a senior management familiar with the car industry. Some issues are: How should the management be compensated to align interests with the owner? Stock ownership, phantom stock ownership, profit sharing? The B case [UV2045] raises such issues as matching the pace of growth with available cash flow.

The chief financial officer of VF Outdoor Americas - a division of the world's largest apparel company, VF Corporation, must decide on the financial viability of purchasing the skateboard VANS lifestyle brand. In his decision, the chief financial officer needs to develop an offer of what VF should pay for VANS and prove to the parent company that the acquisition will be accretive to earnings per share.

An investment advisor at a major brokerage is considering whether she should recommend Wal-Mart stock to her clients who do not currently have this stock in their portfolios. Students will be presented with basic valuation concepts including the dividend discount model, price-earnings model and applications of the capital asset pricing model.

A manager at a public accounting firm was contracted to perform a second financial performance review and issue recommendations for improving the performance of California Choppers. She must analyze several financial indicators including liquidity, asset management, long-term debt payment ability, and profitability. Poor performance results and interpersonal difficulties between the owner and chief executive officer are making her job very difficult.

"ZINK Imaging" describes the issues confronting CEO Wendy Caswell as she uses a partnership model to commercialize ZINK's disruptive printing technology platform, ZINK Paper. The case focuses on the frameworks ZINK has used to decide which markets to target and which business partners to choose. Caswell contemplates changes to the partnership model in an effort to speed product introduction to manage the company's burn rate and reach profitability. The context for the case is the company's imminent need to raise an additional $25 million.

In fall 2008, a venture lender must decide whether to make a loan to Avid, a small but promising venture-backed life sciences firm. In reviewing her proposal, Cristy Barnes considers the company's characteristics and how they differ from a typical investment. At the same time, the CEO and the venture capitalist are exploring the true costs and benefits of taking the loan, particularly in the uncertain economic climate of the time.

An account of J.P. Morgan's remarkable career in government, railroad, and industrial finance.

San Miguel Corporation is one of the oldest and largest companies in the Philippines. In its 100 year history, it has established a clear leadership position in the Philippine beer industry, as well as having made successful forays into other related and unrelated product areas. In the late 2000s, Eduardo Cojuangco, the CEO of San Miguel Corporation, which was South Asia's largest food and beverage company, found himself in a quandary. Cojuanco wanted to move San Miguel into industries that had scale and good future growth possibilities, to build leadership positions in key industries that would drive growth not just for San Miguel but also for the Philippines. At the same time, San Miguel Corporation would reverse its international expansion plans. The case involves discussion of this strategy, tracing issues of internationalization versus a domestic product focused growth in non-allied businesses in the Philippines, such as energy, mining, infrastructure and other utilities.

The pet and pet supply industry was one of the few bright lights in an otherwise dismal retail outlook in 2009. This case gives background pet retail industry information and strategic positioning information for both PetSmart and PETCO to enable students to develop their own Balanced Scorecards and strategy maps for the two companies.

In November of 2006, senior executives at Culinarian Cookware were debating the merits of price promotions for the company's premium cookware products. The VP of Marketing, Donald Janus, and Senior Sales Manager, Victoria Brown, had different views. Janus felt price promotions were unnecessary, potentially damaging to the brand image, and possibly encouraged retailer hoarding; Brown believed the promotions strengthened trade support, improved brand awareness, and stimulated sales from both new and existing customers. The issue was complicated by a consultant's study of the firm's 2004 price promotions which concluded that these promotions had a negative impact on profits. Janus trusted the results, but Brown, believing the study assumptions were flawed and required further analysis, suspected the promotions had actually produced positive results. The pressing decision is whether to run a price promotion in 2007 and, if so, to determine what merchandise to promote and on what terms. The broader issue is what strategy Culinarian should pursue to achieve sales growth goals, and what role, if any, price promotion should play.

This case fits with courses that have a focus on environmental sustainability and systems thinking, which help students conceptualize and formulate policy recommendations in industries dependent on the conservation of natural resources. Students are asked to construct a stock-flow map that depicts the interactions between markets, pricing, production, policy, and environment impacts. Class discussion explores stakeholder perspectives and compares student maps to an actual map constructed by a consultant working in the shrimp industry. Followed by a B case [OM-1389] and a systems simulation model available for further exploration of the issues surrounding the design and testing of policy to improve industry performance.

Two MBA students involved in a week-long kaizen event at a manufacturing plant in the Czech Republic must increase productivity and reduce gross inventory despite an uncooperative work group. Lean manufacturing principles are analyzed in the context of a deadline-driven process.

When Yves Saint Laurent died in June 2008, his estate passed to his business partner, Pierre Bergé. Bergé decided to auction several items from Laurent's estate at Christie's international auction house, including two antique bronzes from China. The general feeling in China was that these artifacts had been looted and should be repatriated rather than auctioned. The case highlights issues of ethics, corporate governance and corporate responsibility.

The chief executive officer (CEO) of a multi-site and multi-business YMCA must determine how to more than double participation levels in the next five years. The case describes how the London YMCA has grown in both participation and size. However, the corporate level strategy has become complicated and the board of directors, CEO and senior management team need to consider a new M-form structure. This has many implications for the CEO, the senior managers and the future growth of the YMCA London.

The owner of Arrow Printing and Publishing, and his accountant were reviewing the company's fiscal performance. After nearly 45 years in the printing industry and with an increasing interest in other fields, such as municipal politics, the owner was considering if the time had come to leave printing and move on to new challenges. The options included keeping Arrow Printing and expanding into a potentially lucrative market or selling the business and move on.

In March 2009, the government of Iraq decided to hold its first oil field auctions. The auctions were for service contracts on the country's southern oil fields; the winner would obtain the right to produce oil above a certain target for a fixed fee. The bidders competed on the fee charged per barrel and the amount by which they promised to increase production. At the same time, the Kurdish regional government continued to sign Production Sharing Agreements with foreign companies for its oil fields, unrecognized by the national government. In a context of continuing (if much reduced) political violence and legislative deadlock in the national parliament, three actors needed to make key decisions. Jean Claude Gandur, the CEO of Addax Petroleum, needed to decide whether to continue investing in the Kurdish region in light of Baghdad's continuing opposition. The Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, needed to design the oil auctions in such a way that oil companies would be moved to invest, and invest quickly, despite the lack of a national oil law. Finally, the American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, needed to decide what Iraqi oil policy would be in the best interest of the United States, and what levers (if any) the U.S. government could pull in order to insure that such a policy would be carried out. What would the three actors decide, and how would their decisions affect the future of Iraq and the world oil market?

John Johnson, owner of FinePrint Company, is presented with two opportunities to consider: (1) whether to accept a one-time special printing order and (2) whether to outsource some of his printing to another printing company. In making his decisions, he must consider the relevance of certain costs, the behavior of those costs, and the extent to which he has capacity constraints.