2009

Concha y Toro

Deshpande, Rohit, Gustavo A. Herrero
April 2009

Chile's largest wine producer faces a price versus value positioning problem. Its highest quality wines are not priced competitively at retail because "Made in Chile" connotes great value and low price.

Equity International: The Second Act

Retsinas, Nicolas P., Ben Creo, and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
April 2009

Thomas McDonald, senior vice president of Equity International (EI), is weighing an investment in the Brazilian homebuilder Gafisa. Was this the right country? The right company? The right co-investor? The right time? McDonald would be investing alongside a Brazilian private equity firm, GP Investments, and must decide how to structure the investment. Especially, he must decide how to align his interests with those of GP. GP has recruited EI due to its prior experience with the Mexican homebuilder Gafisa. McDonald must also consider: Is that experience transferable to this investment?

URBI and the City Licensee Managers

Macomber, John D., Regina Garcia-Cuellar
April 2009

A leading low income housing builder in Mexico decides which prospective new local partner best extends its advantages in managing twin production lines of homes and clients. URBI has built substantial competitive advantage in the technology and culture that matches the outputs of these two production systems. The company has also built extensive expertise in accessing the many mortgage and funding sources in Mexico. To grow, the company is interested in entering other Mexican geographies but faces a choice of doing this with its own staff and buying land for cash, or partnering with local entrepreneurs and local land owners. In evaluating the choices, students must think more deeply about what makes the two production lines work and how to balance the two lines. The discussion can end with comparisons of the Mexican political and government circumstances that encourage this method of producing workforce housing as compared with the U.S., China, India, and other markets.

WL Ross and Plascar

Foley, C. Fritz, and Linnea Meyer
March 2009

How can distressed investors take advantage of the procedures governing an international bankruptcy? Wilbur L. Ross, chairman and CEO of the private equity firm WL Ross & Co., LLC, has the opportunity to bid for debt and equity claims on Plascar Industria e Comercio Ltda., the Brazilian subsidiary of the bankrupt global auto components company Collins & Aikman Corp. In evaluating this opportunity, students must analyze Ross's strategy to reshape a global industry with significant overcapacity, consider the opportunities created by the legal procedures that govern cross-border insolvencies, study a debt overhang problem, and consider how restructuring alternatives can address this problem.

Grupo Bimbo: Growth and Social Responsibility

Rangan, V. Kasturi, and Regina Garcia-Cuellar
February 2009

Bimbo, headquartered in Mexico with 2008 sales of $7 billion, was one of the largest bakery companies in the world. Even as it had grown spectacularly in the last several decades, the company had earned a stellar reputation for its corporate social responsibility (CSR). As the company set its sights on international expansion, its third generation CFO, Daniel Servitje, wondered how to keep its growth and CSR objectives neatly aligned.

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2008

Chocolates El Rey

Deshpandé, Rohit, Gustavo Herrero, and Regina Garcia-Cuellar
October 2008

In late November 2006, Jorge Redmond, CEO of Chocolates El Rey, called a meeting with senior management to discuss the company's growth strategy. A relatively small firm with sales of around $14 million, El Rey produced top quality chocolate made with single origin Venezuelan cocoa beans. The firm sold its chocolates in four different segments-food services, industry, retail, and beverages-and exported 17% of its production, mostly to the United States, Europe, and Japan. El Rey needed to grow, but Redmond wondered how to achieve growth and how to market the "El Rey" brand to its different target segments and international markets. With only 0.5% of the cocoa's world production, was it worth the effort to try and establish a country-of-origin image for Venezuelan chocolate? If so, how could El Rey go about it?

Banco Compartamos: Life after the IPO

Michael Chu, and Regina Garcia Cuellar
May 2008

After an international IPO yielding extraordinary returns to original investors, Banco Compartamos, Mexico's leading microfinance institution, contemplates its future strategic and competing priorities: maintaining growth, defending industry, leadership, preserving social mission and meeting the expectations of a demanding capital market. Additionally, Compartamos' Co-CEOs must decide how to face the highly polarized reactions in the microfinance industry to its IPO. In the process, the case examines the history of Compartamos, from its NGO origins to its license as a full service bank; describes the competitive context of low-income sector of financing in Mexico; and reviews the decisions leading to the IPO in the Mexican Stock Exchange.

Club Atlético Boca Juniors

Elberse, Anita, Alberto Ballve, and Gustavo Herrero
March 2008

Club Atlético Boca Juniors is the most popular soccer club in Argentina and one of the most decorated clubs in the world. Throughout its storied history, the club has recruited and developed dozens of star players. In his eleven years at Boca Juniors, president Mauricio Macri has significantly increased the club's net worth and annual revenues. However, he faces a constant challenge to remain competitive on and off the field. In November 2006, Macri is approached by Spanish and Italian soccer powerhouses, seeking to purchase the players Fernando Gago and Rodrigo Palacio. Should Macri enter negotiations with the clubs interested in buying the star players? If so, how should they approach the talks? Allows for an in-depth examination of Boca Junior's business model and how it differs from that of the richer soccer clubs in Western Europe. Also enables an assessment of successful talent and brand management strategies in the context of a sports franchise with a worldwide reach.

ProntoWash: Washing the World's Cars to a Tango Beat

Martínez-Jerez, F. Asís, and Katherine Miller
February 2008

ProntoWash management considers whether franchising and the Balanced Scorecard could be combined to help customer-facing employees provide consistent service across the world and capture relevant management information. In 2007, ProntoWash, an international car-wash company based in Argentina, was planning for rapid growth through a combination of owned and franchised operations. CEO Sergio Kompel needed to find a performance management system that would help the firm maintain a unified focus and operational consistency in new and existing points of sale around the world. One measure that Kompel and his team were considering was the Balanced Scorecard, a tool traditionally used by top management. The challenge for ProntoWash was to design a Balanced Scorecard that would be accessible throughout the organization, from the executives in the central office, to the franchises, to the workers at the front line.One measure that Kompel and his team were considering was the Balanced Scorecard, a tool traditionally used by top management. The challenge for ProntoWash was to design a Balanced Scorecard that would be accessible throughout the organization, from the executives in the central office, to the franchises, to the workers at the front line.

Corporate Responsibility & Community Engagement at the Tintaya Copper Mine (A)

Rangan, V. Kasturi, Brooke Barton, and Ezequiel Reficco
January 2008

Located in the highlands of Peru, the Tintaya copper mine has long been a source of intense conflict between local community members and mine operators. The mine, which was owned and managed first by the Peruvian state and later by BHP Billiton, stands on 2,300 hectares of land expropriated from local subsistence farmers. In 2000, to contest this loss of land, mining-related environmental degradation, and allegations of human rights abuses, a coalition of five indigenous communities forged an alliance with a group of domestic and international NGOs to build their case against the BHP Billiton and pursue it directly with the company's Australian headquarters. The outcome of these efforts was the inception of a unique corporate-community negotiation process known as the Tintaya Dialogue Table. In December 2004, after three years of negotiation, BHP Billiton and the five communities signed an agreement compensating families for lost land and livelihoods and establishing a local environmental monitoring team and community development fund. However, just as the company resolves one conflict, another group of local stakeholders emerges with new demands--ones that the company may not be able to meet. The conflict with this new group culminates in a violent takeover of the mine in May 2005, whereupon BHP Billiton staff are forced to shut down operations, abandon the mine site, and devise a new strategy for winning back local support.

Corporate Responsibility & Community Engagement at the Tintaya Copper Mine (B)

Rangan, V. Kasturi, Brooke Barton, and Ezequiel Reficco
January 2008

Supplements the (A) case

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2007

Codelco Copper Mines

Upton, David M., Virginia A. Fuller, and Bradley R. Staats
September 2007

Codelco was a Chilean copper-mining company, widely considered to be one of the most professionally managed firms in South America in spite of the fact that it was 100% government-owned. A $10.5 billion company in 2005, Codelco faced the challenge of incorporating information technology into its production processes, which had historically been very manual in nature. CEO Juan Villarzu's initial turnaround attempts introduced a customer-centric corporate culture to his ranks, but he was still challenged by how to create an outsourcing strategy given his location and the traditionally low IT-to-total-spending ratio in the mining industry. Villarzu envisioned moving to a robust IT architecture, enhancing the solutions that were available, identifying further needs in the company and deciding how to fix them, and working together with Codelco's business processes to assess, plan, and build new IT projects.

Tetra Pak Argentina

Khanna, Tarun, Krishna G. Palepu, and Gustavo Herrero
September 2007

Deals with the hands-on management of a difficult situation facing the subsidiary of a multinational corporation (Tetra Pak) in a developing country (Argentina). The situation arises from a major economic, social, and institutional breakdown that jeopardizes the subsidiary's existence. Argentina defaulted on it sovereign debt and devalued the peso by over 200%, but it differentiated the treatment of the FX rate to be applied to various transactions, depending on the jurisdiction of creditors and debtors. Local dollar-denominated credits and liabilities were converted on a 1:1.40 ratio, while obligations held with foreign entities continued to be enforceable at the new rate of 1:3. The crisis led to the impoverishment of a large portion of the Argentine population, and to an institutional breakdown where the rule of law was shattered in the country, thus posing challenges not just related to the current situation, but also to the future of the operation. The crisis bore consequences for Tetra Pak Argentina on both ends of its value chain, involving suppliers and customers. Tetra Pak focuses growth on developing nations where it feels there is room for a valuable business, and it attains leading market positions. Shows how the foreign firm must cope with difficult domestic situations, where the levers of control are beyond its reach. The existence of value after the crisis turns out to be a relevant consideration.

Banca Regional Andino: Facing the Globalization of Microfinance

Chu, Michael, and Jean Steege Hazell
July 2007

Three leading Latin American microfinance banks join forces to face the new challenges of globalization, competition, and politics while common shareholder ACCÍON investments considers its options. From an initial project to share costs in the revamping of their IT systems, the Banca Regional Andino develops into the possibility of a common operating platform across three separate institutions, BancoSol of Bolivia, Mibanco of Peru, and Banco Solidario of Ecuador. The Banca Regional is a response to forces that the banks perceive as potentially threatening to their long history of success. In the process, presents the evolution of the national microfinance markets of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru within the context of global microfinance.

Parmalat Uruguay (A)

Marshall, Paul, and Gustavo Herrero
April 2007

Three young MBAs create a partnership to acquire the assets of Parmalat in Uruguay. Focuses on their analysis prior to submitting a bid and their plan for improving the operations once their bid is accepted. In addition to improving operations, they must negotiate with creditors to reduce the debt burden on the company.

Farmacias Similares: Private and Public Health Care for the Base of the Pyramid in Mexico

Chu, Michael, and Regina Garcia-Cuellar
March 2007

Farmacias Similares, serving Mexico's low-income sector, grew to $600 million sales and 3,400 drugstores while deep reforms to help the poor swept the public health system. Adjacent to each store, for $2 per visit, medical clinics provided access to doctors for 2.3 million people a month. Narrates the growth of the chain, examines the reasons for its success, and projects a pro forma of the company's financial returns. Places Farmacias Similares in the context of Mexico's public health system and the pharmaceutical industry.

Bolivia and Evo Morales

Di Tella, Rafael, Laura Alfaro, and Ezequiel Reficco
March 2007

Amanco: Developing the Sustainability Scorecard

Kaplan, Robert Steven, and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
March 2007

Describes the challenges of using the Balanced Scorecard to implement a triple-bottom-line strategy for delivering excellent economic, environmental, and social performance. The owners and senior executive team of Amanco, a producer of plastic pipe and complete water treatment systems, want strong financial returns but are also deeply committed to improving the environment and making a difference in people's lives. Robert Salas, CEO, wants a management system that communicates and motivates Amanco's three high-level goals. Initially, he creates a simple scorecard of measures, but he soon migrates to developing a strategy map and Balanced Scorecard that places economic, environmental, and social objectives as the highest-level objectives. He faces the challenges of cascading the corporate Balanced Scorecard to operating units throughout Latin America and how to develop better measures of social and environmental impact. Salas must also address whether he can sustain Amanco's balanced strategy while entering the Brazilian market, where he faces an entrenched and much larger competitor.

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2006

Empemex

Applegate, Lynda M., and Regina Garcia-Cuellar
November 2006

Studies an entrepreneurial venture in Mexico City. The protagonists, two MBAs from HBS, started a pawn shop chain funded from their private equity office after finishing business school. This is timed at a point where the protagonists have to decide how to grow the pawn shop chain in order to compete with other Mexican and U.S. pawn shop chains that are growing aggressively in the country. Central is the decision of how to finance growth. Different growth alternatives are explored, each entailing different funding needs and exit strategies. The setting in Mexico illustrates the differences in entrepreneurship in Latin America or other developing regions compared to the United States. The difference lies in the difficulty of finding institutional funding. As a result, most of the funding has to come from "angel investors".

Natura: Global Beauty Made in Brazil

Jones, Geoffrey G., and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
October 2006

Explores the globalization strategies of Natura, Brazil's largest cosmetics company. Founded in 1969, Natura grew using a direct selling model. Led by its three founders, the firm made distinctive use of Brazil's diversity and became characterized by high ethical and environmental standards. Natura began to seek international markets in 1982, but experienced many setbacks until surviving the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001. The company opened operations in France and Mexico in 2005, and the three founders are now exploring opportunities in Moscow. To pursue further globalization, Natura must now decide whether to continue to rely primarily on the direct sales model or to experiment with other models--and whether to make acquisitions or become part of a larger group.

DentalCorp

Hamermesh, Richard G., and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
September 2006

DentalCorp is the fifth largest provider of dental insurance in Brazil and has tripled its sales in the past two years. Whether to expand to Chile or to continue expansion in Brazil is the major strategic choice facing the company at the end of 2004.

Patrimonio Hoy

Segel, Arthur I., Michael Chu, and Gustavo Herrero
August 2006

Patrimonio Hoy is a program targeting the housing needs of the low-income population by CEMEX, a major Mexican company and a leading global cement producer. Originally conceived as a project to understand the customers in the self-construction segment better, a major component of Mexican home-building concentrated in low-income neighborhoods, Patrimonio Hoy has generated recognition and good will for the company. Its innovative approach reduces significantly the cost and time needed by the poor to improve their housing. Begun in 1998, the program has reached break-even in 2004, with strong prospects of growth in the future. The president of CEMEX North America wonders whether the program should be turned into a major line of business for the company. Provides a good understanding of financing mechanisms available to home builders in Mexico and represents an interesting application of microfinance and product design to open a new market segment based on the needs of low-income customers.

Patrimonio Hoy: A Financial Perspective

Segel, Arthur I., Michael Chu, and Gustavo Herrero
August 2006

Patrimonio Hoy, a program targeting the housing needs of low-income families launched by CEMEX, a major Mexican corporation and a leading global cement company, has gone from a market research project to a highly visible initiative in 22 cities and has earned public recognition. The president of Cemex North America must decide whether it is corporate social responsibility or a new business line. In the process, it allows analysis of the Patrimonio Hoy program versus the traditional alternatives from the perspectives of both the end-user and of the corporation. A rewritten version of an earlier case.

AIDS in Brazil

Deshpande, Rohit, and Ricardo Reisen de Pinho
May 2006

Abbott Labs has reached an impasse with the Brazilian government in negotiations over the pricing of a new anti-AIDS drug, Kaletra. The Brazilian government threatens compulsory licensing unless Abbott drastically reduces the price of Kaletra.

MercadoLibre.com

Martinez-Jerez, Francisco de Asis, Joshua Bellin, and James Dillon
April 2006

MercadoLibre.com, eBay's Latin-American partner, needed to decide how far it was going to follow eBay's practice of offering "free listing days" and discounted special-feature days. Was this type of promotion prudent, given MercadoLibre.com's customer base, revenue expectations, and position in the Latin American market?

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