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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2020 (Revised May 2020)

  CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France

  Charles CY Wang, Tonia Labruyere and Vincent Dessain

  The case discusses the strategy of CIAM, a French activist investment firm, involved in a case of a buy-out of minority shareholders in the telecommunications sector. Altice NV, an international telecommunications company based in the Netherlands that owned more than 77% of SFR Group shares, made a bid for the remaining shares of France’s second largest mobile operator. Believing that the offer was woefully inadequate and constituted an abuse of power, CIAM had been fighting for a better offer as one of SFR’s vocal minority shareholders with a series of action plans—leveraging legal, communications, and public relations tactics. CIAM had just received a new piece of information, divulging a potential misuse of SFR corporate assets by Altice, and was discussing next steps.

  Keywords: Corporate Governance; Private Equity; Valuation; Investment Activism; Financial Services Industry; France;

  Citation:

  Wang, Charles CY, Tonia Labruyere, and Vincent Dessain. "CIAM: Home-Grown Shareholder Activism in France." Harvard Business School Case 120-072, March 2020. (Revised May 2020.)  View Details

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• Article | Journal of Financial Economics | March 2020

  Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior

  Akash Chattopadhyay, Matthew D. Shaffer and Charles C.Y. Wang

  After decades of deprioritizing shareholders' economic interests and low corporate profitability, Japan introduced the JPX-Nikkei400 in 2014. The index highlighted the country's "best-run" companies by annually selecting the 400 most profitable of its large and liquid firms. We find that managers competed for inclusion in the index by significantly increasing ROE, and they did so at least in part due to their reputational or status concerns. The ROE increase was predominantly driven by improvements in margins, which were in turn partially driven by cutting R&D intensity. Our findings suggest that indexes can affect managerial behavior through reputational or status incentives.

  Keywords: JPX-Nikkei 400 index; Status incentives; return on equity; capital efficiency; Social Norms; Index inclusion; Reputation incentives; Motivation and Incentives; Corporate Governance; Behavior; Investment Return; Status and Position; Japan;

  Citation:

  Chattopadhyay, Akash, Matthew D. Shaffer, and Charles C.Y. Wang. "Governance Through Shame and Aspiration: Index Creation and Corporate Behavior." Journal of Financial Economics 135, no. 3 (March 2020): 704–724.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2017 (Revised December 2019)

  Tesla's Bid for SolarCity

  Charles C.Y. Wang and Raaj Zutshi

  In October 2016, Tesla asked its shareholders to ratify their $2.4 billion bid for SolarCity. Tesla had announced a series of large projects in the preceding months including the unveiling of the Model 3, the new Solar Roof, and pushing forward the opening of the Gigafactory. All of these projects required high upfront costs. Investors were left questioning the motives behind the acquisition of SolarCity, and the reality of approving the merger.

  Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Business and Shareholder Relations; Project Finance;

  Citation:

  Wang, Charles C.Y., and Raaj Zutshi. "Tesla's Bid for SolarCity." Harvard Business School Case 118-044, December 2017. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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