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• Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2011 (Revised December 2019)

  Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)

  Paul M. Healy, George Serafeim and David Lane

  The case describes the challenges that UBS faced as a result of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for tax fraud, that claimed that UBS had helped some 52,000 U.S. residents hide billions of dollars in untaxed assets in secret Swiss accounts between 2000 and 2007, depriving the U.S. Treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. Why did this happen inside UBS? What were the incentives and the corporate governance failures that led to these events? How should the board of directors of UBS respond to the requests of the tax and regulatory authorities?

  Keywords: fraud; regulatory enforcement; Reputation incentives; crony capitalism; tax havens; legitimacy; multinational; strategic change; incentives; transparency; financial services; Taxation; Crime and Corruption; Global Range; Asset Management; Ethics; Problems and Challenges; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Corporate Governance; Financial Services Industry; United States; Switzerland;

  Citation:

  Healy, Paul M., George Serafeim, and David Lane. "Wealth Management Crisis at UBS (A)." Harvard Business School Case 111-082, March 2011. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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

  Zillow Offers: Winning Online Real Estate 2.0

  Luis Viceira, Marco Di Maggio and Allison Ciechanover

  Founded in 2005, Zillow had become the leading online real estate and home-related marketplace. The brand was recognized as a trusted resource for players in the real estate market, providing information and transparency on home prices. Revenue, which was historically derived primarily from advertising fees paid by realtors and mortgage lenders, totaled $1.3 billion in 2018. This was in the process of changing, however. The company had entered the direct home buying and selling market in 2017. To Zillow, the move was a logical extension of its business model. Research showed that there was pent up desire to sell homes, but that sellers disliked the conventional process. Zillow Offers made home selling easy and fast – for sellers of homes that met certain criteria, Zillow Offers made an offer within 48 hours of the seller submitting a request for an offer online. Zillow Offers provided sellers a fair price and a guaranteed cash close, then performed renovations and hoped to sell the home within a target of 90 days, although actual times varied by market. The company’s stock was more volatile in the period since launching Zillow Offers and some industry observers wondered if it was in part due to the market’s perception of the risks associated with the new business. CEO Rich Barton believed the “instant buyer” or iBuyer market could one day account for up to 30% of all domestic real estate transactions and that Zillow Offers could bring in an additional $20 billion in annual revenue within three to five years. But there remained work to be done to improve transaction metrics, fend off competition from well-funded startups and incumbent realtors, and convince shareholders of the attractiveness of the new businesses.

  Keywords: real estate; corporate culture; Intermediation; brokerage; Startup; Evaluating business investments; Property; Technology; Business Model; Expansion; Business Startups; Real Estate Industry; Media and Broadcasting Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Viceira, Luis, Marco Di Maggio, and Allison Ciechanover. "Zillow Offers: Winning Online Real Estate 2.0." Harvard Business School Case 220-021, August 2019. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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

  Marcus by Goldman Sachs

  Rory McDonald, Samir Junnarkar and David Lane

  Five years on from the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman Sachs remained wounded. Revenues at the global investment bank had stagnated below pre-crisis levels, and the firm had yet to rebound from a substantial decline in securities-trading revenues. Marcus by Goldman Sachs was one response—an effort that operated as a start-up but was sponsored by senior Goldman executives—to grow the firm’s revenues by entering consumer banking with digital-only offerings. The moved marked a dramatic cultural as well as product shift: the 150 year-old institution historically served only businesses and the wealthiest of individuals. In 2016, Marcus launched unsecured personal loans for the mass market; it rolled out high-yield deposits in 2017 and a credit card in partnership with Apple in 2019. By autumn of that year, Marcus had $5 billion in loans outstanding and $55 billion in deposits. It also faced a dilemma—ceaseless and rapid expansion had strained its people and infrastructure, yet Goldman expected Marcus to generate $1 billion in revenues in 2020. What now was the better bet, to pause to allow performance to catch up with growth, or to seize the additional opportunities that beckoned for Marcus to diversify into consumer finance products?

  Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation Leadership; Growth and Development Strategy; Growth Management; Organizational Culture; Financial Services Industry; United Kingdom;

  Citation:

  McDonald, Rory, Samir Junnarkar, and David Lane. "Marcus by Goldman Sachs." Harvard Business School Case 620-005, November 2019. (Revised December 2019.)  View Details

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