Finance

- August 2022
- Case
One Tiger Per Mountain: The He Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Grace Headinger

Roy He, founder and majority shareholder of his family construction material production company, was preparing to pass down the family business through its first generational handover to his children. His decision would establish his familial legacy and set a precedent for both future generational takeovers and the future of family unity and identity. To assist, He had brought in Hefeng Family Office to develop his succession plan by establishing a family ownership structure, governance system, family trust, and family agreement. However, he remained dubious: was now the time for him to step back and pass on his legacy to the next generation? He remained reluctant to give up control of the company, and the succession process would require passing on the majority of his shares to his successor. How should he establish a family governance structure that would protect the next generation’s interest and benefits while also allowing flexibility for future generations’ decisions? The structures were now in place, but was the family truly ready for him to pass the baton?
- August 2022
- Case
One Tiger Per Mountain: The He Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Grace Headinger

Roy He, founder and majority shareholder of his family construction material production company, was preparing to pass down the family business through its first generational handover to his children. His decision would establish his familial legacy and set a precedent for both future generational takeovers and the future of family unity and...
- August 2022
- Case
Heritage Holding

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
- August 2022
- Case
Heritage Holding

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff
- July 2022
- Case
York Capital and Enovix

By: William Vrattos, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In June 2020, Jeremy Blank prepared for a meeting with his fellow partners at York Capital to discuss an investment he had championed in Enovix, a company developing a state-of-the-art, silicon-based battery. Early-stage technology companies, like Enovix, were not typical investments for York, but Blank had convinced his partners to invest. However, the partnership wanted to be “one and done” without reinvesting in future rounds. By 2020, Enovix had made great progress but not as quickly as forecasted. The company had set out to raise more money and received a term sheet from a well-known publicly-traded company. Blank saw this as an exciting opportunity for Enovix, but he was disappointed to see that it would require York to invest more capital and forego a key protective feature. How should Blank approach this meeting with his partners, and what should he recommend?
- July 2022
- Case
York Capital and Enovix

By: William Vrattos, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

In June 2020, Jeremy Blank prepared for a meeting with his fellow partners at York Capital to discuss an investment he had championed in Enovix, a company developing a state-of-the-art, silicon-based battery. Early-stage technology companies, like Enovix, were not typical investments for York, but Blank had convinced his partners to invest....

About the Unit

Our strategy is to assemble and nurture a faculty whose interests and skills complement each other, and who work well together:

a) to produce a broad range of finance-related research that is published in top-tier scientific and practitioner journals, and that addresses issues of present and future importance to managers (including regulators and policy makers);

b) to develop highly-relevant and intellectually rigorous MBA and executive education courses; and

c) to mentor future academics through the Business Economics doctoral program.

Our applied focus and access to business organizations are major advantages which are reinforced by our students and our case-based approach. We have a faculty with broad expertise, and we have resources, field contacts, and institutional support, all of which we can leverage to do richer work and be more productive than we could at other institutions.

Recent Publications

One Tiger Per Mountain: The He Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Grace Headinger

August 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Roy He, founder and majority shareholder of his family construction material production company, was preparing to pass down the family business through its first generational handover to his children. His decision would establish his familial legacy and set a precedent for both future generational takeovers and the future of family unity and identity. To assist, He had brought in Hefeng Family Office to develop his succession plan by establishing a family ownership structure, governance system, family trust, and family agreement. However, he remained dubious: was now the time for him to step back and pass on his legacy to the next generation? He remained reluctant to give up control of the company, and the succession process would require passing on the majority of his shares to his successor. How should he establish a family governance structure that would protect the next generation’s interest and benefits while also allowing flexibility for future generations’ decisions? The structures were now in place, but was the family truly ready for him to pass the baton?

Keywords: Governance Structure; Family Business; Family Ownership; Strategic Planning; Family and Family Relationships; Leadership; Construction Industry; Canton (city, China); Canton (province, China); China

Citation

Educators

Heritage Holding

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

August 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

Brian Bonk and the Acquisition of Pel-Freez

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

July 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

Citation

Educators

York Capital and Enovix

By: William Vrattos, Jo Tango and Alys Ferragamo

July 2022 |
Case |
Faculty Research

In June 2020, Jeremy Blank prepared for a meeting with his fellow partners at York Capital to discuss an investment he had championed in Enovix, a company developing a state-of-the-art, silicon-based battery. Early-stage technology companies, like Enovix, were not typical investments for York, but Blank had convinced his partners to invest. However, the partnership wanted to be “one and done” without reinvesting in future rounds. By 2020, Enovix had made great progress but not as quickly as forecasted. The company had set out to raise more money and received a term sheet from a well-known publicly-traded company. Blank saw this as an exciting opportunity for Enovix, but he was disappointed to see that it would require York to invest more capital and forego a key protective feature. How should Blank approach this meeting with his partners, and what should he recommend?

Keywords: Partners and Partnerships; Investment Portfolio; Judgments

Citation

Educators

Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation

By: Elisabeth Kempf, Mancy Luo, Larissa Schäfer and Margarita Tsoutsoura

2022 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

Does investors' political ideology shape international capital allocation? We provide evidence from two settings—syndicated corporate loans and equity mutual funds—to show ideological alignment with foreign governments affects the cross-border capital allocation by U.S. institutional investors. Ideological alignment on both economic and social issues plays a role. Our empirical strategy ensures direct economic effects of foreign elections or government ties between countries are not driving the result. Ideological distance between countries also explains variation in bilateral investment. Combined, our findings imply ideological alignment is an important, omitted factor in models of international capital allocation.

Keywords: Capital Flows; Syndicated Loans; Mutual Funds; Partisanship; Polarization; Elections; Political Ideology; Government and Politics; International Finance; Foreign Direct Investment; Capital

Citation

Read Now

The Political Polarization of Corporate America

By: Vyacheslav Fos, Elisabeth Kempf and Margarita Tsoutsoura

2022 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

Executive teams in U.S. firms are becoming increasingly partisan. We establish this new fact using political affiliations from voter registration records for top executives of S&P 1500 firms between 2008 and 2020. The new fact is explained by both an increasing share of Republican executives and increased assortative matching by executives on political affiliation. Departures of politically misaligned executives are value-destroying for shareholders, implying the increasing political polarization of corporate America may not be in the financial interest of shareholders.

Keywords: Political Polarization; Partisanship; Executives; Government and Politics; Business and Shareholder Relations; United States

Citation

Read Now

Failing Just Fine: Assessing Careers of Venture Capital-backed Entrepreneurs via a Non-wage Measure

By: Natee Amornsiripanitch, Paul Gompers, George Hu, Will Levinson and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

2022 |
Working Paper |
Faculty Research

This paper proposes a non-pecuniary measure of career achievement, Seniority. Based on a database of over 5 million resumes, this metric exploits the variation in job titles and how long they take to attain. When non-monetary factors influence career choice, inference benefits from the use of non-wage measures, such as seniority. We apply it to study labor market outcomes of VC-backed entrepreneurs. Would-be founders experience accelerated career trajectories prior to founding, significantly outperforming graduates of same-tier colleges with similar first jobs. After exiting their start-ups, they obtain jobs about three years more senior than their right-before-founding peers. Even failed founders land jobs with higher seniority than those attained by their peers in the meantime.

Keywords: Career Outcomes; Founders; Personal Development and Career; Venture Capital; Entrepreneurship

Citation

Private Equity and COVID-19

By: Paul A. Gompers, Steven N. Kaplan and Vladimir Mukharlyamov

July 2022 |
Article |
Journal of Financial Intermediation

We survey more than 200 private equity (PE) managers from firms with $1.9 trillion of assets under management (AUM) about their portfolio performance, decisionmaking and activities during the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that PE managers have significant incentives to maximize value, their actions during the current pandemic should indicate what they perceive as being important for both the preservation and creation of value. PE managers believe that 40% of their portfolio companies are moderately negatively affected and 10% are very negatively affected by the pandemic. The private equity managers—both investment and operating partners— are actively engaged in the operations, governance, and financing in all of their current portfolio companies. These activities are more intensively pursued in those companies that have been more severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, they expect the performance of their existing funds to decline. They are more pessimistic about that decline than the VCs surveyed in Gompers et al. (2020b). Despite the pandemic, private equity managers are seeking new investments. Relative to the 2012 survey results reported in Gompers, Kaplan, and Mukharlyamov (2016): the PE investors place a greater weight on revenue growth for value creation; they give a larger equity stake to management teams; and, they also appear to target somewhat lower returns.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Health Pandemics; Private Equity; Management; Investment Portfolio; Performance; Decision Making; Value Creation

Citation

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