The case opens in April 2020 with Sani Şener, CEO of TAV Airports, a vertically integrated regional airport operator headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, and his team discussing the pending acquisition of the Almaty International Airport in Kazakhstan. The company had been looking for ways to increase its revenues, which had shrunk by 35% in 2019 after the closing of its flagship airport in Istanbul. The business case for acquiring Almaty International was quite strong: it was an asset acquisition with no maturity, and it came with fuel and cargo operations, functions that were unaffected by the cyclicality of passenger traffic. But the world had changed significantly since TAV made a conditional offer of $415 million, outbidding all other interested parties in November 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the aviation industry had been facing unprecedented challenges, and passenger traffic in Almaty had dropped by around 40%. In the meantime, the seller of Almaty International was undeterred and pressed TAV to close the deal. Şener and the senior management team were at a critical juncture: they had to move ahead soon or risk missing out on an opportunity that had looked very bright pre-pandemic.
Founded in 2001 by the Sawiris family, one of the wealthiest families in Egypt, the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) invested in human capital and provision of basic social services for the most marginalized Egyptians. In 2015, Noura Selim’s (MBA 2013) arrival triggered a series of changes related to the Foundation’s direct-grantmaking efforts, how SFSD evaluated the success of its programs, and the number and nature of partnerships it had with development finance institutions, the private sector, and the government. By June 2021, under Selim’s leadership, SFSD achieved success across several fronts. Selim nevertheless felt that the Foundation still had a long way to go in terms of fulfilling its goal to elevate Egypt’s education system. Comprised predominantly of public schools, the system delivered low quality education, and resulted in poor learning outcomes, which translated into high youth unemployment. She was in the process of crystalizing SFSD’s five-year strategy and wondered how she should balance the allocation of the Foundation’s time and financial resources to drive as much change in the education sector as possible.
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