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In 2010 Drive Property Solutions, a special servicing firm in Chicago, had partnered with Spiner Capital to win an FDIC auction of distressed debt. Included in that auction was the defaulted mortgage note on Northwinds Community Crossing, a retail strip mall in suburban Savannah, Georgia, which had been in default since November 2009. Sam Schey, an asset manager at Drive, needed to decide how to maximize recoveries from the nonperforming loan.

Husk Power Systems, a young but widely celebrated firm based in India, needs $1.5 million to $2.5 million of expansion capital to grow quickly beyond the small footprint it had established in northeast India. It was a successful green-energy enterprise that aimed to provide electricity to millions of rural Indians in a financially viable way. With 10 “mini power plants” that used rice husks as a fuel source and a presence in 25 isolated Indian villages as of April 2009, the company's goal was to reach 350,000 to 400,000 consumers in 400 villages by the end of 2011. It was offered a convertible-note financing structure by a cleantech private equity firm and needed to assess whether it suited the company's and founders' interests.

This case was designed for and is used in Darden's Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity elective. With less of a focus on the financials, the Husk case has also been used in other Darden courses such as Social Entrepreneurship and Global Economies and Markets in a module focusing on emerging markets.

In August 2007 the Mainsail II SIV-Lite was frozen by its trustee as a result of the ongoing credit crisis. The state of Maine held $20 million of Mainsail commercial paper in its Cash Pool portfolio, a short-term portfolio that puts temporary, excess state revenues to work. When word of the potential loss became public, the Treasurer came under attack. The case introduces the functions of a state Treasury department, with particular emphasis on the investment objectives and guidelines for the cash pool as well as its composition. The case reviews the events leading up to and including August 2007, the month when the credit markets first began to seize and when the financial crisis effectively began. It examines securitization, structured finance, and the Mainsail SIV-Lite structure in some detail.

The case introduces students to the nature of collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and the CDO origination process, with emphasis on the corporate structure of the special purpose vehicles, cash flows to various CDO tranches, and motivation behind CDO origination. Students will learn to quantitatively evaluate the risk-return profile of CDO tranches with emphasis on the equity tranche (also known as “toxic waste”). This is ideal for MBA and advanced undergraduate level courses on financial markets, financial institutions, and investments. In the case, an associate at the Debt Capital Markets desk of Lehman Brothers prepares a CDO issuance for Western Asset. Western Asset had been contacted by a group of commercial banks eager to sell senior secured bank loans and high-yield corporate bonds to lower their capital requirements and free up capital for additional lending.

This case requires students to evaluate alternative dual-share-class corporate structures that allow companies and entrepreneurs to pursue profit with purpose. The case explores Impact Makers, an IT consulting company based in Richmond, Virginia. While original founders of the firm hold all voting rights, the cash flow rights belong to two nonprofits setting the stage for a Newman's Own model of management consulting. The case discusses whether and how the alternative corporate structure aids the firm's overall strategy to attract top-quality employees, pay them competitive salaries, and provide superior service to its clients while donating 100% of its lifetime value to charitable causes, largely through partnerships with various nonprofit organizations. More importantly, the case asks students to evaluate how such a dual-share-class and dual-purpose company can raise capital to fund continued growth.

The case opens with CEO Michael Pirron reminding himself of all the questions he had run through to execute a strategy to further grow Impact Makers' consulting business both through expanding a menu of services and through conquering new geographical markets. To do either, or both, the company needed a cash infusion. Internal cash was limited, as up to 40% of it flowed to charitable partners, demonstrating Impact Makers' commitment to its mission. Raising debt for a company without fixed assets was challenging and time consuming. Complicating it all was that being structured as a nonstock corporation rendered equity raising difficult. Could Impact Makers raise money to grow and stay true to community values at the same time?

The learning outcomes of this study are to gain an understanding of the banking regulations and their impact on banking performance, to understand the intermediation role of banks by channelizing depositors’ savings and providing loans to borrowers, to explain an impact of a recent regulatory change in the Indian banking that directly impacts their financial performance, to critically evaluate the different financial ratios to analyze the performance of a bank and to build a DuPont analysis framework for banks.

The case serves as a primer on banking regulations in India and provides insights into banking performance. Banking regulations play an important role in maintaining financial stability, specifically in emerging economies like India. The protagonist of the case is Salil Kumar who presented his internship project to the review committee of Stock Investment Company on April 16, 2021. However, he had to rework and present his final project within seven days on the basis of the feedback received from the committee. Kumar faced the dilemma of bringing together a comparative study across two banks, namely, Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI Bank) and State Bank of India (SBI) and building a DuPont framework covering the different aspects of banking performance. The case exemplifies the intricate regulatory landscape in India within which banks operate and highlights the recent alterations introduced by the Reserve Bank of India. For instance, the framework for dealing with domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) was introduced in 2014 and subsequently adopted in August 2015. The D-SIB framework provides inherent guarantee to large banks such as ICICI Bank and SBI. This ensures government backup in the event of any failure, thereby securing financial stability. The case study is suitable for banking and financial accounting courses taught in postgraduate management programs. Once the case is studied, the students are expected to understand the basics of banking, regulations, impact of regulations on banking performance and financial measures.

The case provides valuable insights into the intricate dynamics of the banking industry, offering a critical perspective for analysis. A well-structured teaching note would serve as a valuable tool for instructors, allowing them to facilitate engaging classroom discussions and effectively guide students toward achieving the desired teaching objectives.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 1: Accounting and Finance.

In November 2003, John Fruehwirth, a principal at Allied Capital, was considering a $20 million mezzanine investment in growth capital for Elephant Bar, a California restaurant chain. Elephant Bar had had some initial success in California but now Allied's investment committee had to wrestle with the question of whether the restaurant concept was strong enough to travel and become a national brand or whether it was mainly a “California Concept.” And if the concept was strong enough to travel, would Allied Capital be able to meet its underwriting standards? Because Elephant Bar is a company with aggressive growth plans, it is significantly riskier than traditional mezzanine investments. The case can be used in courses on venture investing to illustrate another funding source available to young companies. Traditional mezzanine financing is often used to provide a portion of the funding for late-stage investments, such as leveraged buyouts. The case can also be used in courses on private equity to illustrate the perspective, risk mitigation strategies, and return expectations of mezzanine investors.

This case has a teaching note and a spreadsheet, which are available to registered faculty members.

It enables students to understand and design a business model canvas, design standard operating procedure (SOP) for very unorganized business operations and also devise base pricing for vendor negotiation.

Mr Gaurav Chaudhary, chief executive officer and Founder of Pashushala.com, established a first-ever Livestock online marketplace in India, leveraging the penetration of internet users in 2019. Pashsuhala.com evolved as an all-inclusive ecosystem that offered an innovative business model by bundling financial aid, logistics, veterinary and insurance solutions to its buyers and sellers. While every other aspect seemed to have had fallen in place, Gaurav was not convinced with the everyday handling of the cattle especially during transportation. Transporting cattle was the most challenging task tempered with issues such as changing weather conditions, stock density, lack of training on handling cattle while loading and unloading, long journey hours, feeding and watering procedures and many more for which Gaurav had to depend on the logistics partners. Gaurav was in a dilemma whether to have his own fleet armed with trained personnel for transporting the cattle or to streamline the existing operating procedures into SOP to be followed by logistics partners. If he continued with logistics partners he also had to work on standard costs i.e. fixed and variable costs incurred during the transportation of livestock. The case deals with business concepts such as supply chain risk management in the livestock sector, SOPs for a very unstructured and unpredictable ecosystem, pricing strategies and business model canvas.

Masters in business administration (MBA) and Executive MBA level.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics.

In early 2014, the family leadership of Bush Brothers & Company, a leading player in canned vegetables (its Bush's Best line dominated the canned-beans market), faced questions about the family's vision for the future in light of an imminent leadership transition: third-generation member, longtime board chair, and, until recently, CEO Jim Ethier planned to leave his role as early as 2015. The family was into its sixth generation, with nearly sixty family shareholders spread across four branches. On the business side, the first non-family CEO was overseeing development of a growth strategy, including ongoing ventures into competitive new markets such as Hispanic foods. Its fourth-generation leaders including Drew Everett (vice president of human resources and shareholder relations, and likely board chair successor), Sarah (chair of the family senate), and Tony (chair of the family's private trust company) faced questions about whom to involve in developing a future vision, how to formulate the vision effectively, and what vision would best serve business and family interests. These questions represented underlying strategic dilemmas, such as whether to have a select group of leaders craft the vision or to solicit input from a wider range of shareholders, and how much to allow the business vision to drive the ‘people’ vision all framed by recent unsuccessful attempts to develop a shared vision. Resolving these dilemmas successfully would help the family frame and advance its established traditions of leadership, governance, and culture within a truly shared vision that boosted unity and long-term commitment. Students working on the case will gain insights into the framework, process, and challenges associated with developing a shared vision for a complex, multigeneration family enterprise.

Describes how four independent, community-based nonmedical centers that offered professional services and programs to cancer patients on a voluntary non-fee basis in the 1990s came together to form the Cancer Health Alliance in 2003-2004 as a separate nonprofit to help achieve more of their mission and be more sustainable.

To understand why it is so difficult for small independent nonprofits with similar missions, activities, programs, and funding to collaborate to achieve more mission. To examine how less complex nonprofit alliances begin, how they progress along an alliance continuum, and what the options are for future growth.