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This case was researched using publicly available sources, including Mercury Systems financial filings and press releases, news stories about the seasoned equity offering, financial information from Bloomberg and industry information from IBISWorld Industry Reports and articles related to seasoned/secondary equity offerings, intangible asset valuation and the use of revolving lines of credit. Quotes are taken from Mercury financial reports and press releases and express the (optimistic) opinions of company executives.

Mercury Systems, a technology company in the aerospace and defense industry, announced a six million share seasoned stock offering in June 2019. This resulted in a 6% stock price decrease. A stock price decrease is a typical event when a firm announces the issuance of new common shares, but with Mercury Systems, there were concerns about how much money the firm needed to fund its strategy of growth through acquisitions. If internally generated funds were not sufficient, should the firm issue debt or have another seasoned equity issue? Students will look at the objectives and success of the most recent seasoned equity issue, determine future funds needs and how the firm should finance these needs.

This case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students in corporate finance electives. Typically, topics such as seasoned equity offerings are not covered in introductory courses, so this is recommended for finance electives. Even in advanced finance courses, sometimes there is insufficient time to cover seasoned equity offerings.

Students need to know basic capital budgeting techniques to value INFINITI and its competitors. Issues include how to: handle taxes in a discounted cash flow analysis when valuing an S Corp. where incentives depend on current (known) and future (unknown) tax provisions; value a firm using comparable multiples analysis and transactions data; assess the costs and benefits of acquiring a firm versus being acquired; and analyze an industry and perform a ratio and financial statement analysis.

The case information was obtained through interviews with co-founder Mark Schwaiger. In addition, the authors researched industry and comparable company data, along with current events relating to the professional employer organization (PEO). Financial data was obtained from the owners and competitor data was obtained from Thomson One and Bloomberg.

INFINITI HR was a PEO providing comprehensive human resources to their clients. Co-founders Scott Smrkovski and Mark Schwaiger were at a crossroads at the end of 2015 trying to determine the best course of action to take with their company to grow and prosper. One option was for INFINITI to be acquired by a larger company and the second option was for INFINITI acquire a smaller company. In this case, students have the opportunity to do a financial analysis and evaluation of INFINITI and its competitors to determine which option is the best.

This case is intended for an advanced undergraduate or an MBA corporate finance class.

Over the last two decades, Under Armour (UA) has emerged from being the “underdog” in the sports apparel and footwear industry to being a leader in the industry, with a fierce attention to performance and great skill at picking up-and-coming athletes who emerge as superstars. This case underscores its administrative heritage, competitive strategy, and growth potential as a global player in a highly competitive industry. It addresses the tension between being a performance brand while launching lines for women vs technology applications and conflicts between its growth strategy and macro-economic forces. It highlights areas in which it has succeeded against macro-economic forces and where it has not.

The research relies primarily on secondary sources and countless studies of UA and its major competitors. Primary research is based on databases, videos of UA’s Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Plank, and articles from Bloomberg to The Baltimore Sun (UA’s headquarters) on the history, growth and future of UA. It also includes observations and site visits to one of its signature brand house stores as well as intensive research and directed studies with students in the USA and China.

The case can be applied to undergraduate, graduate or executive business classes in: business policy and strategy; general management; (sports) marketing; leadership or organisational behaviour classes.

This case is best taught in a first-year MBA finance course and with a series of cases based on cash flow analysis. Its primary objective is to portray the major differences in project analysis for nonprofit organizations compared to for-profit companies and to highlight the unique issues relevant in a health care environment. Students must decide, based on cash flow analysis and nonfinancial factors, whether or not to propose a long-term acute care hospital (LTAC) project to the board of directors of the U. Va. Health System. Students must use the assumptions outlined in the case to create a cash flow analysis and then compute a net present value (NPV) calculation and internal rate of return (IRR) for the project. After assessing the base-case results and sensitivity analysis of the assumptions driving those results, students must decide if the project should be taken to the board of directors.

In early 2012, an equity analyst, was examining the jet fuel hedging strategy of JetBlue Airways for the coming year. Because airlines cross-hedged their jet fuel price risk using derivatives contracts on other oil products such as WTI and Brent crude oil, they were exposed to basis risk. In 2011, dislocations in the oil market led to a Brent-WTI premium wherein jet fuel started to move with Brent instead of WTI, as it traditionally did. Faced with hedging losses, several U.S. airlines started to change their hedging strategies, moving away from WTI. But others worried that the Brent-WTI premium might be a temporary phenomenon. For 2012, would JetBlue continue using WTI for its hedges, or would it switch to an alternative such as Brent?

This case is designed to achieve the following learning objectives: recognize the impact of personality traits on leadership style; identify the key elements in a turnaround strategy; examine leadership best practices from a gender perspective; and assess the role of strategic decision-making on company growth.

The case study describes how Lisa Su (Su), the first woman CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, helped turn around the debt-laden semiconductor firm within a decade through her transformational leadership, vision and values. The case first touches upon Su’s early life and education and the influence of her parents in shaping her personality. It then focuses on the first half of Su’s career, during which she was working on semiconductor projects and was involved in research and product development, and how she made the gradual shift to a people management role in her stint of over a decade at IBM followed by a leadership opportunity at Freescale Semiconductor Inc. The case then describes Su’s move to AMD in 2012 as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s global business divisions at a time when AMD was nearly US$2.5bn in debt and revenues had increased only once in the previous five years. There were also rumors of bankruptcy and spin-offs after the company lost more than US$1bn in the year 2012. The cas

This case is meant for MBA students as part of their Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Strategic Management curriculum.

Teaching notes Student feedback details.

CCS 11: Strategy.

In July 2007, Mark-Hans Richer became Harley-Davidson's first chief marketing officer. Its riders were aging, which the company saw as an existential threat. Although Harley-Davidson had a record sales year in 2006 and had maintained a commanding share of the heavyweight motorcycle market for the previous decade, it needed to take new action to sustain its growth.

Richer needed to deliver a new generation of riders and a more diverse customer base, all without losing current Harley-Davidson customers. He also knew that he could not relax: the average tenure of a CMO in 2007 was only 27 months and a complete new product development cycle would take a minimum of four years.

After analyzing the case, students should be able to:

• Recommend marketing decisions for a brand with extremely high loyalty in light of various consumer behavior indicators gleaned from market research

• Understand the power of leveraging existing assets as opposed to innovating new products

• Understand the psychological basis of customer loyalty, including drivers and metrics of loyalty

Recommend marketing decisions for a brand with extremely high loyalty in light of various consumer behavior indicators gleaned from market research

Understand the power of leveraging existing assets as opposed to innovating new products

Understand the psychological basis of customer loyalty, including drivers and metrics of loyalty

This case features the challenges of a startup in the crowdfunding space in 2015 as its leadership assesses potential sources of growth for the company s future. Founded in Israel in 2012 by a renowned venture capitalist, OurCrowd was a venture capital crowdfunding platform that strove to connect high-growth startups raising capital with accredited private investors from around the world. Its value proposition was to democratize an inefficient market for private equity that had historically been dominated by a small number of highly connected venture capital firms (VCs). The case asks students to put themselves in the shoes of OurCrowd s head of investor community as he prepares for a meeting with the company s board of directors to discuss potential strategies for growth: Should the company partner with the incumbent VCs it initially sought to disrupt, emphasize marketing its Portfolio Reserve fund, strive to provide its investors and investees with higher value-added services, target a broader swath of investors by aggressively marketing the platform in international markets, or attempt to go up-market and pursue increasingly larger deals with later-stage companies? Through assessing these options and discussing this case, students will learn about incentive problems in two-sided markets as well as how different types of crowdfunding platforms create value for users.

Capital structure theory.

The case is meant for teaching and class discussion, and uses only secondary data based on published sources. The interpretation and perspectives presented are based solely on the secondary data.

This paper aims to help current and future managers understand capital structure theory and the various equity and debt finance options available for raising capital. It also examines the financial analysis and strategic management of black swan events. After the class discussion, students will understand how to financially and strategically manage a company during black swan events and also have a deep dive into capital structure analysis of a large company.

MBA/postgraduate/undergraduate courses on corporate finance or advanced corporate finance. Executive/management development programs and short duration Massive Open Online Courses on investment decision-making and advanced corporate finance. MBA/postgraduate/undergraduate courses on corporate strategy and economic environment and planning.