All cases

February 2021

ProMed Ltd

By John Mullins, Robert M Johnson

For Sid Worley, it was decision time. He had spent the last two years courting the management and the family owners of his largest competitor, and finally (and unexpectedly) they had indicated that they would be receptive to “a serious offer” to buy the company. Worley was excited and determined...

February 2021

Valuing Privately Owned Companies: Valuation Techniques – Technical Note

By John Mullins, Robert M Johnson, Steve Pesenti

It is commonly said that the valuation of companies is more of an art than a science. The essence of this statement is that arriving at a valuation is a matter of judgment, balancing the consideration of various factors, rather than the mechanical application of a mathematical formula. This is espec...

February 2021

Finance for Entrepreneurial Companies: Financing Instruments – Technical Note

By John Mullins, Robert M Johnson, Steve Pesenti

Despite today’s growing attention to bootstrapping and the use of customer funding in the financing of new ventures, many new ventures, be they a startup or a plan to grow an existing business, will require some initial injection of capital to finance the fixed assets, working capital, and operati...

January 2021

Pharma UK: The Transdermal Technology – Compact Case

By Julian Birkinshaw

Pharma UK was the UK subsidiary of Pharma, a major international pharmaceuticals company with expertise in oncology, hormone replacement drugs and fertility. Pharma UK was responsible for selling drugs in the local marketplace. However, it also had 50 people in R&D, doing local development work ...

January 2021

Building an Agile Organisation at ING Bank Netherlands – Compact Case

By Julian Birkinshaw, Ken Mark

ING Group was established through a merger of three Dutch financial services firms in 1991. It expanded internationally into Europe and the Americas, and created a no-frills savings account business called ING Direct in the late 1990s. In 2007 it merged its two main subsidiary banks, Postbank with ...