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In early 2016, David Sin, founder of the Singapore-based private equity group SIN Capital and chairman of its primary holding, Fullerton Health, was deeply involved in preparations for taking Fullerton public on the Singapore stock exchange. Three years after SIN Capital had invested in Fullerton, a provider of enterprise health management, and two years ahead of the original plan, it had attained a valuation of over S$1 billion. Listing the company would provide a number of important benefits as the management team and the investors expanded the operation throughout South Asia. This case describes the benefits and drawbacks of Fullerton's planned IPO, along with the strategy that had propelled its impressive growth. It also presents David Sin's vision for SIN Capital as a different type of private equity firm.

The partners at Innova Capital, a leading mid-market private equity investor in Poland, must negotiate a transition of power between the two ex-patriate founders and three talented young Polish partners. If they fail to find an accomodation, the entire firm will self-destruct. This case explores the long-running process through which they were able to reach an agreement and the different motivations and goals that each partner wanted to achieve.

The growth of companies that facilitate the sales of unregistered stock, such as that granted to employees of successful but long-private companies, has raised a number of questions among regulators, investors, and company founders. This brief vignette sketches out some of the benefits and drawbacks of alternative methods of liquidity.

This note provides an overview of private equity in Europe as of mid-2010.

This note provides an overview of private equity in emerging markets as of late 2009.

Hardina Smythe, a recent MBA graduate, has just joined a top-tier venture capital firm in the difficult environment of late 2010. Her first assignment is to evaluate three different deals and make recommendations to the partners. Each potential investment has strengths and drawbacks for both the firm and Hardina.

David Swensen and the Investments Office staff must decide whether to continue to allocate the bulk of the university's endowment to illiquid investments-hedge funds, private equity, real estate-given the impact of the recent market turmoil. The case explores the risks and benefits of a different asset allocation strategy and also considers how to classify some of the different assets. It highlights the issues around allocations across different subclasses, e.g., between venture capital, hedge funds, and real assets.

In December 2008, Thomas G. Tsao, acting CEO of Digital Media Group (DMG), a venture-backed provider of technology and media used primarily in subways, must decide how to structure the company's bid for the advertising concession in Shanghai's 13 existing and planned subway lines. This is complicated by the fact that he is also a general partner in Gobi Partners, one of DMG's largest investors. The company is bidding against its largest competitor, which also investigated acquiring DMG a few months before. DMG has very little cash, and the publicly traded competitor knows it. How does Tom structure the bid? How does he get the money for it? How does he manage the company, given its inability to attract a CEO and his firm's need to have an exit? Lastly, how does he manage his responsibilities - to his firm, his limited partners, his coinvestors, and the company?

Creative Capital provides grants to individual artists using a venture capital model-the money comes with guidance and governance. Artists receive money as milestones are reached and also receive guidance on managing their lives and business to increase their sustainability. But as Ruby Lerner, CEO of Creative Capital, looks to the organization's next decade, how can she ensure the sustainability of this high-touch, uniquely individual model?

Bill Strickland, CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, must decide the best way to replicate his innovative, award-winning approach to curing poverty. Manchester Bidwell's approach, which provides both adult job-training tuned to fill the needs of local industries and after-school art instruction for at-risk youth, has proven highly effective over the 40 years Strickland has operated it. He wants to replicate this strategy across 100 or 200 cities, but progress has been slow. Is the current intensive approach correct, or should he change it? What would be at risk? How can he best provide his'cure for poverty'to the greatest number of communities?

Microsoft's IP Ventures program, through which Microsoft spun out promising but unused technologies into new companies, is a new approach to corporate venture capital. The program provides'IP for equity'and has proven very successful in achieving its main goals-improved morale among researchers who like knowing their technology is being used, improved relationships with the venture capital community particularly in Silicon Valley, and good PR. Many of the eight companies launched so far are doing well. Yet how can the program be scaled beyond its current size, and how can it structure its investments to reduce the dilution that Microsoft invariably faces, given that it does not invest beyond the technology that seeds the company initially?

Thomas G. Tsao, founding general partner of Gobi Partners, an early stage venture capital firm in China, must decide how to manage his firm's largest investment after the departure of the CEO. Tom has temporarily stepped in as CEO, but finding a replacement with the necessary technical and language skills is difficult. Moreover, the company is facing significant challenges in winning business and restructuring its own operations. Should Tom stay on as CEO? Revisit one of the candidates who had withdrawn? Try harder to sell the company? At what price? The case provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of active investment management in an emerging market from the perspectives of the many stakeholders involved.

These three vignettes present various issues around the strategy and management of a private equity firm. In one, a senior partner must decide how to manage an over-extended colleague and how to reduce the risk of the firm's portfolio; in the second, a limited partner must decide how to respond to tensions between general partners in a fund, and in the third, the general partners must decide whether to invest in an intriguing opportunity that lies outside the firm's carefully developed investment strategy.

Thomas G. Tsao, founding general partner of Gobi Partners, an early stage venture capital firm in China, must decide how to manage his firm's largest investment after the departure of the CEO. Tom has temporarily stepped in as CEO, but finding a replacement with the necessary technical and language skills is difficult. Moreover, the company is facing significant challenges in winning business and restructuring its own operations. Should Tom stay on as CEO? Revisit one of the candidates who had withdrawn? Try harder to sell the company? At what price? The case provides an opportunity to discuss the issue of active investment management in an emerging market from the perspectives of the many stakeholders involved.

Martin Smith, a recent MBA graduate, has just joined a top-tier venture capital firm in the difficult environment of late 2008. One of his first assignments is to review three companies in a partner's portfolio and recommend strategies for managing them. In addition, the partner also has an opportunity to invest in a long-desired company at a good price. Each company presents different potential risks and rewards, both financial and reputational, for Milliway, the partner, and Martin.

Iris Running Crane, an MBA candidate, must choose among three different job offers in private equity. One is with a top-tier megafund buyout operation; the second with a geographically focused mid-market fund; and the third with a one-time top-tier fund that is trying to reposition itself as a turnaround expert, starting with its own portfolio. Iris must consider the advantages and drawbacks of each position, and how each will help her achieve her personal goals.

Justin Joffe is about to graduate from HBS in Spring 2009. He must decide whether to join his father's company, Toronto-based AME Learning, as president working alongside his father who will be CEO. AME has been in business for 12 years, mostly as a small consulting firm doing financial literacy training. Recently, it shifted strategy to provide textbooks for college accounting courses. The Joffes are trying to raise private equity financing but market conditions have made it difficult and the company is at risk of exhausting the senior Joffe's savings. The case explores the challenges of creating an intergenerational working relationship and asks students to evaluate the alternatives facing the two Joffes as they consider the future for themselves and AME Learning.

The investment committee of Grove Street Advisors, a pioneer in the provision of customized private equity funds-of-funds for pension fund clients, must decide how to respond to the market opportunities and challenges presented by the turmoil of 2008 and 2009. How can they shift their strategy to fill new market niches, or should they stay with their successful approach thus far, even though the market is getting crowded? The case also presents background about the roles of intermediaries in private equity.

In fall 2008, a venture lender must decide whether to make a loan to Avid, a small but promising venture-backed life sciences firm. In reviewing her proposal, Cristy Barnes considers the company's characteristics and how they differ from a typical investment. At the same time, the CEO and the venture capitalist are exploring the true costs and benefits of taking the loan, particularly in the uncertain economic climate of the time.

Two entrepreneurs have just been told by their venture capital backer to prepare a list of possible cuts to help them weather the 2008-2009 economic downturn. The impact on each firm is very different: one is a later-stage company with revenues in excess of $100 million; the other a pre-revenue company trying to raise its first institutional round. The entrepreneurs must consider their options and the impact on their companies'growth and, perhaps, survival.

The CEO of a promising biotech company must decide how to respond to the macro-economic slump of late 2008. He had planned to pursue an aggressive schedule moving the firm's Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease imaging compounds through clinical trials and into the market. This involved expanding the firm's facilities and headcount and he planned to fund this by taking venture debt. Although clinical trial data is extremely encouraging, questions about raising his next venture round and the overall environment has made him question the wisdom of this plan. This case provides students an opportunity to explore the true cost of venture debt and when it is best used to achieve the goals of all parties--venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and venture lenders.

Facing the downturn in late 2008, the partners in a West-Coast venture capital firm are trying to decide how to manage their portfolio companies and whether to make new investments. Not only must they consider the particulars of each company individually, but they must also think about how to manage the entire firm's portfolio.

Jayant Davar, CEO and founder of Sandhar Technologies Group, a privately held auto components maker in India, is trying to decide how best to grow the company. He recently took a $22 million investment from Actis Capital, a major emerging markets private equity firm, to consummate an acquisition with a South Indian competitor. Options that Davar considers include acquisitions in developed markets, efforts to increase export sales, and greater investment R&D facilities. But these mean changing the customer-centric strategy that has been key to Sandhar's success. Perhaps he should simply continue what has worked for so long, riding India's 20% domestic growth.

Steven Schwarzman, Chairman of the Blackstone Group, has just learned that an investment group associated with the government of China wants to buy the majority of Blackstone's leveraged IPO. As he considers how to respond to this offer, Schwarzman reviews the firm's proposed structure as a public entity and assesses how he might retain the delicate balance among stakeholders while still maintaining liquidity in the market.

This note explores the limited partner advisory boards. Based on interviews with seven experienced limited partners who serve on a number of different advisory boards, it presents the roles of the advisory board, the ways it can influence the general partner, and the reasons for limited partners to serve on them. It also contrasts the findings of this survey with a paper on the performance differential between university endowments and other institutional investors and hypothesizes the reasons behind it.

In a series of vignettes, Nigella Hardy-Smyth of an international development agency that invests partners in emerging markets private equity firms must decide how to handle various situations that arise. As a member of the Limited Partner Advisory Board of each of the five firms, she must contend with a fund manager with an indistinct mandate, a manager who wants to exceed the concentration limit in an investment, tension between a star investor and her other partners, a founding partner who wants to fire the rest of his senior team, and a limited partner seeking preferential treatment that might benefit his fund to the detriment of the other limited partners. The process of discussing these helps the class explore the nuanced role of a limited partner in a private equity firm.

Alok Patel, the founder and chairman of a Gujarat-based, privately held edible oils processor, is considering long-term liquidity opportunities for the company and its investors. He could list the company on one of the Indian exchanges, opt for a trade sale, or acquire a struggling French oils processor and after some consolidation, exit via a listing on the New York or London exchanges. Each options presents personal and professional benefits and disadvantages.

Alok Patel, the founder and chairman of a Gujarat-based, privately held edible oils processor, has hired a CFO and the company is doing extremely well. He wants to add a new plant to process oilive oil, but estimates he will need $20 million. He must decide among financing alternatives: a loan from his local bank, an investment from a private equity firm, or an investment from a hedge fund. Over lunch with his business mentor and friend, a retired ICICI bank director, he explores the pros and cons of each financing strategy.

Alok Patel, the founder and chairman of a Gujarat-based, privately held edible oils processor, must decide whether to hire a CFO candidate. Previously, his company's book-keeping has been done by an uncle, who has mentioned that he may retire soon. Patel could hire his younger son, who is just finishing his MBA at UCLA; but accounting was not Aakash's strength, and Patel has read that a strong finance person can help position a company for success. The company has recently experienced significant growth due to a new program of branded oils, and Patel is worried that the financials are getting away from his uncle. The most qualified candidate, though, comes from a different region. Should Patel hire a non-family member for this sensitive position? If so, should he go so far as to hire someone who does not come from his home region?