In June 2023, Zerodha, a leading player in India’s discount brokerage industry, was at a crossroads. Founded in 2010 by Nikhil and Nithin Kamath, who were avid stock traders from a young age, the company had grown significantly by putting customers first. The pandemic and low-interest environment had provided a strong tailwind to the sector as well as the company, especially in terms of the number of customers and revenues. However, the competition was nipping at Zerodha’s heels. Many start-ups offered similar technology interfaces, and some were funded by venture capital. A few were spending aggressively to court customers as well as tech employees. With a debt-free balance sheet built through several years of profitable operations, Zerodha could pursue strategies that required large spending, but the key question was: should Zerodha deviate from its time-tested strategy of being a cost leader and not following the herd in the new post-pandemic environment? 

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Publication Date: 28/08/2023
St. Luke’s Hospital (SLH) started out as a community hospital (CH) to help rehabilitate patients who had undergone or were undergoing treatment at acute-care hospitals. By 2016, SLH’s range of services had increased manifold, making SLH one of the few CHs with a comprehensive suite of services, such as rehabilitative, wound, and dementia care. Beyond inpatient care, SLH also offered outpatient and support services such as day-patient rehabilitation, diagnostics and laboratory services, and home-care services. To meet the growing health-care needs of an aging population, Singapore adopted the CH concept for its national health-care master plan, which projected a tripling in the number of CH beds over the next 10–15 years. As more new public CHs were established, especially in the western region of Singapore—where SLH used to operate as the only CH—SLH had to review its role and future direction. To sustain its competitive advantage, should the organization invest its resources into strengthening its existing capabilities, or diversify into new areas of growth? Tan had to provide his recommendation at the next quarterly board meeting.

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The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is Malaysia’s national private-sector pension program. It has grown into one of the largest pension funds in the world. The success of the EPF and Malaysia as a whole have brought new challenges. As life expectancy increases and the population ages, how can the EPF ensure adequate pension coverage and take care of Malaysians’ increasing retirement needs? As technology replaces the need for branches and customer-facing staff, how and where should the EPF channel its valuable human resources? How should the EPF optimally invest its ever-increasing funds? These are the questions the EPF’s chief strategy officer has to answer as he charts a way forward in the 21st century.

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In the early days of 2021, GameStop, a US video game retailer, saw its share price sky-rocketed with no apparent rational explanation other than an army of small retail investors winning a trading war against a group of bearish hedge funds. At the peak of the battle, Robinhood, an online broker, suddenly stopped its customers from buying the shares of GameStop. This triggered a public outcry as the complex web of relationships between Robinhood and a few large financial institutions, among others, Citadel Securities and Melvin Capital Management, unfolded. Common market practices such as short selling and the payment for order flow (or PFOF) were also called into question. The case discusses how the stock trading ecosystem should and may change after this saga.

After merging with Commerce Bancorp Inc., TD Bank NA (TD Bank) continued to wow its customers by providing free lollipops, pens, and dog-friendly services and staying open longer than major competitors in the region. Through social media campaigns, it emphasized the importance of having a human touch in banking and showcased its appreciation for customers who had lent a helping hand to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. It introduced innovative services such as curbside pickup for debit cards, and it increased its digital offerings by providing various digital financial services, platforms, and mobile applications (apps). It also enhanced its social media footprint and engagement with various hashtags such as #TDThanksYou. While TD Bank was doing all this, major competitors such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo responded with improved online and offline services. Having successfully differentiated itself as a bank with a human touch, TD Bank was forced to shutter 81 branches in the first quarter of 2021 due to the prolonged effects of the pandemic. Now, in September 2021, it has to recalibrate and provide more digital banking services as most of its customers are demanding the safety and convenience of digital banking. Can TD Bank build upon its slogan, “America’s Most Convenient Bank,” by consistently delivering humanized and seamless “phygital” banking experiences?

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On June 24, 2021, Keppel Corporation (Keppel) and Sembcorp Marine Limited (Sembmarine) announced that they had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to enter into exclusive talks to merge Sembmarine and Keppel Offshore and Marine (Keppel O&M), a division of Keppel. Separately, but on the same day, Sembmarine also announced an intention to raise S$1.5 billion through a three-for-two renounceable rights issue (up to 18.83 billion new shares) at an exercise price of S$0.08 per share, which was a 35.7 per cent discount to the theoretical ex-rights price and a 58.1 per cent discount to the June 23 closing price of S$0.191.

Based on the share price reaction to the announcement of the restructuring, what was the market’s perception of the merger? Would it create value? Should Sembmarine raise capital via a rights issue and should shareholders subscribe to the rights issue?

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Finbook Pte. Ltd. (FinBook), a financial technology (fintech) start-up, started in July 2017 in Singapore as a decentralized marketplace for structured products on the blockchain. The founders obtained seed funding of approximately US$200,000 that allowed it to introduce and incorporate structured funds, short sales, and financial options in the crypto space using smart contracts under the distributed ledger system.

In May 2018, FinBook launched a private cornerstone round of token financing and obtained $3.5 million worth of Ethereum. However, the cryptocurrency market plunged in 2018. As a result, the founders needed to discuss their options: Should they postpone the public initial coin offering (ICO) planned for September 2018, or should they consider another round of venture capital (VC) equity financing while waiting for a better time for the ICO?

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This case focuses on the use of modern data analytics to alleviate crowding at the branches of United Overseas Bank, a full-service bank headquartered in Singapore. The case is set in 2020 against the backdrop of the COVID-19 global pandemic when vaccines were not yet available and social distancing was a key tool in the fight against the spread of the disease. How should the bank develop and deploy predictive analytics to accurately anticipate future branch crowds? How should the bank trade off key design considerations?

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In February 2021, the responsible seafood program officer for World Wide Fund for Nature Singapore (WWF-Singapore) was looking to encourage a collective change in the consumption of sustainable seafood. Promoting sustainable seafood in Singapore, however, had not been easy. Due to cultural influences and the nature of seafood trading, driving a change in the sourcing and consumption of seafood among stakeholders required significant effort and creativity. Identified stakeholders were generally either slow in acting or unresponsive. With each party pushing the responsibility to another, the challenge facing the program officer and WWF-Singapore’s market transformation team was how to overcome this deadlock of inertia. WWF-Singapore believed that it was necessary to understand and address each stakeholder separately, as stakeholders required specific communication messages and support to help them make a change. However, with limited resources, WWF-Singapore had to be strategic in deciding who to target and how.

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On March 26, 2020, Singapore Airlines was reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. To raise badly needed capital, it announced that its shareholders would be offered S$5.3 billion worth of rights shares and S$3.5 billion of rights mandatory convertible bonds, both of which would be reflected as equity on its balance sheet. Should shareholders take advantage of this offer or not? To make this decision, investors had to analyze the airline’s reasons for choosing this form of equity financing, the impact of this capital-raising exercise, Singapore Airline’s valuation, and the role of sovereign wealth funds in equity financing. Investors would have to decide the appropriate response to the rights issuances.

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