A controlling shareholder of the NYSE-listed Chinese online gaming company Shanda Games has offered a buyout at USD6.90 per American Depository Share (ADS); each ADS consists of two ordinary shares. The offer provides a premium of 22 per cent to the stock’s Friday close. Throughout the previous year, Shanda Games’ ADS had typically traded in the range of USD3.00 to 4.50.
As Shanda Games’ independent directors attempt to evaluate the offer, they wonder: Should the shareholders accept it as it is? Should they ask for a higher price? Or should they look for the alternatives?

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Olam International, a publicly listed firm, was a leading agri-business with an integrated supply chain. To sustain growth, the company took on large amounts of debt to fund acquisitions and other capital expenditures. A hedge fund issued a Sell recommendation, highlighting the problems facing the company, including several years of negative free cash flows. The heated exchange between Olam and the hedge fund led to a government investment fund, Temasek Holdings, first backing Olam, and then eventually offering to buy out the minority shareholders. This scenario presents an excellent opportunity to apply the discounted cash flow analysis and relative valuation techniques to evaluate Temasek’s offer.

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On October 9, 2013, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc., a large U.S. retailer of men’s tailored and casual clothing, footwear and accessories, made a hostile offer to buy its larger rival Men’s Wearhouse. The latter made a counter-offer on January 6, 2014 in what is known as a Pac-man defence — the prey turned predator. Jos. A. Bank responded by adopting a poison pill, announcing the planned acquisition of Eddie Bauer, an outdoor apparel retailer. What started out as a simple offer had turned into a contest with multiple counter-offers and the deployment of several takeover defences. How should Eminence Capital, a New York-based hedge fund and the largest shareholder in both firms, react? How should each firm respond to the latest offer on their respective tables?

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In January 2012, Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) Corporation’s chief executive officer resigned after two major breakdowns on the North-South Line in December 2011. SMRT was a public transport operator in Singapore, with a transportation network that comprised buses, trains and taxis. The two breakdowns were arguably the largest public transportation incidents in Singapore’s history, prompting public outrage and heavy criticism of the CEO’s qualifications and personal style. However, it was uncertain whether she, as CEO, bore primary responsibility for the train breakdowns. To what extent did her gender and unconventional style affect the public’s perception of her effectiveness as a leader? How much did the media influence the public’s perception? Could the train breakdowns have been averted if a CEO with an engineering background or industry-specific experience had been in charge?

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A Japanese management consultant company seeks to relocate some of its instructors for a period of between one and three months to Singapore in order to conduct its flagship course catering to Japanese expatriate managers. It must determine which instructors to select in order to minimize relocation costs while taking into account their productivity and availability and the number of courses booked over three future months. Cost minimization is crucial due to the expensive service apartment rentals in Singapore. The firm must develop an optimization template in order to make the best possible decision.

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In November 2011, Muddy Waters, a U.S. short-seller fund, accused Focus Media of overstating the size of its business. Focus Media’s stock price fell sharply at first but then rebounded as the company countered the attacks. In March 2012, however, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission launched its own investigation and pressured Focus Media to amend some of its filings. A few months later, CEO Jiang partnered with a group of private equity (PE) firms, to take Focus Media private in a deal valued at more than $3.7 billion, China’s largest-ever buyout. In the following months, several Chinese companies followed suit and delisted from the NASDAQ. In mid-2014, the PE firms in the consortium wanted to cash out of their equity positions, and Jiang faced the difficult decision of what to do next.

In April 2014, Alibaba’s impending initial public offering (IPO) projected to be among the world’s largest IPOs. Alibaba faced many choices regarding ownership structure, trading location, IPO pricing and IPO timing. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange seemed like a natural fit for its IPO due to geographical, cultural and language proximity. Furthermore, 86.7 per cent of Alibaba’s revenues originated within China. However, Alibaba insisted on “partnership governance,” while the Hong Kong Stock Exchange did not allow listing of companies with dual-class share structure. In contrast, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ did not object to Alibaba’s proposed ownership structure. While the Hong Kong investors knew Alibaba’s business better, the New York exchanges provided more liquidity and visibility. Against this backdrop, Alibaba needed to make difficult decisions regarding its IPO.

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End-of-month account closure at many firms often requires long work hours, which may lead to staff fatigue and attrition that will affect productivity and quality of work. This is true for GlaxoSmithKline’s Record to Report Finance team in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in August 2014. The company is a science-led global business that researches and develops a broad range of innovative products in three primary areas: pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer health care. The team in Malaysia has 40 employees who provide services including month-end accounts closure, financial reporting and analytics to business units operating in the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. At the end of every month, the team must perform within five days a sequence of 17 activities requiring varying man-hours. The activities must follow a specific flow according to information availability and must, for internal efficiency and quality control reasons, start and end on the same day. Is there a method by which management can help the team achieve work balance or minimize the number of work hours per day?

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Sheng Siong was the third-largest supermarket chain in Singapore. Its chief executive officer co-founded it with his two brothers in 1985. Sheng Siong’s business model was well suited to cater to the price-sensitive and more traditional customer segment in Singapore, with a dominant presence in suburban areas called “heartlands.” It also had a unique corporate philosophy, which was influenced by the personal values of its founding family. However, the market became increasingly saturated, competitors were aggressive and costs were rising. The key question was whether Sheng Siong’s original competitive advantage was sustainable and how it could grow.

Yamato Transport Co., Ltd. innovatively used the field cast model of housewives as part-time employees to meet the increasing delivery demands of morning peak-load hours. The housewives provided Yamato with a cost-efficient source of human resources and the nimbleness to adjust its staff deployment to respond reliably and quickly to customers’ needs. A series of recruitment, training, and compensation and appraisal processes was designed for the field cast model.
The case outlines the challenges with the implementation of the field cast model and the decision facing Yamato’s managers of whether to expand it throughout the company’s Japanese operations. Yamato’s managers were largely satisfied with the progress of the field cast model; although field casts made up less than 2 per cent of the delivery manpower at Yamato, they played a crucial role in improving customer satisfaction levels and lowering parcel delivery costs. However, the implications of the expansion plan were multi-dimensional. At an operational level, the inconsistency in the field casts’ performance could be magnified as the number of field casts continued to increase over the coming months. As well, the sales drivers might struggle to cope with the additional responsibility to train and supervise field casts. More broadly, the sustainability of the field cast model was unknown because of Japan’s changing social structure. In addition, with the improvement of the global economy since 2010, the supply of part-time employees was threatened by competition from alternative employment opportunities.

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