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The Disruption of Venture Capital

Harvard Business Review

Hedge fund investors who deploy capital in large and liquid markets can scale their time well. Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square, for example, has $9 billion in assets under management and fewer than ten investment professionals. A key constraining resource in traditional venture is a VC investor's time.

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How Banks Can Compete Against an Army of Fintech Startups

Harvard Business Review

The marketing, underwriting, and servicing of SME loans have largely taken a backseat. New digital entrants have spotted the market opportunity created by these dynamics, and the result is an explosion in online lending to SMEs from fintech startups. Other sectors of retail lending have not fared much better.

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Robo-Advisers Are Coming to Consulting and Corporate Strategy

Harvard Business Review

Robo-advisors, which were introduced in 2008 , are steadily eating up market share from their human counterparts much the way that Amazon and Netflix have taken share from Walmart and Regal Cinemas. Cloud-based hardware is also increasingly available to any business at low cost. will grow to U.S. $5 5 trillion to U.S. $7 ZB by 2020.

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The Fastest-Growing Cause for Shareholders Is Sustainability

Harvard Business Review

Ask someone to name the demands that activist hedge funds make of companies and they’ll likely list corporate governance issues like board changes and executive compensation, or perhaps some form of restructuring. In contrast, fair marketing and advertising of products are very important for companies in these sectors.

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Case Study: A Short-Seller Crashes the Party

Harvard Business Review

When the well-known hedge fund manager and short-seller Jeremiah Hughes first put Terranola in the spotlight, issuing ominous warnings about unsold products, a looming patent expiration, and flawed growth projections, the considered judgment of the executive team was to do nothing. “I Terranola’s market cap skyrocketed to $8.1

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What Good Is Impact Investing?

Harvard Business Review

Or you could participate in projects financed in part by conventional investors and in part by non-profits. The other extreme is, “I have no intentions but look I’ve created jobs, ex post ,” and that is the post-rationalization of an economics-only business model. Noble: Impact investing is about strategy.

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McDonald’s Has to Do More than Manipulate Its Stock Price

Harvard Business Review

The company’s executives said that to help finance the plan, McDonald’s would increase refranchising (turning company-owned restaurants into franchises), take on more debt (even at the risk of lowering its bond rating ), and find $300 million to cut in general and administrative expenses. million in 2014 to a high of $12.6

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