Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
81
result(s) for
"Calandro, Joseph"
Sort by:
Ulysses S. Grant and the Panic of 1873
Ulysses S. Grant’s national financial understanding and expertise (including monetary policy) progressed across his presidency, enabling him to effectively manage the Panic of 1873 and its aftermath. To appreciate the financial challenges President Grant faced we first profile how the Civil War changed the United States economically. The article then turns to a discussion of the post–Civil War investment boom, which famously ended in panic on September 18, 1873. Causes of the panic are not explored or analyzed except to say that the panic (the bust) was implicit in the Civil War expansion of money and credit, which was redirected from wartime military spending to industrial production (including railroads) after the war (the boom). The failure of influential banker Jay Cooke triggered the panic, which set off a recession that was known at the time as the “Great Depression.” Pleas for the government to help by inflating the currency occurred immediately. Responses to the panic by President Grant and the New York Clearing House are discussed and are shown to have together effectively mitigated the effects of the panic. The narrative then turns to Grant’s postpanic national financial actions; namely, his veto of the Currency (or Inflation) Bill of 1874 and his sponsorship of, and signature on, the Specie Resumption Act of 1875. Both actions are consistent with Austrian economic theory and, along with Grant’s reduction of the national debt in seven of the eight years of his presidency and quiet leadership approach, contrast sharply with modern national financial policies, practices, and beliefs. Nevertheless, they set the foundation for “America’s greatest period of growth and wealth creation” (Stockman 2024, 167) and thus should be reexamined given the current state of national finance in the United States and the risks it poses.
Journal Article
Value destruction at Marvel, and how to manage customer alienation risk
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to address customer alienation risk in the context of Marvel's recent (as of June 2023) under-performance and its contribution to Disney's stock's 50 percent-plus decline.
Design/methodology/approach
Research followed recent developments at Disney/Marvel, as well as the Bud Light customer alienation, and reconciled those developments to core brand and strategic risk management resources to derive practical suggestions to mitigate customer alienation risk across industries.
Findings
Marvel’s experience offers lessons that have relevance across industries inasmuch as a super hero paradigm is effectively a brand. The stronger the bond between customers and a brand, the more customers will maintain or extend their buying patterns over time. And the more customers personally identify with a brand, the greater the likelihood a customer alienation will occur if a firm disrespects that bond. Four practical suggestions are presented that will help to ensure the integrity of brands.
Originality/value
While the under-performance of Disney/Marvel has been (and is) covered in the press, this is the first paper that we are aware of that links that under-performance to customer alienation risk.
Journal Article
The credit cycle and corporate strategy: challenges and solutions
Purpose
This paper offers a practical overview of the U.S. credit cycle and the challenges it poses, along with a perspective on where we seem to be in the cycle in early 2023. Suggestions are then offered for how corporate executives can address cyclical challenges from a corporate strategy perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The United States credit cycle was out into context by following the trend of Moody’s Baa corporate bond yields from January 1919 to November 2022. Under the Moody’s rating system, Baa is the lowest level of investment grade credit, and as such it possesses speculative characteristics that are sensitive to cyclical dynamics. Another reason for choosing Baa credit patterns for analysis is data availability: over 100-years of continuous Baa data is searchable at the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Findings
The prior credit cycle wave of progressively lower inflation and interest rates began in 1982 and ended in 2020. The current credit cycle of wave of progressively higher inflation and interest rates will present strategic risks and opportunities that executives will increasingly have to deal with.
Originality/value
This is the first corporate strategy paper we are aware that practically addresses the credit cycle change. It is also the first paper we are aware that provides practical suggestions on how to address that change from a corporate strategy perspective.
Journal Article
Risk as strategy: defending against catastrophic turns of fortune
Purpose
The author offers executives a strategic process for proactively mitigating the risk of catastrophic unwanted Black Swan surprises that can severely, and often abruptly, impair a balance sheet.
Design/methodology/approach
One practical way to apply the author’s approach is through hedging concentrated balance sheet exposures when market volatility is low or contracting.
Findings
Though no one can reliably anticipate pandemics and related stock market turbulence, executives do not have to predict the future to economically protect their balance sheets from Black Swan events.
Practical implications
Managers can construct Black Swan scenarios to assess how an unforeseen, disadvantageous future could develop and which risk management derivative would best mitigate it.
Originality/value
This strategic approach to managing balance-sheet-threatening risks could help a firm outperform its competitors during future crises and catastrophes.
Journal Article
What corporate executives can learn from leading value investors
Purpose
The principles of value investing present an alternative way to strategically approach the challenges and opportunities generated from the global risk landscape.
Design/methodology/approach
The principles of value investing – based on the lessons learned from highly successful practitioners – can be distilled into six core managerial considerations.
Findings
In theory, the prescriptions of value investing appear straightforward, but executives need to augment their skillsets with those of both an astute investor and discerning banker, balance their attention between conventional and non-traditional sources of information, and exhibit the patience and grit to go against the herd and focus on longer-term compounded returns.
Practical implications
The concept of “rationality” is a way of monitoring executive behavior to ensure that stated goals, objectives and strategies reconcile to business actions over time.
Originality/value
Insights for corporate leaders, investors, M&A teams and activists. These six principles will likely be increasingly valuable during the challenging times ahead: Adding cost-effective resource allocation to the strategy tool kit. Conservative financing. Balancing non-traditional and traditional information. Clarity about the complexity of risk. Humility in times of uncertainty. Focusing on compounded returns.
Journal Article
M&A deal-making: Disney, Marvel and the value of “hidden assets”
Purpose
This paper discusses the concept of hidden assets in the context of Disney’s 2009 acquisition of the Marvel Entertainment Group (Marvel), and its value realization activities post-acquisition.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a hidden assets-based value realization analysis of the 2009 acquisition of Marvel by Disney. It draws on a previously published case study of that acquisition as well as further research conducted by the author.
Findings
The Disney-Marvel acquisition supports the view that hidden assets-based analysis can be a powerful M&A tool and an equally powerful value realization tool when managed strategically over time.
Practical implications
The Disney acquisition of Marvel is a dramatic example of how knowledge of hidden assets can be used to do a deal in a competitive marketplace and how the disciplined management of those assets over time can realize a “blue ocean” of value post-acquisition.
Originality/value
This is the first paper we are aware that evaluates the hidden assets of the Disney-Marvel acquisition. It follows another paper that evaluated the acquisition (Joseph Calandro, Jr., “Disney’s Marvel Acquisition: A Strategic Financial Analysis,” Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38, No. 2 (2010), pp. 42-51), which followed a paper that evaluated Marvel’s 1996 bankruptcy filing (Joseph Calandro, Jr., “Distressed M&A and Corporate Strategy: Lessons from Marvel Entertainment Group’s Bankruptcy,” Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 37, No. 4 (2009), pp. 23-32).
Journal Article
Employing lesser-known corporate development strategies while avoiding problematic blind spots
Purpose
All too often M&A deal making falls into the trap of head-to-head competition that drives valuations to “sky-high” levels. The author suggests ways to avoid the trap. 10; 10; 10;
Design/methodology/approach
Four lesser-known corporate development strategies offer lucrative alternatives to engaging in an M&A bidding war.
Findings
One strategy: The derivatives market allows executives to acquire financial products to hedge their material balance sheet exposures when market pricing is incredibly low.
Practical/implications
Relatively few acquirers make initial “toehold” investments in their targets prior to making a bid.
Originality/value
The strategic logic of hyper-efficient resource utilization has rarely been popular, despite how “obvious” it may initially appear. Most executives seem psychologically oriented to a growth-based approach irrespective of the risks that approach may generate over time. 10;
Journal Article
Revisiting the concept of a competitive “cash advantage”
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to profile how ample cash holdings can serve as a competitive advantage by first mitigating the risk of becoming a forced seller during times of distress, and then positioning a firm to take strategic advantage of forced selling and other forms of distress-generated opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
– The author reviews the changing role of cash over time in corporate strategy, and how inadequate cash has caused or contributed to corporate failures.
Findings
– The findings of this paper, which are supported by historical and contemporary examples, are that ample cash reserves can be a powerful source of comparative advantage.
Practical implications
– This article supports earlier work published in Strategy
&
Leadership that shows how Graham-and-Dodd-based analysis is a viable avenue of academic research and a viable method with which to assess and formulate corporate strategic initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, share buy-backs, risk management and, in this case, the strategic uses of cash.
Originality/value
– This paper offers leaders and financial executives a practical explanation of how ample cash holdings can serve as a competitive advantage.
Journal Article
The margin of safety principle and corporate strategy
Purpose - This paper seeks to analyze the applicability of the time-tested margin of safety principle from value investing to corporate strategy.Design methodology approach - The main source of this paper is the book Margin of Safety, supplementation materials, including a discussion with the book's author, Seth Klarman, were also referenced.Findings - The paper finds that the margin of safety principle is broadly applicable to corporate strategy in areas such as M&A, hedging, balance sheet management, share buybacks, special dividends, divestments, and cash management. Each of these areas is discussed in the paper and illustrated by way of timely examples as part of the analysis.Research limitations implications - Further research could be conducted into valuation methods in general, including the method practiced by noted value investors. Research could also be conducted into the margin of safety principle and its applications in corporate strategy, corporate finance, strategic risk management, shareholder communications, and operations management.Originality value - This is the first paper that the author is aware of that analyzes the applicability of the investment-based margin of safety principle to corporate strategy and strategy-related initiatives.
Journal Article