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If You Think Downsizing Might Save Your Company, Think Again

Harvard Business

American firms alone laid off more than 8 million workers from the end of 2008 to the middle of 2010. To investigate these potential consequences, we examined 2010 data from 4,710 publicly traded firms and determined whether they declared bankruptcy in the subsequent five-year period.

Company 28
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Consultant Ninja: A Simple Question about the Credit Markets.

Consultant Ninja

Heres my understanding of the current TARP/TARPII/PPIP/etc plans: The major "sick" banks wont lend to businesses, because their balance sheets are tied up with bad assets that they cant sell. I think what you say makes sense, but implementation of your idea requires quite an re-allocation of industry resources. at 7:39 PM.

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Mish Fined 8,000 Euros for Quoting French Blog

MishTalk

trillion balance sheet is leveraged nearly 49-to-1. As a group, these three banks have some €4 trillion in assets on their balance sheets, supported by €129.3 The effects of a system that ''encourages excessive financial leverage''. By its own account, Credit Agricole''s tangible common equity is just 2.1% billion (€489.9

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Kodak’s Downfall Wasn’t About Technology

Harvard Business

Maybe in 2010 it would have lured a young engineer from Google named Kevin Systrom to create a mobile version of the site. They frequently divert sufficient resources to participate in emerging markets. In real life, unfortunately, Kodak used Ofoto to try to get more people to print digital images.

Film 28
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Pettis on Strains in China's Banking System; Avoiding the Fall

MishTalk

Part of the reason of course may simply be that policymakers rely on faulty economic analysis, and it is clear that even as late as 2010-11 most China specialists did not understand the systematic nature of China’s unbalanced growth and the dangers of its over-reliance on investment.

Banking 71
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Shockingly Bad Fiscal Health of Chicago (and the Financial Engineering Chicago Uses to Hide that Fact)

MishTalk

Rather than cut expenditures to a level that could be supported by recurring revenues, the city mostly used non-recurring resources to fill the gap from one fiscal year to the next. The $326 million budget stabilization fund was exhausted by 2010. It is not a balance sheet test, but a cash flow test.

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Research Shows That Smaller M&A Deals Work Out Better

Harvard Business

This is one of the findings from a recently completed study based on publicly available information on the world’s 2,393 largest corporations for the time period 2010–2014. Walter Thompson Company for $566 million in 1987 and Ogilvy for $864 million in 1989 — big acquisitions that stretched the company’s balance sheet.