In September 1998, the well-known US hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) announced it had lost 44 per cent ($2.1 billion) of its investors' money in August alone, and more than 52 per cent from the beginning of the year. This shock caused the Federal Reserve System to organise a...

Part Two of this Case Study of the US hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), deals with the detail of the fund's September 1998 near-collapse and rescue after it had lost $2.1 billion of its investors' money (44 per cent of capital). Following a profile of LTCM, the Case looks at the...

Following the first demerger of one of its divisions in the United States in 1995, US Industries, the Hanson conglomerate used the experience of this successful spin-off in preparation for its much larger and complete break-up planned for 1996, into four companies: Hanson, Energy, Imperial...

Part Two of this Case Study of BP Amoco examines the rôle of finance and financial strategy in BP Amoco between 1990 and 2000 to see where and how far they were supportive and complementary to competitive strategies pursued by the company's senior managers, and if they were ever pro-active....

On 27 February 1995, Barings, one of the UK's oldest merchant banks and a well-known name, was placed in administration following the disclosure that one of its Singapore traders, Nick Leeson, had accumulated losses of over £800 million on trading futures and options contracts. Part One of...

Part Two of this Case Study focuses on the several quite complex and competitive bids for MCI Communications made by BT, WorldCom and GTE. Interest centres on the nature of the bids e.g. BT's first bid in 1994 which was nearly all-share but contained 'poison pills', and WorldCom's first bid in...

On 1 October 1997, WorldCom proposed the highest value corporate bid in US history for fellow-telecommunications company, MCI Communications. Later, the bid was raised still further. But WorldCom was not the only bidder; for nearly a year BT had been involved in merger discussions with MCI which...

In 1994, Eurotunnel, operator of the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France announced it was launching an £858 million gross rights issue of equities to cover its cash requirements and secure its financial future. The result was a successful piece of financial engineering and one of the...

Corporate share repurchases grew strongly as a popular means of returning cash to shareholders first in the US, then the UK, and later in the 1990s, in Continental European countries. Only in 1999 did the high rate of growth decline. This article documents the repurchase cycle and examines...