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Columbia’s popular course on personal leadership kicks off new program; Offers innovative networking and interactive educational opportunities to a broader audience of business professionals

The Private Equity Program is excited for the 2nd Deal Camp which will be held December 7-9.Applications will open October 8, 2012.For more information, watch our video featuring students who have attended in the past.  

A new Columbia CaseWorks case by Fred Knapp ’12 and Lynne B. Sagalyn, “Battling Over a New York Workout: The W Hotel Strategy” sets up this true David-and-Goliath story in which the most junior player in the highly leveraged capital stack ended up being made whole on its loan. The saga of the $232-million mortgage and mezzanine debt financing, now known as the “W Strategy,” is one that changed practice, becoming significant in the annals of Uniform Commercial Code foreclosures and bankruptcy transactions.

Lorenzo Weisman ’73, member of Columbia Business School’s Board of Overseers and cofounder of Hill Street Capital, died on Saturday, September 22.

In several experiments, Leonard Lee, associate professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, showed that in–system individuals demonstrate increased action initiation, persistence in completing tasks, and overall optimism.

The 2009 Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which provided loan servicers with sizeable financial incentives to renegotiate mortgages, was intended to help 3 to 4 million struggling homeowners. Instead, the program is benefiting just over a third of that target, according to a paper coauthored by Edward S. Gordon Associate Professor of Real Estate Tomasz Piskorski. The study finds that if the worse-performing banks had simply modified loans at the same pace as their better performing peers, then HAMP would have produced about 800,000 more modifications.

New research by Gita Johar suggests that consumers who set "safe" goals may not be maximizing their satisfaction in the end. 

In February 2008, Madison International Realty was presented with the opportunity to buy an additional equity position in the partnership that owns the Mayfair House—a 10-story, trophy-quality office building located in the Mayfair submarket of London’s West End. In the case based on this situation, students are presented with information on the UK real estate market, the terms of the partnership agreement, and an investment spreadsheet in order to determine how much Madison should pay for this interest and what conditions in the partnership agreement might impact the valuation.

New research from Columbia Business School Professor Michael Morris finds that people who are habitually aware of their cultural frameworks tend to develop more affectively trusting relationships with people from other cultures, opening the free flow of ideas that is intrinsic to creative collaboration.

Gentry Ashmore Hoit ’90 is joining Park Madison Partners as partner to advise clients on real estate acquisitions and capital-raising efforts. The New York-based real estate placement and advisory firm was cofounded by Nancy Lashine ’81.