Game Theory, Strategy Management and Corporate Restructuring

Another post on the courses I took this semester. My respects to Prof. Arijit Sen, Prof. Biswatosh Saha & Prof. Ashok Banerjee (taught the above courses in the same order) who've tried very hard to pull my consciousness up a few notches and expose me to the intracacies of the market, the players and the products.

Game Theory: In a field with multiple players, others (re)actions affect my world. Through simple payoff diagrams, we understood how the games would be played out, and how Dr. Nash predicts the equilibrium state would be. For our group project, we studied the interactions between India-Pakistan over the past 60 years: 3 wars + Kargil, nuclear tests, insurgency/militancy... Pakistan might be an irrational player resorting to brinkmanship, India might be provoked into making credible its threats and ultimately employing pre-emptive aggression (elimination) every so often. To-do: Read the best-seller "Thinking Strategically".

Strategy Management: Last case: Corporate VCs (eg. Intel) vs. Financial VCs (Morgan Stanley in Menlo Park/SFO). The former is trying to create technologies that'll promote early adoption of its next gen chipsets - pushing the market, the latter is trying to acheive highest RoI on its 12-24 mo. investment. Contracts governing an investment ultimately decide how a vested project will utilize resources and what it can grow into. The key is who has: power (control, ownership) and wealth (cashflow, assets - real/virtual). Designing contracts that contingently divide and assign the above can create systems that run smoothly. Prof's anecdote: Afghanistan has been a subjugated land for many decades now. When a "friendly" USSR army crossed over a bridge into Afghanistan, the then Indian Ambassador saw it from a distance and asked a stander-by how he felt, "When power, money or land is lost, you are defeated. Today, we are defeated". Prof again: The Indian national anthem celebrates power, so choose power before money, respect it and use it wisely. To-do: try to enter VC/PE/LBO like framework (to invest in amateur/distressed, control and grow).

Corporate Restructuring: Mix this with the course on Legal Systems and a framework to own/control companies/industries: their balance sheets (creditor/investor interests), how they change hands (business pricing, M&A: acquisitions/sell-offs, amalgamations/de-mergers, spin-offs...), regulations (SEBI, anti-trust) etc. To-do: to understand industries, their maturity phases (S-curve, comparison with developed/efficient market), to drum up capital & invest in tomorrow (sounds cliched?).

This time, I've penned my desires on e-paper (what do you call a blog?). Let's see if "The Secret" works.