Francisco's Profile

Great post Alfonso! Following up on Sid’s comment and your reply: do think that FirstSolar can and should leverage its capabilities in the PV sector in order to do a parallel move into other forms of solar energy? For example, do you believe that FirstSolar should expand into the Concentrated Solar Power?

FCB’s success is predicated on holding a near competitive monopoly over the Bundesliga and being able to obtain top talent from other teams (i.e. Borussia Dortmund) at discounted rates. Therefore it is uncertain if their operational model can withstand the level of competition the club would experience in other European leagues.

Roche’s pivot to biotech exposes it to competitive challenges stemming from the increase adoption of regulatory frameworks for the approval of biosimilars and also the increasing investment generic manufacturers are making to expand their capabilities to produce and distribute biosimilars. In light of these emerging threats, what strengths do you identify in Roche’s operational model that gives them an edge in the marketplace?

This is a challenge the pharmaceutical industry faces as a whole and it will play out as a policy debate between payers and manufacturers. Because of this I believe that companies like Gilead will eventually have to drive their prices in order to comply with demands from the public and also to prevent bankruptcies of national health services.

It’s also salient to consider how these legal issues affect the governability of the club and its viability. I think the the socio-political context of Catalonia and the position of the club within it is such that its survival is assured no matter what but these scandals can erode the trust rank and file catalans place in the club as an national symbol and institution and thus undermine the history and culture that underpins its operational model.

I hope that the Bartomeu administration can redirect the club and keep itself out of trouble but I don’t have high hopes for them.

Athens ’94, Milan 4 – Barcelona 0. Not fair 😉

The Neymar case is a basic rehash of what we have observed in many of our FRC cases; competitive pressures and lack of internal and external accountability created an environment where the Rosell administration believed it could reduce the total tax bill for the transfer by hiding its true value.
It is salient to note that FC Barcelona’s governance structure is weak because its Board of Directors (in the sense of a public company) is composed of a subset of club members and it only meets once a year. The management team of the club controls all information and decides what it presents to this board and how it presents it. Because of this structure, the club lacks proper internal compliance mechanisms and management has significant leeway in implementing whatever decisions they see fit. Furthermore, the presidency of FCB is considered a form of high political office in Catalonia and this creates intense competitive pressure to attain and retain power over the club. These two factors combined explain the actions of Sandro Rosell, who has been implicated in several corruption scandals relating to he CBF in Brasil.