HMD relaunched Nokia's 3310 as a cheap nostalgia phone.
Licensed to startup HMD Global, the Nokia 3310 returned at MWC 2017 for about 50 euros, reviving Nokia's feature-phone heritage 17 years after the original.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDExtended Stay America emerged in 2010 and was sold for about $6B in 2021.
Extended Stay filed June 2009, emerged October 8, 2010 via a $3.925B sponsor buyout, relisted in 2013, and went private again for about $6B in 2021.
Read the caseRobotsMali used a supervised AI workflow to create Bambara schoolbooks
After French lost official status in Mali, RobotsMali used AI and human review to create Bambara schoolbooks for schools across Bamako.
Read the caseAudacy cut 80% of its debt in Chapter 11 and emerged private to chase digital audio
The radio and podcast group equitized ~$1.6B of debt, lowered leverage to 2.7x, and went private in Sept 2024 to fund growth.
Read the caseSignet renamed Piercing Pagoda to Banter in 2021 and made it the growth banner
Signet rebranded its small Piercing Pagoda chain as Banter, and e-commerce grew about 140% in fiscal 2021.
Read the caseCorinne Brever became the third generation to lead Luxembourg's Bois Brever sawmill
Granddaughter of the 1947 founder, Corinne Brever returned in 2007, apprenticed a decade, then led the sawmill; it does €10M across four countries.
Read the caseSpin Master relaunched Bakugan for its 10th anniversary with toys, cards and a new series
Spin Master revived Bakugan in 2018 — new Cartoon Network series, toy line, card game and app — rolling out globally in 2019.
Read the caseHamburg investors bought Hapag-Lloyd for €4.45bn after the Singapore bidder walked
TUI's €4.45bn sale of Hapag-Lloyd to Singapore's NOL lapsed days after Lehman; a Kühne-led Hamburg consortium stepped in and kept the liner independent.
Read the caseSaving Voices Project preserved Soliga speech with offline frugal AI
To preserve a language commercial speech tools could not serve, Saving Voices used five hours of community voice data to build a trusted offline model.
Read the caseHDFC Bank started as a 1994 licence and grew into India's biggest private lender
Born from 1994's licence liberalisation, HDFC Bank scaled on retail deposits and technology until the $40B 2023 HDFC merger made it a global top bank
Read the caseLondon Fog rebuilt its image in 2006, then Iconix bought the brand for $30.5m
London Fog relaunched on sportswear and a brighter image in 2006, and Iconix bought the brand for $30.5m in cash plus stock.
Read the caseKyocera's founder resigned at 65 to become a monk; the company kept growing
Kazuo Inamori handed Kyocera and DDI to professional successors in 1997 and entered a Buddhist priesthood, leaving his management philosophy behind.
Read the caseRoberto Stern took over H. Stern in the 1990s and turned the Brazilian jeweler around
Hans Stern's son Roberto took charge of key stores in 1991, redesigned collections and manufacturing, and the family voted him leader after the turnaround.
Read the caseElliott's break-up push ended with Dell buying EMC for $67B
Elliott's 2014 letter urged EMC to spin off VMware or sell; Dell agreed to buy EMC for $67 billion in October 2015 and closed in September 2016.
Read the caseAgora.io turned hard-to-build live video into a global SDK
Facing the cost and latency of real-time video, Agora.io built proprietary codecs and a global network, reaching 500M+ devices and 10B monthly minutes.
Read the caseVodacom's 2009 JSE listing ended Telkom's conflict as owner and regulator
Telkom sold 15% of Vodacom to Vodafone for R22.5B and listed the rest in May 2009 at a R93.7B market value, despite a last-minute legal challenge.
Read the caseFiorucci returned in 2017 when the Schaffers relaunched the dormant 1967 label.
After years dormant under Itochu, Fiorucci was bought by Janie and Stephen Schaffer in 2015 and relaunched in 2017 with pop-ups and a Soho flagship.
Read the caseSabancı's family chose a granddaughter as chair in 2004; she led the group for 21 years
After Sakıp Sabancı died, the family passed leadership to the third generation: Güler Sabancı took the chair — the group's first woman — and held it until 2025.
Read the caseFounder gave Grundfos to a foundation; son Niels made it a pump world leader
A Danish family put its pump maker in a foundation and gave the CEO job to the son, who built the world's leading water-pump company.
Read the caseRenesas: from a 2013 state bailout to record chip profits
Rescued by INCJ's ¥150B injection in 2013, Renesas restructured around automotive chips; FY2017 non-GAAP operating income hit ¥128.1B at a 16.4% margin.
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