AT&T Pledges $25 Million to McCombs for New Executive Education and Conference Center
At a ceremony held June 12 AT&T pledged a $25 million gift to the McCombs School to be applied to the construction cost of the new Executive Education and Conference Center. “We are grateful to be the recipients of this major gift from AT&T,” said Dean George Gau. “It is a credit to our faculty, staff and students that a company of this reputation, history and market standing has chosen to make such a significant investment in our executive education efforts.” The center, opening in August 2008, will be named the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center for the next 25 years.
Read the press release.
Read the story in the Austin American-Statesman.
Read the story in the San Antonio Express-News.
Read the story in the Financial Times.

Twelve Faculty to Join McCombs in Fall 2007; Fredrickson Named Director of Teaching
In Fall 2007, 12 new tenure-track faculty will join the McCombs School of Business. The Finance Department will add assistant professors Clemens Sialm and Francisco Perez-Gonzalez. IROM hired Rohit Deo as a visiting associate professor and Canan Ulu, Kumar Muthuraman and Dain Donelson as assistant professors. The Management Department will add assistant professors Jennifer Whitson and Emily Amanatullah. Assistant professors Ty Henderson, Raghunath Rao, Jade Sturdy and Ying Zhang will join the Marketing Department. In other faculty news, Jim Fredrickson (photo), professor of management, has accepted the position as the school’s first director of teaching development.

Eyeing the Future, Brazilian Oil Company Partners
With McCombs and Jackson Schools 
The McCombs School of Business, in partnership with the Jackson School of Geosciences, recently hosted a three-month custom executive education program for a team of Brazilian oil executives. The executives all work for Brazil’s Petróleo Brasileiro, S.A, also known as Petrobras. The program, “Business Acumen for the Energy Executive,” was a Texas Executive Education course designed to meet the company’s unique needs.
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Texas Executive Education offers Energy Finance Certificate
The new Energy Finance Certificate Program offers an in-depth look at the economics, strategy, business valuation and finance that is specific to the energy industry. The program offers industry managers and executives a unique opportunity to improve their business acumen in an environment focused specifically on the complexities of their field. This certificate program is presented by Texas Executive Education, and features faculty from the McCombs School of Business, the College of Engineering, and the Center for Energy Economics. The Energy Finance Certificate series consists of two core programs and three electives. Each program may be taken as an individual session without signing up for the entire series.  Please visit us online for more information.

McCOMBS IN THE NEWS
Lifting the Veil on Tax Risk
The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2007
Hundreds of companies could be on the hook to the Internal Revenue Service for tens of billions of dollars in back taxes due to transactions companies believe could be challenged, newly required regulatory disclosures show. Investors are getting a first peek into one aspect of the world of corporate taxes, thanks to a new accounting rule that took effect in January. Jennifer Blouin of the University of Pennsylvania, Cristi Gleason of the University of Iowa, and The University of Texas at Austin’s Accounting Professor Lillian Mills (photo) and Ph.D. candidate Stephanie Sikes, examined the newly disclosed tax liabilities at 100 large companies and compared those with their book assets. Merck’s total unrecognized tax benefit topped the list under that analysis, with an amount equal to 16.6 percent of its assets. By contrast, GE’s total unrecognized tax benefit was a similar size, but it represented about 1 percent of its total assets. GE’s reported $6.8 billion liability doesn't include $1.4 billion in accrued interest and penalties. An ExxonMobil spokesman said its unrecognized tax benefit of $3.7 billion represented a fraction of last year’s tax bill of about $30 billion. Get the full story.

The Wealth of African Nations
Harvard Business Review, June 2007
Marketing Professor Vijay Mahajan contributed an article to the June edition of Harvard Business Review about his ongoing research on business and entrepreneurship across Africa. Mahajan, who is working on a book about Africa, writes, “Africa has some of the poorest nations in the world, but it is wealthier across the continent than India. That concentration of wealth represents a huge potential market for companies worldwide. Of course, serving this market means overcoming the myriad economic, political, legal, medical and social challenges. But businesses across Africa have already proved that this is possible, feeding a fast-growing demand for every conceivable type of consumer good and service.”

Retailers Like Wal-Mart and Home Depot are Turning Green
MarketWatch, May 17, 2007
The environment is a growing concern for retailers across the country as they feel pressure to cut energy use, curb carbon emissions and slash waste. In the process they encourage suppliers to develop eco-friendly products and practices, helping—or in some cases persuading—consumers to shop and live green. “Because of the nature of their size, and the challenges we have facing us, not just presented by global climate change but in terms of sustainability in general, Wal-Mart has a responsibility to make a difference and start taking steps in terms of the way they do business,” said Paula Ivey, McCombs marketing lecturer. Get the full story.