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  • [2007.05.11] 全球兼并热潮仍在继续

    2007-05-14

    [2007.05.11] The beat goes on 节拍在继续

    The global merger boom

    全球兼并热潮

    The beat goes on

    节拍在继续

    May 10th 2007 | NEW YORK
    From The Economist print edition

    Feeling a sense of déjà-vu about the current takeover frenzy? It's different this time—but only up to a point

    对当前的收购狂热感觉似曾相识？这次不一样，但它仅有些许不同。


    LAST year, as global merger activity breached the giddy levels of the dotcom era, markets partied like it was 1999. The bankers and lawyers who work on deals braced themselves for hangovers. But instead, glasses were refilled, the music cranked up and the guests were invited to dance through the night. Some $2 trillion of deals have been unveiled so far this year, putting it on track to smash the record set in 2006 by a whopping 60% or more. That would exceed even the rosiest predictions on Wall Street.

    去年，随着全球兼并活动突破达康时代（即：.com时代 — 译者）令人目眩的标准，市场开始尽情狂欢，好像又回到了1999年。从事交易工作的银行家和律师已为第二天的宿醉做好了准备。但在酒杯再次斟满之后，音乐却被放快，嘉宾被邀请来彻夜跳舞进行庆祝。从年初到现在，已有价值约为两万亿美圆的交易被揭开了面纱，使其有希望以多达60%或者更高的比例来打破于2006年创下的交易记录。如果成功，它会超过华尔街最为乐观的预测。


    This week saw yet another surge in animal spirits. As the battle for control of ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank, took new twists, Alcoa, an American aluminium giant, launched a hostile bid for Alcan, a Canadian rival. In the wake of Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion unsolicited bid for Dow Jones, Thomson firmed up an £8.8 billion ($17.5 billion) offer for Reuters, a competitor in the newswire and financial-information business. And rumours swirled of a possible acquisition of Rio Tinto by BHP Billiton, its larger competitor, to create the world's biggest mining company.

    本周，收购热潮又有新高涨。当荷兰银行控制权之争迎来新转折的时候，美国铝业巨头美铝亚洲为它的竞争对手加拿大铝业集团抛出了恶意收购的投标。在鲁珀特·默多克给道琼斯公司开出了50亿美圆的无约束力竞标价格之后，汤姆森集团确定了一份88亿英镑（175亿美圆）的报价，意欲并购它在新闻和金融信息行业的竞争对手路透集团。还有流言称，规模更大的布罗肯希尔-比利顿公司可能会收购它的竞争对手力拓矿业集团，来成立世界上最大的矿业公司。


    Such bold forays have been encouraged by soaring stockmarkets. The Dow industrials has lately hit new highs with unusual frequency. China's markets have surged on record trading volumes, despite efforts by officials to talk them down. Forget the turmoil of late February: the markets' strength is encouraging more deals. So euphoric is the mood that even acquirers, usually penalised on the expectation that they will overpay, are seeing their share prices jump: Alcoa's rose by 8% on the day of its bid. To cap it all, Warren Buffett, not normally one to follow the crowd, says he would spend as much as $60 billion on the right deal—far more than the investor has ever forked out on a single acquisition.

    这些大胆的收购尝试受到了股市上扬的促进。道琼斯工业股票指数最近不断创造新高，频率异常。中国股市的交易量也一直猛增，尽管政府官员努力抑制交易量的上涨。请忘掉二月末的混乱：市场的活力现正在促进更多交易的发生。心情是如此愉悦，以至于通常会受抬价之苦而需过多支付的收购公司也看到了它们的股价在增长：美铝亚洲的股价在恶意收购的消息传出后的当天就增长了8%。最能说明问题的是，连一向不会随大流的华伦·巴菲特也表示，他会为合适的交易开出高达600亿美圆的价格 — 这要比他平常给单项收购开出的价格远高出许多。

    This has inevitably led to comparisons with the 1990s merger boom. But there are several big differences. The most obvious is that the 1990s were fuelled by stock, whereas today's frenzy runs on credit. With interest rates low, it has become easier for companies to finance themselves with debt than with equity. Cash is the main coinage (see chart).


    这不可避免地导致了将今天的狂热和20世纪90年代出现的兼并热潮进行比较。但它们有几个很大的不同。最明显的一个不同点是，90年代的兼并热潮是由股票引发，而今天的狂热却以信贷为基础。由于利率低，公司更容易进行债务融资，而不是股权融资。现金变成了主要的收购支付手段（见图表）。


    This trend has played into the hands of the big private-equity firms, which now lead a fifth of all takeovers, measured by value. They still have giant war chests to empty—the biggest funds are touching $20 billion in size—and are spending at a record pace. With such resources to hand, they are becoming bolder (some would say less discriminating). The average buy-out has tripled in size since 2005, to $1.3 billion. And taboos are being broken, as evidenced by the recent takeover of a utility and a bank, two industries previously considered immune to private equity.

    这个趋势对大型私人股权投资公司有利，若以收购价值作为计量标准，它们现在已占全部收购交易中的五分之一。但它们仍有巨额的战争基金需要清空 — 最大的基金在额度方面已接近200亿美圆 — 它们的支出速度同样惊人。手边有着如此雄厚的资源，它们变得更加大胆（有些人说它们变得不再那么有洞察力）。从2005年至今，一般收购在金额方面已经翻了两番，达13亿美圆。禁忌正在被打破，正如最近一次对一公用事业公司和一银行所进行的收购显现出的那样，而这两个行业在以前是被认为不受私人股权投资的影响的。

    Another difference is that this boom is broader-based than the last, both in terms of industry and geography. No single industry is far ahead of the rest, as telecoms and the internet were last time. Excitement surrounds financial services, metals and mining, power generation, property and consumer goods. And whereas the deals in the 1990s were concentrated in America, this time they are more evenly spread. In April twice as much was spent in Europe as in the United States.

    另一个区别是，此次狂热较上一次波及范围更广，不论是在行业的数量方面还是地域的广度方面均是如此。没有哪一个行业像以前的电信业和互联网业那样遥遥领先。兴奋的气氛笼罩着金融服务业、金属采矿业、电力制造业、房地产业和消费产品业。此外，在90年代，美国是交易的集中发生地，但这一次，它们却更加平均地分散着。在今年四月份，欧洲地区所发生的交易数额反而是美国的两倍。

    Moreover, today's merger wave is driven not by enthusiasm for a nebulous “new paradigm”, but by global trends, such as demand for commodities, the globalisation of capital markets and the rise of budding multinationals in developing countries. Companies are using cheap funding as an opportunity to expand into new markets—hence the rise in the share of mergers that are cross-border, to a record 46% in the four months to April.

    第三个不同点是，这一次兼并浪潮的推动力不是对 “新范例”盲目追求的热忱，而是呈现出的全球趋势，比如：商品需求、资本市场全球化和来自发展中国家、初露头角的跨国公司的兴起。公司把廉价融资当作扩大经营、打入新市场的机会，因此，在今年第一季度，跨境兼并在全部兼并活动中所占的比例上升到历史上最高的46%。


    Reassuringly unfriendly

    令人放心地不友善


    Today is more like the 1980s than the 1990s in another way, too: the hostility of the buyers. The dotcom era was nauseatingly cosy, with only 4% of deals struck in 2000 deemed hostile or unsolicited. This year the level is hovering close to 20%. One reason for this is the growing influence of shareholders, notably hedge funds, whose patience is short. Given this new breed of owner-agitator, managers of targeted firms are less likely to “dig trenches and stay there,” says Victor Lewkow, a merger lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb. Pension funds and other once-staid institutional shareholders are also becoming more willing to entertain offers as they strive to increase returns.

    从另一方面，即：买家的敌对程度，来说，今天更像上世纪的80年代，而不是90年代。达康时代平稳发展得让人感觉提不起精神，在2000年所进行的交易中仅有4%被认为是恶意交易或无约束力交易。而在今年，这个百分比快挺进到20%。原因之一是，股东的影响力在不断增加，尤其是对冲基金的影响力，他们的耐心一向不多。面对这种新出现的所有人型煽动者，目标公司的经理不再可能“挖个战壕，躲在那里，” 美国佳利律师事务所的兼并律师维克多·卢科（音译，Victor Lewkow）说道。随着养老金基金和其他以前沉稳的机构股东在努力增加收益，他们也都变得更加愿意接受报价。


    As in the 1980s antitrust authorities seem to have become more relaxed than they were in the 1990s, especially in America. Mr Lewkow thinks some companies are rushing to do attractive but “dicier” deals (from an antitrust standpoint) in the hope of getting them approved before the change of president, and a possible tightening of enforcement policies. Even so, the likes of Alcoa and Thomson face daunting obstacles. Credit Suisse puts the chances of success for the Reuters takeover at 60%.

    和在80年代一样，今天反垄断当局的态度似乎要比他们在90年代的时候更加宽松，尤其是在美国。卢科认为，一些公司急着做成有吸引力但风险更大的交易（站在反垄断的立场上），希望在总统换任之前把交易敲定，并且加紧政策的执行。虽然如此，诸如美铝亚洲和汤姆森集团等其它收购企业仍要面对难以克服的障碍。瑞士信贷认为，收购路透集团的成功性仅有60%。

    But getting a deal past the antitrust police is only half the battle. Research shows that mergers often fail to bring expected benefits: look no further than the break-up of DaimlerChrysler after nine unhappy years. M&A advisers dispute this, pointing to studies that show buyers outperform the market, at least in the year after the deal. But the danger of overpaying clearly increases as competition for transactions heats up and stockmarkets scale new heights. There are signs that this is happening: the average premium being paid, when measured as a percentage of the target's cash flow, is higher that at any time since the bursting of the last bubble.

    但是，让交易通过反垄断当局的审查只是斗争的一半。研究显示，兼并通常不能带来期望的利益：看看戴姆勒-克莱斯勒在九年不高兴日子后的分手就清楚了。并购方面的顾问却不同意此观点，他们指出，有研究表明买家的表现至少在交易后的一年时间里是要胜过市场的。然而，随着交易竞争愈演愈烈和股市频繁创造新高，过多支付的危险无疑也在增长。有迹象显示，这一切正在发生：若将现在所支付的一般溢价作为目标公司现金流转中的百分比来计量，它是在从最后一个泡沫破碎到今天的这段时间里最高的。


    Moreover, there are fears that mergers will be used to paper over cracks. Profit growth for companies in the S&P 500 will fall to 7% this year after several years of double-digit expansion, reckons Thomson Financial. Firms may join forces to hide their own deteriorating performance.

    而且，有人担心兼并会被用作掩盖问题的手段。汤姆森金融公司认为，在几年的两位数增长之后，标准普尔500指数公司的利润增长率会在今年降低到7%。公司也许会联合起来用兼并的方法来掩瞒它们日趋恶化的市场表现。


    That should worry shareholders. For those who advise on deals, however, the bigger concern is what might bring the party to an abrupt end. A sharp economic slowdown in America? The collapse of a giant buy-out? A credit crunch with no clear trigger? In private, most bankers say it cannot go on for much longer. In public, they will just keep clinking their glasses.

    这应该会使股东担心。但对于那些交易顾问来说，更值得关注的事情是，什么会使这个狂欢戛然而止。会是美国经济发展的突然减速？会是一次巨型收购的失败？还会是在无明显诱因下发生的信用崩溃？在私底下，大部分的银行家表示，兼并热不可能持续太长。然而，在公众场合，他们仅会继续互相碰着酒杯。

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