FT中文网 - Hedge fund agitators deserve to be heard

经营之道听一听 对冲基金也有好主意
Hedge fund agitators deserve to be heard
本周，坐立不安的对冲基金经理聚集在纽约时代华纳中心召开首届“价值投资大会”(Value Investing Congress)。这个地点选得很有意思。
They held the inaugural Value Investing Congress, a gathering of antsy hedge fund managers, at the Time Warner Centre in New York this week. It was a nice choice of venue.
当来自波欣广场资本(Pershing Square Capital)的比尔·阿克曼(Bill Ackman)在台上陈述他迫使麦当劳(McDonald’s)承担90亿美元新债务、并出售公司拥有的大部分餐厅时，时代华纳的老板们正在同一幢大厦的30层办公。时代华纳的股东、对冲基金活跃分子卡尔·伊卡恩(Carl Icahn)向公司老板施压，要求他们将股票回购从原来的50亿美元增加至125亿美元，并坚持要求他们出售有线电视网。
As Bill Ackman of Pershing Square Capital was on stage outlining his plan to push McDonald’s into taking on $9bn (£5.2bn, €7.7bn) of new debt and selling most of its company-owned restaurants, Time Warner’s bosses were at work 30 floors above. Carl Icahn, their own hedge fund irritant, has pressured them into increasing a $5bn share buyback to $12.5bn and still wants them to sell its cable division.
媒体以略带夸张的口吻，把这次价值投资大会描述成除伯克希尔哈撒韦 (Berkshire Hathaway)股东年会外最大的一次价值投资者聚会。阿克曼可不是沃伦·巴菲特(Warren Buffett)。他没有430亿美元的机动资金(伯克希尔哈撒韦的现金储备恰巧等于麦当劳的市值)，而且不得不主要以期权形式积聚他在麦当劳5%的股份。
The congress was billed, with a dollop of hyperbole, as the biggest gathering of value investors outside the annual meeting of shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway. Mr Ackman is no Warren Buffett. He does not have $43bn to spare (Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile happens exactly to match McDonald’s stock market value) and had to amass his 5 per cent stake in McDonald’s mostly in options.
阿克曼也希望尽快拿到投资回报，不像巴菲特那样长期持有。不过，他和他的活跃分子同伴正造福于自己和其他投资者。他们迫使守住资产的经理给出正当的理由。他们也许不是巴菲特这样的“奥马哈圣人”，但他们的许多话是有道理的。
Mr Ackman also wants a quicker turn than the indefinite holding period Mr Buffett espouses. Still, he and his fellow agitators are doing some good for themselves and for other investors. They are forcing managers who want to sit on assets to justify themselves. They may not be the Sage of Omaha but a lot of what they say makes sense.
过去3年来，公司不愿冒险，使自己易受对冲基金活跃分子的攻击。在经历了安然(Enron)和世通(WorldCom)破产的恐慌后，它们致力还债，并储备现金，以免遭遇相似的危机。来自标准普尔(Standard & Poor’s)的数据显示，美国公司持有1.3万亿美元的现金和流动资产，超过所有资产负债表资产的10%。
Companies have made themselves vulnerable to activist hedge funds by playing safe in the past three years. After the scare of the collapses of Enron and WorldCom, they paid down debt and amassed cash in case they suffered a similar crisis. Now, according to Standard & Poor’s, US companies hold $1,300bn of cash and liquid assets – more than 10 per cent of all balance sheet assets.
积聚如此之多的资金不利效率：公司负债极少，股本回报率因而降低。这导致较小的企业成为私人股本基金的目标，这些基金能够增加负债，改善经营，迅速获得成果。本周，科氏工业(Koch Industries)以132亿美元收购佐治亚-太平洋(Georgia-Pacific)，这是最近一起“公转私”交易。
Hoarding so much is inefficient: companies reduce their return on equity by having too little debt. That makes the smaller ones targets for private equity funds that can get quick results by gearing up balance sheets before improving operations. Koch Industries’ $13.2bn acquisition of Georgia-Pacific this week is the latest public-to-private deal.
股市投资者抱怨，私人股本基金在收购公司资产的两三年后，以高出许多的价格卖回到股市。但如果投资者允许上市公司的高管手上有钱而无所作为，那么这是他们自己的错。事实上，虽然投资者向私人股本投资公司注入800亿美元的资金，但今年美国股市却相当平静，这说明有地方不对劲。
Stock market investors complain when private equity funds buy corporate assets only to sell them back to the stock market at a far higher price a couple of years later. But it is their fault if they allow executives of public companies to leave money on the table. The fact that the US stock market has been becalmed this year while investors have poured $80bn into private equity indicates that something is awry.
对冲基金受到套利机会的吸引，难怪许多对冲基金试图缩小公开市场估价与私人股本估价的差距。阿克曼就是一例。他向麦当劳施压已有7年，要求它进行重组，并出售或抵押其估价为460亿美元的房地产。
Hedge funds are attracted by arbitrage opportunities so it is not surprising that many are now trying to close the gap between public and private valuations. Mr Ackman is an example. He has pursued McDonald’s for seven years to restructure itself and either to sell or borrow against its estimated $46bn of real estate.
值得肯定的是，麦当劳的高管们并没有简单地拒绝阿克曼。相反，他们花钱聘请了两家投资银行来评估他的想法，然后把这些想法带到董事会。但在审查了这些动议后，他们提出反对，认为阿克曼的计划是一项“金融工程”。
To the credit of McDonald’s executives, they did not simply reject Mr Ackman out of hand. Instead they hired two investment banks, which does not come cheap, to assess his ideas and then took them to the board. But after going through these motions, they have come out fighting, dismissing his scheme as “an exercise in financial engineering”.
事实并非如此。阿克曼让麦当劳出售其在9000家直营店65%的股份(其余3.1万门店由特许加盟店经营)的计划，将筹集现金逾33亿美元。该计划还将让麦当劳专注于其利润率最高的业务，并使品牌公司和加盟店之间的责任界限更加明确。
It is more than that. Mr Ackman’s plan for McDonald’s to sell a 65 per stake in its 9,000 company-operated restaurants (the rest of its 31,000 outlets are run by franchisees) would achieve more than raising $3.3bn in cash. It would also focus McDonald’s on its highest-margin businesses and introduce a clearer division of responsibilities between the brand company and its franchisees.
也许这没有必要。麦当劳已灵活地调整策略，以适应向更健康食品的转变，其餐厅的平均营业额是竞争对手的两倍。但阿克曼不仅是一个金融操盘手。他精通麦当劳的历史，他令人信服地证明：麦当劳偏离了创始人雷·克洛克(Ray Kroc)的经营原则。
Perhaps it is unnecessary. McDonald’s has adjusted nimbly to the shift towards healthier food and its restaurants’ average turnover is double that of rivals. But Mr Ackman is more than a financial hit man. He is well-versed in the company’s history and he makes a good case that it has drifted from the operating principles of Ray Kroc, its founder.
经理们更愿意涉足不同领域，因为这在经营上赋予他们更大的灵活性。正如麦当劳希望在经营餐厅的同时，还出让特许经营权，时代华纳的高管们也想在拥有有线电视公司外，还掌控网络和电影制片厂。时代华纳董事长兼首席执行官迪克·帕森斯(Dick Parsons)说，当他与其它有线电视运营商谈判时，就像是“校园里的老大哥”。
Managers prefer to have a hand in different things because it gives them more operational flexibility. Just as McDonald’s wants to run restaurants as well as franchising them, Time Warner’s executives like controlling a cable company as well as networks and a film studio. Dick Parsons, its chairman and chief executive, says it is like “having a big brother in the schoolyard” when he negotiates with other cable operators.
让高管们感到欣慰的事并不总让股东们受益。如果私人股本集团控股麦当劳或时代华纳，它们很有可能采纳阿克曼和伊卡恩要求的那种重组。与提高营运利润率和改善现金流相比，它们不会太在乎保留管理层的决策自由。
What reassures executives does not always reward shareholders. If a private equity group owned McDonald’s or Time Warner, it might well carry out the kind of restructuring that Mr Ackman and Mr Icahn seek. It would be less bothered by preserving managerial freedom of manoeuvre than raising operating margins and improving cash flow.
私人股本集团还将提高负债至比两位对冲基金活跃分子寻求的更高位。高管们能合理地质问他们应该承担多少债务。利率在上升，标准普尔预计高收益债券的拖欠也将相应增加。但是，作为“大敌当前”的“大敌”，阿克曼和伊卡恩都是蛮温和的。
It would also leverage their balance sheets to a greater degree than either hedge fund activist seeks. Executives can reasonably question how much debt they should take on. Interest rates are rising and Standard & Poor’s expects high-yield bond defaults to increase, to follow. Still, as Barbarians at the Gate go, Mr Ackman and Mr Icahn are mild-mannered.
事实上，时代华纳和麦当劳都不可能被私人股本集团吞噬，因为它们太庞大了。这使对冲基金的活跃行为至关重要：没有这种活跃，大企业不太可能像较小的竞争对手那样关注投资者的利益。它们不必对每一位拥有若干期权的对冲基金经理言听计从，但应该认真对待好的主意。
In practice, neither Time Warner nor McDonald’s is likely to be swallowed up by a private equity group because they are too big. This makes hedge fund activism vital: without it, the biggest companies are less likely to focus on investors’ interests than their smaller counterparts. They need not do the bidding of every hedge fund manager with some options but good ideas ought to be taken seriously.
译者/夏璇
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