評(píng)論
打印
Business
商業(yè)報(bào)道
Corporate Governance
公司治理
Anything you can do, Icahn do better
無論你做什么，伊坎總能做得比你好
The pressure on companies from activist shareholders continues to grow
激進(jìn)投資人對(duì)公司的壓力正與日俱增
TIM COOK'S nightmare is over, but John Donahoe's has just begun.
蒂姆·庫克的噩夢(mèng)算是結(jié)束了，可約翰·多納霍的噩夢(mèng)才剛剛開始。
On February 10th Carl Icahn, the godfather of activist shareholders, ended his campaign to get Mr Cook, the boss of Apple, to return some of its 160 billion cash mountain to shareholders through share buy-backs.
2月10號(hào)，激進(jìn)投資界的教父級(jí)人物卡爾·伊坎停止了對(duì)蘋果總裁庫克的公開施壓。伊坎此次行動(dòng)的目標(biāo)是讓蘋果通過股權(quán)回購，將其1600億美元的巨額資產(chǎn)部分返還給股東們。
Mr Icahn declared victory, although Apple is not handing back as much of its cash as he had wanted.
伊坎宣告獲勝，盡管蘋果并未打算把錢悉數(shù)奉上。
His next target is eBay, which he is pressuring to spin off PayPal, its online-payments business.
如今他正向他下一個(gè)目標(biāo)易趣施壓，要求其剝離線上支付業(yè)務(wù)Paypal。
Mr Donahoe, eBay's boss, has told Mr Icahn to get lost, but surely knows he cannot brush off the pugilistic investor so easily.
易趣總裁約翰·多納霍已經(jīng)跟伊坎表示讓他滾開，但他當(dāng)然明白要擺脫這位強(qiáng)勢(shì)的投資人可沒那么容易
A visit from an activist shareholder is now a possibility for any publicly traded company:
現(xiàn)在的公開上市公司，隨時(shí)都可能碰上某位激進(jìn)投資人的蒞臨訪問。
if not the 77-year-old Mr Icahn, then one of the growing army of younger imitators he has inspired.
就算不是77歲的卡爾·伊坎，也可以是他鼓動(dòng)的越來越多的年輕效仿者之一。
Mr Cook was first put under pressure to stop hoarding cash last year by David Einhorn, boss of Greenlight Capital, a hedge fund.
首先是去年對(duì)沖基金綠光資本老總大衛(wèi)·艾因霍恩要求蒂姆不要再繼續(xù)囤積現(xiàn)金。
Having shaken up Yahoo's management and strategy in 2012, Dan Loeb and his fund, Third Point, have turned their attention to Sony, calling for it to separate its electronics and entertainment arms; to Sotheby's, an auction house they want to repurchase shares; and to Dow Chemical, which they want to shed its petrochemicals business.
繼2012年整頓完雅虎的管理及戰(zhàn)略，丹·勒布和他的第三點(diǎn)基金開始將目光轉(zhuǎn)向索尼、蘇富比拍賣行和陶氏化學(xué)，要求拆分索尼的電子和娛樂業(yè)務(wù)，回購蘇富比股權(quán)，剝離陶氏化學(xué)的石油化工業(yè)務(wù)。
Nelson Peltz, who has been a shareholder activist almost as long as Mr Icahn, last month joined the board of Mondelez, a snacks business he had targeted.
上月，資歷和伊坎相差無幾的激進(jìn)投資人尼爾森·佩爾茲加入了億滋董事會(huì)，一個(gè)他決定收拾的食品公司。
TCI, a London-based fund run by Chris Hohn, has rediscovered its activist mojo after having been badly hurt by the financial crisis.
TCI基金在遭受金融危機(jī)重創(chuàng)之后，重新發(fā)現(xiàn)了激進(jìn)投資的魔力。
Last year it urged EADS to sell its military-planes business, and took on the management of Japan Tobacco.
該基金總部位于倫敦、總裁為克萊斯·霍恩。去年，它要求歐洲航空防務(wù)航天公司出售其軍用飛機(jī)業(yè)務(wù)，還和日本煙草產(chǎn)業(yè)公司較上了勁。
Steve Ballmer was helped on his way out of Microsoft's top job by ValueAct Capital, run by Mason Morfit.
史蒂夫·鮑爾默丟掉微軟CEO一職，也多虧了梅森·默菲特的ValueAct資本的幫忙。
Last month Bill Ackman'sPershing Squaremade a tasty profit when Suntory acquired Beam, which had been spun out of Fortune Brands as a result of his activism.
上月，三得利收購Beam讓比爾·阿克曼的對(duì)沖基金潘興廣場(chǎng)狠賺了一筆。阿克曼的積極運(yùn)作促成Beam脫離富俊集團(tuán)，
But Mr Ackman has also demonstrated that activists have no monopoly on wisdom: Ron Johnson, the new boss he lobbied for J.C. Penney to install in 2011, made things worse at the struggling retailer, and lasted just 17 months.
但也正是他讓人們發(fā)現(xiàn)激進(jìn)分子并不是永遠(yuǎn)正確：2011年阿克曼鼓動(dòng)彭尼百貨把總裁之位交給榮·約翰遜，而約翰遜卻讓這個(gè)麻煩不斷的零售商雪上加霜，17個(gè)月后他便離職了。
Mr Ackman has been at loggerheads with Messrs Icahn and Loeb over Herbalife, a nutritional-supplements business.
阿克曼就保健品公司康寶萊與伊坎和勒布先生展開了對(duì)決。
Mr Ackman has shorted its shares, calling the firm a pyramid scheme.
阿克曼做空康寶萊股票，并稱其用的是金字塔式的傳銷騙術(shù)；他的對(duì)手則大舉買進(jìn)該公司股票。
His rivals have gone long on them. So far, Mr Ackman is out of pocket.
截至目前，阿克曼已經(jīng)賠得精光了。
The activists' growing influence has many causes,
激進(jìn)投資人影響力的增加有多重原因。
including rule changes that have given shareholders more voting power and have made institutional investors cast their votes more thoughtfully.
規(guī)則的改變使股東獲得了更多的投票權(quán)，也使機(jī)構(gòu)投資人在投票時(shí)更謹(jǐn)慎。
Social media have made it easier for activists to mount a campaign: Mr Icahn now tweets like a budgie on speed.
社交媒體使他們能更容易地發(fā)起一場(chǎng)運(yùn)動(dòng)：伊坎現(xiàn)在發(fā)推文快得就像一只鸚鵡在叫喚。
And, says Bob Monks, a campaigner for shareholder rights, Mr Icahn has had a huge impact by making it clear to the greediest people in the world that you can make a lot of money out of activism.
一直為股東權(quán)益奔走的鮑勃·孟克思稱，伊坎之所以有如此影響力，是因?yàn)樗屖澜缟献钬澙返娜藗兦宄目吹剑ㄟ^激進(jìn)的運(yùn)作可以賺很多很多錢。
It is the way these profits are made that is the focus of the activists' critics.
對(duì)激進(jìn)投資人的質(zhì)疑集中在這些錢是怎么賺來的。
Activists usually buy a block of shares, make a public call for change and lobby management and other shareholders to implement it.
他們通常先買下一大堆股票，再公開呼吁變革，然后鼓動(dòng)管理層和其他股東執(zhí)行這一改革方案。
When they do, the activists sell at a profit.
當(dāng)管理層當(dāng)真照做時(shí)，激進(jìn)投資人便賣出股票，獲取利潤。
Martin Lipton, a lawyer who has long helped protect incumbent management, not least by inventing the poison pill, a potent defence against takeovers, argues that activists encourage firms to do things that boost their share price in the short run but harm their long-term performance.
馬丁·利普頓是一名律師，長期致力于保護(hù)現(xiàn)任管理層，特別是通過他發(fā)明的能夠有效抵制收購的毒丸策略。他認(rèn)為，這些激進(jìn)投資人鼓勵(lì)公司做的事情能在短期推高公司股價(jià)，卻會(huì)傷害到其長期表現(xiàn)。
This critique has plenty of adherents, in academia, business and government.
這一批評(píng)在學(xué)術(shù)界、商界和政府有諸多擁護(hù)者。
Where's the evidence?
證據(jù)在哪里？
Yet empirical proof that activists exacerbate short-termism is strangely elusive.
但奇怪的是，鮮有證據(jù)證明激進(jìn)投資人確實(shí)激化了企業(yè)的短視行為。
Indeed, such evidence as there is suggests the opposite.
從現(xiàn)有的證據(jù)看，事實(shí)正好相反。
The Long-Term Effects of Hedge-Fund Activism, a recent paper by Lucian Bebchuk ofHarvardLawSchooland others, examined the roughly 2,000 interventions at companies by activist funds from 1994 to 2007.
哈佛大學(xué)法學(xué)院的盧西恩·別布丘克與他人合著的論文《對(duì)沖基金激進(jìn)主義的長期效應(yīng)》調(diào)查了從1994到2007年間激進(jìn)對(duì)沖基金對(duì)公司2000次左右的干預(yù)。
Over the five years following an intervention both the share price and the operating performance of the target company improved, on average.
平均來看，干預(yù)之后的五年內(nèi)，公司的股價(jià)和經(jīng)營業(yè)績均得到提高，
The operating performance got stronger towards the end of the five-year period, not weaker.
經(jīng)營業(yè)績?cè)谖迥昶诮Y(jié)束時(shí)并沒有下滑，反而是增長了。
This is the sort of evidence that has convinced Mary Jo White, the chairman ofAmerica's Securities and Exchange Commission,
正是這類證據(jù)說服了美國證券交易委員會(huì)主席瑪麗·喬·懷特。
to argue in a recent speech that activist shareholders should no longer be automatically viewed negatively.
她在最近的一次演講中提到，不能再這樣不假思索得否定激進(jìn)投資人了。
These days, she said, There is widespread acceptance of many of the policy changes that so-called ‘a(chǎn)ctivists' are seeking to effect.
她說現(xiàn)在這些所謂‘激進(jìn)者'所尋求的政策變化已有很多獲得了廣泛接受。
A recent article in the Columbia Law Review, The Agency Costs of Agency Capitalism:
《哥倫比亞法律評(píng)論》最近刊登了代理人資本主義的代理成本：
Activist Investors and the Revaluation of Governance Rights, argues that the activists have become a vital adjunct to the institutional investors who own most shares, and who are willing to respond to governance proposals but not to propose them.
激進(jìn)投資人和管理權(quán)的重估一文。該文認(rèn)為激進(jìn)投資人已成為機(jī)構(gòu)投資人的一個(gè)重要幫手。機(jī)構(gòu)投資人擁有公司絕大多數(shù)股票，愿意就提出的治理方案作出回應(yīng)，但不愿提出方案。
Activists have thus become governance intermediaries, who find underperforming firms and offer their managers and institutional shareholders concrete proposals for business strategy through mechanisms less drastic than takeovers.
因此激進(jìn)投資人成了治理中間人，找出業(yè)績不好的公司，并為其管理者和機(jī)構(gòu)投資人通過比收購更溫和的機(jī)制提供公司戰(zhàn)略方面的具體建議。
So it is crucial, the authors argue, to pass reforms that help the activists do their job.
因此，該文作者認(rèn)為，當(dāng)務(wù)之急是通過改革，助激進(jìn)投資人一臂之力。
Mr Lipton and others are pressing for a rule change that would have the opposite effect, by obliging activists to disclose stakes at a lower threshold and more quickly.
而現(xiàn)在利普頓和一些人推動(dòng)的規(guī)則改革則會(huì)起到相反的效果，它降低了激進(jìn)投資人強(qiáng)制性披露持股比例的門檻。
That would force them to show their hand before they had built a big enough stake to make a decent profit if and when their proposals succeeded.
若要在提議成功之后獲得豐厚收益，激進(jìn)投資人必須先增持一定數(shù)量的股票。但這一規(guī)則變更將迫使他們過早攤牌。
Boards have an obvious motive to back curbs on troublesome activists.
董事會(huì)顯然欲約束這些麻煩的激進(jìn)分子。
But a better strategy—and one that big firms are increasingly adopting—is to talk to them, consider their ideas and even invite them or their representatives to become directors, as firms from Microsoft to Mondelez have done.
然而更好的、也是大公司越來越傾向于選擇的策略，是與他們交談，考慮他們的意見甚至邀請(qǐng)他們或其代表加入董事會(huì)；微軟和億滋就是這么做的。
If a board's strategy is in fact better than that proposed by the activist, having the debate in public may strengthen the incumbent management, as happened when activists took on firms such as AOL, Target and Clorox.
如果董事會(huì)的策略確實(shí)好于激進(jìn)投資人提出的，公開就此進(jìn)行辯論也可能鞏固現(xiàn)任管理層的地位。美國在線、塔吉特百貨和高樂氏在應(yīng)對(duì)激進(jìn)投資人挑戰(zhàn)時(shí)就是如此。
Indra Nooyi, the boss of PepsiCo, chose to work with Ralph Whitworth, a veteran activist who took a stake in the company.
百事可樂總裁英德拉·諾伊選擇了和資深激進(jìn)投資人、擁有百事可樂股票的拉爾夫惠特沃思合作。
By doing so she was able to head off calls for a break-up of the firm, while still boosting its shares, thereby restoring her authority.
這樣她既平息了要求拆分公司的呼聲，又推高了公司股價(jià)，由此在公司重樹威信。
Mr Donohoe's encounter with Mr Icahn may prove less nightmarish if he treats his ideas about eBay on their merits rather than dismissing them out of hand.
如果多諾霍能中肯得看待伊坎對(duì)易趣的建議，而不是不假思索的否定，也許結(jié)果就不會(huì)那么糟糕了。
