評論
打印
French business
法國商業
Outside in
由外到內
France just might be growing more tolerant of disruptive outsider
法國也許會對外來的破壞分子越發縱容
THE French do have a word for “entrepreneur”, pace George Bush, and more than 500,000 new businesses in 2013 to prove it. What they struggle to translate precisely is “outsider”.
在法國有一個詞是用來描述“企業家”的，在喬治·布什的書籍《步伐》中，以及在2013年有超過五十萬的新業務證明了這一點。而他們難以用精確的語言來翻譯的這個詞語便是“外來者”。
Patrick Drahi, a Moroccan-born, Swiss-resident, Franco-Israeli billionaire who has just won a bitter takeover battle for SFR, a telecoms operator, happens to be both. It was a striking victory over the Bouygues family, a powerful industrial clan at the heart of the establishment, who were backed by a clutch of other well-connected family businesses, a state investment agency, a big union, and above all by the industry minister, Arnaud Montebourg. This is quite a feat in a country where disruptive newcomers have rarely been made welcome at the big-business high table.
帕特里克·德拉希，一位摩洛哥出生，定居于瑞士的以籍法裔億萬富翁，于不久前贏得了一場發生在收購SFR的惡戰,SFR是一家電信運營商。這是一場出人意料的戰役，因為它戰勝了布依格家族，這個強大工業帝國的核心，是由以眾多其他出生名門的家族企業為靠山構成的，它不僅擁有政府投資，而且擁有一個巨大的聯盟，其中以工業部部長，Arnaud Montebourg為首。在一個具有破壞性的外來者在大企業的談判桌上是不被歡迎的國家，這是一個相當了不起的壯舉。
Mr Drahi attributes his win to the simple fact that his was a better project than Bouygues Telecom's, and logic prevailed. Others argue that the board of Vivendi, the media group that was selling SFR, is stiff with unusually independent-minded men whose backs were put up by the public pressure that the Bouygues family and their chums brought to bear.
Drahi把他的勝利歸結為一個簡單的原因：他比布依格電信公司擁有更周全的計劃，因此理應勝利。還有一些人認為這是因為試圖出售SFR的維旺迪董事會（Vivendi SA；又譯威望迪，前名為維旺迪環球（Vivendi Universal）是法國一家巨型媒體跨國集團。業務范圍包括音樂、電視、電影、出版、電信、互聯網和電子游戲等行業。）出人意料的是因為無黨派人士背后有布依格家族以及其同盟所施加的社會壓力。
Even so, it is not implausible to see in it the beginnings of a sea-change in French capitalism. The long-standing assumption that with the state's blessing, the destinies of entire industries should be overseen by a charmed circle of interconnected people from the grandes ecoles and the haute bourgeoisie seems to be wearing thinner these days. One line in Mr Drahi's CV implies he is part of that circle—he attended the elite ecole Polytechnique—but rather than continuing on the usual route via public service and politics to the top of a giant French corporation, the son of humble Moroccan teachers pursued a rather Anglo-Saxon career as a buyer, seller and stitcher-together of cable and telecoms companies around the globe, alongside buy-out firms.
即便如此，法國資本主義史上這樣一個如此重大的變革依然是令人難以置信的。一個長期存在的猜想就是在國家的庇佑下，法國整個實業的前途應該是在一些來自grandes ecoles以及haute bourgeoisie（法國中產階級上層）的互通有無排外團體的嚴密監管之下的，這些些日子，他們看起來似乎衣著單薄。從Drahi先生的簡歷看來他似乎也是也是這個團體之中的一部分——因為他參與了整個的法國高等工商學院的整個精英班的學習——但是比起沿著通過公共服務以及政治活動等成為法國的巨頭企業這一條尋常之路，這位摩洛哥普通老師的兒子追隨了盎格魯-撒克遜的道路作為一個買家，賣家和有線電視遍布全球的電信公司，他與全面收購并駕齊驅。
Not many such disruptive outsiders have risen to the very top, but there are a few. One is Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad Group, a mobile-phone operator that has grown fast by drastically undercutting its rivals' prices. The co-owner these days of Le Monde, a newspaper, and partner of the daughter of Bernard Arnault, boss of LVMH, a luxury group, Mr Niel is being clasped to the establishment's bosom. Another iconoclast is Jacques-Antoine Granjon, the billionaire co-founder of an early online-retail business, Vente-privee.com.
并沒有很多這樣具有顛覆性的局外人達到如此頂端之高度，但也不是沒有。其中之一便是Xavier Niel，Iliad Group的創始人，一位增長迅猛與競爭對手議價能力極高的移動電話運營商。這些日子他成為了《世界報》的合伙人以及LVMH這個奢侈品集團老板Bernard Arnault女兒的合伙人，Niel先生已經緊緊扣住了當權者的心扉。另一個打破常規的人便是Jacques-Antoine Granjon，這位億萬富翁是Vente-privee.com.這個早期網上零售商的共同創始人。
More shaking-up is on the cards. France's business climate is changing as its flagship companies go global. Some are now run by foreigners—for example, Sanofi, a pharmaceuticals giant with a German chief executive, its first non-French boss. Others have shifted senior management overseas: Essilor, the world leader in corrective lenses, is mainly overseen from Texas these days. And foreign investors, with their Anglo-Saxon expectations of corporate governance, own around half the shares of the biggest firms, the CAC-40.
巨變即將來臨。當其旗艦企業走向國際的時候法國商業環境就已變化。其中一些企業現在還是由外國人經營的，例如Sanofi，這家制藥業巨頭有一個德國的首席執行官，這是非法籍人士的首次擔任公司最高層。其他的一些公司也開始雇傭外籍人員作為公司高管：Essilor，矯正視力業內的領頭羊，大體上已經處于特克薩斯州的監管下了。并且外國的投資者帶著盎格魯-撒克遜的法人管理期望值，大約擁有這家最大公司一半的一半份額，從CAC-40指數來看。
There is another reason, too, why France is set to become more open to entrepreneurs, outsiders and disrupters. “France's back is to the wall economically,” says Mr Drahi, “President Hollande has realised that only enterprises create jobs and Manuel Valls, the new prime minister, is already pushing that line.” Just as Fran?ois Mitterrand, elected president in 1981 on an intensely socialist platform, had to change tack to woo back business and save the economy, so Fran?ois Hollande has begun to do the same. Among the 1980s returners, from self-imposed exile in America, was Mr Arnault, a disruptive force in his day. Helped by the French state, he acquired the kernel of what was to become the world's largest luxury group.
同時還有另一個原因，為什么法國對于企業家、外來者、以及顛覆者的設定變得更加開放。“法國背靠經濟墻，” Drahi先生說道“奧朗德總統已經實現了只要企業能夠創造了就業機會并且Manuel Valls，這位新總理已經在推廣這條線。”正如Fran?ois Mitterrand，于1981年在強烈的社會主義平臺中競選總統，認為必須改變策略招商引資以挽救經濟，所以奧朗德也開始著手做同樣的事情。在十九世紀八十年代的在美國自我放逐的回歸者中，是Arnault先生，一個破壞者，得到了法國的幫助，由此他獲得了世界最大奢侈品集團的核心。
