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Corporate governance
企業管治
Nasty medicine
一劑苦藥
The return of the poison-pill defence
毒丸防御重出江湖
POISON pills are again being dispensed by corporate America with all the enthusiasm of an exterminator in a rat-infested basement. The metaphorical rodents nowadays are not just hostile bidders—the pests that the poison-pill defence was designed to exterminate, back in the 1980s—but in some cases shareholders simply trying to change the way companies are run.
在束手無策的鼠患下，美國公司再次祭出了“毒丸”這項的殺招。在上世紀80年代，“老鼠”僅表示資本市場上的惡意收購者，而這也是毒丸防御系統最初的針對目標。但在如今的某些情況下，“毒丸”所對付的對象也轉向了一些試圖改變公司營運方針的股東。
In a typical poison-pill scheme, the board of a company makes a rule that if anyone buys more than a certain percentage of its shares, it will issue lots of stock to all other shareholders, dramatically reducing the first investor's stake. In Britain, which has long taken a more positive view of hostile bids, poison pills are all but banned. In America, the courts have repeatedly held them to be legal. But they had become scarcer in recent years, as takeovers dried up and shareholders got some schemes dismantled. Now, M&A is booming, activist investors are back on the warpath and defences are being rebuilt.
在一般的情況下，實施毒丸防御的公司，由公司董事會事先通過一項股權攤薄條款，一旦出現收購者收購公司一定比例的股份，即觸發該條款生效，使公司原有股東可以較低的價格獲得公司大量股份，從而稀釋收購方的股份。在英國，人們對待惡意收購的行為是比較積極的，因此毒丸防御成為了明令禁止的條款。而在美國，法院則三番五次地站出來為毒丸防御的合法性背書。但由于近年來收購案的減少以及公司股東們對陰謀的沉著應對，使用“毒丸”的情況也愈發罕見。如今，隨著企業并購案的迅猛增長，活躍的投資者重返戰場，這也意味著股東們的防御計劃也得隨之重啟。
On June 28th the board of American Apparel, a clothing retailer, enacted a poison-pill scheme. It is seeking to avert a less-than-friendly takeover by its former boss, Dov Charney, whom the board had removed ten days earlier over some as-yet unspecified allegations of misconduct. Mr Charney has sealed a partnership with Standard General, a hedge fund, with the help of which he now controls a 43% stake.
6月28日，服裝零售商美國服飾的董事層實施了毒丸防御計劃。美國服飾正極力避免一場不太友好的收購，而其收購方正是該公司的前任老板多夫·查尼。正是在十天前，多夫·查尼由于一些至今仍未指明的不當行為被公司逐出了管理層。查尼先生已與基金公司Standard General達成了合作協議，而目前在后者的幫助下，他已經控制了美國服飾43%的股權。
The previous day a lawsuit over the poison pill adopted by Allergan, best known for its Botox anti-wrinkle treatment, was settled out of court. It had been brought by Pershing Square, a fund run by one of the most prominent shareholder activists, Bill Ackman. He won an agreement from Allergan that its defences would not be triggered by his collaboration with other shareholders to call a special meeting to elect new board members.
先前的一宗與肉毒素生廠商美國愛力根（Allergan）有關的毒丸防御案件當中，矛盾最終在庭外得到了解決。由活躍投資人威廉·阿克曼執掌的資產管理公司潘興廣場對沖基金正是本案中的收購方。在與愛力根股東會面的特別會議中，阿克曼與其他股東的意見達成了一致，通過該會議選舉出了新任的董事會成員，從而避免了一場毒丸防御戰。
Pershing Square, which has just less than the 10% stake at which the poison pill is triggered, has teamed up with Valeant, another medical company, to bid for Allergan. Its defences may prevent them from pursuing their bid in the conventional way, by continuing to buy shares. But the out-of-court agreement opens the way for them to achieve their objective by putting new people on the board who would be more open to a takeover.
在潘興廣場的持股比例快到10%之際，愛力根的董事層便實施了毒藥防御計劃，而前者則隨即與另一家醫療公司威朗合作，對后者進行收購。通過定向增發股份的傳統方法或許能夠阻止他們常規手段的收購，但對于利用庭外協議往董事會中插入新成員的方法，使得收購方能夠在更開放的董事支持下達成控制的目標。
Earlier last month Family Dollar, a discount retailer, created a poison pill after Carl Icahn, another activist, bought just under 10% of its shares amid speculation that he was planning to engineer a merger with Dollar General, a competitor. And News Corporation renewed its poison-pill scheme, allowing Rupert Murdoch and his family, with their 39.4% stake, to fend off any attempt to take over the company now it has been split from 21st Century Fox, its former entertainment arm.
在上月的早些時候，折扣零售商家庭美元在投資商卡爾·伊坎購入不到10%的股權的情況下，便實施了毒丸防御計劃。據猜測，伊坎正準備推動家庭美元與另一家競爭對手達樂公司進行合并。與此同時，和21世紀?？怂构菊椒旨伊说男侣劶瘓F正通過改變自身的毒丸防御計劃，允許魯伯特·默多克和他的家族成員以合計39.4%的股份，與外來收購方進行對抗。
But these days some activists do not want to take over a firm, just to create a sort of “loyal opposition” to the board, leaving it largely intact while pressing it to change strategy. Earlier this year Sotheby's, an auction house listed in New York, adopted a poison pill to fend off attempts by Dan Loeb, another activist, to win representation on the board and shake up the firm.
但最近部分投資者并沒有想要去控制一家公司，只是在董事會當中創造一種“少數反對”的因子，在保持管理層完整的情況下迫使公司改變自身的經營戰略。而在今年的早些時候，紐約蘇富比拍賣行接受了一項毒丸防御條款，以阻止激進投資者丹·羅卜贏得董事會的席位，從而動搖公司的根基。
Mr Loeb's fund, Third Point, went to court seeking a ruling that it was exempt from the 10% trigger, so it could buy more shares. In May a judge in Delaware rejected its request, arguing that a bigger stake would give the fund “negative control” over Sotheby's, whatever that may mean, even though he acknowledged it would “not have an explicit veto power”. Nevertheless, Sotheby's later agreed to give board seats to Mr Loeb and two colleagues.
羅卜領軍的避險基金第三點，向法院提起了訴訟，要求自身豁免10%的毒丸防御，進而購入更多的股份。在五月，一位特拉華州的法官回絕了該項請求。雖然法官明白羅卜并沒有得到“明確的否決權”，但他認為更大份額的股權會令羅卜有能力對蘇富比實施“負面影響的控制”，且不論這種控制的具體方式。盡管如此，羅卜最終還是為自己以及他的兩位同事拿下了三個董事席位。
Despite this and Mr Ackman's success in the Allergan legal settlement, the ruling over Sotheby's suggests that poison pills may be used to hinder not just full takeovers but attempts by activists to force a change in strategy. Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard law professor and campaigner for corporate-governance reforms, calls this “pernicious”: the board would be seeking to stifle legitimate debate among the owners of the company by making it hard to build a majority for change. Mr Bebchuk was an author of a study that examined the roughly 2,000 activist interventions at companies between 1994 and 2007, which found that they typically led to an improvement in the companies' operating performance in the following five years.
除了上述案例以及阿克曼先生成功在愛力根公司達成的合法協議外，股東們對蘇富比公司的控制表明，毒丸防御不僅僅在對抗全面收購的收購方，同時也在阻礙著投資方對公司經營戰略的影響。哈佛法學院教授盧西恩·拜伯切克，同時也是一位公司治理改革運動的倡導者，認為這樣的情況是“有害的”：董事會通過對形成贊成改革群體的限制，從而扼殺了合法的公司內部改革爭論。在拜伯切克先生之前的研究里，粗略地對大約2000位投資者在1994年至2007年間的公司事務干預進行統計，結果發現這些投資者顯然都能帶領公司在接下來的五年內實現運營表現的提升。
No doubt delighted that the poison pill has made a comeback, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the law firm that invented it, has also been seeking to make things harder still for activists by proposing a rule that anyone building a stake of 5% or more in a firm must disclose it within one day, not ten as now. So far the Securities and Exchange Commission is showing little interest. Indeed, its chairman, Mary Jo White, has argued that activists' attempts to jog boards are not always a bad thing.
毫無疑問地，毒丸防御強勢回歸，而發明了這一條款的Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz律師事務所也在持續地對外來投資者進行限制，該公司規定任何投資者只要持有股份達5%或者更多，那么這位投資者必須在一天內披露自己的身份，遠比目前10%的行業標準要低。到目前為止，美國證券交易委員會對這樣條款反應冷淡。實際上，委員會主席瑪麗·喬·懷特早已強調投資者積極想要躋身董事會的情況，并不總是一件壞事。
