经济学人47:返璞归真的巴西投行 Back to basics

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　财经；巴西投行BTG公开上市；返璞归真的巴西投行；

　　A purist pay scheme at Brazil's high-flying investment bank;

　　巴西投行雄心壮志，薪酬方案追求纯粹；

　　Wall street elders talk nostalgically about the days of private partnerships¹, before investment banks went public. BTG Pactual, a Brazilian investment bank that raised 3.7 billion reais ($1.9 billion Dollar) in an initial public offering (IPO) on April 24th, thinks it can have the best of both worlds. Although the IPO will enable some investors², like J.C. Flowers and Co, a private-equity firm, to cash out at a handsome profit, the bank's partners have less freedom.

　　华尔街的老人谈起早些年的投行，常流露出怀念之情：那些年，它们还没上市；那些年，它们还是私人合伙公司。巴西投行BTG认为它做到两全其美，同时从这两种公司形式中获益。4月24日，BTG成功上市（IPO），共募得37亿雷亚尔（19亿美元）。有的投资者，比方说私募基金J.C. Flowers and Co，在IPO中获益颇丰并功成身退。跟他们相比，BTG的合伙人们可就没法那么随心所欲了。

　　BTG does not want to go public only to see partners chase Ferraris, third homes and early retirement³ by taking unnecessary risks in order to plump the share price. So it has put severe restrictions⁴ on partners selling shares. Partners who want to leave the bank or cash out will be allowed to sell their shares only to other partners, and only at book value. In this way the bank's culture will not be corrupted⁵ by going public, the thinking goes, and shareholders⁶ can be reassured⁷ that partners will stay for the long term.

　　想象这样一幕：上市后，一边是合伙人买豪车、住新房、提前退休；另一边，公司则要承担无谓的风险，努力提升股价……这番景象是BTG最不愿意见到的。为防患于未然，BTG对合伙人出售股票做出了严格的限制。合伙人要想从公司套现退出，只能以账面价值将股票卖给别的合伙人。按照这一思路的设想，上市后，公司的企业文化仍能保持纯正。股东也可以放一百个心了，因为合伙人迅速套现离场的可能性降低了。

　　Some partners are said to be grumbling⁸ about the scheme. They will not be able to sell shares at the market price even after they have put in decades of work and want to retire. That raises questions about whether partners are genuinely incentivised to do well by shareholders. And even if the bank's pay policies please the purists, BTG's governance structure will not. André Esteves, the bank's high-voltage billionaire founder⁹, will control around 85% of the bank's common shares and has “sole discretion” to control the bank's policies and management, even when a matter has been put to shareholders.

　　据说，有些合伙人对这份股票限售方案抱怨连连。他们为公司打拼了几十年，现在想退休了，却不能按照市场价卖掉自己的股份。股东对此也抱有疑虑：合伙人们是否得到了真正的激励，能否用心为公司服务。如果说BTG的薪酬政策合了纯粹主义者的心意，它的公司治理结构却没有如此。精力旺盛的亿万富翁安德烈?埃斯特维斯作为公司的创始人，控制着约85%的普通股份额。他可以“全权决定”公司的一切政策和管理事务。即使在某事被提交给股东来决定的情形下，仍是由他说的算。

　　Mr Esteves has ambitions for BTG to become the dominant¹⁰ investment bank in all of Latin America. The bank, like Brazil itself, has had a growth spurt¹¹ in the past few years, forging into new business lines and countries through a spate¹² of acquisitions. A week before the IPO Mr Esteves was fined 350,000 Euro (457,000 Dollar) for insider trading by Consob, the Italian regulator, which said he bought shares in an Italian meat company in 2007 before a joint¹³ venture with JBS, a Brazilian firm, was publicly announced. Mr Esteves denies the allegations. Investors shrugged¹⁴: the IPO was said to be three times oversubscribed. They are too keen to buy into Mr Esteves to be put off by the controversy¹⁵, or by any disgruntlement on the part of his colleagues.

　　埃斯特维斯胸怀壮志，他的梦想是让BTG成为拉丁美洲首屈一指的投行。同它的祖国巴西一样，BTG在过去数年中获得了迅速增长，借助一连串收购交易，扩大了经营范围，开拓了外国市场。在BTG上市的一周前，意大利证券监管机构CONSOB因埃斯特维斯参与内幕交易，对他做出了罚款35万欧元（45.7万美元）的决定。CONSOB称，埃斯特维斯在2007年得知，一家意大利肉制品企业将与巴西的JBS公司建立合资公司，赶在消息公布前购入了该公司的股票。对于CONSOB的指控，埃斯特维斯做出了断然否认。投资者则根本不把此事放在心上：据说BTG的IPO获得了3倍的超额认购。他们实在太想从埃斯特维斯那里买到股票了。在投资者的眼里，关于他的争议或者同事们对他的任何不满，全部是浮云。

分享到：