经济学人 | 中国企业的海外之路

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中国经济近年来迅猛发展，但是在国际市场上屡屡受挫。中国企业在走出去的过程中，究竟面临哪些障碍？未来又将如何发展呢？

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Crossing the river

摸着石头过河

Chinese companies have a weak record abroad. They must do better.

中国企业在海外战绩不佳，必须改进

【1】CONSIDERING the size of China’s economy, it seems inevitable that its firms will eventually play a huge role on the world stage. Yet China Inc’s adventures abroad in the past 15 years have been a mixed bag. Thousands of small deals have taken place, some of which will succeed. But of the mergers and acquisitions that have been worth $1bn or more, it is a different story. There have been 56 abandoned deals, 39 state-backed acquisitions of commodities firms at frothy prices, and, lately, wild sprees by tycoons scooping up trophies such as hotels and football clubs.

inevitable：不可避免的；不能防止的；总会发生的；照例必有的

例：Trying to be perfect may be sort of inevitable for people like us, who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world.

像我们这样的人，不仅聪明，胸怀大志，还放眼世界，所以力求完美可能无法避免。

mixed bag：杂集，混合体，大杂烩

mergers：（机构或企业的）合并

例：The company is approached by an American publisher with the suggestion of a merger .

一家美国出版商与该公司商谈有关合并的事宜。

acquisition：收购；购置；（知识、技能等的）获得；（多指贵重的）购得物

例：An acquisition is often the quickest (and sometimes the only) way to gain a foothold in a country.

要在某一国获得立足点，收购通常是最快捷（有时也是唯一）的方法。

frothy：起泡的，多泡的，表面的，空洞的

sprees：狂欢，毫无节制

tycoons：大亨，巨头，大实业家

scoop：用勺儿舀；用铲儿铲；拿起；抢先报道

例：Remember that the sun will still rise tomorrow even if I had one too many slices of pizza or an extra scoop of ice cream tonight.

记得明天太阳会照常升起，即便今晚我吃了太多匹萨和冰淇淋。

trophy： (竞赛、赛跑等的)奖品，奖杯

鉴于中国的经济规模，有一件事似乎无可避免，那就是中国企业终将在世界舞台上扮演极为重要的角色。然而，过去15年里中国企业在海外市场上的商业冒险成果各异。发生的小型交易成千上万，其中有一部分会成功。但至于价値10亿美元或以上的并购,情况就不同了。已有56笔交易终止；另外39笔交易中，国企以虚高的价格收购了大宗商品企业；最近，各路大亨正在疯狂搜罗酒店和足球俱乐部等战利品。

【2】Some deals defy any conventional logic. Last month HNA, an airlines-and-tourism conglomerate from Hainan, said it had bought a 10% stake in Deutsche Bank, having earlier considered buying a Landesbank. The Chinese firm, which runs a beach-volleyball tournament in Beijing, appears to think it can consolidate Germany’s fragmented banking industry—the financial equivalent of bringing peace to the Middle East. If China Inc is to realise its potential abroad, it needs a more credible approach.

defy：违抗，反抗，不服从

conglomerate：砾岩；企业集团；联合大公司；合成物

例：They proposed merging their assets, which include some of Russia's largest mines and factories, into a state-controlled conglomerate.

他们建议，将他们的资产，包括俄罗斯的最大的矿山和工厂，合并成一个国有的大型联合企业。

Deutsche：德意志银行

Landesbank：西德意志银行

consolidate：加强、巩固

fragmented：碎片，片段

credible：可信的，可靠的；（因看似可能成功而）可接受的

有些交易完全不符合任何常规逻辑。上个月, 航空旅游集团海南航空公布已经收购德意志银行10%的股权，在此之前还曾考虑收购一家德国州立储蓄银行 。这家在北京赞助了沙i难排球巡回赛的中国公司似乎认为自己有能力整合德国分散的银行业，但要在金融领域里完成此举，难度堪比实现中东和平。中国企业要在国外发挥潜力，需要更靠谱的做法。

［3］The experience of Britain, and then America, in the 20th century suggests that economic hegemons control a disproportionate share of the world’s stock of cross-border corporate investment. Today China’s slice is only 4%, below its15% share of global GDP and its13% share of total stock market value. Its leaders want firms to go faster. If companies don’t globalise, China won’t become powerful, argues Wang Jianlin, boss of Dalian Wanda, a property firm, and China’s richest tycoon, in his autobiography.

hegemons ：.霸主；霸王；霸权国家

例：Hegemons cannot for long survive such rising indebtedness.

霸权国家无法长期经受这种不断上升的债务。

disproportionate：不成比例的；不相称的；太大（或太小）的

例：The two nations account for a huge chunk of the U. S. defense budget, and a disproportionate amount of diplomatic attention and resources.

两国占据了美国国防预算的大头，这与他们的外交影响力和资源潜力极不相乘。

globalise：全球化

lengthy：长期的，漫长的

marital：婚姻的，夫妻（间）的

autobiography：自传；自传体写作

例：In his autobiography, he wrote, "I had no idea what I could achieve, but at least I made a resolution4 to start something. "

他在自传中如此写道：“虽然我不知道「能」做到什么程度，但至少我有了个开始的决心。”

英国及后来的美国在20世纪的经历表明，经济霸主国家在全球跨国公司投资总存量中所占比例往往偏高。今天，中国的这一占比仅为4%，低于其占全球GDP15%和总市值13%的比例。中国领导人希望中国企业加快行动。中国首富、房地产公司大连万达的老板王健林在自传中指出，企业如果不全球化，中国就不会变强大。

［4］In their hurry, Chinese firms have made mistakes. Deals worth $1bn or more account for two-thirds of activity by value since 2005. Of these about half fall into three problematic categories. First, acquisitions by state-controlled groups of natural-resources firms. The aim was to secure access to raw materials but many deals were badly timed, with high prices paid at the peak of the commodity cycle between 2010 and 2014. CNOOC, an oil firm, for example, has written off part of its $17bn acquisition in 2012 of Nexen, a Canadian oil firm.

problematic：造成困难的；产生问题的

例：The Internet increases the availability of harmful, problematic and illegal content, but does not always increase minors' exposure.

互联网让有害的、有问题的、非法的内容更容易获得，但未成年人并不总是更容易接触到。

category：种类，类别

raw：生的；未烹制的；未煮的；未经加工的

例：Wherever you get your raw data, the reader is now set up and ready to parse.

无论是从何处获取原始数据，现在已建立了阅读器并为解析做好准备。

badly timed：不合时宜

CNOOC：China National Offshore Oil Corporation 中国海洋石油总公司

但急于走出去的中国企业已经犯了不少错i吴。2005年以来，价値10亿美元或以上的交易占了中国企业海外并购总额的三分之二，其中约有一半分属三个有问题的类型。第一类是国有控股公司对自然资源企业的收购。此类收购的目的是要确保原材料来源，但许多交易的时机都很糟糕，是在2010年至2014年间大宗商品周期的高峰期以偏高的价格完成的。例如，石油公司中海油在2012年以170亿美元收购了加拿大石油公司Nexen，现在已经減记了其中部分价値。

［5］The second difficult category consists of acquisition sprees by leveraged conglomerates, financed by debt or by the funds that policyholders entrust to these firms’ insurance subsidiaries. Four such companies—HNA, Dalian Wanda, Fosun (based in Shanghai) and Anbang—have spent $100bn on assets that include luxury hotels, a Portuguese bank, a Russian gold mine and a yacht maker. It is hard to see industrial logic behind the purchases. Fosun and HNA, which disclose their accounts, have eye-watering ratios of debt to gross operating profit of 8 and 13 times respectively. In the last category are outright flops: $230bn of deals worth $1bn or more have collapsed because the buyer or the Chinese government got cold feet, or because of a hostile reception abroad. As a result Chinese buyers are seen as unreliable.

leverage：杠杆，杠杆作用，影响力，发挥杠杆作用，施加影响

例：Still, he said the law could be used to gain leverage in negotiations with China.

但他说，这项法律可以为美国增加与中国谈判的筹码。

policyholders：投保人，保险客户

entrust：委托，托付

subsidiary：子公司；附属公司

例：Company shall have the right to assign all or any portion of its rights hereunder to any other affiliate or subsidiary of Company.

公司有权转让全部或部分合同项下的权利，任何其他关联公司或附属公司。

yacht：帆船，快艇，游艇

eye-watering：（高得）难以想象的；令人心痛的；催人落泪的

outright：完全地，彻底地

例：I told him outright what I thought of him.

我坦白地告诉他我对他的感想。

collapse：崩溃，倒塌

hostile：敌意的；敌对的；坚决否定；强烈反对

例：If they cannot insist on this, they say, there is nothing to stop their group from being taken over by people hostile to its principles.

学生们说：如果他们不能坚持这一点的话，就无法阻止其团体被那些对其原则抱有敌意的人所掌控了。

reception：对待，待遇

第二个问题类别是企业集团运用杠杆，通过举债或利用集团保险子公司客户的保险资金进行收购。四家这样的企业（海航、大连万达、上海复星和安邦）已经花费了1000亿美元收购各类资产，包括豪华酒店、一家葡萄牙银行、一个俄罗斯金矿和一家游艇制造商。这些收购背后的行业逻辑很难看明白。复星和海航披露了账目，负债与总营业利润比分别为8倍和13倍，高得令人昨舌。最后一个类别完全是败笔：由于买方或中国政府临阵退缩，或者由于在国外遭到敌视，价値10亿美元或以上的交易中有总计2300亿美元的交易告吹。结果使得中国买家如今被认为是不可靠的。

［6］Other countries have been on foreign M&A benders: in 1989-90 Japanese companies bought a Hollywood studio and the Rockefeller Centre and in 2005-15 Indian firms splurged overseas. But China is different. It is much bigger. And its firms’ weaknesses abroad reflect the unique problems of its economy at home.

bender：（一段时间）狂饮作乐

例：Given a chance to turn worthless money into valuable commodities, Shanghailanders went on a buying bender.

上海人乘此机会疯狂地抢购，把毫无价值的钞票换成有价值的商品。

studio：电影公司

splurge：挥霍；乱花钱；糟蹋钱

例：A splurge on signings would only make sense if it was calculated that the disaffection of fans was liable to be even more costly.

只有球迷的不满会带来更高代价时，一掷千金罗致球员的场面怕是才能发生。

weakness：弱点，软弱，缺点

其他国家也经历过海外并购狂潮：1989至1990年间，日本企业收购了一家好莱士与电影公司和洛克菲勒中心。2005至2015年，印度企业在海外大肆挥霍。但中国不同,它的经济规模要大得多，其企业在海外市场上暴露出的弱点反映了国内经济的独特问题。

［7］State-controlled firms are the most financially undisciplined. They are also more likely to provoke opposition abroad from private rivals and from politicians who can argue that China’s government is meddling in their economy. As for the country’s entrepreneurs, cheap loans from state banks and a reluctance to issue equity leads them to assume too much debt and to speculate. They need to be politically connected to get bank loans and get around currency controls, but such connections can be fickle. In 2015 Fosun’s boss was arrested and then released. This month Anbang has had to deny that its chairman is banned from leaving the country. China’s outbound foreign investment dropped by 49% year on year in the first quarter of 2017, with an official clampdown on such speculative deals partly to blame.

undisciplined：无组织纪律的；没规矩的；缺乏管教的

例： When he was young and undisciplined. All that energy was used for causing trouble.

当他还年轻不羁时，他所有的这些精力都用在制造麻烦上了。

provoke：引发；激起；引起；挑衅

例：Simply freshening-up the smell of a room is enough to provoke a subconscious impulse towards fairness, researchers claimed.

研究人员称，仅仅改变一下房间的气味就足以引发人们对公平的下意识冲动。

rival：竞争对手

例：Mrs Merkel's personal ratings have held up better; voters prefer her to any likely rival as chancellor.

默克尔夫人的个人支持率相比还乐观一些；同其他可能成为总理的对手相比，选民更支持默克尔。

meddling：干涉；弄；参与

例：But the president said he has taken a more measured approach to avoid the appearance that the United States is meddling in Iranian affairs.

但是奥巴马总统说，他一直采取更为谨慎的措施，以避免看起来好像美国在干涉伊朗事务。

entrepreneur：企业家，主办人

reluctance：不情愿；【电】磁阻；厌恶；反抗 (to； at)

例：But business, too, is often a slow-moving gerontocracy, hidebound by a reluctance to let creative individuals make quick decisions.

不过日本商界常常也是一个行动迟缓、处在老人统治下的领域，固守着一种不愿令富有创造力的个人快速作出决断的心态。

equity：（公司的）股本、普通股；资产净值

speculate：思索，推测

fickle：易变的；无常的；反复无常的

例：A difficult problem could be good for a designer, but a fickle client or unreliable materials would not be.

一个困难的问题对一个设计者来说是好的，但是一个多变的客户和不可靠的材料不是。

outbound：开往外地的，开往国外的

clampdown：取缔，压制

国有控股企业财务管理最不严格，也更有可能在海外引起私营竟争对手和政客的反对一一这些政客可能会称中国政府干预本国经济。中国的企业家则有着来自国有银行的廉价贷款，而又不愿意发行股票，这让他们承担了过多的债务，并进行投机。他们需要有政治关系才能获得银行贷款及结过货币管制，但这种关系有时并不牢靠。2015年，复星的老板被捕，后来又被释放。本月，安邦不得不对外界报道作出回应，否认其董事长被禁止出境。2017年第一季度，中国对外投资同比下降49%，部分原因是官方对这种投机性交易的打压。

［8］More sensible ways of going global may be emerging, however. State-backed firms are using new mechanisms to persuade foreign countries that they will operate on a largely commercial basis. ChemChina has just bought Syngenta, a Swiss chemicals firm, for $46bn. It has promised to keep Syngenta’s headquarters and research in Switzerland. China Investment Corporation (CIC), a sovereign-wealth fund, is to spend $14bn buying Logicor, a European warehousing business. CIC will presumably argue that it is a financial buyer and won’t meddle. China’s one-belt one-road initiative is partly aimed at reassuring foreign countries that do business with state-backed firms, by putting contracts and activity under a bilateral, diplomatic umbrella.

persuade：说服

headquarters：设总部；在…设总部；把…放在总部中

例：The headquarter of the company will be in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A central hub of operation will be set up for each business unit .

其总部将设于湖北省武汉市，每一个业务部门将分别设有一个核心运营基地。

Switzerland：瑞士

China Investment Corporation：中国投资有限责任公司

sovereign-wealth：主权财富；所谓主权财产；主权基金是由主权财富

例：There is no evidence so far that sovereign-wealth funds are trying to wield inappropriate influence in the companies they invest in.

目前还没有迹象表明国控资金正对他们投资的公司施加不当影响。

warehousing：仓储；仓储业

例：EDM is often used as a reference model for information integration or as a basis for persistent databases and data warehousing.

EDM通常用作信息集成的参考模型，或者用作持久性数据库和数据仓库的基础。

presumably：大概；很可能；想必是

例：The company says it has an airline ready to unveil the system in two months time, presumably with devices for business or first class.

该公司表示，已经有一家航空公司准备在两个月后推出这一系统，很可能是专门针对商务舱或者头等舱乘客的。

meddle：管闲事，干涉，干预

one-belt one-road initiative：一带一路倡议

reassuring：令人安心的，可靠的，令人欣慰的

bilateral：双方的；双边的；（身体部位）双侧的；（大脑）两半球的

例：China is ready to explore new areas and new ways of expanding bilateral trade and promote sustained and stable growth of the trade.

中方愿同加方探讨扩大双边贸易的新领域新方式，促进两国贸易持续稳定增长。

然而，更明智的走出去的方式可能正在浮现。国资支持的企业正在使用新机制来说服国外市场和政府，使其相信自己的运作会主要基于商业方式。中国化工刚刚以460亿美元收购了瑞士化学品公司先正达(Syngenta)，承诺将先正达公司的总部和研究部门留在瑞士。主权财富基金中国投资有限责任公司将斥资140亿美元收购欧洲合储公司Logicor。中投想必会说自己只是财务收购，不会干预公司业务。中国的一带一路倡议把合同和商业活动放在双边外交的大字之下，一定程度上是为了让与国资支持的企业做生意的国家安心。

M&A with Chinese characteristics

中国特色的并购

［9］For China’s private firms the focus must be on deals that contain industrial logic, rather than those with a strongly speculative or trophy-hunting flavour. Last year Haier, which makes white goods, bought General Electric’s appliances business. Even these deals are hit and miss. Geely, a carmaker, has made a success of Volvo, which it bought in 2010, but Lenovo, a computer firm, has struggled since buying Motorola’s handset business in 2014. Yet, over the long term they have a better chance of succeeding than almost anything else. As China’s internet firms accumulate cash they will go abroad; they have much to offer in terms of expertise. Last year Tencent paid $9bn for Supercell, a Finnish gaming firm.

speculative：推测的；猜测的；推断的；揣摩的

例：There are a number of speculative theories about this topic, but none of them make realistically testable predictions as of yet.

有一些关于此问题的纯理论研究，但没有一个能提出有效的预测让现实去验证。

trophy-hunting：战利品狩猎；猎物；狩猎头像标本

例：Trophy hunting can be a strong economic incentive to protect wildlife and promote conservation.

猎物狩猎可以作为一种强有力的经济手段，激励保护野生动物并推广保护理念。

appliances：（家用）电器

例：Appliance waste is one of the main kind for solid wastes, which will pollute environment seriously, if it is not properly disposed.

废旧家电是固体废物最主要的种类之一，不进行合理的处置将严重污染环境。

carmaker：汽车制造商

handset：手机，电话听筒

expertise：专长；专门知识；专门技能

例：I knew you were one of the main drivers behind the enterprise acquisitions, and that you had zero expertise in consumer devices.

我知道你是当初商业收购的主要幕后推动者之一，而且你对消费类产品的经验一无所知。

中国的私营企业必须注重有产业逻辑的交易，而不是具有强烈投机性或有虏获战利品意味的交易。去年，生产白色家电的海尔收购了通用电气的家电业务。但即使是这类交易也有成有败。汽车制造商吉利在2010年收购了沃尔沃后获得了成功，但电脑企业联想自2014年收购了摩托罗拉的手机业务以来一直陷于困境。然而，长远来看，这些交易比其他任何商业活动都有更大的成功机会。中国互联网企业攒够了现金，就会走出去，它们有很多专长做筹码。去年，腾讯就以90亿美元的价格收购了芬兰游戏公司 Supercell。

［10］In the past, each economic superpower has created its own corporate form abroad, reflecting its national character and the state of the world it sought to bestride. British firms used managing agents in the 19th century to run remote businesses. From the 1970s American firms perfected the multinational, taking advantage of technology and open borders to run things on an integrated basis. China’s firms are emerging out of a state-led economy into a more protectionist world. They must find their own ways to adapt to this environment if they are to fulfil their destiny

bestride：跨坐；骑

例：They do not bestride the world; they are, like Atlas, holding it up.

它们并没有主宰世界；与擎天之神阿特拉斯（Atlas）一样，政府在支撑着世界。

perfect：完善

multinational： 跨国的；涉及多国的，跨国公司

例：Despite their economic and theoretical relevance, business-oriented research tends to concentrate on large and multinational organizations.

尽管中小型企业具有经济和理论方面的习惯性，但是商业研究通常还是集中在大型和跨国组织。

integrated：各部分密切协调的；综合的；完整统一的

例：The existence of an enterprise lies in its value and an enterprise is an integrated entity of its subjective and objective value.

企业的存在是因为它的价值，企业是主观价值与客观价值的统一体。

state-led economy：国家政策主导经济

protectionist：保护贸易论者

例：Clinton also said the United States must avoid protectionist policies that could harm Mexico as it deals with the economic crisis.

她还说，美国在处理经济危机时必须避免采取贸易保护主义政策，因为这可能会损害墨西哥争取解决经济危机的努力。

过去，每个经济超级大国都在国外建立了自己的公司形式，反映了其民族特性和所想征服的世界的状态。英国公司在19世纪使用代理经理人的形式管理山长水远的企业。20世纪70年代起，美国企业完善了跨国公司的形式，利用技术和开放的边界来综合运作。中国企业正从国家主导型经济中崛起，进入一个更具保护主义色彩的世界。想要夙愿得偿，它们必须找到自己的方式来适应这种环境。

在全球化的今天，扬帆出海是中国企业必经之路。然而想要走出去，首先，中国企业需要解决自身的问题，在企业文化、公司治理、技术创新等方面增强实力，打铁还需自身硬。另一方面，也要对国外市场有足够的了解，吸取国内外成功企业的经验。只有这样稳扎稳打，中国企业才能真正立足于世界经济竞争浪潮。

英文原文：

http://www.economist.com

讲解：霞姐 / Tiassa / Angel

编排 / 校对：Angel

本次文章翻译来源于经济学人商论

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