双语阅读｜2008金融危机的起因揭底
EXACTLY TEN YEARS ago, on May 6th 2007, ABN AMRO rejected a $24.5bn bid by three European rivals for LaSalle, a Chicago bank which the Dutch lender had owned since 1979. The previous month Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Spain’s Santander and Belgium’s Fortis had offered €72.2bn (then $98bn), almost all in cash, for the whole of ABN AMRO. By October that year RBS and its partners had won their prize, minus LaSalle, in what is still banking’s biggest takeover. When ABN AMRO was carved up, RBS briefly enjoyed the glory of being the world’s largest bank by assets.
在10年前，2007年5月6日，荷兰银行( ABN AMRO )拒绝了三家欧洲竞争对手以245亿美元的价格收购拉萨尔银行（LaSalle）。这家芝加哥银行自1979年起由荷兰银行收入囊中。2007年4月，英国苏格兰皇家银行(RBS)，西班牙的桑坦德银行( Santander）和比利时的富通银行（Fortis ）出资722亿欧元（当时约合980亿美元）收购荷兰银行，几乎都是用现金支付的。截止同年10月，苏格兰皇家银行和其合伙人最终成功收购，即便未能收购拉萨尔银行，此次收购依然是银行业最大的收购案。荷兰银行随后遭瓜分，苏格兰皇家银行短暂地享受了成为全球资产规模最大银行的荣耀。
A giddy party was in full swing. “As long as the music is playing,” Chuck Prince, then boss of Citigroup, told the Financial Times in a quip that became notorious, “you’ve got to get up and dance.” But the tunes were already off-key. American house prices, driven skyward by low interest rates and rash lending to “subprime” borrowers (people with poor or non-existent credit histories) had peaked a year earlier. In February 2007 Britain’s HSBC shocked markets by raising its bad-debt provisions to $10.5bn, $1.8bn more than analysts had expected, because of failing American subprime mortgages. During that summer two hedge funds run by Bear Stearns, an investment bank, collapsed after losing money on soured subprime investments.
一场令人眼花缭乱的派对全面展开。“只要音乐还在继续，”彼时花旗集团（Citigroup）的总裁查克·普林斯（Chuck Prince）在接受《金融时报》的采访中，用一个现在看来臭名昭著的双关语说道，“你就得起身跳舞。”可是，音乐开始走调了。在美国，低利率和审批轻率的次级抵押贷款（向拥有信用不良或无信用记录的人放贷）就使得房价在一年前就达到顶峰。2007年2月，由于美国次级抵押贷款崩溃，英国汇丰银行（HSBC ）将坏账准备金提高至105亿美元，比分析人士预计的多18亿美元，这一举动震惊了市场。2007年夏天，由投行贝尔斯登银行（Bear Stearns）运作的两支对冲基金也在次贷投资中赔了钱，随后关闭。
As banks started to worry about exposure to subprime lending and the piles of complicated derivatives connected to it, credit markets began to seize up, causing BNP Paribas, a French bank, to suspend withdrawals from three funds in August. The following month Northern Rock, a British mortgage lender that had funded its rapid expansion in the flighty wholesale markets, asked the Bank of England for liquidity support. Depositors queued round the block to retrieve their money. In November 2007 the music stopped even for Mr Prince: he resigned. That quarter Citi took subprime-related write-downs of $18.1bn.
随着各家银行开始担心受到次级抵押贷款及各种相关复杂的衍生金融产品的影响，信贷市场开始陷入瘫痪，使得法国巴黎银行（BNP Paribas）在8月暂停三支基金的兑现。9月，英国的抵押贷款机构北岩银行（Northern Rock）请求英格兰银行进行流动性支持，此前，该投资了浮动的批发市场，想实现迅速扩张。排队取款的人将大厦围了一圈。2007年11月，即使对于普林斯来说，音乐也停止了：他辞职了。在那个季度里，花旗银行将与次级抵押贷款有关的资产减值了181亿美元。
The euphoric frenzy came to a total halt with Lehman Brothers’ implosion in September 2008. The mergers of that period, unlike the opulent, record-breaking deal of 2007, were hasty, embarrassed dashes to the altar. JPMorgan Chase saved Bear Stearns in March 2008 when Bear’s failure became inevitable. After Lehman’s collapse, JPMorgan took over Washington Mutual, which had become America’s seventh-biggest bank on the back of the housing boom. Bank of America absorbed Countrywide, another over-eager housing lender, and then Merrill Lynch. Japan’s MUFG bought 20% of Morgan Stanley. Wells Fargo snapped up Wachovia, America’s fourth-biggest bank.
高涨的疯狂状况随着2008年9月雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers）破产而全面停止。这个时期的并购，与2007年达成的数目庞大、破纪录的交易不同，是匆忙且尴尬地向行业圣坛的冲刺。2008年3月，当贝尔斯登的破产变得不可避免时，摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）解救了它。雷曼兄弟破产之后，摩根大通接管了华盛顿互助银行（Washington Mutual），该银行之前依靠房地产业的繁荣，成为了美国第七大银行。美国银行（Bank of America）收购了另一家过于急切的房地产贷款银行，美国国家金融服务公司（Countrywide），之后收购了美林证券（Merrill Lynch）。日本三菱日联金融集团（MUFG）购买了摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）20%的股份。美国富国银行（Wells Fargo）也迅速收购了美国第四大银行，美联银行（Wachovia）。
After its moment in the sun, RBS would have followed Lehman into oblivion but for a £45bn ($78bn) bail-out from the British government. Today, after nine years of losses, it remains in state ownership. Fortis was rescued by the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and dismembered. Santander played its hand far better. It emerged from the crisis without a single quarter of losses, and remains the euro zone’s most valuable bank.
苏格兰皇家银行在享受了片刻的光辉之后，本应与雷曼兄弟一起退出公众视线，不过，它收到了英国政府450亿英镑（约780亿美元）的紧急救助。如今，在长达九年的亏损之后，它仍归国有。富通银行被比利时、卢森堡和荷兰政府救助并瓜分。桑坦德银行处境要好得多，未损失一份钱，便从危机中摆脱出来，现在依旧是欧元区市值最高的银行。
编译：张玺元
审校：刘畅
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人
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