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折价收购沃伦·巴菲特、理查德·布兰森和史蒂夫·乔布斯
软银创始人兼首席执行官Masayoshi Son将巴菲特、布兰森和乔布斯的优点结合起来,打造了日本最具实力的公司之一。
What would you get if you crossed Warren Buffett, Richard Branson and Steve Jobs? Answer: Masayoshi Son, the Korean-Japanese, University of California, Berkeley–educated founder of one of Japan’s most successful companies, SoftBank Corp.
就像巴菲特,儿子是一个巨大的资本配置者,有着令人印象深刻的记录:在过去的九年半里,软银’s investments have had a 45 percent annualized rate of return. A big chunk of this success can be attributed to one stock: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, a $100 million investment SoftBank made in 2001 that is worth about $80 billion today. Though you may putAlibabain the (positive) black swan column, Son’s success as an investor goes well beyond it — the list of his investments that have brought multibagger returns is very long. Today, at the tender age of 57, he is the richest man in Japan, and SoftBank, which he started in 1981 and owns 19 percent of, has a market capitalization of $72 billion.
儿子,就像苹果co-founder Jobs, is blessed with clairvoyance. He saw the Internet as an amazing, transformative force well before that fact became common knowledge. In 1995 he invested in a then-tiny company, Yahoo!, earning six times his investment. But he didn’t stop there; he created a joint venture with Yahoo! by forming Yahoo! Japan, putting about $70 million in a company that today is worth around $8 billion. (Yahoo! Japan is a publicly traded company listed in Japan).
令人震惊的是,在苹果宣布甚至发明iPhone之前,他就已经意识到iPhone将彻底改变电信业。你自己看看这段摘自对查理·罗斯(Charlie Rose)的采访,在采访中,儿子描述了他在2005年与乔布斯的对话——在iPhone推出前两年:
“我带来了我的小画,一个有移动功能的iPod。我把我的画给了乔布斯,史蒂夫说:“玛莎,你不能把你的画给我。我有我自己的。”我说,“好吧,我不需要给你我的脏纸,但一旦你有了你的产品,给我去日本。”他说,“好吧,玛莎,你疯了。我们没有和任何人谈过,但你是第一个看到我的人。我给你钱。”
类似Virgin Group创始人Branson凭借精力充沛的毅力在英国创建维珍大西洋航空公司,以与国有的英国航空公司竞争,儿子在日本启动了两个电信业务——一条固定线路和一条无线电信系统,他对国有NTT垄断提出质疑。2001年,由于厌恶日本糟糕的宽带速度,他说服政府放松对电信业的管制。当没有其他公司出现来与NTT竞争时(我真的不怪他们),Son自作主张创立了一个固定电话竞争对手Yahoo!BB(宽带)。多亏了他,现在日本享受着世界上最高的宽带速度之一,雅虎!BB是一家领先的固定线路电信公司。
儿子花了四年时间才使他的宽带业务盈利。这就是《华尔街日报》described that period in 2012:
“The problems at the broadband unit contributed to losses for the entire company for four consecutive years. Mr. Son set up an office in a meeting room 13 floors below his executive suite to be closer to the problem unit. He slept in the office at times and routinely summoned executives and partners for meetings late at night. . . . He worked out of the meeting room for 18 months, until the broadband unit had cut enough costs and moved enough customers to more lucrative plans.”
一个正常人可能会在那一刻休息一下,享受他的劳动成果,但不是儿子。就在他的宽带业务陷入困境之际,儿子实现了对互联网的愿景,收购了沃达丰K.K.,这是一家在日本经营不善、举步维艰的无线电信公司。软银支付了大约150亿美元,借款100亿美元。
Fast-forward eight years, and SoftBank Mobile is an incredible success. It is one of the largest mobile companies in Japan, even faster growing than NTT Docomo (a subsidiary of almighty NTT). Today it spits out about $5 billion in operating profits annually — not bad for a $5 billion equity investment.
和布兰森一样,他也是一个连续创业者,开创了多个往往不相关的企业,成功的比失败的多得多。软银已经制造了一个名为Pepper的机器人,它能读懂人类的情感;在日本地震导致发电瘫痪后,儿子开始了一项可再生能源业务。
儿子对软银有一个非常雄心勃勃的目标:他希望软银成为世界上最大的公司之一。不像华尔街一般的CEO,他们的时间范围缩小到了四分之一,儿子认为在几个世纪。我不骗你-他对软银有300年的愿景。实际上,即使是对长期投资者来说,300年也有点挑战性,但儿子愿景的核心是建立一家他希望永远持续(或300年,以先到者为准)的公司。
他将软银视为一家互联网公司,并致力于在中国和印度投资互联网公司。他认为,随着这些国家的发展,它们的gdp将超过美国和欧洲。
乔布斯、布兰森、巴菲特——很少有人能体现这三大巨头的长处。他们都没有其他两个人的素质。巴菲特不是一个有远见的人,他也不想管理他投资组合中的公司。在他的书中,布兰森不是一个有远见的人失去我的童贞他承认,他没有看到模拟音乐(CD)被数字音乐(iTunes)摧毁,也没有看到他的音乐商店业务被摧毁。乔布斯可能是最接近的,他既是一个有远见的人,也是一个商业建设者,但他并不以他的投资敏锐而闻名。
你可能认为软银的定价会很高,以反映儿子的溢价。错了!如今,它的股价比其已知资产的公允价值折价约40%(软银拥有约1300项投资,其中许多投资未纳入其财务报表)。这种折价并不合理,但可能市场认为阿里巴巴估值过高,或者它预计日元将继续下跌(我并不反对),以及因此,全资拥有的日本电信业务的美元价值将减少。或者软银的Sprint投资不会成功。哦,我忘了提那个-我们下一步再说吧。
软银’s Japanese telecom businesses generate about $6 billion of very stable operating income, but there is little room for growth in Japan. Unable to find anything telecom to buy in Asia, in 2013 the company took advantage of the strong yen and bought 80 percent of Sprint for $21 billion, or $7.65 a share. Sprint is the No. 3 mobile company in the U.S., a market dominated by AT&T and Verizon, which together account for about 75 percent of wireless revenue and more than 100 percent of wireless profits (T-Mobile and Sprint are losing money). If I knew no more than that, I’d say Sprint’s chances of success in the U.S. are slim — after all, it is competing against two very profitable giants.
但我也会对软银进军日本的固网和无线业务说同样的话,我会大错特错的。诚然,Sprint的转变并非易事,也远不是线性的,其300亿美元的债务负担也无济于事。软银希望通过大量的辛勤工作,将其积累的丰富经验应用于将病入膏肓的沃达丰K.K.打造成世界上最好的无线公司之一。
不过,这一次,软银在应对竞争方面的能力更强:它在日本拥有大量2.5 GHz频谱的经验,其网络速度比Verizon和AT&T在美国的网络快数倍。软银从日本请来了200名工程师帮助Sprint设计其新网络;两家公司合并后的网络速度是巨大的设备购买力,仅次于中国移动。事实上,供应商阿尔卡特-朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)、诺基亚(Nokia)和三星(Samsung)刚刚同意向Sprint提供18亿美元的供应商融资。但最重要的是,软银已经成功实现了电信转型。斯普林特的路线图和沃达丰K.K.在日本的路线图是一样的:改善网络,降低成本,提供更好的客户服务,并通过大幅降价来实现这一切。
在过去的几个月里,Sprint的消息并不多:它下调了指导价,股价跌至每股4美元。这或许可以解释软银股价下跌的原因;然而,即使Sprint与它的制造商会面,对软银的影响也应该只有每股5美元。斯普林特300亿美元的债务是软银无法收回的。即使按目前的市值计算,软银在Sprint的股权价值也只有120亿美元,而其在阿里巴巴32%的股权价值800亿美元,其日本电信业务价值约500亿美元(按折旧摊销前5倍收益计算)。软银入股雅虎!日本价值80亿美元。
As part of our investment analysis, we tried to hypothetically kill SoftBank — smother it with a pillow — but we simply could not. We assumed that the yen will depreciate against the dollar to 180 from 120 today, slashing the value of Japanese businesses by a third. Alibaba stock is trading at around $100, about 30 times 2015 earnings forecasts; we took the earnings multiple down to 20 times, pricing the stock at $60. We even assumed SoftBank will have to pay capital gains taxes on selling Alibaba. We halved the price of Sprint’s stock. However, even in this fairly grim scenario we could not get SoftBank’s stock to decline much below its current price of $30. In the worst case we are paying fair value for SoftBank’s assets and get Son’s magic for free. This places no value on his 1,300 other investments, either. Sprint may, by the way, actually work out to be a tremendous success for SoftBank.
看待软银有很多方法。你可以把它看作是以大约50%的资产市值折价购买一只股票,或者是以低于当前价格一半的价格购买阿里巴巴的一种方式。阿里巴巴是一个伟大的中国游戏-不是中国建立鬼城和桥梁,除了中国消费者,不只是中国消费者,但中国消费者谁是花费越来越多的钱在网上购物。阿里巴巴是中国网络购物的代名词,随着智能手机普及率的提高,以及快速无线LTE网络的不断推出,阿里巴巴的增长可能会加快。
如果我不讨论阿里巴巴所有权中的一个重要星号,那就是失职。其在纽交所上市、由软银持有的股票在阿里巴巴没有经济利益,不过,通过在开曼群岛实体的持股,它们拥有从阿里巴巴中国获得利润的合同权利。后者由阿里巴巴创始人兼首席执行官马云(jackma)拥有和控制。这种结构并不是马云从易受骗的投资者手中窃取阿里巴巴的邪恶意图的副产品,而是中国法律禁止外资在某些行业拥有所有权的结果。中国政府可能会发现这种结构是非法的,但以阿里巴巴的规模——2400亿美元——来说,这家公司实在太大了,不可能被搞乱。如果中国第二大上市公司因法律技术问题而消失,中国经济将付出巨大代价。这也将成为中国的一场国际公关噩梦,不仅对美国如此,对日本也是如此。这将使马云变得更富有,而美国股东的利益将受到损害,但软银和日本首富儿子的利益也将受到损害。
(那些对马云保持对阿里巴巴的完全运营控制权有异议的人应该记得,创始人作为仁政独裁者的现象并不新鲜——看看谷歌就知道了。事实上,我认为,这种控制让马云得以维持其长期的时间跨度,这正是阿里巴巴将eBay赶出中国的原因;但这是另一个时代的讨论)。
You can also look at SoftBank as a vehicle through which to invest in emerging markets — not just China but India as well. It is almost like hiring the combination of Buffett, Branson and Jobs to go to work for you investing in markets whose economies in a few decades will surpass that of the U.S., while also investing in a segment of the economy — the Internet — that is growing at a much faster rate than the overall economy. And yes, of course, you have Masayoshi Son, the super-Buffett-Branson-Jobs fusion, making these investments for you. With SoftBank at this valuation, you can forget about your emerging-markets mutual fund.