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Activist investors are becoming tamer
昔日牛夫人 今朝小甜甜 
英文部分选自经济学人20220514期商业版块
Business | Schumpeter
熊彼特专栏
Activist investors are becoming tamer
昔日牛夫人 今朝小甜甜 
They must not become extinct
激进投资老兵不死
“When we go at ’em,” Carl Icahn growls, proudly, “we go at ’em.” After decades as chief executives’ number-one tormentor, the 86-year-old’s disdain for them has softened only a tad. “I wouldn’t call them buffoons,” he told Schumpeter recently, “but, with many exceptions, they are in way over their heads.” Mr Icahn continues to browbeat managers for poor performance. As The Economist went to press he was in the final throes of a fight with Southwest Gas, a utility. His gripes are broadening, too. This month and next he will seek to oust directors at McDonald’s and Kroger over the treatment of sows. Yet Mr Icahn also considers himself a vanishing breed. “Activism is dying,” he laments.
“该到我们进攻的时候”卡尔·伊坎（Carl Icahn）傲骄地咆哮道，“就全力进攻。” 几十年来，卡尔·伊坎一直是最折磨首席执行官的人，如今，这位86岁高龄的老人对他们的蔑视也只是稍有缓和。 “我不会称他们为傻蛋，”他最近对笔者说道，“但这些人也太自不量力了，当然也有不少人能搞定。” 伊坎继续因业绩不佳而严斥管理者们。就在本期《经济学人》付印时，他正与西南天然气公司进行最后的厮杀。而他的不满也不止于此。因为在母猪待遇问题上的分歧，他计划在这两个月设法罢免麦当劳和克罗格（Kroger）的董事。然而，伊坎也认为像他这样的人渐趋灭绝。 “激进主义正在消亡，”他哀叹道。
注释：
1. go at: attack someone
2. If you call someone a buffoon, you mean that they often do foolish things.
Not on paper. In the first quarter of the year activists launched 73 campaigns, the busiest three months since Lazard, an advisory firm, began keeping track in 2014. This week Bluebell, a newish activist fund based in London that made its name last year by ousting the boss of Danone, a struggling French yogurt-maker, set its sights on Saint-Gobain, another icon of France sa. Still, Mr Icahn has a point. Activism isn’t what it used to be.
虽然表面数据看来并非如此。今年第一季度，激进投资人发起了73项投资活动，这是咨询公司拉扎德（Lazard）自2014年开始追踪数据以来，该领域最繁忙的季度。蓝铃基金（Bluebell）是一家总部位于伦敦的激进投资公司，成立时间不算长，但去年因赶走了处境艰难的法国酸奶生产商达能（Danone）的老板而声名大噪，本周它将目光投向了法国另一个标志性企业圣戈班（Saint-Gobain）。不过，伊坎说得有道理。激进主义已经不是以前的样子了。
Activist investing, simply defined, involves buying a stake in a company, then pushing for change. Activists might urge a firm to boot out its boss or sell a subsidiary, say, in the hope of driving up the share price. Mr Icahn became an activist to correct what he deems a broad failing of corporate boards to oversee management. “I’m no genius,” he says, “but I made billions and billions of dollars from this crazy system.”
简单地说，激进投资就是购买一家公司的股份，然后强烈要求推动变革。激进投资者可能会敦促企业解雇其老板或出售子公司，希望以此推高股价。伊坎认为企业董事会在监督管理方面普遍存在不足，而他之所以成为一名激进投资者，是为了纠正这一问题。 “我不是天才，”他说，“但我从这个疯狂的系统中赚了数十亿美元。”  
In making their billions and billions, activists would pair financial acumen with ferocious insults, hurled mostly at companies but sometimes also at each other. After Bill Ackman of Pershing Square, a hedge fund, bet against Herbalife, Mr Icahn invested in the multilevel marketing firm. In a notorious televised spat between the two of them in 2013, Mr Icahn called Mr Ackman a “crybaby” and declared, “I wouldn’t invest with you if you were the last man on Earth.” Activists’ open letters to firms are only slightly more temperate. “Years of value destruction and strategic blunders”, Daniel Loeb of Third Point, another fund, wrote to one boss in 2005, “have led us to dub you one of the most dangerous and incompetent executives in America.” In 2018 Third Point’s quest to sack the board of Campbell Soup included a video in which the company’s famous jingle morphed from “mmm, mmm, good” to “mmm, mmm, BAD”.
激进投资者们在赚得盆满钵满的过程中，除了展现出金融方面的敏锐性之外，也少不了激烈的骂战。大多数情况下他们会对企业无礼谩骂，但有时也会互相攻击。在对冲基金潘兴广场（Pershing Square）的比尔·阿克曼（Bill Ackman）做空康宝莱（Herbalife）之后，伊坎投资了这家多层次营销企业。2013年，阿克曼和伊坎在电视节目中上演了一出人尽皆知的“骂战”，伊坎称阿克曼是个“哭唧唧的宝宝”并声称：“就算这世上只剩你一个人，我也不会和你一起投资。”而激进投资者们写给企业的公开信也只是稍显克制。2005年，另一家对冲基金第三点（Third Point）的丹尼尔·勒布（Daniel Loeb）曾致信一位老板称：“鉴于常年以来的市值暴跌以及战略失误，我们认为你是全美国最危险、最无能的总裁之一。”2018年，第三点基金要求撤换金宝汤（Campbell Soup）董事会的公开信中有一段视频，将该公司有名的广告旋律“mmm, mmm, good”（嘛嘛嘛，真好吃）改为“mmm, mmm, BAD”（嘛嘛嘛，真差劲）。
注：multilevel marketing: 多层次营销（Multilevel marketing 简称为MLM），又称倍增式市场（学）业务、结构行销（Structure marketing）、多层次直销（Multilevel direct selling）或多层次传销，是直销行业规模扩大后的一种行销模式，发源于20世纪的美国。多层次推销获取销售奖金的方式有二：第一，可以经由销售产品及服务给消费者而获得零售奖金；第二：他们可以自直属下线的销售额或购买额中赚取佣金，也可自直属下线之再下线组织的总销售额中赚取佣金。
For CEOs, such antics pose a headache at best, requiring expensive lawyers, bankers, proxy advisers and public-relations gurus. Targeted bosses have occasionally struggled to keep their cool. In 2017 Arconic, an industrial firm, faced a campaign from Paul Singer’s Elliott Management. Klaus Kleinfeld, Arconic’s chief executive, wrote a letter alluding to a raucous trip to the World Cup and suggesting that Mr Singer might have performed “Singin’ in the Rain” in a fountain. Mr Kleinfeld resigned soon after.
对于首席执行官而言，这些荒腔走板的行为顶多让他们头痛一阵，找一些出场费高昂的律师、银行届人士、代理顾问和公共关系专家就可以解决问题。但被针对的高管们偶尔也会失去风度。2017年，工业企业奥科宁克（Arconic）遭遇了保罗·辛格（Paul Singer）旗下埃利奥特管理公司的舆论冲击。对此，奥科宁克的首席执行官克劳斯·克莱因菲尔德（Klaus Kleinfeld）写信影射2006年世界杯期间辛格的柏林之旅，并暗示辛格此行聒噪，可能曾在公共喷泉里唱《雨中曲（Singin’ in the Rain）》。不久后克莱因菲尔德就辞职离去。
注：Elliott曾公开要求解雇航空制造商Arconic首席执行官克劳斯·克莱因菲尔德。Elliott对克莱因菲尔德在任期间Arconic股票的低回报率以及这位CEO的高薪酬表示不满。但Arconic拒绝让他下课，一场代理权争夺战就此展开。
四个月后，克莱因菲尔德用寄出足球作为回应，后者从Arconic的纽约总部快递到了辛格在纽约的办公室。克莱因菲尔德还附了一封信，其中以讽刺口吻影射了2006年世界杯期间辛格专门在柏林举办的一些“仍具传奇色彩”的聚会。在信末附言中，克莱因菲尔德还暗示辛格行为不端，比如戴美国原住民帽子以及在公共喷泉里唱《雨中曲》。他还说，下次一定要送辛格一顶带羽毛的帽子。
按Elliott的说法，这等同于送上“放有血淋淋手指的盒子”。Elliott法律顾问理查德·扎贝尔在写给Arconic董事会的信中说：“我们看到的是克莱因菲尔德博士隐含地表示他可能是在恐吓或敲诈辛格先生。”过了不到一周Arconic董事会就直接让克莱因菲尔德辞了职。Elliott似乎幸运地借突发事件达到了目的，利用的是对手的“非受迫性失误”。
https://www.fortunechina.com/investing/c/2017-12/26/content_299115.htm
In the past few years such altercations have grown rarer. That is partly because there are plenty of newcomers who lack the old guard’s abrasive ways—even if some, such as Politan or Mantle Ridge, were founded by alumni of the veteran funds. First-time activists accounted for 25% of the campaigns launched in the first quarter, according to Lazard, up from 17% in 2019. But some veterans, too, are mellowing with age. In March Mr Ackman declared that his firm had retired permanently from activist short-selling, which he called the “noisiest form of activism” (unsurprising, perhaps, given his volatile record on such gambles). Elliott has built a buy-out arm, so it can take companies private rather than simply badgering them in public. In March it helped lead a consortium to acquire Nielsen, a data company, for $16bn.
过去几年里，这样的冲突大戏变得越发罕见。部分原因在于很多新兴投资基金缺少老一派掌门人粗暴生硬的投资手段——即便有些基金（诸如Politan和 Mantle Ridge）也是由老牌基金里出来的人成立的。根据拉扎德的数据，由新晋激进投资者发起的投资活动从2019年的17%上升至今年第一季度的25%。但一些投资老手，随着年岁见长，作风也逐渐温和。今年3月，阿克曼表示潘兴基金永远不再激进卖空。他将激进卖空称为“激进投资中最喧嚣的一种形式”，鉴于他对此方面的喜忧参半的战绩，这种言论或许并不令人意外。埃利奥特管理公司建立了控股收购部门，以便收购公司而非仅仅掀起大众舆论攻势。今年3月，以埃利奥特管理公司为首的财团以160亿美元收购了数据公司尼尔森（Nielsen）。
Activism is, in other words, becoming if not dull, exactly, then more subtle. Many activists are choosing to operate quietly, pushing a company’s board in private and preserving the ability to grumble in public if the board resists. “Several years ago, when activism was a narrow asset class, the personalities were as big a focus as the actual substance of the campaigns,” says Avinash Mehrotra of Goldman Sachs. Now Mr Mehrotra reckons that for every public campaign on which the investment bank advises a company, it is working on four to five times as many private ones. Politan’s campaign last year at Centene, a health insurer, had little press coverage before an agreement was announced to replace the firm’s boss and add new board members. In quiet campaigns, says another activist investor, the public sees no engagement followed by the “kumbaya” result. Even Mr Loeb has adopted a new tone. He wants Amazon to spin off its cloud business; in a letter in February he praised “Amazon’s talented and focused new CEO Andy Jassy”, seeming less inclined to kick Mr Jassy’s backside than to kiss it.
换言之，激进主义即使没有就此沉寂，也变得更加含蓄和世故了。许多激进投资者现在都选择低调行事，私下里向公司董事会施压，在董事会拒绝的情况下则一如既往地诉诸于公开抱怨。高盛（Goldman Sachs）的阿维纳什·梅赫罗特拉（Avinash Mehrotra）表示：“几年前，当激进投资还只是一种不成气候的投资方式时，激进投资者本身与投资活动的实际内容一样都是关注焦点。”现在，梅赫罗特拉先生估计，在高盛为企业提供咨询的投资活动中，非公开投资的数量是公开的四到五倍。Politan基金去年收购了健康保险公司Centene，在宣布更换该公司老板、引进新的董事会成员之前，几乎未见任何媒体报道。另一位激进投资者表示，在低调的投资活动中，公众不会看到过程中的交锋，只会看到“一团和气”的结局。就连勒布的论调也有所改变。他希望亚马逊剥离其云业务；在2月份的一封公开信中，他称赞“亚马逊新任首席执行官安迪·雅西（Andy Jassy）专注而富有才华”，似乎要补台而不拆台。
The risk of rewilding
矫枉过正的风险
Just as activists are becoming less confrontational, though, regulators are turning more so. Although America’s Securities and Exchange Commission (sec) is making it easier for investors to elect their candidates to corporate boards, in other ways the stock market watchdog is making activism harder. A new definition of a “group” would limit activists’ ability to make their case to other shareholders. Another rule would require quick disclosure of ownership of derivatives, which could push up the target’s share price, sapping the incentive to build a large stake. Tellingly, the proposals are supported by corporate lobbies such as the Business Roundtable. Elliott, in comments filed to the SEC, warned that the rules would “virtually shut down activism”.
然而，正当激进投资者收敛锋芒时，监管机构却更加咄咄逼人。尽管美国证券交易委员会（SEC）的规定让投资者更容易推选自己的候选人进入公司董事会，但在其他方面，其规定却让激进主义变得更加艰难。对“投资者团体”的新定义将限制激进投资者游说其他股东的能力。另一项规定要求迅速披露衍生品的产权信息，这可能会推高目标公司的股价，削弱持有其大量股份的动机。在这些提议的背后，不难发现包括商业圆桌会议（Business Roundtable）在内的企业游说团体的身影。埃利奥特管理公司在提交给证交会的评论中警告称，这些规定将“使激进主义寸步难行”。
That would be too bad. Research shows that activism lifts returns for activists and long-term value for other shareholders. Robert Eccles of Saïd Business School and Shivaram Rajgobal of Columbia Business School have told the SEC its rules would lead to “less value creation, worse governance, and more acrimony at public companies”. No one wants that—least of all the gadflies.
随之而来的后果非常严重。研究表明，激进主义不仅提高了激进投资者的回报，也提升了其他股东所获得的长期价值。牛津大学赛德（Saïd）商学院的罗伯特·埃克尔斯（Robert Eccles）和哥伦比亚大学商学院的希夫拉姆·拉杰戈帕尔（Shivaram Rajgobal）告知证交会，其规定将导致“价值创造减少，治理质量下降，以及对上市公司的指责增多”。没有人希望看到这种局面——尤其是那些“讨人厌的激进投资人”。
翻译组：
Johnson，男，舞台上的Passion King
Dossver，男，是错永不对真永是真
Yuqing，女，理想主义体验派，经济学人读者
校对组：
Cecilia，2022生活得贵妇一点
Trista，女，暴富不是梦想，是未来的现实
Lora，女，一笔二口，广外MTI，学习使我快乐
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观点|评论|思考
本次感想

Neil,  男，外贸民工，经济学人铁粉
一般我们提到激进是带有贬义，和短视、鲁莽、冲动联想在一起。老一辈勋勋教导我们，做事不要太急躁、太激进，要稳扎稳打。对激进的投资者，第一感觉也是只追求短平快，没有长期价值投资。媒体相关的报道也在渲染他们是一群狼，似乎被狙击的公司们是待宰的羔羊，深受怜悯。
中国的狼王宝能对万科展开收购时，王石利用舆论把宝能塑造成恶意破坏者的形象，大量的的舆论支持让公众站在万科的角度，最终的结局宝能彻底退出，万科成功实现了一个守卫战或者保卫者的顺利。但如果万科自身没有问题，也不会被盯上，也不会有这一出资本投资大戏，万宝之争对中国资本投资长期发展还是具有重要意义。
投资圈一直强调价值投资，选择好优质标的物，以尽可能低的价格购入，实现最大回报。从激进投资者的策略来看，瞄准那些市场价格远低于其真实价值的股票，然后下重注，这我看来也是价值投资。相较于那些手握优质资产，却很难发挥公司价值的管理层来说，激进的投资者极尽所能地迫使公司提升股票价格，并迫使董事会以及经理人采取更符合股东利益的管理行动。
这个周期短则数月，长则数年，试想企业的黄金期有几个几年。所以对于管理不善但是公司本身的资质较好的公司来说，激进投资者的到来，会把不合格的管理层扫地出门，然后分拆公司资产出售，实现企业本应该有的价值，这是他们的积极的一面。
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