公開市場--IPO盛宴將持續嗎？

 

Public markets 公開市場

Will the IPO bonanza last? IPO盛宴將持續嗎？

From Airbnb to Tesla, 2020 will be a bumper year for capital-raising

從Airbnb到特斯拉，2020年將是籌資市場的豐收年

Dec 12th 2020

For over a decade many people in finance have worried about the decline of the public company. Big firms were shrinking their capital bases by buying back shares. And fast-growing firms, including several hundred tech “unicorns”—startups worth over $1bn—chose to remain in private hands rather than bother with an initial public offering (ipo). The result was riskier corporate balance-sheets and the exclusion of ordinary investors from the ownership of the economy’s most exciting firms.

十多年來，金融界許多人一直擔心上市公司的衰落。大公司透過買回自家股減資。快速成長的公司，包括數百家科技「獨角獸」（市值超過10億美元的新創企業），選擇維持由私人掌控，不想為首次公開募股（IPO）而煩惱。結果是公司資產負債表風險升高，而普通人想投資入股這些最令人心動的公司，卻不得其門而入。

This year has seen a reversal of this trend with an equity-raising bonanza. In the past few days Tesla has said it will sell $5bn of new shares, while DoorDash, a food-delivery company, raised $3.4bn in an ipo. In Hong Kong shares of jd Health, a digital-medicine star, rose by over 50% on their first day of trading after its $3.5bn ipo. As we went to press Airbnb, one of the largest unicorns, was listing at a valuation of over $40bn. Worldwide, some $800bn of equity has been raised in 2020 by non-financial firms, the highest sum on record. In America in the last quarter the proceeds should roughly match the amount of shares that companies have bought back.

今年的募資盛宴扭轉此趨勢。過去幾天，特斯拉表示將發行50億美元新股，而餐飲外送公司DoorDash首次公開募股34億美元。在香港，數位醫療巨星京東健康在35億美元的IPO後，首個交易日股價上漲超過50％，在本期雜誌付梓之際，大型獨角獸Airbnb上市，估值超過400億美元。美國上季籌資應與公司買回的股票數量大致相同。

Equity is more expensive than borrowing, but has attractions. It is permanent capital that does not need to be repaid. And because it does not come with interest payments it is flexible, making firms more resilient. It is back in fashion for several reasons. Some firms need to repair the damage from the pandemic, for example Rolls-Royce, an aircraft-engine maker, and Carnival Cruises. The tech boom means unicorns can go public at sky-high valuations. Frothy share prices allow the founders of firms that are already listed to raise capital without diluting their own stake by as much—something Tesla’s Elon Musk has spotted.

發行股權比借貸更昂貴，但具有吸引力。股權是永久性資本，不需要償還。而且由於不需支付利息，具有靈活性，使公司更具彈性。許多原因使它再次流行。一些公司需要修復疫病流行造成的損失，例如飛機引擎製造商勞斯萊斯和嘉年華郵輪公司。科技股大漲意味著獨角獸能以天價估值上市。泡沫化的股價使已上市公司的創始人籌資時，不用稀釋自己的股份-特斯拉的馬斯克已發現這點。

There are other factors, too. More Chinese firms are coming of age. This year Nongfu Spring, China’s answer to Evian, floated, making its founder the country’s richest man. Investors are experimenting with legal structures that they think are more efficient than ipos, including spacs (special purpose acquisition companies). Finally, because covid-19 has led many firms to cut their buybacks there is less equity being retired than normal.

還有其他原因。更多的中國公司正在逐漸成熟。d,今年，中國版依雲「農夫山泉」股票公開上市，使創始人成為中國首富。投資者正在試驗他們認為比IPO更有效的合法結構，包括借殼上市。最後一點，新冠疫情導致許多公司減少實施庫藏股，因此回收註銷的股份比正常情況少。

Investors are euphoric but they face several risks. One is that prices are too high. Another is that it is not yet clear whether overall corporate indebtedness will fall, partly because the damage from lockdowns is still mounting. For non-financial companies in America’s s&p 500 index, net debt (debt less cash) dropped only slightly in the third quarter of this year, and remains above its level in 2019. Some firms are still burning cash and perhaps a fifth of s&p 500 firms are overborrowed. As the pandemic abates, firms may reinstate buybacks and dividends.

投資者欣喜若狂，但他們面臨許多風險。一是價格太高，另一風險則是目前尚不清楚整體公司債務是否會下降，部分原因是封鎖所造成的損害仍在攀升。對於美國標普500的非金融公司而言，淨債務（債務減去現金）在今年第3季僅略為下降，但仍持續高於2019年水準。一些公司仍在燒錢，也許五分之一的標普500公司超額借貸。隨著疫病流行的減弱，企業可能會恢復股票回購和分紅。

The last danger stems from a cohort of firms having too much cash. In the 1970s Michael Jensen, a scholar, argued that debt forced discipline on managers. His ideas were taken too far by Wall Street’s junk-bond salesmen, but the risk of executives wasting cash on deals or vanity projects is real. The five biggest tech firms have over $550bn sitting around. They might try big takeovers—think of Apple buying Netflix. Meanwhile, some newly listed firms have oodles of cash, but give outside investors only limited voting power, making managers unaccountable.

最後的危險源自於大批公司坐擁過多現金。 1970年代，學者詹森主張債務迫使經理人守紀律。華爾街的垃圾債推銷員把他的想法大肆推廣，但是企業主管在併購交易或虛榮計畫上揮金如土的風險，確實存在。五家最大的科技公司的資產總值超過5,500億美元。他們可能會嘗試進行大筆收購，想像一下蘋果公司收購Netflix。同時，一些新上市的公司擁有大量現金，但只賦予外部投資者有限的投票權，使經理人不用承擔責任。

Governments should welcome the equity boom. For years libertarians have argued that the only way to revive ipos is by watering down corporate-governance rules. They have been proved wrong. Many politicians long to ban buybacks, which they accuse of all sorts of evils (in fact they are similar to dividends but more flexible, which came in handy this year). If politicians really want to sustain healthy equity markets, they should instead reform tax codes, which almost everywhere favour debt by making interest costs tax-deductible. Removing the tax break for debt and putting equity on a level playing field should be the priority. It has the added advantage that the proceeds should help governments repay their own colossal debts.

各國政府應歡迎股市榮景。多年來，自由主義者一直主張，使IPO重新流行的唯一方法是淡化公司治理規則。他們被證明是錯誤的。許多政治人物渴望禁止實施庫藏股，他們指責各種弊端（實際上，它們類似於股息，但更靈活，今年就派上用場）。如果政治人物真的想維持健康的股票市場，他們應該轉向改革稅制。幾乎各地的稅制都偏袒債務，因為利息成本可以抵税。應優先考慮移除債務的稅務減免，對股權都一視同仁。這麼做還有個好處，就是税收可以幫助政府償還自己的巨額債務。