FT社评：硅谷“风投派对”把公开市场甩在后面
一两年前，有人警告称，硅谷“派对”即将结束。“疯狂资金正在枯竭，”一位观察家称。本报提到了风投圈子中“谨慎情绪加重”。那场派对或许已经结束，但紧接着又有一场更狂热——可能也更排外的——余兴派对。近几年，虽然风险投资总量大体保持稳定，但有大量资金流向了那些已经羽翼丰满的创业企业。
Much of the shovelling has been done by the Vision Fund, a tech investment vehicle operated by SoftBank, the Japanese telecom conglomerate. It has raised $93bn, some internally and more from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi and companies such as Apple and Foxconn. The fund has wasted no time putting the money to work. More than $4bn went into the tech-flavoured real estate start-up WeWork, at a delirious valuation. Similar amounts went into publicly traded chipmaker Nvidia and Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing. The fund is angling for a large investment in the ride-hailer Uber, which is already sitting on billions in cash.
其中很大一部分投资来自愿景基金(Vision Fund)——日本电信集团软银(Softbank)旗下的科技投资公司。该公司已募集930亿美元资金，部分来自软银自己，但更多来自沙特阿拉伯、阿布扎比的主权财富基金，以及苹果(Apple)、富士康(Foxconn)等公司。该基金争分夺秒地将这些资金投入运作。逾40亿美元被投给了房地产领域的科技创业公司WeWork，给后者带来了不可思议的高估值。数额相当的资金流入了上市芯片制造商英伟达(Nvidia)以及中国叫车应用滴滴出行(Didi Chuxing)。该基金正谋划对叫车公司优步(Uber)进行一大笔投资，后者早已坐拥数十亿美元现金。
The Vision fund is not alone. Slack, which makes office messaging software, has just raised $250m, valuing the company at more than $5bn, despite not having spent any of the cash raised in its previous two rounds. Internet scrapbook’s Pinterest’s $150m fundraising set its value at $12bn. While total US VC funding fell slightly in the second quarter of this year, according to CB Insights, the amount invested in “mega-rounds” of more than $100m grew by 60 per cent.
不只是愿景基金。开发办公通讯软件的Slack刚刚募集了2.5亿美元，使该公司的估值超过50亿美元，尽管在此前两轮融资中筹得的资金还一分没花。互联网图片分享网站Pinterest的1.5亿美元融资使其估值达到120亿美元。根据CB Insights的数据，今年第二季度，美国风投基金的总投资略有下降，但1亿美元以上的“超级轮”募资所吸引的投资增长了60%。
Investors lined up to give $600m to Social Capital, a “blank cheque” company. It promises to use the money to buy a tech start-up. Why bother, given that start-ups can go public themselves? The idea is that going public is a hassle, involving compliance, investor presentations and uncertainty, often followed by volatile trading. But Social Capital investors will allegedly take a longer term view. According to company filings, skipping tiresome disclosures and public scrutiny will make the process more “transparent”, a claim so bizarre that it defies comment.
投资者排着队向Social Capital投了6亿美元。这家“空白支票”公司承诺用这笔钱收购一家科技初创公司。既然初创公司可以自己上市，为何还要多此一举?其给出的理由是，上市是件麻烦事，涉及合规、投资者演示以及不确定性，上市后往往交易价格起伏不定。但Social Capital的投资者们据称将抱着长远的眼光。根据公司文件，跳过令人讨厌的信息披露和公众监督将使整个过程变得更加“透明”，如此奇葩的说法简直让人无语。
In short, money is being crammed into established start-ups though a private funnel, like grain force-fed to a goose. The question is whether the resulting pate will be any good.
简而言之，资金正通过非公开渠道被塞进成熟的创业企业，如同将谷物填塞给一只鹅。问题是，这么催肥出来的东西是否有任何好处。
The high valuations and desperation to put large amounts to work is suggestive of a bubble. Private investors seem to have concluded that we live in a world of low growth and permanently low interest rates. If so, there is some logic to paying high prices (with borrowed money) for companies that will outgrow the economy. But over history, valuations paid, not interest rates, are the surer guide to investment returns.
如此高额的估值，以及不顾一切地投入大笔资金的行为正是泡沫之兆。私募投资者似乎已得出结论：我们生活在一个低增长和永久低利率的世界。如果是这样，为那些会跑赢整体经济的公司支付高价(用借来的钱)的确有些道理。但纵观历史，估值水平——而不是利率——才是投资回报的可靠指引。
Suppose, however, that we are not in a bubble. This would be, in a sense, worse. The public equity markets were once a rough reflection of the economy. Years of buyouts, share buybacks, and the recent spurt of private investment have rendered that less true. There are half as many public companies in the US as there were 20 years ago. If the most dynamic companies are increasingly held by small coteries of insiders, rather than in the defined-contribution retirement plans most workers grow their savings, there will be a cost.
但是，假设我们并没有处在泡沫之中，某种意义上这种情况会更糟。公开股票市场曾经能够粗略地反映经济情况。多年来的收购、股票回购以及近期私募投资的激增，使得股市更不能如实反映经济了。美国现在的上市公司数量只有20年前的一半。如果最有活力的企业越来越多地被内部人士的小圈子所拥有，而多数劳动者赖以增加积蓄的养老金固定缴款计划却投资不了，将会有不好的后果。
The belief that American capitalism is justified by the broad benefits it confers on most Americans is already on tenuous ground. If we are in a tech bubble and it bursts, many of the losers will be people who can afford losses. If we are witnessing instead the slow excision of growing tech companies from public markets, the link between markets and democracy will be weakened.
美国资本主义的合理性在于其能让广大美国人享受到利益，这一信念已无牢固的基础。如果我们处于一场科技泡沫中，且泡沫破裂，亏损者将多是那些能够承受损失的人。但如果我们正在目睹成长型科技公司逐渐退出公开市场，市场与民主之间的联系将会被削弱。
