Lex专栏：阅文集团的估值

One day before the flotation of China Literature, the ebook business of Tencent, Lex said that “optimism is required to imagine a happy ending”. It was clearly in ample supply. To our chagrin, the shares more than doubled within a week.

腾讯(Tencent)电子书业务子公司阅文集团(China Literature)上市前一天，本专栏称“要想象一个美好的结局是需要乐观的”。显然，乐观情绪的供应充足得很。令我们懊恼的是，该股的股价在一周内翻了一倍多。

Although the stock is now “only” 49 per cent above the offer price, it still looks expensive given the company’s profit prospects. Few will care. The bullishness reflects enthusiasm for Hong Kong-listed equities among mainland investors.

尽管当前股价“仅比”发行价高出49%，但从该公司的盈利前景看，它仍然看起来昂贵。没什么人会关心这一点。看涨情绪反映了内地投资者对香港上市股票的热情。

Lex argued against a high valuation for China Literature for two reasons: Firstly, operations and content are pricey to acquire and have cost structures more akin to old-economy newspapers than social media websites. Secondly, content is mostly distributed through the apps of controlling shareholder Tencent. Minority shareholders will struggle to defend the business against its parent’s ability to extract a rent for this.

出于两个原因，本专栏认为阅文集团的估值不应这么高：首先，运营以及购买内容的成本高昂，同时该公司的成本结构更像旧经济的报纸，而不像社交媒体网站。其次，内容主要通过控股股东腾讯的app分发。针对母公司对此提取“租金”的能力，少数股股东将难以捍卫该企业。

As is usual practice in China, only a small part of the subsidiary was sold. This has left pre-float shareholders toasting large paper profits; with the shares at HK$81 apiece, managers owning 14 per cent of the company are sitting on stock worth $1.3bn.

按照中国的通常做法，这家子公司只有一小部分被出售。这使得上市前的股东们坐享巨额纸面利润：每股81港元的股价意味着，拥有公司14%股权的经理人拥有价值13亿美元的股份。

Individual investors oversubscribed the issue 625 times. Mainland investors are used to this game. Regulators there allow a maximum initial valuation of 23 times earnings, much less than the average ratio achieved by shares in secondary trading. This almost guarantees gains for those who manage to get an initial allocation; China Literature’s price/earnings ratio at the point of the initial public offering exceeded 200.

散户投资者对此次发行超额认购625倍。内地投资者习惯于这种游戏。那里的监管机构允许最高23倍的发行市盈率，远低于二级交易达到的平均市盈率。这意味着那些设法获得初始股票分配的人几乎稳赚不赔：阅文集团在首次公开发行(IPO)时的市盈率超过200倍。

Those investors are now able to participate in Hong Kong’s stock market via the Connect links to and from the exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Volumes from those markets to Hong Kong have increased sixfold since the start of the year, exacerbating volatility in a market that has always contained a substantial speculative element.

这些投资者现在可以通过沪港通和深港通进入香港股市。自2017年初以来，来自这两个机制的资金在香港的交易量增长了六倍，加剧了这个一直带有较大投机因素的市场的波动性。