蚂蚁金服收购速汇金交易告吹
中国电商集团阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的关联企业、数字支付公司蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)已放弃并购总部位于美国达拉斯的速汇金国际(MoneyGram International)，原因是未能让美国政府相信该交易不会对美国国家安全构成威胁。
Ant announced a deal to buy MoneyGram for about $880m in cash almost a year ago, saying it would jump-start its global growth strategy. The Huangzhou-based company then saw off a competing bid from Euronet, a money-transfer rival based in Kansas, by improving its offer to $1.2bn.
将近一年前，蚂蚁金服宣布了一项以约8.8亿美元现金收购速汇金的交易，并表示将启动其全球增长战略。接着，这家总部位于杭州的公司把报价提高至12亿美元，击败了总部位于堪萨斯州作转账业务的对手Euronet的竞争性报价。
But on Tuesday Ant and MoneyGram said that they had failed to obtain clearance for the deal from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an arm of the Treasury Department which vets inbound acquisitions for security implications.
但在周二，蚂蚁金服和速汇金表示，它们的这笔交易未能获得美国外国投资委员会(CFIUS)的放行。该委员会隶属于美国财政部(Treasury Department)，负责审查外资收购是否影响国家安全。
Instead, the two sides will enter into a “strategic cooperation,” under which they will explore initiatives to provide customers in the US and Asia with cheap and quick money-transfer services.
这两家公司将转而进入一种“战略合作”，共同探索为美国和亚洲顾客提供廉价快速转账服务的举措。
Shares in MoneyGram, which had a market capitalisation of $722m at market close, fell as much as 10 per cent in after-hours trading.
速汇金的股价在盘后交易中一度下跌10%(股市收盘时，速汇金的市值为7.22亿美元)。
Alex Holmes, chief executive of MoneyGram, said that despite the company’s “best efforts to work cooperatively” with the US government, it had become clear that Cfius would not greenlight the deal.
速汇金首席执行官亚历克斯•霍姆斯(Alex Holmes)表示，尽管公司“尽了最大努力去配合”美国政府，但已然变得明朗的是，CFIUS不会为该交易开绿灯。
“The geopolitical environment has changed considerably since we first announced the proposed transaction,” he said. “We are disappointed in the termination of this compelling transaction, which would have created significant value for our stakeholders.”
“自我们最初宣布这笔拟议的交易以来，地缘政治环境发生了很大变化，”他说，“我们对终止这一极具吸引力的交易感到失望，它本来会为我们的利益相关者创造巨大价值。”
The withdrawal comes as a number of Chinese investments targeting US companies have hit the buffers. Lawyers blame a rise in trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, and a slowdown in Cfius’ review process, caused largely by under-staffing.
在双方退出这笔交易之际，中国有多项对美国企业的投资碰壁。律师们将此归因于美中之间贸易紧张加剧、以及主要由人手不足导致的CFIUS审查流程放缓。
Late last month Cowen, a New York-based boutique investment bank, scrapped a $275m investment from CEFC China Energy, blaming delays and “uncertainty” in securing Cfius approval. Oceanwide’s $2.7bn acquisition of Genworth Financial, announced in October 2016, remains in the balance.
去年11月下旬，纽约精品投行Cowen以延误和取得CFIUS批准的“不确定性”为由，放弃了来自中国华信能源(CEFC China Energy)的2.75亿美元投资。中国泛海(China Oceanwide)在2016年12月宣布的以27亿美元收购Genworth Financial的交易，仍然悬而未决。
"The deeper we get into this administration, the clearer it appears that scepticism about Chinese deals has sharply increased," said John Reynolds, a partner at Davis Polk in Washington.
“我们对这届政府接触得越深，就越清晰地感觉到，对涉华交易的疑虑已显著加剧，”华盛顿达维律师事务所(Davis Polk)合伙人约翰•雷诺兹(John Reynolds)说。
Ant Financial, a spin-off from the Alibaba ecommerce group, has more than half of China’s fast-growing $5.5tn mobile payments market. Launched in 2004 as Alipay, a PayPal-type service to facilitate payment on Alibaba’s ecommerce platforms, it currently has 520m users.
作为电商集团阿里巴巴的关联企业，蚂蚁金服如今在中国快速增长的、规模达5.5万亿美元的移动支付市场中占据大半江山。2004年推出的支付宝(Alipay)是一种类似于PayPal的服务，旨在为阿里巴巴电商平台上的支付提供便利。支付宝目前有5.2亿用户。
MoneyGram was Ant’s first major bid in the US, although it has bought a string of stakes in mobile payment companies in India, Thailand and South Korea over the past couple of years. Further afield it has signed agreements with dozens of banks and payments companies to give its customers the ability to pay for goods using its app. In the US, too, Alipay is accepted at about 175,000 locations and has partnerships with payment providers such as First Data and Verifone.
收购速汇金是蚂蚁金服在美发起的首笔重大收购，尽管它在过去两三年里已相继收购了印度、泰国和韩国移动支付公司的股份。在更远的地区，蚂蚁金服已跟数十家银行和支付公司签约，使其用户能用支付宝为他们的购物付款。在美国，也有约17.5万个地点接受支付宝，支付宝已与First Data和Verifone等支付提供商建立了合作关系。
The failure of the MoneyGram deal is a big blow to Ant and a personal setback for Doug Feagin, a former Goldman Sachs partner who joined the company in June 2016 to spearhead its international growth efforts.
收购速汇金失败对蚂蚁金服而言是一次重大打击，对道格•费金(Doug Feagin)个人而言也是一次挫折。费金曾为高盛(Goldman Sachs)合伙人，他于2016年6月加入蚂蚁金服，负责该公司的国际发展努力。
In the merger announcement, Ant had made an unusually explicit offer to protect jobs at MoneyGram, using language that appeared to nod to the US government’s pledge to put the interests of American workers first and foremost. It is also likely to have made several proposals to safeguard the personal data of MoneyGram users, according to people familiar with the Cfius screening process.
在宣布并购的声明中，蚂蚁金服异常明确地提出要保护速汇金的工作岗位，其措辞似乎对美国政府所承诺的把美国工人利益放在首位表示了认同。熟悉CFIUS审查程序的人士表示，蚂蚁金服可能还提出了保护速汇金用户个人数据的几项举措。
But Euronet was quick to stir trouble, arguing that Ant’s takeover should not be cleared because of the proximity to US military bases of many of MoneyGram’s vendors. In an April interview with the Financial Times, Euronet’s chief executive Mike Brown said it was dangerous to hand over the data of military officials to a company whose investors include Chinese state-backed companies, at a time when China was routinely hacking the US government.
但Euronet很快挑起了麻烦，它辩称由于许多使用速汇金的商户距离美国军事基地较近，因此不应批准蚂蚁金服的这笔收购。在去年4月接受英国《金融时报》采访时，Euronet首席执行官迈克•布朗(Mike Brown)表示，在中国经常对美国政府实施黑客攻击之际，把军官们的数据交给一家股东包括中国国资企业的公司是危险的。
Ant has paid MoneyGram a break fee of $30m, according to Tuesday’s statement.
根据周二的声明，蚂蚁金服向速汇金支付了3000万美元分手费。
