Lex专栏：腾讯应该更重视派息
美国科技集团通过举债用现金安抚股东。而他们的中国竞争对手发行美元债以建立企业帝国。市值达5000亿美元的游戏和社交媒体集团腾讯(Tencent)上周四发行了50亿美元新债。在向初创企业砸钱之前，腾讯及其亚洲同行应该考虑向股东派发股息。
Tencent put 11 per cent of its Rmb61bn ($9.5bn) net income into dividends and buybacks in the 12 months to September. Apple and Oracle pay out a quarter as dividends on top of substantial buybacks.
在截至去年9月的12个月间，腾讯将其610亿元人民币(合95亿美元)净利润中的11%投入了股息和股票回购。苹果(Apple)和甲骨文(Oracle)在大量回购之外，派发了四分之一的利润作为股息。
Alibaba, which raised $7bn of dollar debt in November, pays no dividend. Its buybacks do little more than offset share issuance.
在去年11月发行了70亿美元的美元债的阿里巴巴(Alibaba)，不支付股息。而其回购基本上只是抵消了股票发行。
Both Chinese and American groups have had trouble moving cash across borders. China restricts outflows, while US groups had faced taxation before recent changes eased the burden.
中美企业在跨境转移资金方面都曾面临困难。中国限制资本外流，而美国企业在近期税改减轻负担之前面临征税。
Dividends at Apple, Microsoft and Oracle yield roughly 1.5 per cent of their respective market cap — less than half of Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng index. The surprise might be how little Tencent needs to do to catch up: $1.5bn of the bond proceeds would raise total capital returns this year to Apple’s dividend payout ratio.
苹果、微软(Microsoft)和甲骨文的股息收益率约为其各自市值的1.5%，不到香港基准恒生指数(Hang Seng index)水平的一半。 人们可能会惊讶于腾讯无需太费力就能赶上：15亿美元的债券筹资所得将提高其今年的总资本回报率，达到苹果的股息派发率。
Remember that Chinese tech groups are not as fresh as their recent ascent might suggest. Tencent was founded six years before Facebook.
请记住，中国的科技集团并不像它们近年的崛起所暗示的那样新。腾讯成立比Facebook还早6年。
Investors have little reason to complain, as share prices doubled in the past year. Leverage is not a problem. But, if Tencent paid out more cash, instead of risking to overpay for highly valued tech start-ups, they should be even happier.
投资者没什么理由抱怨，因为其股价在过去一年涨了一倍。杠杆不是问题。但如果腾讯能派发更多现金，而不是冒险溢价投资于高估值的科技初创企业，他们应该会更加快乐。
