海國(guó)百態(tài):非洲人民的錢不好賺

Miles Morland, a pioneering Africa investor, has spent more than two decades looking for deals in places where you cannot drink the tap water. If his experience is anything to go by, finding successful private equity opportunities has more to do with sharing a glass of the stronger stuff in African bars.二十多年來，投資非洲的先行者邁爾斯?莫蘭(Miles Morland)一直在這片不能直接飲用自來水的地方尋找投資機(jī)會(huì)。按照他的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，要想找到成功的私人股本投資機(jī)會(huì)，跟人在酒吧里一起喝杯烈酒比什么都管用。“In Africa there are hundreds of deals but you have to go and look for them. In the west, investment bankers bring you deals?.?.?.[but], in Africa, investment bankers are way down the food chain. You need to go and hang around the bars?.?.?.?to find the deals,” Mr Morland says.莫蘭說：“非洲有不少投資機(jī)會(huì)，但你必須主動(dòng)去找。在西方，投資銀行家給你帶來交易……（但）在非洲，投資銀行家位于食物鏈下游。你得去泡吧……才能發(fā)現(xiàn)機(jī)會(huì)。”The case for investing in sub-Saharan Africa is clear. It has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, boosted by a nascent consumer class increasingly thirsty for everything from credit to cappuccinos. And it represents just 4 per cent of the emerging markets private equity asset class – emerging Asia takes the lion’s share at 63 per cent – suggesting there is plenty of room to grow.在撒哈拉以南非洲投資有著充分的理由。該地區(qū)正在興起一個(gè)新的消費(fèi)者階層，從貸款到卡布基諾咖啡等許多事物都是他們渴望擁有的東西，在這種需求的推動(dòng)下了，該地區(qū)一些經(jīng)濟(jì)體的增長(zhǎng)速度在世界上名列前茅。然而，在新興市場(chǎng)私人股本資產(chǎn)類別中，該地區(qū)僅占4%的份額，這說明它在這個(gè)領(lǐng)域有很大增長(zhǎng)潛力。亞洲新興市場(chǎng)則以63%的份額獨(dú)占鰲頭。But even as private equity groups raise ever larger Africa funds, there are persistent murmurs in the market that there simply are not the deals out there to match. Mr Morland disagrees. Development Partners International, the private equity group he co-founded, has invested the $500m fund it raised in 2008 in nine deals and is raising a new fund of the same size.然而，盡管私人股本集團(tuán)在非洲募集的基金規(guī)模越來越大，市場(chǎng)卻總是抱怨找不到匹配的投資機(jī)會(huì)。莫蘭不同意這種觀點(diǎn)。他與人聯(lián)合創(chuàng)立的私人股本集團(tuán)Development Partners International已經(jīng)把2008年募得的5億美元投資于9項(xiàng)交易，目前還在募集一只同等規(guī)模的新基金。Mr Morland, nevertheless, argues that the high rolling returns of the decade leading up to 2007 are a thing of the past. The “fool’s paradise” era when mobile phone companies grew faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world may have made some investors very rich, he says, but it is long gone.不過莫蘭認(rèn)為，1998至2007年間的高滾動(dòng)收益率已成為往事。他表示，在“愚者天堂”的時(shí)代，非洲手機(jī)公司發(fā)展速度在全球領(lǐng)先，可能讓一些投資者暴富，但這個(gè)時(shí)代早已一去不復(fù)返了。There is now a glut of new private equity investors plumping for Africa, with money from Brazil, the Middle East and the US entering the fray, jostling with bigger outfits such as Carlyle and KKR. Some of the newcomers are finding private equity investing in sub-Saharan Africa neither as promising nor as simple as sometimes billed.如今，新一批私人股本投資者奔赴非洲，來自巴西、中東和美國(guó)的資金加入戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)，與凱雷(Carlyle)和KKR等規(guī)模較大的機(jī)構(gòu)展開角逐。一些新加入的投資者發(fā)現(xiàn)，在撒哈拉以南非洲進(jìn)行私人股本投資并不如有時(shí)標(biāo)榜的那樣前景大好、簡(jiǎn)單易行。In the 1990s, returns were hard to find and many good exits fell victim to currency volatility. In the following decade, investors might have earned stellar returns from mobile phone investments but these masked other fund failures.上世紀(jì)90年代缺乏回報(bào)率可觀的投資機(jī)會(huì)，許多理想的投資退出渠道深受匯率波動(dòng)影響。在之后的十年，投資者或許通過投資手機(jī)領(lǐng)域獲得了不菲回報(bào)，但這掩蓋了其他失敗案例。“In the current 2007-17 cycle, making money will be harder. An internal rate of return of over 20 per cent will look good,” Mr Morland says. “It is a time when careful investors rather than cowboys will do well?.?.?.?The phone game is over.”“在2007至2024年周期，投資將更難獲得收益。20%的內(nèi)部回報(bào)率就是很好的表現(xiàn)了，”莫蘭說，“在這個(gè)時(shí)期，表現(xiàn)出色的將是謹(jǐn)慎而非膽大的投資者……投資手機(jī)的時(shí)代已經(jīng)結(jié)束了。”Despite the tougher environment, fundraisers are at pains to assemble what one investor calls “big ego” funds. Brazil’s BTG Pactual and others are reaching for the $1bn mark and seeking large deals that the continent’s fragmented market can rarely offer.盡管環(huán)境變得嚴(yán)峻，但募資機(jī)構(gòu)仍在努力組建起一位投資者所稱的“自負(fù)”(big ego)基金。巴西BTG Pactual等機(jī)構(gòu)的基金直指10億美元大關(guān)，它們尋找的大型項(xiàng)目一般來說不是非洲四分五裂的市場(chǎng)所能提供的。“When you start going up to writing equity cheques in excess of $75m, there aren’t so many [deals],” says Marlon Chigwende, Carlyle’s Africa co-head. His sub-Saharan Africa fund, which is expected to close above its $500m target in the third quarter, made its first investment last year by taking part in a $210m equity injection in ETG, a Tanzanian agri-commodities trader.“如果你準(zhǔn)備進(jìn)行超過7500萬美元的股權(quán)投資，便很難找到投資的機(jī)會(huì)，”凱雷非洲聯(lián)席主管馬龍?奇格溫德(Marlon Chigwende)表示。他在撒哈拉以南非洲的基金將在今年第三季度完成募資，總金額預(yù)計(jì)高于5億美元目標(biāo)。該基金去年首次投資，參與了對(duì)坦桑尼亞農(nóng)業(yè)大宗商品交易商ETG的2.1億美元股本注資。Nor is the competition just for deals. Another emerging headache is what one investor calls the “traffic jam” of fund managers seeking capital from investors. According to Preqin, the data company, 57 Africa-focused private equity funds are looking for $13.1bn, half of which are based in South Africa. While emerging market fundraising increased 72 per cent overall to $40bn in the past two years, fundraising for sub-Saharan Africa fell 3 per cent to $1.45bn last year – well down on its 2008 peak of $2.24bn.爭(zhēng)奪的對(duì)象不僅僅是投資機(jī)會(huì)。另一問題正在浮現(xiàn)：基金管理公司追逐投資者的資本，因而出現(xiàn)了一名投資者所說的“擁堵”現(xiàn)象。按照數(shù)據(jù)公司Preqin的資料，目前有57家專注于非洲的私人股本投資基金尋求募集131億美元資金，其中有一半基金位于南非。最近兩年里，新興市場(chǎng)的募資總額增長(zhǎng)72%，達(dá)400億美元，但去年撒哈拉以南非洲的募資額卻下滑3%，僅為14.5億美元，遠(yuǎn)低于2008年22.4億美元的峰值。Ethos, a South African private equity company, which has been investing in the region for 25 years, closed one of the continent’s largest funds last year after securing $800m from investors, but it says fundraising “has not been easy”.南非私人股本公司Ethos在該地區(qū)投資已有25年。去年，Ethos向投資者募集了8億美元，創(chuàng)設(shè)了非洲最大基金之一。但它表示，募資“并不容易”。Harith, another South African fund manager, had to rely on domestic money after foreign investors shied away.隨著國(guó)外投資者紛紛退縮，另一家南非基金管理公司Harith只得依賴國(guó)內(nèi)資金。Roger Leeds, founder of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association, says the smarter money is targeting middle market deals worth less than $50m, which he believes have stronger growth prospects.新興市場(chǎng)私人股本協(xié)會(huì)(Emerging Markets Private Equity Association)創(chuàng)始人羅杰?利茲(Roger Leeds)表示，更精明的資金正在瞄準(zhǔn)5000萬美元以下的中等規(guī)模投資機(jī)會(huì)。他認(rèn)為這一領(lǐng)域的增長(zhǎng)前景更為強(qiáng)勁。“The fund managers are happy to take investors’ money but it puts tremendous pressure on them to do bigger deals and they’re going to run out,” he says. “They’re all complaining they’re finding trouble finding deals and they’re competing with each other and driving up valuations.”“基金經(jīng)理很樂意吸收投資者資金，但這會(huì)對(duì)他們產(chǎn)生巨大的壓力，要求他們投資大的項(xiàng)目，而這種投資機(jī)會(huì)快要沒了，”他說，“他們都在抱怨難以找到投資機(jī)會(huì)，他們互相競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，將估值越抬越高。”In other words, as the African growth story attracts more and more funds, the going is getting tougher. 換言之，非洲的增長(zhǎng)故事吸引了越來越多的資金，但現(xiàn)狀卻愈發(fā)嚴(yán)峻。That is one reason why resourceful and locally based managers matter so much more today than in the past.因此，有能力的當(dāng)?shù)鼗鸾?jīng)理發(fā)揮著比過去更重要的作用。“It’s no longer like venture capital where you take a shotgun approach and hopefully one of the pellets will hit the bullseye,” says veteran fund manager Michael Turner at Actis, the UK-based fund manager, which is raising money for a new global fund that will include Africa. “In today’s African private equity you can’t afford to have failures – it’s extremely hard to come back in a portfolio to deliver an overall good profit if you’ve had one or two wipeouts.”英國(guó)基金管理公司英聯(lián)(Actis)正在為一支囊括非洲的新全球性基金募資。該公司的資深基金經(jīng)理邁克爾?特納(Michael Turner)稱：“現(xiàn)在私人股本投資跟風(fēng)投不一樣了，風(fēng)投是漫天放槍，指望有一顆子彈能命中靶心。但當(dāng)今的非洲私人股本領(lǐng)域容不得失敗——如果有一兩筆投資崩盤，一項(xiàng)投資組合就極難產(chǎn)生總體上很好的利潤(rùn)。”Sev Vettivetpillai has made dozens of Africa investments and exits as head of Aureos, which was bought by Abraaj Capital of the United Arab Emirates last year. He says the days of flying in and out of Africa and managing investments from a distance are over.作為歐瑞斯(Aureos)的首席執(zhí)行官，塞夫?維蒂維特皮萊(Sev Vettivetpillai)在非洲做過許多投資，也曾退出其中的一些投資。歐瑞斯去年被阿聯(lián)酋的Abraaj Capital收購(gòu)。他表示，不停往返非洲、遠(yuǎn)程管理投資的日子已經(jīng)遠(yuǎn)去。“The growth story is very valid and real across Africa, but it still remains that if you pick the wrong partner and the wrong industry, you’re not likely to be benefiting from that growth story. Without the right management team you will lose your money. You won’t get out of that hole.”“非洲各地的增長(zhǎng)故事真實(shí)可信，但如果選錯(cuò)合作伙伴和行業(yè)，你仍然難以從中受益。沒有合適的管理團(tuán)隊(duì)，你便會(huì)賠錢，后果難以收拾。”Additional reporting by Andrew England and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany安德魯?英格蘭(Andrew England)和安妮-西爾萬?沙薩尼(Anne-Sylvaine Chassany)補(bǔ)充報(bào)道