企業的現金屬於誰?

Depositors of banks in Cyprus now fear they have less money than they thought while US corporations have plenty of cash to hand – $1.45tn and rising, according to Moody’s. But whose money is it, anyway?

塞浦路斯銀行的儲戶現在擔心他們手裏的現金將縮水，而根據穆迪(Moody’s)的數據，美國企業手頭現金充裕，爲1.45萬億美元，而且還在增加。可是，這筆錢屬於誰呢？

Michael Dell clearly thinks it is his. The Dell founder wants to repatriate up to $7.4bn of his company’s overseas cash hoard in order to help finance his bid to take it private with Silver Lake, the private equity firm. Activist investors such as Carl Icahn and David Einhorn think more should be given to shareholders, to prevent executives wasting it.

邁克爾??戴爾(Michael Dell，見上圖)顯然認爲這筆錢是屬於他的。這位戴爾(Dell)創始人希望將該公司的海外現金儲備匯回至多74億美元，幫助爲他與私人股本公司銀湖(Silver Lake)聯合將戴爾私有化的計劃融資。卡爾??伊卡恩(Carl Icahn)和大衛??艾因霍恩(David Einhorn)等維權股東則認爲，應當把更多現金返還給股東，以阻止高管浪費這筆錢。

This in turn outrages Martin Lipton, the lawyer who invented the poison-pill defence. He believes they are “sacrificing the future for a quick buck” and compares pressure on US technology enterprises to share cash to the “bootstrap, bust-up, junk-bond takeovers” of the past, which “laid waste to the future of many great companies”.

這進而激怒了當初發明“毒丸”(poison-pill)防禦計劃的律師馬丁??利普頓(Martin Lipton)。他認爲，他們正“爲了迅速撈取橫財而犧牲未來”，他還把美國科技企業現在面臨的分配現金的壓力，與當年的“自主融資收購(bootstrap takeover)、破產式收購(bust-up takeover)、垃圾債券型收購(junk-bond takeover)”相提並論，那些交易“糟蹋了很多偉大公司的未來”。

The truth is, it does not belong to any of them. Corporate cash is no more the property of shareholders than a rainy-day fund of executives, hoarded in case something comes up. It is the product of companies such as Apple, which held $137bn in cash at the end of 2012, having done well. It belongs to the enterprise, not to either party.

事實是，它不屬於上述任何一方。企業現金不是股東的財產，也不是企業高管的小金庫，存起來以備不時之需。它是蘋果(Apple)等公司優秀業績的產物，2012年底，該公司持有1370億美元的現金。它屬於企業，而非任何一方。

A company, being inanimate, can’t decide what to do with its cash. That is the task of managers, overseen by a board of directors and monitored by shareholders when they go astray. The kind of arguments we are now seeing are not evidence of chaotic dysfunction, as Mr Lipton argues. They are a sign of the system working as designed.

公司沒有生命，無法決定如何處置現金。這是管理者的任務，並得到董事會的管控，在他們誤入歧途時還受到股東的監督。我們現在看到的這些爭論，並不是像利普頓所辯稱的那樣，表明出現了混亂和失調，而是表明這個制度正按照設計宗旨發揮作用。

The point is that neither side can be trusted, any more than the public could be trusted if someone placed an enormous pile of cash in the middle of the street as people walked by. They are there to watch each other, and to raise the alarm if the other makes off with it.

關鍵問題是，任何一方都不能被信任，就像當有人在熙熙攘攘的街頭放置大筆現金時、公衆不可信賴一樣。他們會互相看着對方，一旦對方把錢搶走，就會報警。

This safeguard is working better than at any time in the past few decades, as the examples of Apple and Dell illustrate. Neither a chief executive involved in self-interested financial engineering nor a hedge fund manager seeking a short-term return is immune to challenge.

這種保護機制的效果比過去幾十年任何時候都要好，正如蘋果和戴爾的例子所表明的那樣。參與自私的金融工程(financial engineering)的首席執行官和尋求短期收益的對衝基金經理都不能避免挑戰。

The balance of power has slowly shifted, from the postwar era of entrenched management to a period in the 2000s when corporations readily handed out cash to shareholders under pressure from activists. The amount distributed by Standard and Poor’s 500 companies using share buybacks increased 18-fold between 1987 and 2007.

實力平衡已慢慢發生變化，從二戰後管理層“說了算”的時代，變爲本世紀初企業在維權者壓力之下願意將現金分配給股東的局面。自1987年至2007年，標準普爾500指數(Standard and Poor’s 500)成分股企業利用股票回購返還給股東的金額增加了18倍。

It arguably went too far. William Bratton and Michael Wachter, two US law professors, have argued that the shareholder pressure to raise short-term return on equity was one reason why banks over-leveraged their balance sheets in the run-up to the 2008 crisis – and then collapsed. They cite this disaster as a good reason for companies to beware shareholder empowerment.

可以說，這有些極端了。兩位美國法學教授威廉??布拉頓(William Bratton)和邁克爾??沃特爾(Michael Wachter)辯稱，股東要求提高短期股本回報率的壓力，是銀行在2008年金融危機爆發以前過度擴張資產負債表、最後崩潰的一個原因。他們將這場災難列爲企業要警惕“股東賦權”的良好理由。

There is, however, a big difference between a bank with an equity base of 5 per cent of its assets and Apple, which is awash with cash. Even David Einhorn, the hedge fund investor who wants Apple to issue new preference shares with a 4 per cent yield, say it should keep $20bn under the mattress.

然而，一家股本基數佔資產5%的銀行與現金充裕的蘋果之間存在巨大差異。就連對衝基金投資者艾因霍恩也表示，蘋果應保持200億美元現金儲備。他希望該公司發行收益率爲4%的新的優先股。

High margins and a global market have brought the elite technology groups more cash than they have any use for. Moody’s estimates that the technology sector in the US holds $556bn in cash – 38 per cent of total corporate cash reserves. Apple will have $170bn by the year-end unless, as Tim Cook, its chief executive, promises, it gives some to shareholders.

高利潤率以及全球市場給頂尖科技公司帶來了大量現金，超出他們的利用能力。穆迪估計，美國科技行業持有5560億美元現金，佔企業現金總儲備的38%。除非蘋果按照首席執行官蒂姆??庫克(Tim Cook)所承諾的，把部分現金返還給股東，否則到今年底，蘋果的現金儲備將達到1700億美元。

It is hardly a corporate governance outrage for Mr Einhorn to suggest a way for Apple to do so. Warren Buffett, the eminent investor, advised Mr Cook to “ignore Einhorn” and focus on business, but Mr Buffett is no stranger to extracting money from companies by using high-yield preference shares, as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and General Electric know.

艾因霍恩向蘋果提出一種將現金返還給股東的方法，很難算得上公司治理方面的一種離譜行爲。知名投資人沃倫??巴菲特(Warren Buffett)建議庫克“不要理會艾因霍恩”，應關注企業，但巴菲特對於利用高收益率優先股從公司抽走現金的做法並不陌生，正如高盛(Goldman Sachs)、美國銀行(Bank of America)和通用電氣(GE)所知道的那樣。

It would be strange for investors always to wait meekly for a handout, like Maundy Money from the Queen, when a company has lots of it. Lynn Stout, a law professor, notes that “as a matter of law, shareholders??.??.??.??are entitled to receive nothing from the firm unless and until the board of directors decides they should receive it”. They might as well ask.

如果一家公司擁有大量現金，投資者卻總是要乖乖地等待着公司的派發，就像英國女王發放救濟金(Maundy Money)一樣，那纔是奇怪的。法學教授林恩??斯托特(Lynn Stout)指出，“從法律的角度來看，除非及直到董事會決定股東應得到現金，否則股東……無權從公司得到任何返還”。他們還不如公開要求。

Indeed, balance sheet structure is an issue on which fund managers have useful opinions. They are less to be trusted on corporate strategy, which is not their speciality. As Mr Einhorn said about Apple, “we aren’t here to offer strategic thoughts on how they operate their business – they are the experts”.

的確，在資產負債表結構這個問題上，基金經理可以提出有用的意見。公司戰略並非他們的專長，在這個問題上不是那麼可以信任他們。正如艾因霍恩談到蘋果時所言：“我們來到這裏不是爲了就他們如何經營業務提供戰略思路——他們是行家。”

It may give Mr Lipton apoplexy, but there is no harm in investors challenging executives and a board of directors if they are hoarding cash from caution or laziness. This does not mean that investors are always right – the money could turn out to be useful in future – but it is a fair debate to hold publicly.

這可能會讓利普頓發瘋，但如果高管和董事會出於謹慎或懶惰囤積現金，投資者向他們發起挑戰沒有任何害處。這並不意味着投資者永遠正確——現金可能在未來證明是有用的——但這是一場可以公開進行的公平辯論。

The bigger question, to which Mr Lipton alludes, is not whether the managers or the shareholders should decide. It is whether short-term investors that pressure companies for dividends or share buybacks are behaving against the interests of the long-term shareholders. That is the trap into which banks fell before the 2008 financial crisis.

更大的問題（利普頓也曾提到）不是應該由管理者還是股東做出決定，而是短線投資者向企業施壓、要求派發股息或進行股票回購的行爲，是否有損長期股東的利益。那正是2008年金融危機爆發之前銀行所墜入的那個陷阱。

Executives have to be alert to this, and to repudiate cash handouts that sound nice but would make it harder to build a profitable and sustainable enterprise. They need not follow the caricature version of “shareholder value” that sees the job of managers as to maximise the current share price at all costs.

企業高管必須關注這個問題，而且必須反駁那些聽上去不錯、但不利於打造盈利且可持續的企業的現金返還。他們不需要遵循漫畫版的“股東價值”，認爲管理者的工作就是不惜一切代價將當前股價提升至最高。

But US technology companies, several of which could bail out small eurozone countries without breaking a sweat, are not victims of corporate raiders. They are simply being asked to make use of their wealth.

可話說回來，美國科技公司並非敵意收購的靶子（有幾家企業無需費力就能爲歐元區小國紓困）。人們只不過是要求它們好好利用手中的財富。