黑石集團的下一個中國目標 清華獎學金

Many Blackstone executives worked grueling seven-day weeks for a month to put together last Friday’s $23 billion acquisition of mortgages and office buildings from General Electric. But Blackstone’s chief executive says he has been spending twice as much of his time on an entirely different project: the scholarship fund he started at a top Beijing university.

這一個月來，黑石集團(Blackstone)的很多高管每週七天地艱苦工作，爲上週五斥資230億美元（約合1400億元人民幣）收購通用電氣公司（General Electric，簡稱GE）的抵押貸款和寫字樓做準備。但黑石集團的首席執行官說，他在一個截然不同的項目上花的時間是這個的兩倍，那就是他在北京一所頂級大學設立的獎學金。

Stephen A. Schwarzman, Blackstone’s chairman, chief executive and co-founder, said that he had been immersed in a welter of details for his Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University, for which applications became available online Wednesday morning. All the while, he was advising his staff members on crucial decisions as they analyzed a complex montage of mortgages and equity stakes in G.E. buildings around the world.

黑石集團董事長、首席執行官以及聯合創始人蘇世民(Stephen A. Schwarzman)說，他一直沉浸在清華大學蘇世民獎學金(Schwarzman Scholars)項目的細節中，這個項目於週三上午開始接受在線申請。與此同時，他的下屬在分析GE在世界各地的建築物的複雜抵押貸款和股權，如果需要做一些關鍵決定，他也會向他們提供建議。

“G.E. was easy for me; it was hard for everybody else,” he said. “It was 110 percent of their time for these weeks; for me, it was 5.”

“對於GE的事情，我的這部分很容易，其他人的很難，”他說。“這幾周他們投入了110%的時間；而我只投入了5%的時間。”

By now, real estate transactions were practically second nature to Mr. Schwarzman. He has been making real estate investment decisions practically every week at Blackstone since 1993 and had a process in place at the company to provide him with the information he needed for each of them. He typically starts his day every morning at 6 and finishes at midnight.

時至今日，房地產交易幾乎已經成了蘇世民的第二天性。自1993年以來，他在黑石集團幾乎每週都要做房地產投資方面的決策，他還在公司裏規定了一個流程，向他提供每項決策中他所需的信息。他通常每天早上6點開工，到午夜才結束工作。

That allows him ample time, he said, to run Blackstone, the world’s most profitable money management company for the last two years, and also oversee the minutiae of starting a scholarship program 12 time zones away in China.

他說，因此他有足夠的時間來經營黑石集團，併兼顧一個獎學金項目的細枝末節；這個項目在12個時區之外的中國開展，而過去兩年裏，黑石是全球最賺錢的資金管理公司。

Mr. Schwarzman estimated that he had been spending about 10 percent of his time on the Schwarzman Scholars program, for which he has already raised $333 million, including $100 million of his own money. He plans to announce shortly that he is raising his target for the overall scholarship fund to $400 million, and he believes he can reach that target next year, he said.

蘇世民估計自己的時間有10%用在了獎學金項目上。他已經爲該項目籌集了3.33億美元（約合人民幣20億元），其中有1億美元是他自己的錢。他計劃不久後宣佈自己要將整個獎學金基金的目標提高到4億美元，他說，自己很可能明年就能實現這個目標。

“We’re not chasing a rainbow; we’re chasing an overhead structure,” he said.

“我們追逐的東西不像彩虹那麼遙遠，就在我們頭上，”他說。

The program was a labor of love for Mr. Schwarzman and underscores the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders.

蘇世民不計回報地開展這個項目，顯示了中國及其市場對華爾街的金融家和企業領導者的重大意義。

Although the construction of a college at Tsinghua to house scholars and provide meeting rooms for the yearlong graduate program has proceeded on schedule and on budget, other aspects of the program have proved more expensive than expected, Mr. Schwarzman said. Extra costs have involved areas like providing medical insurance for scholars and faculty members, recruiting and retaining visiting professors like Niall Ferguson of Harvard, and setting up internships and mentoring for scholars.

這個研究生項目爲期一年，清華大學正在修建一個學院，以安置該項目的學生，並提供會議室。雖然施工在按時按預算地進行，但該項目其他方面的費用實際上都高於預期，蘇世民說。額外的費用涉及爲學生和教師提供醫療保險，招聘和留住客座教授，比如哈佛大學的尼爾·弗格森(Niall Ferguson)，併爲學生提供實習和輔導機會。

Gerard A. Postiglione, the director of Hong Kong University’s Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China, said that philanthropists setting up large scholarship programs in China face difficult choices to keep their spending focused on academic pursuits.

香港大學(University of Hong Kong)華正中國教育研究中心(Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China)主任白傑瑞(Gerard A. Postiglione)說，在中國設立大型獎學金項目的慈善家要想把錢主要花在學術上，會面臨着一些艱難的選擇。

“Foreign donor programs in China come along with many bureaucratic and financial hurdles,” he wrote in an email. “Making sure that the bulk of the donation is focused on the program objectives is always the main challenge.”

“外國捐助項目在中國遇到了很多官僚主義和財務障礙，”他在一封電郵中寫道。“要確保捐款主要用在項目的目標上，始終是個巨大挑戰。”

During a 75-minute interview in a wood-paneled penthouse meeting room overlooking the Upper East Side at Blackstone’s headquarters on Park Avenue, Mr. Schwarzman spoke mainly about the scholars program, while discussing the G.E. deal more briefly. To call an assistant and request a folder on the scholarship program, he pulled out an old Nokia flip phone from the outer right pocket of his dark blue suit coat (he later explained that he had no desire to get a smartphone).

在公園大道黑石集團總部頂樓一個可以俯瞰上東區、用木壁板裝潢的會議室中，蘇世民接受了75分鐘長的採訪。他談的主要是這個獎學金項目，雖然也比較簡短地討論了GE的交易。他從深藍色西裝外套的右口袋掏出一部老掉牙的諾基亞翻蓋手機，讓助手拿來一個文件夾，裏面是這個獎學金項目的資料（後來他解釋說，他無意改用智能手機）。

His aggressive promotion of Tsinghua University since announcing the scholarship program two years ago appears to have played a role in the greater international visibility lately of Tsinghua; in an annual ranking released last month of the world’s best universities by reputation, Tsinghua jumped to 26th, from 36th a year earlier.

自從兩年前宣佈推出這個獎學金項目以來，他一直非常積極地宣傳清華大學；該校近來在國際上知名度進一步提高，他的宣傳似乎有些幫助；在上個月公佈的全球聲譽最高的頂級大學年度排名中，清華從去年的第36位躍升至26位。

The yearlong Schwarzman Scholars master’s degree program has a selection process modeled partly on the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford University. Online applications will be initially screened by the Institute of International Education in New York, and 300 finalists will be brought in for interviews in New York, London, Beijing or Bangkok. Mr. Schwarzman said that he planned to participate in the interviews done in New York and London.

蘇世民學者碩士學位項目爲期一年，其遴選過程部分參照了牛津大學的羅德獎學金(Rhodes scholarships)項目。紐約的國際教育協會(Institute of International Education)將對網上申請進行初步篩選，300個入圍者將在紐約、倫敦、北京和曼谷參加面試。蘇世民說自己計劃參加紐約和倫敦的面試。

Mr. Schwarzman said that the finalist interviews would be scheduled so as not to coincide with the Rhodes Scholar selection interviews. Charles Conn, the chief executive of the Rhodes Trust and warden of Rhodes House at Oxford University, said in a telephone interview, “We work together not only with Steve’s program but also other programs to make sure we don’t put candidates in awkward positions.”

蘇世民說，面試在日期安排上會避免與羅德獎學金的遴選面試日期相沖突。羅德信託(Rhodes Trust)首席執行官、牛津大學羅德樓舍監查爾斯·康恩(Charles Conn)在接受電話採訪時說，“我們不僅會和史蒂夫的項目進行協調，還會與其他項目協調，以確保不讓候選人爲難。”

The Rhodes scholarships and Schwarzman Scholars programs have similar endowments and fund-raising goals. Which one is ahead in any given week depends mainly on the exchange rate of the pound, which has weakened lately against the dollar. The Rhodes Trust has about 200 million pounds, or $296 million, and has a fund-raising target of £250 million, Mr. Conn said.

羅德獎學金和蘇世民獎學金項目有類似的捐贈基金和籌款目標。任何一週中，哪一個項目處於領先主要取決於英鎊匯率，而英鎊兌美元的匯率近來已經走弱。羅德信託目前擁有大約2億英鎊（約合人民幣18億元），籌款目標爲2.5億英鎊，康恩說。

The Rhodes program announced last month that it was expanding to accept scholars from China.

羅德獎學金項目上個月宣佈，它將接收更多來自中國的學生。

The logistical issues of setting up a program so far away have nonetheless been challenging, Mr. Schwarzman said, adding that his wife keeps asking him: “Why did you pick something half a globe away? Couldn’t you find something in the same time zone?”

在如此遙遠的地方開展項目，統籌安排上終歸是個挑戰，蘇世民說妻子時常問他：“爲什麼會選半個地球之外的地方？你就不能找個同時區的嗎？”