中石化交易 有人歡喜有人愁

You cannot keep all of the people happy all of the time. China’s latest restructuring of a state-owned enterprise is likely to make only a small number of people very happy – and upset a great deal more.

你不可能總是令所有人滿意。中國一家國有企業的最新改制很可能只會讓一小部分人極爲滿意，卻讓大部分人沮喪。

Over the weekend, state-owned China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec Group) announced two deals which will hurt shareholders who own its Hong Kong subsidiary, Sinopec. First, Sinopec will sell a 30 per cent stake in its fuel retailing business. Chinese white goods maker Haier, finance companies and domestic investment funds are paying $17.5bn for assets Bernstein thinks could be worth $22bn.

上週末，國有的中國石油化工集團公司(Sinopec Group)宣佈了兩筆交易，這兩筆交易將對其香港子公司中國石化(Sinopec)的股東造成傷害。第一筆交易中，中石化將出售其銷售公司近30%的股權。中國的白色家電製造商海爾(Haier)、金融公司及國內投資基金以175億美元購入這些股權，而伯恩斯坦(Bernstein)認爲這些股權可能價值220億美元。

The second deal will save the group from a writedown on its 40 per cent stake in affiliate Yizheng Chemical. Under mainland rules, lossmaking Yizheng faced delisting next year, resulting in a writedown for Sinopec of as much as $1.7bn. To save Yizheng from delisting, the Sinopec Group parent will inject its profitable oil services group into Yizheng in return for just under $4bn in new shares of Yizheng. The price Yizheng will pay for this new business, at 10 times 2014 earnings, looks cheap – especially for a company expecting to increase earnings by nearly one half next year.

第二筆交易將讓集團免於減記旗下子公司儀徵化纖(Yizheng Chemical) 40%的股權。根據內地規定，虧損企業儀徵化纖面臨着明年退市，導致中石化資產減記多達17億美元。爲保儀徵化纖免於退市，母公司中石化將把旗下利潤豐厚的石油服務公司注入儀徵化纖，換取近40億美元的儀徵化纖新股票。儀徵化纖爲這一新業務付出的金額是其2014年盈利的10倍，看起來很便宜，尤其是所購入公司預計明年盈利會增加近一半。

Good news – but the Hong Kong shareholders will not have exposure to the new Yizheng. Their company is selling its 40 per cent stake in Yizheng back to Yizheng for just over $1bn in cash (an 80 per cent premium to the previous close) – and buying Yizheng’s old, lossmaking assets for just over $1bn. The transaction is only a marginal cash outlay for Sinopec but leaves it with poor assets in a fibre business and no exposure to the newly revitalised oil services company. Investors in Hong Kong quickly had their say on the fairness of the deal. Sinopec’s shares fell 8 per cent.

這是一個好消息，但中國石化的香港股東將不會受益於儀徵化纖的新股票。中石化將以略高於10億美元（相對於此前收盤價格有80%溢價）讓儀徵化纖回購中石化所持的40%股份，並以10億美元多一點買下儀徵原有的虧損資產。這筆交易在中石化只是一小筆支出，但給其留下一家化纖企業的不良資產，而且對新近重振的石油服務公司沒有敞口。香港投資者很快就對這筆交易的公平性表了態——中國石化股價下跌了8%。

China is committed to allowing market forces to play a bigger role in economic development. Deals of this sort seem to be driven by market forces with Chinese characteristics.

中國致力於讓市場力量在經濟發展中發揮更大作用。這類交易似乎受到中國特色市場力量的推動。