海國百態: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會。按照他的經驗，要想找到成功的私人股本投資機會，跟人在酒吧裏一起喝杯烈酒比什麼都管用。

“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：“非洲有不少投資機會，但你必須主動去找。在西方，投資銀行家給你帶來交易……（但）在非洲，投資銀行家位於食物鏈下游。你得去泡吧……才能發現機會。”

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着充分的理由。該地區正在興起一個新的消費者階層，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，在這種需求的推動下了，該地區一些經濟體的增長速度在世界上名列前茅。然而，在新興市場私人股本資產類別中，該地區僅佔4%的份額，這說明它在這個領域有很大增長潛力。亞洲新興市場則以63%的份額獨佔鰲頭。

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，儘管私人股本集團在非洲募集的基金規模越來越大，市場卻總是抱怨找不到匹配的投資機會。莫蘭不同意這種觀點。他與人聯合創立的私人股本集團Development Partners International已經把2008年募得的5億美元投資於9項交易，目前還在募集一隻同等規模的新基金。

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.

不過莫蘭認爲，1998至2007年間的高滾動收益率已成爲往事。他表示，在“愚者天堂”的時代，非洲手機公司發展速度在全球領先，可能讓一些投資者暴富，但這個時代早已一去不復返了。

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、中東和美國的資金加入戰場，與凱雷(Carlyle)和KKR等規模較大的機構展開角逐。一些新加入的投資者發現，在撒哈拉以南非洲進行私人股本投資並不如有時標榜的那樣前景大好、簡單易行。

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90年代缺乏回報率可觀的投資機會，許多理想的投資退出渠道深受匯率波動影響。在之後的十年，投資者或許通過投資手機領域獲得了不菲回報，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2017年週期，投資將更難獲得收益。20%的內部回報率就是很好的表現了，”莫蘭說，“在這個時期，表現出色的將是謹慎而非膽大的投資者……投資手機的時代已經結束了。”

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.

儘管環境變得嚴峻，但募資機構仍在努力組建起一位投資者所稱的“自負”(big ego)基金。巴西BTG Pactual等機構的基金直指10億美元大關，它們尋找的大型項目一般來說不是非洲四分五裂的市場所能提供的。

“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.

“如果你準備進行超過7500萬美元的股權投資，便很難找到投資的機會，”凱雷非洲聯席主管馬龍?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，總金額預計高於5億美元目標。該基金去年首次投資，參與了對坦桑尼亞農業大宗商品交易商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.

爭奪的對象不僅僅是投資機會。另一問題正在浮現：基金管理公司追逐投資者的資本，因而出現了一名投資者所說的“擁堵”現象。按照數據公司Preqin的資料，目前有57家專注於非洲的私人股本投資基金尋求募集131億美元資金，其中有一半基金位於南非。最近兩年裏，新興市場的募資總額增長72%，達400億美元，但去年撒哈拉以南非洲的募資額卻下滑3%，僅爲14.5億美元，遠低於2008年22.4億美元的峯值。

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在該地區投資已有25年。去年，Ethos向投資者募集了8億美元，創設了非洲最大基金之一。但它表示，募資“並不容易”。

Harith, another South African fund manager, had to rely on domestic money after foreign investors shied away.

隨着國外投資者紛紛退縮，另一家南非基金管理公司Harith只得依賴國內資金。

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.

新興市場私人股本協會(Emerging Markets Private Equity Association)創始人羅傑?利茲(Roger Leeds)表示，更精明的資金正在瞄準5000萬美元以下的中等規模投資機會。他認爲這一領域的增長前景更爲強勁。

“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.”

“基金經理很樂意吸收投資者資金，但這會對他們產生巨大的壓力，要求他們投資大的項目，而這種投資機會快要沒了，”他說，“他們都在抱怨難以找到投資機會，他們互相競爭，將估值越擡越高。”

In other words, as the African growth story attracts more and more funds, the going is getting tougher. 換言之，非洲的增長故事吸引了越來越多的資金，但現狀卻愈發嚴峻。

That is one reason why resourceful and locally based managers matter so much more today than in the past.

因此，有能力的當地基金經理髮揮着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.”

英國基金管理公司英聯(Actis)正在爲一支囊括非洲的新全球性基金募資。該公司的資深基金經理邁克爾?特納(Michael Turner)稱：“現在私人股本投資跟風投不一樣了，風投是漫天放槍，指望有一顆子彈能命中靶心。但當今的非洲私人股本領域容不得失敗——如果有一兩筆投資崩盤，一項投資組合就極難產生總體上很好的利潤。”

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.

作爲歐瑞斯(Aureos)的首席執行官，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。歐瑞斯去年被阿聯酋的Abraaj Capital收購。他表示，不停往返非洲、遠程管理投資的日子已經遠去。

“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.”

“非洲各地的增長故事真實可信，但如果選錯合作伙伴和行業，你仍然難以從中受益。沒有合適的管理團隊，你便會賠錢，後果難以收拾。”

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)補充報道