麥凱布在中國的經營之道
Kevin McCabe is so excited about a new type of coffee he is selling in China that he hands me a packet to take home to try. The only problem is that I do not have an espresso machine. “Take one with you,” he says, grabbing a shiny new model from his company’s Leeds office lobby.
凱文.麥凱布(Kevin McCabe)對自己在中國銷售的一款新品咖啡非常興奮，他讓我帶一包回家品嚐。唯一的問題是，我沒有咖啡機。他從自己公司在利茲(Leeds)的辦公室大堂拿了一臺嶄新的咖啡機說道：“你帶回去。”
I explain the Financial Times’ strict rules on gifts and the machine is returned. But the episode goes some way to illustrating the Sheffield-born entrepreneur’s success around the world: charm, persistence and an impulsive drive to exploit the next opportunity.
我向他解釋了英國《金融時報》關於禮物的嚴格規定，謝絕了咖啡機。但這件事在某種程度上說明了這位出生於謝菲爾德的企業家爲何能在世界各地取得成功：富有魅力、鍥而不捨以及迫不及待地想要利用下一個機遇。
Mr McCabe, 68, was one of the first British property developers in China. He travels there frequently and enthuses about his upmarket Espuma coffee house chain developed with the Novell family from Barcelona.
現年68歲的麥凱布是最早進入中國市場的英國房地產開發商之一。他經常前往中國，也樂於講述他與巴塞羅那的Novell家族聯手開發的高檔Espuma咖啡連鎖店。
“Do you know how many cups of coffee the Chinese drink on average?” he asks, eyes lighting up. “Five a year. There are a billion of them, imagine how much you could sell!”
“你知道中國人平均喝多少杯咖啡嗎？”他問道，兩眼發亮，“一年5杯。中國有十億人口，想想你能賣多少咖啡吧！”
He admits there is competition from Starbucks and other multinationals but is undaunted. The three Espuma bars are more like restaurants and pitched upmarket with premium prices.
他承認，Espuma也面臨星巴克(Starbucks)以及其他跨國公司的競爭，但他毫不氣餒。3家Espuma咖啡館更像是餐廳，定位於高檔市場，價格非常高。
At a subsequent meeting at his office in Manchester — he has them dotted across the UK — he says he developed his business “by instinct”. “If I have an Achilles heel it’s probably always wanting to have a go at what’s put in front of me. Did I ever plan for the group to be as varied and as large as it is? No, not really. Things happen.”
後來我們又在他位於曼徹斯特的辦公室中——他在英國各地設立了許多辦公室——見了面，他說自己“出於本能”發展業務。“如果我有致命弱點的話，那可能就是總想嘗試眼前的機遇。我計劃過讓公司多樣化和做到現在這麼大規模嗎？沒有。但事情就這麼發生了。”
His company, Scarborough Group International, encompasses property interests in continental Europe, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and India and owns football clubs including Sheffield United, his home city club, and Ferencvaros i of Hungary.
他的思嘉伯集團(Scarborough Group International)在歐洲大陸、加拿大、澳大利亞、香港和印度等地涉足房地產，並擁有謝菲爾德聯隊(Sheffield United)和匈牙利的費倫茨瓦羅斯(Ferencvárosi)等足球俱樂部。
United — known as “the Blades” after Sheffield’s steel industry — played a crucial part in the international reach of Mr McCabe’s business.
謝菲爾德聯隊在麥凱布拓展國際業務方面扮演着關鍵角色。該隊因謝菲爾德鋼鐵業出名而被稱爲“鋼刀”。
In 2002 a juice company called Desun from Xian in China made enquiries about sponsoring United’s shirts — the company did not retail in the UK but English football was shown on television in China. Negotiations had stalled. “I said I’d go and sort it out myself,” explains Mr McCabe.
2002年，中國西安一家名叫鼎盛的果汁公司有意向謝菲爾德聯隊贊助球衣——該公司在英國沒有零售業務，但中國電視會播放英國足球比賽。當時談判沒有進展。麥凱布解釋稱：“我說我要親自去解決。”
Expecting a drab industrial city, he was astonished by the pace of development there and in Beijing. He clinched the shirt deal and set up an office for his Scarborough property business in Shenzhen, a southern city, and another in Hong Kong.
他本以爲西安是一座乏味無趣的工業城市，結果卻被西安和北京的快速發展驚得目瞪口呆。他敲定了贊助合同，並在深圳設立辦公室從事思嘉伯集團的房地產業務，同時還在香港設立了一個辦公室。
It lost a “bob or three” he says, before finding a suitable local partner in Top Spring, a developer that has worked on 21 projects across China including Hidden Valley, a complex of villas in Shenzhen.
麥凱布說，該公司先是虧了一些錢，後來才找到一家合適的當地合作伙伴——萊蒙(Top Spring)。萊蒙是一家開發商，在中國各地開發了21個項目，包括深圳的水榭山(Hidden Valley)別墅項目。
“You need partners who really have contacts at government level, can put teams together,” he says.
他說：“你需要真正擁有政府層面的人脈、能夠把團隊組建起來的合作伙伴。”
Sheffield is twinned with the Chinese city of Chengdu and Scarborough Group owns the Chengdu Blades football club. Scarborough also has a joint venture with the state-owned Avic group, which operates more than 50 shops in China for Spanish retailer Cortefiel.
謝菲爾德與中國成都是友好城市，思嘉伯集團擁有成都謝菲聯足球俱樂部（上圖爲成都謝菲聯足球俱樂部的新聞發佈會，左起第三人是凱文.麥凱布）。思嘉伯集團還與國有的中國航空工業集團公司(AVIC)成立了一家合資企業，爲西班牙零售商Cortefiel在中國運營着50多家店。
According to Mr McCabe, being treated as the token “white man” helped open doors in China. “You spend a long time in meetings just grinning while others talk.”
麥凱布說，“白人”這個身份標籤有助於在中國打開門路。“你會花很多時間在會議上，在別人談話時只需要咧着嘴笑。”
Networking is essential to operating in China and it could be several long meetings before any business is done. But he says it is best to avoid Maotai, the fiery grain liquor that is a staple of such events — one of his staff makes sure his glass is topped up with green tea instead: “I ain’t drinking that rubbish.”
在中國做生意關係網至關重要，而且你可能得參加多次冗長的會議才能做成任何一樁生意。但他說，最好別碰茅臺——這種烈性穀物酒是宴會的主角——一名下屬會確保他的杯子裏倒滿綠茶：“我不會喝那種垃圾。”
So far, he has stuck to mainland China’s secondary cities rather than Beijing and Shanghai. Projects include a new suburban centre in Changzhou covering 5.6 sq km. It has a five-star hotel, large shopping centre, arts and cultural centre, youth recreation centre along with offices and apartment blocks. In Chengdu the group has built a new office district with 55,000 sq m of offices and 47,000 sq m of retail space.
他迄今堅持在中國內地二線城市、而非北京和上海經營。項目包括在常州郊區佔地5.6平方公里的新中心。它有一座5星級酒店、大型購物中心、藝術和文化中心、年輕人休閒中心以及寫字樓和公寓。在成都，該集團建設了一個包含5.5萬平方米寫字樓空間和4.7萬米零售區的新商務區。
Mr McCabe’s partners also include Metro, a listed Singapore developer. More recently he teamed up with Hualing Group, which is involved in controversial mining projects in the far northern province of Xinjiang, where human rights groups say the Muslim Uighur minority is persecuted and there have been violent clashes with police. George Osborne, the former UK chancellor, was criticised for going to Urumqi, the region’s capital, last year. Mr McCabe says he has seen no evidence of abuses. The city, he says, is affluent.
麥凱布的合作伙伴還包括新加坡一家上市的開發商Metro。更近一些時候，他與華凌集團(Hualing Group)建立合作，後者在新疆開發了具有爭議性的採礦項目。人權組織說，新疆維吾爾族穆斯林遭受迫害，並與警方發生多起暴力衝突。英國前財政大臣喬治.奧斯本(George Osborne)去年曾因前往烏魯木齊而遭受抨擊。麥凱布表示，他沒有發現任何人權濫用的證據。他說，烏魯木齊非常富足。
Hualing is now investing in housing in the north of England with Scarborough, as is Top Spring. “The pendulum has swung,” says Mr McCabe, with Chinese companies looking to diversify into UK investments.
華凌目前正與思嘉伯集團聯合在英格蘭北部投資開發住宅項目，與萊蒙一樣。麥凱布表示：“鐘擺擺動起來了。”有許多中國企業正尋求在英國投資。
This year Scarborough also formed a consortium with state-owned China National Electric Engineering for the EURO230m upgrade and extension of the Loznica gas-fired power station in Serbia.
今年思嘉伯集團還與中國電力工程有限公司(China National Electric Engineering)組建財團，共同承擔西伯利亞Loznica天然氣發電廠的2.3億歐元升級擴建項目。
It is a long way from Mr McCabe’s start in a property company in Teesside in north-east England, where he was a director by the age of 25. But, thinking that he could do better himself, in 1976 he borrowed ￡10,000 from the Bank of Scotland and began his own business refurbishing and selling on properties in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
麥凱布是從英格蘭東北部提賽德(Teesside)一家房地產公司起步的——他在25歲的時候就是該公司的董事。但他認爲自己單幹會更有出息，於是在1976年向蘇格蘭銀行(Bank of Scotland)借款1萬英鎊，在阿伯丁和愛丁堡創辦了改造和銷售房地產的企業。
In 1980 he founded the Scarborough Group, naming it after the Yorkshire resort in which he lives. The group mainly worked for Bank of Scotland and the two businesses rose together, with Mr McCabe advising, or even taking over, property portfolios the bank had lent against when the group got into trouble.
1980年，他創立了思嘉伯集團，並以自己居住的約克郡度假勝地命名。那時該集團主要爲蘇格蘭銀行服務，這兩家企業共同成長，蘇格蘭銀行曾在思嘉伯集團陷入困境時爲其提供貸款，而麥凱布爲貸款抵押房產提供諮詢服務甚至直接收購這些房產。
The relationship became strained during the financial crisis in 2008 when Halifax Bank of Scotland, as it had then become, had to be rescued from collapse by a merger with Lloyds Bank.
在2008年金融危機期間，蘇格蘭銀行——當時已成爲蘇格蘭哈利法克斯銀行(Halifax Bank of Scotland)——不得不與勞埃德銀行(Lloyds Bank)合併來免於破產，雙方關係變得緊張起來。
Mr McCabe had sold some of Scarborough’s assets to Valad Property Group of Australia for ￡865m in 2007, picking up about ￡150m net profit.
2007年，麥凱布以8.65億英鎊的價格將思嘉伯集團部分資產出售給了澳大利亞的Valad地產集團，獲得了大約1.5億英鎊的淨利。
But it still had to sell its London properties to pay off the bank. Mr McCabe would not say how much he owed except the bill was “more than Paul Pogba” the midfielder Manchester United has recently bought for ￡89m.
但它仍不得不賣掉倫敦的地產來償還蘇格蘭哈利法克斯銀行的債務。麥凱布不會說他欠了多少錢，只是說賬單“超過了曼聯最近8900萬英鎊購買的中鋒保羅.博格巴(Paul Pogba)的身價”。
He has now sold 50 per cent of Sheffield United to Prince Abdullah al-Saud of Saudi Arabia. But he gets to most games, and such is his loathing of local rivals Sheffield Wednesday that he orders special diaries with the word removed from every week: “They have Tuesday A and Tuesday B. I hate Wednesdays.”
他現在已經將謝菲爾德聯隊50%的股份出售給了沙特阿拉伯的阿卜杜拉.阿勒沙特王子(Prince Abdullah al-Saud)。但他仍去觀看大部分比賽，而且非常討厭當地的競爭對手謝菲爾德星期三足球俱樂部(Sheffield Wednesday)，還因此定製了去掉星期三的日記本：“他們有星期二A和星期二B。我討厭星期三。”
His two sons now work in the business. Simon handles property while Scott looks after the other interests. But he remains chairman and “chief pot and bottle washer”.
他的兩個兒子如今負責公司業務。西蒙(Simon)負責房地產業務，而斯科特(Scott)負責其他業務。但他依然是公司的董事長和“管家”。
In accounts for the year to February 29 2016, the Scarborough Group made a pre-tax profit of ￡625,000 on turnover of ￡59.5m. In the same period last year it posted a pre-tax loss of ￡1.4m on turnover of ￡24.8m. He declines to put a value on the company, which he says may list in the next few years — but independent estimates begin at ￡90m.
在截止2016年2月29日的一年裏，思嘉伯集團實現收入5950萬英鎊，稅前利潤62.5萬英鎊。上一年它實現收入2480萬英鎊，稅前虧損140萬英鎊。麥凱布拒絕對公司估價——他說公司可能在今後幾年上市——但獨立的評估是至少9000萬英鎊。
Mr McCabe believes Chinese investors will continue to come to the UK even after it leaves the EU.
麥凱布相信，即便英國退出歐盟，中國投資者仍會繼續來英國投資。
“One has to say the best country in Europe is the UK. We may have some problems but . . . I can only think of two strong nations in Europe, that’s ourselves and Germany.”
“人們不得不說，歐洲最好的國家是英國。我們可能有一些問題，但……我只能想到歐洲有兩個強國，那就是我們國家和德國。”
