|
|
提要：由于监管环境和市场需求变化，近年来美国市场环境不利于风险资本在创业企业上市后退出投资，实现其获利。在这种情况下，美国风险资本业不断减少在国内市场上的公开上市，并开始考虑在海外市场进行创业公司的公开上市。它们首先尝试的是外国公司在业务所在国上市，而今已经开始考虑美国公司的海外上市。这种趋势为包括中国在内的海外证交所提供了机遇。
（外脑精华·北京）近年来，大批美国风险资本家拜访中国，研究如何打进这个新兴经济体的内部市场。不过，有人却在研究如何退出——不是退出中国，而是在中国退出美国的创业企业。
上个月，风险资本公司Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers的合伙人特德·施莱恩（Ted Schlein）就与上海投行家讨论了后者宣传的这样一种设想：风险资本公司在中国证交所进行创业企业的公开上市。
美风险资本考虑海外市场
风险资本支持创业公司上市，目的就是在其上市后变现股份而获利，这就是风险资本的退出机制。然而，由于美国市场上创业公司上市难度增大、费用增加，施莱恩（Schlein）等美国风险资本家正在谨慎地考虑在海外证交所进行创业公司的上市。
相比上海、深圳等中国大陆证交所，美国风险资本家更加青睐英国伦敦证交所及其小企业“另类投资市场”（Alternative Investment Market），日本、香港和印度的交易所也在考虑之列。
目前，已经有少量和不断增加的美国风险资本支持外国公司在后者业务所在国上市。DCM-Doll资本管理公司的创始合伙人迪克森·多尔就是这类业务的拥趸者。1996年至今，这家美国加州的风险资本公司至少在日本成功地进行了5家日本企业的公开上市。
这样的事例还在增加，但美国创业公司在海外上市的事例则要少得多。不过，美国风险资本家大多表示，如果海外上市势在必行，那么他们就会考虑这种可能性。美国全国风险资本协会最近发布的一份调查报告表明，在200名接受调查的投资者中，57%的人认为，该行业会越来越倾向于在海外进行美国公司的公开上市。
之所以出现这种情况，主要原因在于，近年来美国市场环境不利于风险资本家出售其持有的创业公司股份。因此，美国风险资本公司支持创业公司在其国内上市的数量不断减少。1996年此类上市共有273项，2004、2005年分别为93项和56项，今年1—3季度只有37项。
风险资本家把部分原因归于萨班斯—奥克斯利法案。他们认为该法案提高了美国国内的上市成本。不过，风险资本业关于在海外进行创业公司上市的言论也有施加压力的意味，目的是让美国监管机构认识到他们面临的困难。另一方面，风险资本界也承认，网络泡沫破灭后，美国公开市场对高技术创业公司的兴趣没有恢复。
美公司海外上市面临挑战
美国公司要在海外上市，还面临着重大挑战。他们需要学习新的法律和监管规则。海外市场的交易兴趣和交易量可能很低，无法创造足够的回报率。此外他们担心，一些海外交易所监管薄弱，可能出现丑闻等问题。
风险资本协会的主席马克·希森表示，在所有的海外交易所中，伦敦证交所下属的小企业“另类投资市场”（Alternative Investment Market）最受青睐。但他也指出，现在还不能确定美国企业在海外上市后，能否实现足够高的市值和日交易量，以便风险资本家出售其持有的股份。
上海力推中国市场
不过，美国风险资本界的顾虑并没有打消外国市场自我推销的热情。在后者看来，吸引美国风险资本支持的企业上市有助于提升自身名誉。
上海的投资银行家就向施莱恩表示，企业在当地上市可望实现30—40倍的市盈率，而香港和纳斯达克的市盈率分别只有13—15倍和20倍左右。他们提出如此的高回报率，意味中国政府或许会支持创业公司上市，以图树立中国证交所的信誉。上海的态度还不足以让施莱恩作出决定，但足以促使他认真考虑，并提出更多问题。
施莱恩表示，所有可行的选择都需要考虑。对中国交易所而言，最终的问题在于，它们能否成为对非中国企业实行退出策略的可行选择，以及什么时候能够这样做。
英文原文：U.S. venture capitalists look to China to take companies public
SAN FRANCISCO: For the last few years, a number of American venture capitalists have been visiting China to study how to break into the markets of that emerging giant. But one has spent time there studying exits － not from China, but from his start-ups back in the United States.
Ted Schlein, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, met in Shanghai last month with local investment bankers promoting an almost surreal concept: They want venture capital firms － the vanguard of capitalism － to take companies public on Chinese stock exchanges.
Schlein and other venture capitalists are cautiously thinking about it. Frustrated by the difficulty and expense of taking start-ups public in the U.S. market, these seed investors are considering overseas exchanges as an alternative place to turn handsome profits by selling their interests in start-ups.
Chinese exchanges, like those in Shanghai and Shenzhen, seem like more exotic choices for now. But investors said they were giving more serious consideration to the London Stock Exchange and its small-capitalization division, the Alternative Investment Market, as well as to exchanges in Japan, Hong Kong and India.
\"It behooves all of us to start understanding each of the various exit options,\" Schlein said.
The ultimate questions about Chinese exchanges, he said, are whether \"they will be a viable exit strategy for non-Chinese-based companies, and when?\"
\"I think it's a matter of when.\"
Already, there are a small but growing number of venture-capital-backed companies based overseas that have gone public in the nations where they have operations. Much rarer are examples of American-based start-ups that have sold shares on the foreign markets.
But a majority of venture capitalists said they thought the rarity if such listings was destined to change － and soon.
In a report published Monday, the National Venture Capital Association found that 57 percent of the 200 investors surveyed expected a growing propensity in the industry to take American companies public in overseas markets in 2007.
The chief reason for interest: U.S. markets have not exactly been friendly places of late for venture capitalists to resell their interests in start-ups. In 2005, 56 venture-backed companies went public in the United States, down from 93 in 2004 and a high of 273 in 1996. （About 37 venture-backed companies had gone public as of the end of September this year.）
Venture capitalists have made a whipping boy of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the 2002 corporate accountability law that they say has markedly raised the cost of domestic public offerings. Talk by venture capitalists of taking companies public overseas could include some hot air, part of the industry's effort to persuade American regulators of the seriousness of their frustration.
But the venture capitalists acknowledge, too, that the U.S. public markets' appetite for technology start-ups has not recovered from the collapse of the dot-com bubble.
There are serious challenges to taking U.S. companies public overseas.
Investors must learn new laws and regulations, and they face the risk that trading interest and volumes in those foreign markets might be so low that the experience would not yield a meaningful return.
There is also the worry that less regulatory oversight means some overseas exchanges could become tarred by scandals or collapse.
Of all the overseas exchanges, the Alternative Investment Market in London has drawn the most intense interest, said Mark Heesen, president of the venture capital association. But he said that it was not clear yet whether companies taken public there could yield enough value and daily trading volume to allow venture capitalists to sell their interest.
\"You could go public there and not get very far,\" he said. \"If it doesn't get the VC out of the company, it's just another step along the way. Is AIM basically going to be the pink sheets of Europe, or really be an exchange?\"
Charles Cameron, managing director of Jefferies International, an investment bank arm of Jefferies that is advocating overseas exit strategies for some venture capitalists, said, \"I'm hearing a lot of interest from venture capitalists but also some concern about what is the appropriate size and shape of a company for AIM.\"
Some U.S. investors, meanwhile, are having success taking foreign-backed companies public in overseas markets. One of the advocates and practitioners of this concept is Dixon Doll, founding general partner with DCM-Doll Capital Management.
Based in Menlo Park, California, DCM has succeeded in taking at least five Japanese companies public in Japan since 1996.
Doll has made an investment in a cellphone software company in Scotland that has a partnership with a major cellphone manufacturer in Japan and, should it ever go public, Doll said he would consider doing a dual listing on British and Japanese exchanges.
Despite Doll's successes, he is not sure that the formula can work for companies based in the United States.
\"I'm skeptical,\" he said. \"The only realistic scenario is a U.S. company doing a listing on AIM or on the London Stock Exchange.\"
That has not stopped the overseas markets from making a hard sell, seeing American venture-backed companies as a way of buoying their reputation and perceived viability.
In Shanghai, investment bankers told Schlein, of Kleiner Perkins, that companies going public there could expect to get valuations of 30 to 40 times earnings － compared with 13 to 15 times in Hong Kong or 20 times on the Nasdaq.
The promises of spectacular returns suggested to Schlein that the Chinese government might be helping to prop up start-ups and valuations to establish Chinese exchanges' credibility.
It was not enough to cause Schlein to leap, but it was enough to prompt him to ask a lot more questions.
\"I don't have answers yet, but I'm trying to figure it out,\" he said.
来源：国际先驱论坛报，2006.12.22，作者：Matt Richtel |
|
发表于 2007-1-3 12:44:11