Saviors Of The Citi
The recent announcement that Citibank received a cash infusion of $7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund was greeted with a mixture of relief and bewilderment by the financial markets.
The relief was that there was actually someone out there with lots of money who was willing to help float Citi. Yes, the U.S. government could orchestrate a bailout, but no one in Washington has expressed any indication that they'd be willing to do so. The Republicans are concerned about the 'moral hazard' of saving a bank from its own excesses, and the Democrats are loath to be saviors to Wall Street when millions of Americans are in jeopardy of losing their homes.
The bewilderment around the deal stemmed from the fact it came from the Middle East.
This isn't the first major investment made by a sovereign wealth fund, and it isn't the first major investment made by a sovereign wealth fund from the Middle East. But unlike previous deals, it was not a case of a foreign fund buying up an obscure asset, and it was the first inkling that the implosion on Wall Street caused by the meltdown of mortgage-backed securities will have some rather unexpected consequences.
The past decade has seen the rise of China and increased economic activity throughout the non-Western world, which has accelerated the shift of industrial manufacturing away from the U.S. and Western Europe. The next decade may well see an equally dramatic shift in global finance away from the U.S. It is popular to view that shift as a pending catastrophe for America. Like many popular views, it's myopic and it's wrong.
Much has been made lately of sovereign wealth funds, and for good reason. These funds have burgeoned to as much as $2.5 trillion today from as little as $500 billion in the 1990s, and there are estimates they will grow over the next five years up to $10 trillion or even $15 trillion. Some of the funds reside in the more familiar confines of the Western world, with Norway's oil rich investment arm topping the list at nearly $400 billion. But most are not, and many are in areas of the world that are not exactly warm and fuzzy about the U.S. or even the Eurozone -- namely China and the city-states of the Persian Gulf, which combined control trillions of dollars in either wealth funds or foreign reserves.
For the past few years, as the dollar has weakened, oil has skyrocketed, and Chinese exports have ballooned, those funds have begun to look for places to invest, including the U.S. They have until now been stymied by two things: politics and Wall Street.
The political obstacles flared in 2005 when the state-owned Chinese oil company CNOOC attempted to purchase the U.S. energy company Unocal. That led to congressional outrage, and the Chinese backed down. Then, in 2006, Dubai Ports World tried to purchase the operations of several U.S. ports, which led to an even more heated outburst in Congress about the perils of an Arab nation potentially controlling vital U.S. security interests.
These two high-profile episodes led to a rewriting of the rules for how foreign purchases of U.S. assets get assessed by the U.S. government (the CFIUS process, which refers to the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment that vets purchases for a variety of national security concerns). The vetting process can now go on longer and be more invasive than in the past. The net result is that many foreign funds that are otherwise inclined to purchase assets in the U.S. might be less likely to do so in order to avoid the hassle.
The other impediment until recently has been Wall Street. Until the subprime implosion this summer, credit was cheap and easy to obtain, which made deals expensive. Private equity groups (loaded with bank-infused financing) and hedge funds (graced with prime brokerage desks) had ample rope, paid premium prices and crowded the market. The sovereign wealth funds, flush with cash but not as tightly linked to global banks, stayed largely on the sidelines. But now, the landscape has changed. Deals that relied on easy credit are becoming a thing of the past, and in a world where credit is tight, cash is often king.
This changed landscape puts the sovereign wealth funds in a plumb position: They have cash; they don't need the credit markets; they are looking for long-term return. And they are global. For them, the U.S. is one market, and an attractive market.
In the past three months alone, Dubai International Capital purchased a minority stake in Sony; another investment arm of Abu Dhabi took an 8% stake in the semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices and a 7.5% stake in the private-equity group Carlyle; Citic Securities, a Chinese state bank, took a stake in credit-troubled Bear Stearns; Dubai's stock exchange purchased a major share of both the Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange; the Chinese government took a stake in the Blackstone group; and last but certainly not least, another arm of the Dubai government bought the New York fashion emporium Barney's. This is only a sampling of the deals done, and in all likelihood a small subset of the deals to come.
The discomfort that this activity causes in the U.S. remains an impediment. The more that Americans trumpet national security, sovereignty, and economic nationalism, the less open we will be to foreign capital. Twenty years ago, when the U.S. was the primary source of global capital, that didn't matter -- we didn't need the cash; the rest of the world did. That has changed, and the downside of being immersed in the global economy -- and being a debtor to boot -- is that we can't afford the luxury of rejecting foreign buyers.
The saving grace right now is that the international financial system is actually working like a system: Shrinking liquidity in one part of the global economy (the U.S.) is offset by pools of liquidity elsewhere (the oil-producing regions of the Middle East and China primarily). Unfortunately, just because we don't have the luxury of picking our creditors doesn't mean that we won't act like we do.
What's striking about this recent flurry of activity is how at odds it is with current investor sentiment in the U.S. Sovereign wealth funds clearly believe that, at current prices, many U.S. companies offer superior long-term values. Yet some of the deals these funds are pursuing wouldn't be touched by U.S. investors in the current climate of concern and panic. It could be, of course, that these funds are simply miscalculating. It could also be that they see more clearly the potential long-term worth.
The weak dollar is clearly a factor, and has enhanced the buying power of many foreign buyers. Of course the dollar has weakened in part because the U.S. is both a huge debtor and a large consumer of global goods, and that weakness is yet one more reason why our assets are so attractive at current prices. Simplistically, the system would say: Money goes out as we borrow and spend, and then comes back in the form of investments into our economy by the people we're borrowing and buying from. But then there's culture and politics and national identity, and that makes it not so simple.
Finally, let's address the elephant in the living room: Many in the U.S. simply aren't comfortable with increased dependency on either the Middle East or China. Whatever the merits of those concerns, the interdependence of the global economy is a fact. As it stands, the sovereign wealth funds that are so eagerly investing in both the U.S. and throughout the world are controlled by groups that embrace the global capital system rather than others who might reject it.
In life, in business and in international affairs, you don't usually have the luxury of selecting the perfect allies. For much of the 20th century, the U.S. could maintain the illusion that we would only work with states and groups that we liked and who we thought liked us. That may have been true then; it isn't true now.
We had better get used to it.
最近，花旗银行(Citibank)获阿联酋阿布扎比酋长国主权财富基金注资75亿美元，对此，金融市场是又喜又忧。
喜的是终于有人愿意慷慨解囊，向风雨飘摇中的花旗伸出援手。虽然美国政府可以出面安排救助，但政府方面对此一直闭口不谈。共和党人担心的是为自身犯有过失的银行收拾残局存在“道德危机”，而民主党人则不愿意在数百万美国人因次级债危机可能难以保住住房的情况下去安慰华尔街。
忧的是，花旗的“救星”竟然来自中东。
主权财富基金在美国进行重大投资并非第一次，这也并非中东的主权财富基金首次在美国进行重大投资。但与过去不同的是，外国基金这次购买的不再是模糊资产，同时，这也是华尔街次级债风波带来某些始料不及的后果的第一个征兆。
过去十年我们已见到了中国的崛起和整个非西方经济体的活跃，它们加快了制造业迁出美国和西欧的进程。而在下一个十年，全球金融业同样很有可能跟美国说再见。有一种流行的观点认为，这样的行业迁徙将给美国带来灾难性后果。但与许多流行观点一样，这样的想法不但短视而且荒谬。
主权财富基金在近来许多交易中频繁现身，而且理由很充分。此类基金如今掌控着2.5万亿美元，而且预计未来五年内这个数字还将增加至10万亿乃至15万亿美元，相比之下，九十年代还只有5,000亿美元。这些资金有一部分是掌握在我们更熟悉的西方世界手中，其中最突出的莫过于石油资源丰富的挪威，其投资实体掌握着近4,000亿美元。但是大部分资金并不在西方人手中，其中许多对美国乃至欧洲并不那么友好，比如中国，还有海湾地区的城邦国家，他们掌控的财富基金或是外汇储备有好几万亿美元之多。
过去几年我们目睹了美元贬值、油价飞涨以及中国出口急剧膨胀。如今这些基金正蠢蠢欲动，美国自然是在投资目标之列。但迄今他们的投资活动一直受到两大因素的制约，一是政治，二是华尔街。
凸显政治因素障碍作用的典型案例是中国海洋石油(CNOOC Ltd.)在2005年试图收购美国加州联合石油公司(Unocal Corp.)一事。由于此举激怒了美国国会，中海油最终空手而归。次年，阿联酋的Dubai Ports World试图收购美国几座港口的经营权。这一次国会的反应更加激烈，在他们看来，让阿拉伯国家掌握美国的国家安全命脉将是何等危险。
经过这两次被热炒的事件后，美国修订了政府对外国人在美购买资产的审核规定（即美国海外投资委员会(CFIUS)审核程序，这是一个跨部门组成的委员会，负责从事关国家安全的不同角度审查外国投资）。现在这项程序可以比过去持续更长时间，调查也更深入。但其结果是，许多有意购买美国资产的外国基金因为怕引火烧身而敬而远之。
华尔街则一直是另外一大阻碍因素。今夏爆发次级债危机之前，在美国贷款不但成本低且很便利。私人股权投资机构（口袋里塞满了银行的注资）和对冲基金（背靠各大券商）一度资金充裕，他们为完成收购不惜付出更高的代价，一时间市场人满为患。而这时候那些资金充裕但与各大跨国银行没有太多关系的主权财富基金却在一旁观望。然而这种肆意挥霍的日子已经一去不复返，在银根紧缩的时代，谁有钱谁就掌握了主动权。
时过境迁，如今主权财富基金唱起了主角：他们有现金；他们不必依靠信贷市场；他们放眼于长期回报。而且他们立足于国际，在他们眼中美国只是一个市场，是一个有吸引力的市场。
让我们看看过去三个月以来主权财富基金都有哪些动作：Dubai International Capital收购了索尼公司(Sony)的少数股份；阿布扎比的另一家投资公司购入了高级微设备(Advanced Micro Devices) 8%的股份和私人股权投资公司凯雷(Carlyle Group) 7.5%的股份。中国的中信证券(Citic Securities)入股被信贷危机所困的贝尔斯登(Bear Stearns)；迪拜的证券交易所成为纳斯达克和伦敦证交所的大股东；中国政府入股百仕通集团(Blackstone Group)；还有，迪拜政府的另一家公司收购了纽约时装店Barney's。以上不过是已完成交易中的部分个案，相信接下来还会出现不少后续交易。
此类活动让美国人感到心里不快，这也是一大障碍。美国人越是叫嚣国家安全、主权至上和经济民族主义，他们对外国资本的开放也就越困难。当二十年前美国还是全球资本的主要来源时，高唱此类口号没什么大不了的，因为美国不缺钱，缺钱的是其他国家。然而时过境迁，美国经济风头与当年已不可同日而语，在这样的一个全球化时代，美国再也承受不起排斥外资的后果。
现在的好处也正在于国际金融体系真正融为一体：当国际经济的一部分（美国）出现流动性萎缩时，可以用其他地区（主要是中东的产油国和中国）储备的流动性来弥补。但不幸的是，即使美国已没有实力对债权人挑三拣四，美国也不会因此放弃我行我素的作派。
最近这一系列外资并购活动的惊人之处在于，它们与目前美国的投资气氛是何等格格不入。主权财富基金肯定认为，当前价位下许多美国公司具有优秀的长期投资价值。然而，这些基金看中的资产，有一些是惊恐未定的美国投资者万万不敢去碰的。当然，也许这些基金看错了。但也有可能是因为他们比美国人更清楚地看到了这些资产潜藏的长期价值。
美元贬值显然也是影响因素之一，它同时也加强了许多外国买家的购买力。美元必然贬值的原因之一就在于美国既负债累累，又消费无度。美元贬值恰恰是为何当前价位下美国资产如此具有吸引力的另外一个原因。在理想环境下，美国通过举债和消费而外流的资金，会从债务人和产品销售国那里以投资的方式回到美国。但这里面掺杂着文化认同、政治认同和民族认同等多种因素，事情并非如此简单。
最后我想说的是，还是面对现实吧。许多人只是对美国日益依赖中东和中国感到不适应。无论这种想法是对是错，全球各国经济相互依赖却是不争的事实。现实情况是，那些急不可待想在美国和世界其他地区投资的主权财富基金掌握在想要融入全球资本体系的团体手中，而不是那些可能抗拒全球化的人。
无论是在生活中、在生意场上，还是在国际事务中，想要找到完美的伙伴并不总是件容易的事。美国总以为可以只与自己喜欢、也喜欢自己的国家和组织合作，而且在二十世纪大部分时间，美国又总是能维持这种幻觉。但今非昔比，美国人最好能面对现实并适应它。