龙之道

国家控股的中国海洋石油有限公司（CNOOC下称中海石油）出价185亿美元对美国加州联合石油公司(Unocal Corp.下称优尼科)发起收购。
这是中国正在向海外寻找自然资源与品牌的最新信号。中国公司因为可以从其政府那儿获得大量帮助而一直备受争论。

《从地心攻击》，这部十九世纪六十年代的电影除了捕获了冷战妄想狂的气氛之外毫无可取之处。但是有一件事引起了大众的恐慌，那就是影片传递出一种讯息说中国共产党准备通过挖掘于太平洋底下的隧道来输送一批军队以干掉美国。今日的中国经济实力使世界心慌意乱，并且赶来收购资产的中国人是用财富而不是大炮武装起来的。

中国到目前为止作出的最大动作是出价竞标Unocal公司。在六月二十三号的周二，国家控股的中国海洋石油有限公司(CNOOC)做了一个现金的185亿美金的投标（总共209亿美金包括债务与单方中止协议费用）胜出美国第二大石油公司雪佛龙（Chevron）提出的： 包括债务的180亿现金股票的出价。美国的反对派基于国家安全而对中海石油的收购怀有敌意。这家中国公司承诺保留美国工人的工作并且保持在美国继续销售以安抚民族感情。优尼科表示它将会评估这个投标不过它同时说董事会对雪佛龙推荐“仍然有效” 。
中国对于优尼科的举动简洁地概括出了正在推动这个国家进行投标以获取外国资产的两股力量：对于用来满足与保持经济急速发展的原材料的饥渴，以及希望通过夺取西方品牌来促进中国的出口。

去年中国经济增长率是9.5%，并且看起来步子并没有表现放缓。中国经济正处于从政府控制到自由市场的转型剧痛中，很多中国的行业都是政府控制的，并且几年以前中国当局断言为了与挑战世界他们需要通过减税免税以及发放国有银行的全额无息贷款来打造50家国内比较优质的企业成为全球性的具有竞争力的跨国公司。而他们最终的目的是创建出国内一流世界领先的企业，同时使这些企业仍然处于政府的掌控之中。

为了达到这个目的，中国公司通过交易来达到取得获得自然资源之道。收购能够一次给予CNOOC 原油天然气储备（其中相当部分是在亚洲）当能源价格走高而中国的需求旺盛的时候。去年中国最大的钢铁公司宝钢加入了澳大利亚以及巴西的合资公司以确保铁矿石供应。中国石油与中石化这两个中国最大的石油巨头已经开始海外采购。但是在寻求商品方面并不成功。去年中国最大的国有金属贸易公司----中国五矿集团公司欲出70亿美金全面收购加拿大最大的矿业公司诺兰达(Noranda)失败。由于担心五矿集团不怀好意的野心刺激了加拿大政府这周提出一个议案意图以国家安全的理由阻挠外国接管。
在保障为了保障必要自然资源来支持产出兴隆的同时，中国公司也正在全世界范围内寻找艰难挣扎同时又是全球认可的品牌。这是由于因拥有广大廉价劳动力而享受到成本优势的中国企业同时也面临一个形象问题。外国顾客认为中国商品称得上相当廉价同时却又低品质。当中国企业进军价值链上游的时候他们就热切地收购国外品牌以便他们能够染指国外品牌旗下更加诱人的产品。

今年早些时候所有者为中国科学院的中国顶级pc制造商联想通过收购了国际商业机器公司(IBM)的个人电脑业务。根据交易条款，联想获准未来五年使用IBM其个人电脑品牌销售产品。 中国领头家电生产商海尔联合两家美国私人资本运营基金一起斥资13亿美元收购美国电业企业美泰(Maytag)作为一个跨出中国的大幅度的举动，在中国海尔某些产品占据了70%的份额。这个拥有胡佛(Hoover)吸尘器品牌的境况不佳的美国制造商之前曾经接受了美国国内一家私人控股公司以11亿美金的报价。2004初，中国的TCL集团买下了法国汤姆森(Thomson)旗下的电视机制造等业务使之为世界上一流的批量生产商。
毫无疑问，购买一家众所周知的品派比重新开拓一家更快快也可能更便宜得多。但是中国热也不是在任何一家知名品派上撒银子。中国上海汽车工业(集团)公司(SAIC)去年击败一个韩国对手买下了派名韩国第四的轿车制造商韩国双龙汽车公司(Ssangyong Motor Co.)的控股股权。最近它又撤消一个 购买日渐没落的英国汽车开创者罗孚公司（MG）。事实上，上汽集团至少看起来获得了大量它希望能从罗孚获得的技术专利，同时它又不愿意支付这笔投标继续保持这家公司运营。在这个案例中，中国人既热衷于获取有用的技术，也渴望同时保有对西方品牌的各种权力。

中国政府对于它所拥有的企业悉心优待也是另 一个本轮海外扩张潮流的动因。当官员们希望看到市场在国内发展起来，到了一定阶段，他们又担心共产主义时代的市场经济条件下大量重大问题的崩溃会带来的附带后果。所以政府通过银行系统极廉价的贷款以及其他优惠造成这些企业生产能力过剩以及滋生不平等竞争。这样，把最成功的国企以及民营公司比如海尔分批地送出国门寻找海外市场的机会。
中国有特权的公司，由于他们廉价的基金，通常情况下当与海外投资者竞标时候都有很大优势，并且可能准备高价来获得胜算。评论家暗示中海石油出了比较高的价格给优尼科，并且这些钱是来自中国政府，使得它希望拓展全球业务的意图影响了正常的商业运作逻辑。中海石油已经申明它将从政府拥有的母公司与银行借贷160亿美元为该出价融资。

目标公司（比如Unocal）的股东也许很乐意看到这种心甘情愿的大笔支出，但是他们的工人也许对此十分担心。当中国买主把生产转移到低成本的国内时工作机会通常会流失。这就促使了目标国对这些收购行动的反对 但是迄今为止/至少就现在来说，中国向全球范围的商业扩张正在继续。

The way of the dragon

Jun 23rd 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda


The state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corporation has bid .5 billion for Unocal, an American energy company, in the latest sign that China is looking overseas for natural resources and brands. Controversially, acquisitive Chinese firms are getting a lot of help from their government








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OTHER than capturing the mood of cold-war paranoia, the 1960s film “Battle Beneath the Earth” has little to recommend it. But the message that Communist China was set to take over America by sending an army through a set of tunnels dug beneath the Pacific Ocean played on popular fears. Nowadays it is China’s economic might that has the world in a tizzy, and the Chinese are coming armed with money to buy assets, not guns.

China’s biggest strike so far is an offer for Unocal, a California-based oil and gas firm. On Thursday June 23rd, the state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) made a cash bid of .5 billion for Unocal (.6 billion including assumed debt and a break-up fee), trumping a billion share-and-cash offer (including the debt) from Chevron, America’s second-largest oil company. Opponents in America have based their hostility to CNOOC’s bid on national-security issues. The Chinese firm has promised to preserve American jobs and keep Unocal’s products on sale in the country to assuage nationalist sentiment. Unocal said it will evaluate the bid but that its board’s recommendation of Chevron’s offer “remains in effect”.

China’s move for Unocal neatly sums up the two forces driving the country’s ongoing bid to acquire foreign assets: the thirst for raw materials to feed and maintain its booming economy, and the desire to obtain western brands to help market Chinese exports.

Last year China’s economy grew by 9.5%, and the pace does not appear to be slowing much. The economy is in the throes of a gradual transition from state control to the free market. Much of Chinese industry is government-controlled, and some years ago China’s authorities concluded that to challenge the rest of the world they needed to build up to 50 of the country’s better firms into globally competitive multinationals—helping them along the way with tax breaks, free land and all-but-free financing through state-owned banks. The eventual aim was to create national champions that could take on the world’s leading companies while remaining under the watchful eye of the state.

To this end, Chinese firms have made deals to gain access to natural resources. Buying Unocal would give CNOOC fresh oil and gas reserves (many of which are located in Asia) at a time when energy prices are high and China’s appetite is strong. Last year Baosteel, China’s leading steelmaker, entered into joint-ventures in Australia and Brazil to assure supplies of iron ore. PetroChina and Sinopec, the two biggest state oil firms, have also shopped abroad. But this quest for commodities has not always proved successful. Last year China Minmetals, the country’s biggest base-metals firm, failed in a billion attempted takeover of Canada’s Noranda, an ore producer. Fears that Minmetals still harbours ambitions spurred Canada’s government to introduce a bill this week intended to block foreign takeovers on national-security grounds.

As well as securing the natural resources necessary to keep output bubbling, Chinese firms are looking around the world for struggling but globally recognised brands. This is because Chinese companies, while enjoying cost advantages thanks to a vast pool of cheap labour, have an image problem. Foreign consumers think of Chinese goods as admirably cheap but lacking in quality. As Chinese firms move up the “value chain”, they are keen to buy foreign brands that they can attach to their more promising products.

Late last year Lenovo, China’s leading PC-maker, which is connected to the government through its ownership by the Chinese Academy of Science, bought the PC business of IBM for .75 billion. Under the terms of the deal, Lenovo acquired the right to use the IBM name on its computers for five years. And this week Haier, China’s leading appliance maker, teamed up with two American buy-out firms to bid .3 billion for Maytag in an effort to make a substantial move beyond China, where it has a market share of up to 70% for some products. The ailing American maker of Hoover vacuum cleaners had previously agreed to a .1 billion offer from a domestic private-equity firm. In early 2004, China’s TCL bought the television-making business of France’s Thomson, making it the world’s leading volume manufacturer of TV sets.

Undoubtedly, it is quicker (and possibly cheaper) to buy a well-known brand than to build one from scratch. But the Chinese are not throwing money at any and every firm with a well-known name. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), which last year trumped a South Korean rival to buy Ssangyong, Korea’s fourth-largest carmaker, recently pulled out of a deal to buy MG Rover, a foundering British car company that has since folded. In fact, SAIC had apparently acquired much of the intellectual property that it wanted from Rover and was unwilling to foot the bill to keep the firm going. In this case, the Chinese were as keen to get their hands on useful technology as they were to secure the rights to a western brand.

The Chinese government’s coddling of its state-owned firms is another force behind the current wave of overseas expansion. While officials want to see markets develop at home, up to a point, they fear the fallout from the collapse of hundreds of large, communist-era basket-cases. So the government props these enterprises up with ultra-cheap loans through the banking system and other favours, which have the effect of creating overcapacity and nurturing unfair competition. This, in turn, pushes the more successful state firms, and private companies like Haier, to seek opportunities in markets abroad.

China’s favoured companies, with their access to cut-price funding, will usually be at an advantage compared with overseas rivals when bidding for assets, and may be prepared to pay over the odds. Critics suggest that CNOOC is paying too high a price for Unocal and that the money is coming from China’s government, which has let its desire to create global businesses cloud commercial logic. CNOOC has said it will borrow billion from its government-owned parent and banks to finance the offer.

Shareholders of target firms like Unocal may well be pleased by this readiness to splash out, but their workers might worry. Jobs often go as Chinese buyers shift production to lower-cost plants at home. This fuels opposition to such takeovers in the targets’ countries. But for now at least, the spread of Chinese business around the world is set to continue.