FOR New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the listing of Alibaba, a giant Chinese e-commerce website, seems like a triumph. As The Economist went to press, the firm was pricing the offering; its shares were due to begin trading on September 19th. Amid all the excitement about whether the IPO would prove the world's biggest, another of its striking features has been largely forgotten: shareholders will have little control over how the firm is run.
对于纽约股票交易所来说，中国大型电子商务网站阿里巴巴的上市，似乎是一场胜利。就在本报付印之际，这家公司正在询价，其股票定于9月19日开始交易。就在阿里巴巴的IPO是否会成为世界第一的兴奋之中，此次IPO的另一个突出特点已被大多数人抛之脑后：股东对上市公司的运营控制权恐将丧失殆尽。
Alibaba only listed in New York because Hong Kong Stock Exchange, a more natural home, insists that shareholders have a say over management in keeping with their stake. The firm's owners, who balked at this notion, took their business to a more pliable venue. Technically, every Alibaba share has equal rights, but they are circumscribed ones. A pre-defined cabal of 30 managers of Alibaba or related companies, including the firm's chairman, Jack Ma (pictured above), will control nominations to a majority of seats on the board. According to Alibaba's prospectus, this group “may make decisions with which you [the shareholder] disagree, including decisions on important topics such as compensation, management succession, acquisition strategy, and our business and financial strategy”.
阿里巴巴之所以只能在纽交所上市，其原因就在于，作为其首选上市地点的香港股票交易所坚称，股东对公司运营的发言权应该与其所持有的股份保持一致。出于躲开这种观念的目的，阿里巴巴的所有者将他们的公司带到了一个有着更多选项的交易所。从技术上将，阿里巴巴的每一股股票的权利都是相等的。但是，这些股票是受限的。一个包括公司董事会主席马云在内的、由阿里巴巴或者相关公司的30名高管组成的小集团，将控制董事会大多数职位的任命。据招股说明书，这个集团“可能会在报酬补偿、管理承继、收购战略以及商业和金融战略等一些重大的问题上，做出与你［股东］相反的决定”。
Alibaba says this structure is needed to preserve the firm's culture. It is not that different from many tech firms, both Chinese and American, that have two or more categories of shares, some of which confer more say in the running of the company than others. Advocates of such skewed set-ups argue that they allow the founders of fast-growing firms to raise the necessary capital to pursue their long-term ambitions without having to deal with short-term mood swings among investors. By the same token, media companies with similar rules claim that allowing a small group of shareholdersto maintain control preserves editorial integrity.
阿里巴巴称，这种架构，对于保持公司文化来说，是必需的。它同中美两国许多同时拥有两种或两种以上股票的高科技公司的股权结构没有什么不同。只是有的公司，赋予其股票，在公司经营方面，更大的权利罢了。此类扭曲的股权结构的支持者认为，这种结构允许快速成长型公司的创始人筹集必需的资本，以追求其长期的抱负，而不必去理会投资者短期的情绪波动。同理，拥有同样规则的媒体公司宣称，允许少数股东保持掌控力，有利于保持采编统一。
“Dual-class” structures were common in America in the 1920s but were largely stamped out in a populist campaign led by William Ripley, a Harvard professor who labelled the practice a “crowning infamy” to “disenfranchise public investors”, according to a paper by Stephen Bainbridge of the University of California Los Angeles. There were exceptions—notably the listing of Ford in 1956 on NYSE and of media firms on the American Stock Exchange, a second-tier market—but Ripley's philosophy was largely intact until the 1980s when the rise of corporate raiders brought less democratic regimes back into fashion.
“双重股权”架构常见于上世纪20年代的美国。但是，在哈佛大学教授威廉·雷普利发动了一场民粹运动之后，这种股权架构基本上在市场中销声匿迹了。据加州洛杉矶大学的史蒂芬·班布里奇的一篇论文，雷普利曾给此类行为贴上了“无耻之极”的标签，是“对大众投资者权利的剥夺”。尽管期间有例外出现——其中最突出的是1956年福特公司在纽交所的上市，以及数家媒体公司在二板市场——美国证券交易所的上市。不过，雷普利的大多数观点还是被原封不动地保留了下来。直到上世纪80年代，随着蓄意收购者的出现，他们令较少民主的商业帝国重新流行起来，这种情况才发生了改变。
The Securities and Exchange Commission, the main market regulator, responded with a ban in 1988 but a court ruled that the agency had exceeded its authority. In a comprise, the SEC gave companiessubstantial discretion to choose their structure at the time of an offering,but not thereafter, on the grounds that this would allow investors to understand what they were buying and invest accordingly. Tech firms, led by Google, embraced the idea; few now list without some arrangement that guarantees the founders' continued sway.
1988年，美国证券交易委员会（SEC ），曾以市场监管的主角身份，应之以一纸禁令。但是，一家法庭却判定SEC越权行事。妥协之下，SEC给予了公司很大的自由量裁权，允许他们在上市时而不是在上市后，自由地选择股权结构。这样做是基于这样一种理念：它可以让投资者对他们将要购买或者投资的公司有一个相应的了解。以谷歌为首的技术公司欣然接受了这种理念；如今很少有上市公司不存在能保证其创始人继续统治下去的安排。
As a consequence, America accounts for the lion's share of public companies that give disproportionate rights to certain shareholders, with 55% of the 524 such companies in the global database of MSCI, a financial-data firm. Canada is a distant second with 40, although many firms in Europe resort to other measures that distort ownership rights. Britain used to have many such listed firms, but largely abandoned the practice under pressure from big investors. The Financial Conduct Authority, Britain's market regulator, recently issued a formal ban on skewed voting structures for firms listed on the London Stock Exchange's main market.
由此所导致的结果就是，据金融数据公司摩根士丹利的全球数据显示，在全球524个将巨大权利授予特定股东的上市公司中，美国所占的比例最大，为55％。加拿大位居第二，但是只有40家此类公司，与美国相去甚远。相比之下，许多欧洲公司则诉诸于另外几种扭曲所有者权力的措施。英国曾一度有许多这样的上市公司。但是，在大投资者的压力之下，大都已经放弃了这种实践。英国的市场监管者——金融市场行为监管局最近发布了一份正式禁令，禁止在伦敦股票交易所主板市场上市的公司采用扭曲的投票结构。
Several jurisdictions seem to be moving in the other direction. The European Union considered imposing a one-share,one-vote rule on all members in 2007, but abandoned the idea as the financial crisis set in. Earlier this year France adopted the “Loi Florange”, designed to block unwanted foreign takeovers. It doubles the voting rights of shares held by the same owner for more than two years at all listed French firms unless by-laws are amended to say otherwise. Almost two-thirds of the CAC-40, France's largest quoted companies, already offered multiple voting rights to loyal shareholders, says Jean-Nicolas Caprasse of Insitutional Shareholder Services, an advisory firm. France also allows a form of listed limited partnership in which it is very hard to dislodge the boss, points out Hubert Segain of Herbert Smith Freehills, a law firm. Hermes, a fashion house, is one and Lagardere, a media group, another.
数个司法辖区似乎正在向另一个方向发展。欧盟曾在2007年考虑在所有成员国实施“一股一权”的法律，但是，由于金融危机的爆发，他们已经放弃了这个想法。今年早些时候，法国正式通过了“Loi Florange”法令，意图阻止他们不想看到的外国收购。凡是法国的上市公司，其股份被同意持有者持有的时间超过两年，该股份“一股一权”的权利就会增加至“一股双权”。除非公司章程得到修改，允许对此说不。据咨询公司股东服务研究所的让－尼古拉斯·卡普拉斯说，在位列CAC40指数的大公司中，已有将近三分之二的公司将“一股双权”授予忠实的股东。史密夫律师事务所的休伯特·色刚说，法国还允许上市公司采用一种让驱逐老板成为一件非常困难之事的有限合伙制。生产时尚产品的爱马仕和媒体集团拉加代尔就是采用这种股权结构的例子。
Last month Hong Kong's bourse published a“concept paper” on corporate structures that would give control to select shareholders. The public has three months to comment. While the exchange itself has said it is undecided either way, Charles Li, its head, has given every indication that he would like to see the rules relaxed. “Losing one or two listing candidates is not a big deal for Hong Kong, but losing a generation of companies from China's new economy is,” he wrote last year.
上个月，港交所曾就将控制权赋予特定股东的企业架构问题，发出了一份“概念性文件”。公众有三个月的时间发表意见。就在港交所尚未做出决定之际，其行政总裁李小加已经明确表示，他乐见港交所的规则趋向于宽松。“对香港来说，失去一两个上市备选公司，不是什么大不了的事情。但是，如果失去来自中国新经济的这一代公司，那就是大事了。”他在去年写道。
Singapore also bans dual-class shares but, partly as a result, has struggled to attract tech start-ups. It also lost out in 2012 on the listing of Manchester United, a football team, due to the desire of the controlling family to cash in without forfeiting control. The finance ministry has proposed changing the rules to allow dual-class listings; investors and lawyers believe it is only a matter of time.
新加坡也禁止双重股权结构。但是，正是由于这方面的部分原因，才使得它一直在想法设法吸引技术创业公司。同时，它还因为控股家族想在不丧失控制权的情况下注入资金，而在2012年失去了曼联足球俱乐部在该国的上市机会。该国的财政部长始终在建议修改法规，以允许双重股权公司在该国上市。投资者和律师相信，这只是个时间的问题。
Despite the temptations of blockbuster techlistings, investors dislike the idea of diminished control. The Asian Corporate Governance Association surveyed its members, including big international asset managers, pension funds and universities, about the possible introduction of dual-class structures in Hong Kong. On average, they said it would lower their valuations of firms listed there by 13%. “It would be a disaster,” says Mark Mobius of Franklin Templeton Investments, a fund manager.
尽管存在着科技公司上市即大获成功的诱惑，投资者仍旧不喜欢控制权被削弱的观点。亚洲公司治理协会曾就港交所引入双重股权结构的可能性，对其会员进行了一次调查。接受调查的会员既有大型的国际资产管理人，也有养老金基金和大学基金。他们说，果真如此的话，他们会将上市公司的估值平均下调13％。富兰克林–邓普顿的基金经理马克·墨比尔斯说：“这会是一场灾难。”
There are good grounds for such misgivings.In addition to the risks that potentially lucrative takeovers may be prevented and poorly performing managers might prove impossible to dislodge, there is also the danger that those controlling a firm will make decisions that benefit them, at the expense of other shareholders. A study published in 2012 by the Investor Responsibility Research Centre Institute, a think-tank, concluded that American companies that diverge from the principle of one-share-one-vote suffer from lower returns, higher share-price volatility and various other ills including weak accounting controls and damaging transactions with related parties. Much other research corroborates these findings.
此类担忧是有充足的理由来支撑的。除去可能会导致能够带来丰厚利润的收购被阻止以及在职高管可能无法被驱逐的风险之外，还存在着公司的掌控者可能会做出牺牲其他股东利益而令他们自己获益的决定的风险。投资者责任研究中心研究所2012年的一份论文结论是：背离“一股一权”原则的美国公司都在承受收益低、股价波动大之苦，并且还存在着对财务掌控力度减弱和公司从事危险的关联交易等各种弊病。许多调查也证实了这些发现。
It does not help that Alibaba does not own the websites that generate its revenues (it could not list in New York if it did, since Chinese law bars foreigners from owning local websites). Instead,the listed firm owns the rights to those revenues, under a type of contract that it believes to be valid but, its prospectus admits, is the subject of“substantial uncertainties” under Chinese law.
但是，这对不拥有给它带来收益的那些网站的阿里巴巴来说，是没有帮助的（如果阿里巴巴拥有给它带来收益的网站，它就不可能在纽交所上市了。因为中国的法律禁止外国人拥有其国内的网站）。相反，此次上市的公司相信，根据一类他们自认为是有效的合同，他们拥有支配这些收益的权利。不过，公司的招股说明书承认，这类合同，在中国的法律制度下，存在着“大量的不确定性”。
If there is one lesson to be learned from the mix of bargains and dross on Alibaba's e-commerce sites, it is “buyer beware”. Its shares and those of similarly structured companies may reinforce that idea.
如果说人们能从有关阿里巴巴电子商务网站的讨价还价和以次充好的行为中得到一个教训的话，那么这个教训就应该是：买家要当心了。这家公司的股票以及具有相同架构的其他公司的股票可能会让这种看法得到强化。
