双语:General Electric: The Right Mechanic?
发布时间:2018年01月22日
发布人:nanyuzi  

General Electric: The Right Mechanic?

通用电气:对路的机修工?

 

GE’s newish boss unveils his strategy to revive a struggling American icon

GE新老板公布新战略,要重振陷于困境的美国标志性企业

 

“Number one, cash is king…number two, communicate…number three, buy or bury the competition.” These rules were laid out by Jack Welch, a brash but brilliant former boss of General Electric (GE). The American industrial conglomerate, founded by Thomas Edison, has operations ranging from health care and aviation to lighting and energy. During Mr Welch’s tenure, from 1981 to 2001, his company’s market value rose from about $15bn to over $400bn. Today, it barely tops $150bn. Having fallen by more than two-fifths this year, GE is the worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a composite index that has risen by nearly a fifth since January 1st.

 

“第一,现金为王……第二,要沟通……第三,收购或埋葬竞争对手。”定下这些原则的是杰克·韦尔奇(Jack Welch),通用电气(GE)那位盛气凌人但又才华横溢的前老板。这家美国工业集团由托马斯·爱迪生(Thomas Edison)创立,业务范围涵盖医疗、航空、照明和能源等领域。1981年至2001年韦尔奇在位期间,GE的市值从大约150亿美元一路攀升,直至突破4000亿美元。而目前GE的市值勉强超过1500亿美元。今年,GE是道琼斯工业平均指数(该综合指数自今年1月1日以来上涨近五分之一)中表现最差的股票,今年以来股价已下跌超过五分之二。

 

Jeffrey Immelt, Mr Welch’s amiable successor, violated all three rules. To be fair, he did steer GE through a sharp downturn in aviation following the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks and unwound its risky financial arm after the global financial crisis. But on his watch GE’s core power business deteriorated to the point where the firm now cannot generate enough cash to pay its promised dividend. His reliance on multiple accounting standards and opaque long-term service contracts led financial analysts to complain about a lack of openness.

 

韦尔奇的继任者、和蔼可亲的杰弗里·伊梅尔特(Jeffrey Immelt)违背了上述全部三条原则。说句公道话,他确实带领GE度过了2001年911恐怖袭击后航空业务急转直下的难关,还在全球金融危机爆发后削减了旗下高风险的金融业务。但在其任内,GE核心的电力业务严重下滑,已经到了无法产生足够现金以支付承诺股息的地步。伊梅尔特坚持采用多种会计准则及不透明的长期服务合同,被金融分析师们指摘缺乏公开性。

 

And rather than buying and burying the competition, Mr Immelt’s expensive and ill-timed acquisitions of big energy companies, which coincided with low oil and gas prices, instead nearly buried GE. The firm spent $10.1bn to acquire France’s Alstom, which sells power-generation kit, and $7.4bn to win control of America’s Baker Hughes, an oilfield-services group. Neither is performing as well as hoped.

 

另外,伊梅尔特也没做到收购并埋葬竞争对手,反倒是在石油和天然气价格低迷之际不合时宜地高价收购了大型能源企业,几乎埋葬了GE自己的前程。当时GE花费101亿美元收购了销售发电机组的法国公司阿尔斯通(Alstom),又以74亿美元购得美国油田服务集团贝克休斯(Baker Hughes)的控制权。但两者目前表现都不如预期。

 

A new narrative

新腔调

 

This is the mess inherited by John Flannery, a hard-nosed GE veteran who took over from Mr Immelt in August. He immediately began to unravel the tale told by his predecessor about GE’s good health. On October 20th the firm announced abysmal third-quarter results, which saw profits in its power division decline by half from the same quarter a year earlier. Weak global markets, stiff competition and a challenge from renewables are part of the explanation, but Russell Stokes, the new head of the power division, accepts that GE should have run this business better.

 

这就是约翰·弗兰纳里(John Flannery)面对的烂摊子。今年8月,这位作风强硬的GE老将接替伊梅尔特,成为新任首席执行官。上任后,他立即揭穿了前任对公司健康状况的粉饰。10月20日,GE公布了第三季度低迷至极的业绩,显示电力业务的利润比去年同期下降了一半。全球市场疲弱,竞争激烈,加上可再生能源带来的挑战,这些都在一定程度上影响了GE的业绩,但其发电集团新任总裁罗素·斯托克斯(Russell Stokes)承认,这一部分业务本可以做得更好。

 

It is “clear from our current results that we need to make some major changes with urgency”, declared Mr Flannery. On November 13th, in front of scores of financial analysts and journalists gathered at the Wharton Forum in New York (the number-crunching boss holds an MBA from Wharton Business School), he unveiled his strategy to save GE. The plan has three main components: slash costs, sharpen the culture and shrink to the core.

 

弗兰纳里宣称,“从目前的结果来看,我们迫切需要做出一些重大改变”。11月13日,在纽约举行的沃顿论坛(Wharton Forum)上,这位拥有沃顿商学院MBA学位、擅长数字的新老板向一众金融分析师及记者公开了自己拯救GE的战略。该计划有三个主要组成部分:削减成本、明确公司文化、向核心业务收缩。

 

Take costs first. To his credit, Mr Flannery clearly understands that GE is bloated. Even before this week’s announcement, he had vowed to cut an additional $1bn in annual spending, on top of the $2bn annual cut Mr Immelt was forced to concede earlier this year. He also let it be known that he was grounding the firm’s fleet of jets. (It surfaced recently that Mr Immelt sometimes travelled with two jets, just in case one broke down.)

 

先看成本问题。弗兰纳里对GE的臃肿心知肚明,这一点值得称赞。甚至在本月宣布上述战略之前,他已立下誓言,除了今年早前伊梅尔特被迫接受每年要削减的20亿美元之外,还将另外减少10亿美元的年度开支。他还表明将停飞公司的公务飞机。(最近爆出消息称,伊梅尔特以往乘坐公司飞机出行时,为防出现故障,有时还要一架备用飞机随行。)

 

This week Mr Flannery took the painful decision to cut GE’s dividend by half, which will save over $4bn. Only twice before in its 125-year history has the firm failed to pay its promised dividend. He will also save it money in coming years by borrowing $6bn at today’s low interest rates to prepay the next few years’ worth of pension obligations. That will help, but the pension fund he inherited is currently underfunded by a staggering $31bn.

 

本月,弗兰纳里痛下决定,要将GE的股息减半,这将节省超过40亿美元。在GE125年的历史中,没兑现承诺股息的情况之前仅发生过两次。另外,他将以当前的低利率借款60亿美元用以支付未来几年的员工养老金,籍此为未来节省开支。这有助于缓解问题,但他接手的养老金资金缺口惊人,高达310亿美元。

 

The second pillar of Mr Flannery’s strategy is to transform GE’s culture. The firm has been celebrated for its superior management and capital discipline. But insiders describe a company adrift under Mr Immelt, who often talked in lofty terms about GE’s future and invested a lot in innovation but did not always hold people accountable or insist on tough targets. “Jeff was a visionary but he did not dig into the numbers the way John does,” says a senior GE executive. Mr Flannery promises to be disciplined and data-driven in his decisions. “Capital allocation is a contact sport, and I expect vigorous debate,” he says.

 

弗兰纳里的战略中第二个支柱是改造GE的企业文化。该公司一直以卓越的管理和资本纪律闻名。但内部人士指出,在伊梅尔特的领导下,GE偏离了这些价值。他经常用宏大的字眼谈论公司的未来,并在创新方面投入大量资金,但却没能充分实施问责机制或坚持硬性目标。杰夫是个有远见的人,但他没能像约翰那样深入研究数字。GE一位高级主管说道。弗兰纳里承诺会严守纪律、基于数据做出决策。资本配置是一场贴身肉搏。我料想会产生激烈的讨论。弗兰纳里说。

 

That is promising. So, too, is his vow this week to make GE’s books more transparent. “Complexity has hurt us,” he acknowledged. The firm has long used multiple non-standard measures for reporting its financial performance, juggling various business assumptions and costs. This has made it harder to understand its true financial picture. For example, it has in the past favoured “industrial cash flow from operating activities” (CFOA), an abstraction that Mr Flannery is ditching in favour of the widely used measure of free cash flow. GE’s industrial CFOA is $7bn; its equivalent free cash flow is only $3bn.

 

这是不错的做法。而本月他发誓要让GE的账目变得更透明,也是大有希望的改革。过于复杂已对我们造成损害。他承认。长期以来GE采用多种非标准化指标报告财务业绩,业务假设和成本计算五花八门,让人难以了解其真实的财务状况。例如,GE曾乐于采用工业经营活动现金流(CFOA)来衡量业绩,现在弗兰纳里摒弃这一方式,转而采取业界广泛采用的自由现金流指标。GE的工业经营活动现金流为70亿美元,但对应的自由现金流仅为30亿美元。

 

The biggest cultural change will happen at the top. Mr Flannery plans to realign pay for top executives so that they are rewarded when the firm does better on free cash flow. He is also reforming the board of directors, an unwieldy collection of 18 grandees who failed to ask hard questions even as GE’s performance deteriorated. In October he put Ed Garden, chief investment officer of Trian Partners, an activist investment fund, on the board. This week he said the board would be cut to 12 members, and that three new directors with experience relevant to GE would soon replace oldies.

 

文化上的最大转变将发生在公司高层。弗兰纳里计划调整顶层高管的薪酬机制,如果公司的自由现金流水平有所提高,他们就能得到回报。同时他也在改革董事会。这个由18位大人物组成的臃肿机构在GE业绩恶化时并没有提出有力的质疑。上月,弗兰纳里邀请维权投资基金特里安基金公司(Trian Partners)的首席投资官爱德华·加顿(Ed Garden)加入GE董事会。本月,弗兰纳里表示董事会成员将减至12人,而且即将有三位拥有GE相关经验的新董事取代旧成员。

 

Small is beautiful

小之美

 

So far, so good. The problem arises with the third pillar of the strategy, which involves shrinking the firm. In October Mr Flannery promised to sell off assets worth $20bn over the next two years. This week he made it clear that the company’s operations in transport (which make locomotives) and industrial lighting are up for sale. In addition, he indicated that the firm was willing to sell its majority stake in Baker Hughes, a separately traded entity born of the merger of GE’s oil and gas division and the old Baker Hughes oilfield-services business.

 

说到这里一切都还好。问题在于战略中的第三个支柱,其中涉及公司业务的收缩。上月,弗兰纳里承诺在未来两年内出售价值200亿美元的资产。本月,他表明公司已准备好出售运输(机车制造)和工业照明业务。此外他还表示,GE愿意出售所持有的贝克休斯(Baker Hughes)的多数股权,贝克休斯是GE旗下油气业务与贝克休斯油田服务公司合并后形成的独立交易实体。

 

That sounds like a lot, but for a goliath like GE, which had total assets of $365bn last year, it is underwhelming, and investors are unimpressed. GE’s shares fell by 12% in the two days following the plan’s unveiling – though it probably didn’t help that on November 14th a class-action lawsuit was announced against GE and its officers for allegedly misleading investors about the firm’s weakening performance, especially in power. 

 

听起来似乎收缩了许多,但对于GE这样的巨头(去年总资产达3650亿美元)来说,这些举措影响不大,投资者也不为所动。在计划宣布后两天内,GE的股价下跌了12%。不过,11月14日传出消息,GE及其高层因涉嫌隐瞒公司业绩下滑(尤其是在电力业务上)、误导投资者而被提出集体诉讼,这可能也是影响其股价的一个不利因素。

 

Analysts had been divided on the firm before this week, but now the bulls are deserting it in droves. One of them, Deane Dray of RBC Capital Markets, wrote that the plan “fell short of the sweeping reset of the business model/portfolio many had hoped for”. Joe Ritchie of Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, thinks GE should cut not $3bn in annual costs by 2020, but $4bn. He points out that the firm has spent $10bn in restructuring over the past five years, with little to show for it in improved margins. He thinks that GE still has many assets that are earning sub-standard margins, and which could be run more profitably by more focused outsiders.

 

本月以前,分析师们对于GE的看法还有分歧,但原本看好之人如今纷纷改变看法。加拿大皇家银行资本市场(RBC Capital Markets)的迪恩·德雷(Deane Dray)便是其中之一。他写道,该计划没能像许多人期望的那样,彻底改变商业模式或大规模重组资产。投资银行高盛的乔·里奇(Joe Ritchie)认为,到2020年,GE每年削减的成本不应该只有30亿美元,而是要达到40亿美元。他指出,过去五年,GE在重组过程中已花费100亿美元,但对提高利润收效甚微。他认为,GE仍持有许多收益低下的资产,如果交给业务更为专注的外部机构来经营,盈利也许会更高。

 

Scott Davis of Melius Research says it is not clear why a “bigger spin-off” was not part of the plan. He calculates that GE’s health-care and aerospace divisions alone are now worth close to today’s stockmarket value of the entire company. That suggests GE could release enormous trapped value through a more ambitious, but thoughtfully sequenced, series of spin-offs and divestments.

 

研究公司Melius Research的斯科特·戴维斯(Scott Davis)表示,目前还不清楚为什么更大规模的拆分不是计划的一部分。据他计算,GE的医疗和航空航天业务现在的价值已接近整个公司当前的市值,这意味着GE有可能通过更庞大但精心铺排的一系列拆分和剥离来释放出巨大的被套牢的价值。

 

The intensity of the criticism from analysts might seem unfair. Mr Flannery has, after all, only just begun to wrestle with the problems he has inherited. His instincts appear to be sound, and his principles of curbing costs, cultural clarity and cutting to the core are surely the right ones. He is being punished for his reluctance to wield the knife more aggressively.

 

分析师们的炮轰看似不太公平。弗兰纳里毕竟只是刚刚着手解决前任留下的问题。他似乎有着敏锐的直觉,其提出的原则——控制成本、明确企业文化以及只保留核心业务——肯定是正确的,受到指责只是因为他不愿下手更狠。

 

In the end, however, it is worth reflecting on another of Mr Welch’s musings: “Change before you have to.” Mr Immelt was a thoughtful man, but his failure to deal with emerging threats for years allowed them to come to a head. Mr Flannery is now changing GE because he must. Sensible though his plan is, he may come to regret that he did not make further-reaching changes before he had to.

 

然而,最终值得思考的是韦尔奇的另一句名言:“在不得不改变之前就先改变。”伊梅尔特是个思虑周全的人,但多年来他未能及早应对新威胁,导致问题恶化。弗兰纳里目前对GE的改革是不得不为之。虽然他的计划合理,但日后他也可能会后悔自己没有在被逼至绝境前做出一些更深远的改革。


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