| 作者 |
 [转帖]Case study: From political outcast to shining light of a dyn |
 |
youhighness
头衔: 海归中尉
性别: 
加入时间: 2006/10/14
文章: 783
来自: 哲里木盟科尔沁左翼中旗木里图苏木爱搞不搞嘎查
海归分: 5798
|
|
|
作者：youhighness 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
By Geoff Dyer
Published: December 12 2006 11:10 | Last updated: December 12 2006 11:10
The heads of many large private companies in China had a tough patch in their early years, as they battled to become established in an often hostile environment.
Yet few had to struggle quite as much as Lu Guanqiu, the founder of auto-parts maker Wanxiang.
In 1969, Mr Lu opened a workshop to repair old agricultural machinery. The timing could not have been worse: Mao’s Cultural Revolution, which stigmatised everything to do with capitalism, was just getting into its swing.
Private business was illegal and profits outlawed. At times, his repair shop was shut down. On other occasions, Mr Lu had to appear at “struggle” sessions, where he would be denounced for his capitalist tendencies.
“We just had to bear the humiliation and carry on,” says the 61-year old Mr Lu, who now sports a neat, dark suit and a tie-pin with the company logo.
Things have moved on a little since then. Last year, Wanxiang notched up revenues of Rmb25.2bn ($3.3bn) from its sales of water pumps, bearings and axles and exported $818m of goods. This year Mr Lu believes that exports will break through the $1bn mark.
In the process, Mr Lu has gone from outcast to shining light of China’s dynamic new private sector. He is currently placed 11th on the list of China’s richest people, with personal assets estimated at $1.1bn.
The market for auto parts is growing rapidly, but there are still considerable risks for companies such as Wanxiang.
Multinational companies such as Bosch and Visteon have invested heavily in China, taking a large part of the top end of the market, which requires a higher technological level.
At the same time, Chinese companies are facing ever-fiercer competition for lower value-added products from manufacturers in countries such as India.
With raw material prices rising and wages on China’s east coast also surging, the cost advantages that companies such as Wanxiang enjoyed a decade ago are quickly being eroded. Mr Lu says the average wage in China is still only 1-20th of what employers in the US pay. “But we will not be able to rely on low labour costs for much longer,” he adds.
To avoid being squeezed in the middle, Wanxiang is trying to adopt three approaches.
The first is greater scale. By expanding production to achieve economies of scale, the group hopes to remain competitive in some product lines. The rapid expansion in the Chinese car market has facilitated such an approach. Car sales have risen from 700,000 in 2001 to nearly 3.5m this year and every carmaker in the world has sunk investment into China – all of which has raised demand for parts.
Secondly, the arrival of the multinational car-makers has pushed the group in another direction – improving the technological sophistication of its products. In order to win business from the likes of General Motors and Ford, Wanxiang has had to invest in new machinery and revamp its manufacturing processes.
Mr Lu says that foreign carmakers will pay 50 per cent more for an important component than their Chinese competitors. “But the requirements are much higher in terms of accuracy and technology,” he says.
The third approach is the most radical – making acquisitions in the US and Europe. Even now, it is rare to hear of Chinese companies trying to do cross-border takeovers, but it was very new when Wanxiang first ventured abroad in the late 1990s.
Mr Lu says the company has learnt from experience how to manage acquisitions in the US. With some of its earlier deals, Wanxiang tried to move most of the operations and technology back to China and in the process generated enormous resistance.
A proposed takeover of a engine-parts maker in Michigan in 1998 fell apart when the company’s union rejected the reduced employment benefits offered to its US workers.
Now, Mr Lu says, the group takes time to find the right balance between preserving some jobs in the US and taking advantage of lower costs in China. He boasts that a joint-venture with Rockwell Driveline, an axle-maker that was undergoing bankruptcy proceedings when Wanxiang invested in 2002, has not lost any jobs in the US. “The key question to get right is how much activity to leave in the US and how much to bring to China,” says Mr Lu.
All that experience with US negotiators and trade unions will come in handy, as Wanxiang is now trying to play in a different league. Over the past year, the company has been involved in negotiations with Delphi, the bankrupt parts supplier that used to be a GM subsidiary, and with the components business of Ford.
The financial problems of both families of companies have become the most sensitive issue in US corporate politics.
If Wanxiang takes over any of their assets, Mr Lu and his colleagues will need all the political skills they have been honing since the Cultural Revolution.
NEW YORK: Money is not supposed to grow on trees. Unless you happen to work at Goldman Sachs.
Scores of Goldman bankers and traders were to find out, starting Wednesday, what their bonuses will be, and chances are that they will be impressive. The bank is paying $16.5 billion in compensation this year, an average of roughly $623,418 per employee.
The investment bank reported earnings Tuesday that left jaws agape on Wall Street. Quarterly profit soared 93 percent. The bank earned nearly as much per share in 2006 as in the previous two years combined, both of which were also record years. Immediately after the results were released, they were labeled the best ever by an American investment bank.
Wealth on Wall Street is not distributed evenly, of course. Rainmakers in investment banking can expect to see $20 million to $25 million each, and traders who booked big profits will take home a chunk of those profits, as much as $50 million each, according to senior executives at leading Wall Street banks.
"Anyone at the bonus line at Goldman Sachs died and went to bonus heaven," said Michael Holland, chairman of Holland & Co., a New York- based investment firm. "It doesn't get any better than this."
The bonuses at Goldman, the leading merger adviser in the industry, and elsewhere on Wall Street (Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns report earnings Thursday, and their earnings are expected to be robust as well) are expected to give the New York area's economy a substantial boost, particularly in sales of high-end residential real estate, luxury cars and other costly goods.
"When these guys learn what their bonuses are, we are among the first people they call," said Pamela Liebman, chief executive of Corcoran Group, a residential brokerage. "They call their mothers, and then their real estate brokers."
Investment banking earnings are often proxies for the health of the American and global economy. And conditions have been ripe for Goldman and its competitors to mint money.
Stock markets have been on a tear for months, while credit markets — far bigger than the equity markets — have continued to be robust. Credit derivatives continue to grow at a geometric pace, with $27 trillion outstanding. Opportunities to invest in companies, trade securities or advise clients in markets around the world, including China, Russia and the Middle East, abound.
Private equity firms continue to buy larger and larger companies — witness Blackstone Group's $36 billion acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust, the largest U.S. office-building owner and manager, a deal on which Goldman advised. And hedge funds, which account for 40 percent to 80 percent of trading in certain markets, represent significant profit-making potential for Wall Street — and, of course, for Wall Street's persistent leader.
For the year, Goldman produced record revenue of $37.7 billion and a record profit of $9.5 billion, or $19.69 per share.
In the quarter, the bank earned $3.15 billion, or $6.59 a share, on revenue of $9.41 billion. Investment banking revenue climbed 42 percent to $1.3 billion, and trading and principal investments rose 57 percent to $6.6 billion.
Even David Viniar, Goldman Sachs's cautious chief financial officer, sounded vaguely optimistic.
"Our economists' view is that we will continue to have good economic growth, somewhat slower in the U.S., somewhat better in Europe and very good in Asia," Viniar said. And "our business tends to be tied to economic growth more than anything else."
Fueling Viniar's optimism is the breadth of Goldman's business as well as the number of deals the bank has in the pipeline.
Like many universal and investment banks, Goldman Sachs has transformed its business to capitalize on sea changes in the capital markets, particularly new opportunities in far-flung markets and a shift from issuing and trading conventional stocks and bonds to building and trading complex derivative products. .
In 1997, investment banking and trading and principal investments produced roughly the same revenue ($2.6 billion and $2.9 billion, respectively) in a total net revenue of $7.4 billion.
In 2006, investment banking earned $5.6 billion while trading and principal investments produced $25.6 billion — almost 70 percent of the $37.7 billion in net revenue.
Goldman derives significant profit from acting as an investor, deploying the firm's capital to buy and sell companies. In the second quarter, the bank spent $2.6 billion for a 5 percent stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the largest state-owned bank in China ($1.6 billion came from Goldman Sachs's private equity funds, and the rest was financed off Goldman's balance sheet). When the Chinese bank went public in October in the largest initial public offering ever, Goldman's stake soared in value. For the fourth quarter, Goldman made $949 million in profit on the investment.
It made a further half a billion dollars on the sale of Accordia Golf, a portfolio of Japanese golf courses that Goldman began to acquire in 2001.
Investors seemed to question whether the good times could continue, as Goldman's stock traded down 1.2 percent to close at $200 Tuesday. "The stock being down almost shows they are victims of their own success," said Jeffrey Harte, a securities industry analyst at Sandler O'Neill.
作者：youhighness 在 海归商务 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
|
|
|
| 返回顶端 |
|
 |
|
-
 [转帖]Case study: From political outcast to shining light of a dyn -- youhighness - (10362 Byte) 2006-12-16 周六, 01:36 (1327 reads)
|
|
|
|
您不能在本论坛发表新主题, 不能回复主题, 不能编辑自己的文章, 不能删除自己的文章, 不能发表投票, 您 不可以 发表活动帖子在本论坛, 不能添加附件不能下载文件, |
|
|
