Business

Chinese internet firms

Migrating finches

China's online firms are flying to American stockmarkets

DICK COSTOLO, the boss of Twitter, was in Shanghai this week to see first-hand what the Galapagos islands of the internet look like.

He follows in the footsteps of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, who also came for a study tour.

Thanks to censorship and hostility to foreign internet firms,

otherwise global giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and eBay are banned or irrelevant.

Weird and wonderful local variations have, like Darwin's finches, evolved in this isolated market instead.

Even as American technology bosses are exploring China,

some of those esoteric local firms are bursting to get out.

A moratorium, only recently lifted, on initial public offerings on mainland exchanges has led to a big backlog of IPOs.

So China's best online firms are now hoping to list on American exchanges.

In January JD, an e-commerce firm akin to Amazon, launched a share offering in America that may value the firm at $20 billion.

On March 14th Sina Weibo, the nearest Chinese equivalent to Twitter,

announced an IPO that would raise up to $500m, reportedly valuing it at around $7 billion.

These announcements were put in the shade a day later when Alibaba,

an e-commerce colossus rapidly expanding into internet finance, ended months of flirtation with the Hong Kong exchange by declaring it will soon float its shares in New York.

It is rumoured that the firm plans to raise over $15 billion.

David Chao of DCM, a venture-capital firm,predicts that it will be bigger than Facebook.

The American social network's offering two years ago raised $16 billion.

Analysts expect the flotation to value Alibaba at $140 billion or more, compared with Facebook's current market capitalisation of $175 billion.

The Hong Kong exchange lost out on Alibaba's flotation because it rejected demands by Alibaba to allow a clique around Jack Ma, its founder,

to retain control using special shares.

The exchange was wise to uphold its ban on such arrangements,

because unlike those in America, ordinary investors cannot easily seek redress through the courts when they feel they have been abused by a company's controlling shareholders.

Fortunately for the Hong Kong market, a flood of other IPOs is headed its way.

Will Americans welcome Alibaba and its peers?

It was not long ago that they got burned by a series of fraudulent Chinese offerings.

Duncan Clark of BDA, a consulting firm, argues that those fraud caps were obscure firms with complex, hard-to-verify assets.

Today's IPOs are of prominent, well-understood firms,

so he thinks investors will see them as proxies for China's emerging consumer classes.

Helpfully, various hot American startups, such as Airbnb and Square, are unlikely to list soon,

leaving investors hungry.

However, potential buyers of the Chinese firms' shares should consider two risks.

The first is regulatory uncertainty.

In its prospectus, Sina Weibo warns that official censorship may threaten its business model.

Also, China and the United States are in a dispute that may see the mainland units of the Big Four accountants banned from auditing Chinese firms listed in America.

And there is a slim chance that either country's regulators may object to the offshore vehicles used by Alibaba and other Chinese technology firms to list overseas.

The other risk arises from growing competition.

Firms like Alibaba grew dominant when local rivals were scarce and foreign ones absent,

but things are changing.

Tencent, a gaming goliath, this month took a big stake in JD,

thus turning it into a potent force in e-commerce.

This week Alibaba spent $215m on a stake in Tango, an American messaging app.

Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have gone on acquisition sprees to prepare for a battle royal, and this is eroding margins:

Tencent reported disappointing earnings this week.

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As its tech stars expand into overseas markets,

China will be pressed to let foreign rivals in.

If one day it agrees to this,

instead of Galapagos finches its local firms may come to resemble Europe's red squirrels, devastated by the arrival of their pushy grey cousins from North America.

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中文翻译参考：

商业报道

中国互联网公司

迁徙之雀

中国互联网公司纷纷飞向美国股市

Twitter的首席执行官迪克?科斯特洛紧随Facebook的创始人马克扎克伯格的脚步来中国考察。

在上海的这个星期，他近距离看到了如加拉帕戈斯群岛般的中国互联网现状。

由于对外国互联网公司的审查和敌意，

全球互联网巨头如Facebook, Twitter, Google和eBay均被禁止在华运营，或许正因如此，

中国的互联网公司得以像古怪而奇妙的达尔文雀般在孤立的本土市场进化。

美国科技产业的老板们都来中国考察，

而国内的一些优质科技公司都迫不及待地想要出去。

内地交易所不久前才解除的新股发行禁令造成了IPO大规模积压，

中国最好的在线公司当前都希望能在美国上市。

今年一月，类似于亚马逊的电子商务公司京东商城以约200亿美元的估值在美启动公开招股。

3月14日，被誉为中国的Twitter的新浪微博宣布，

计划通过首次公开募股筹集高达5亿美元的资金，据报道，其估值约在70亿美元。

其后的3月16日，将业务迅速扩至互联网金融的电商巨头阿里巴巴,

宣布很快会在美国纽约上市，这意味着它与香港证交所间数月的暧昧试探以失败告终，这则重磅顿时令其他消息黯然失色。

有传言称，阿里巴巴计划筹集超过150亿美元的资金。

DCM风险投资公司的赵克仁预测，这一份额将超过Facebook。

作为美国社交网络，Facebook前两年上市时筹得160亿美元。

分析师预计，阿里巴巴上市估值在1400亿美元以上，而Facebook的当前市值为1750亿美元。

港交所失去了阿里巴巴这块香馍馍是因为它拒绝了阿里巴巴关于允许创始人马云及其管理团队,

在公司上市后仍能保留特殊股权来控制公司的请求。

港交所在坚持这项禁令上的做法是明智的，

因为与美国不同，国内的普通投资者觉得自己的利益被公司的控股股东伤害时，无法轻易通过法院寻求补偿。

万幸的是，在香港市场，其他大量的新股仍在持续发行。

美国人会欢迎阿里巴巴和它的同行们吗？

毕竟就在不久前，他们还因为中国公司的一系列上市欺诈而大为光火。

对此，BDA咨询公司的邓肯克拉克认为，市场欺诈往往发生在资产构成复杂且难以核实的小企业，

而现在首次公开募股的是业绩优异，资产明晰的大公司，

所以他认为投资者会将他们看作中国新兴消费阶层的代表。

更有助益的是，许多热门的美国初创企业如Airbnb和Square不太可能很快上市，

这已让投资者吊足了胃口。

然而，中国企业股份的潜在购买者应该考虑到两个风险。

首先是监管的不确定性。

新浪微博在其招股说明书中警告称，官方的审查制度可能威胁其商业模式。

此外，中美尚处纠纷之中，这可能导致全球四大会计师事务所驻中国公司被禁止为在美上市公司提供审计服务。

而且，虽然机率很小，但并不排除双方的监管机构可能在某时都会反对阿里巴巴等中国科技公司用于海外上市的离岸集资媒介。

另一风险来自于日益激烈的竞争。

阿里巴巴之类的企业在成长至今日占主导地位的过程中，本土竞争对手稀少，外国竞争对手为零，

但事情正在发生变化。

游戏业巨头腾讯这个月购买大量股权入驻京东商城，

变为电子商务的一股强大力量。

本周，阿里巴巴斥资2.15亿入股美国即时通讯应用Tango。

即将到来的电商混战引发了阿里巴巴，腾讯和百度的收购热潮，而这侵蚀了利润：

腾讯这个星期公布了令人失望的盈利。

随着高科技明星企业纷纷将其业务拓展至海外市场，

中国政府也可能被迫放开管制，任国外公司进入中国市场。

如果有一天中国默许了这一点，

比起加拉帕戈斯雀，本地公司的处境可能更类似于欧洲红松鼠，来自北美洲的表亲灰松鼠的到来使它们濒临灭绝。

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考研英语词语解释

1.get out 出来；出版

Did you really not think that would get out, I ask?

于是我就问她：你当时真没想过照片会流传出去吗？

Most institutional investors did get out.

大部份机构投资者的确从市场中退了出来。

2.lead to 通向；导致

Osteoporosis may also lead to tooth loss.

骨质疏松可能会导致牙齿脱落。

Salary differences between countries can lead to resentment.

不同国家间的薪酬差异会引起相互的敌视。

3.equivalent to 等于，折合

How many fish a day is this equivalent to?

那等于一天要吃多少鱼呢？

That is equivalent to the loss of the entire manufacturing sector.

此数据等于整个制造业的亏损。

4.plan to 打算,计划

As ceo, what do you plan to reduce?

如今作为CEO，你计划在哪些方面进行简化？

How do you plan to deal with piracy?

你打算如何应对盗版问题？