經(jīng)濟學家》讀譯參考之八十八：能源之爭－歐洲公用事業(yè)掀起合并風潮

1、TEXT 88European utilities歐洲公用事業(yè)Power struggles能源之爭（陳繼龍 編譯）Nov 30th 2006From The Economist print editionPolitical and business interests collide as Europe's energy firms consolidate歐洲能源公司合并引發(fā)政治與商業(yè)利益沖突?！癢E expected a wavebut what happened was a tsunami,” says Emmanuel Turpin, a utilities analyst a

2、t Morgan Stanley, an investment bank. Energy-industry insiders predicted a series of mergers and acquisitions in European utilities at the beginning of this year. But hardly anyone expected the announcement in February of two of the biggest-ever takeovers in corporate Europe: the bid for Endesa, a S

3、panish electricity company, by E.ON, a German power giant; and the merger of Gaz de France (GDF), a French gas firm, and Suez, another French utility.摩根斯坦利投資銀行的公用事業(yè)分析專家伊曼紐爾特爾平說：“我們本來期待的是一陣浪潮，可發(fā)生的卻是一場海嘯。”能源產(chǎn)業(yè)內(nèi)部人士早就預言今年伊始歐洲公用事業(yè)將實施一連串的并購，但今年2月公諸于眾的兩宗迄今為止歐洲最大的并購案卻是大多數(shù)人始料未及的：一個是德國能源巨頭E.ON公司競購西班牙Endesa電力公

4、司，另一個是法國燃氣公司（GDF）與另一家法國公用事業(yè)公司Suez的合并。The latest takeover in the industry, announced this week, is smaller, less spectacular and not much of a surprise. Iberdrola, a Spanish electricity company, announced on November 28th its euro17.2 billion ($22.5 billion) bid for Scottish Power, a British utility.

5、 Compared with the E.ON bid, now valued at euro37 billion, and the euro78 billion merger of Suez and GDF, the deal looks like small beer. （1）Yet the acquisition will create one of Europe's six biggest utilities and a world leader in renewable energy. And in striking contrast to the two bigger de

6、als, which are bogged down1 in legal and political quagmires, it is likely to proceed smoothly.相比之下，本周宣布的能源產(chǎn)業(yè)最近一次并購則比較小，不太引人注目，而且也不怎么出人意料。11月28日，西班牙Iberdrola電力公司宣布將以172億歐元（約合225億美元）收購英國公用事業(yè)公司Scottish Power。相比E.ON競購案（現(xiàn)價已達370億歐元）及蘇伊士與GDF之間780億歐元的合并案，這筆交易看上去似乎微不足道，不過本次并購將造就一個躋身歐洲前六位的大型公用事業(yè)公司及全球可再生能源先鋒。

7、而且，與陷入法律和政治泥潭而停滯不前的前述兩單大買賣形成鮮明對比的是，這一次有可能一帆風順。（2）The catalyst for the frenetic2 merger activity among European utilities is the run-up to full deregulation of the European Union's energy market. For more than a decade the European Commission has been trying to enable energy producers and distrib

8、utors to compete freely across national borders. The final deadline of the EU's bulky legislative programme to liberalise the market is July 2007. By then member states are supposed to have implemented all EU energy directives. 歐洲公用事業(yè)領域之所以掀起這場合并風潮，是因為有關方面正在醞釀徹底放寬歐盟能源市場。十多年來，歐盟委員會一直努力促進能源生產(chǎn)商和銷售商展

9、開跨越國界的自由競爭。歐盟旨在實現(xiàn)市場自由化的一攬子立法計劃完成的最后截止時間是2007年7月，屆時各成員國應當均已遵照執(zhí)行歐盟各項能源指導方針。Ignacio Galán, the boss of Iberdrola, said this week that the fast-approaching deregulation in Europe, which will put big, cross-border firms in a stronger position, was one of the reasons for his bid for Scottish Power. B

10、ut Mr Galán did not mention the more probable driver of the deal. ACS, a Spanish construction company, recently bought a 10% stake in Iberdrola with a view to merging it with Unión Fenosa, another Spanish power company in which ACS has a 40.5% stake. Mr Galán is opposed to the deal. I

11、berdrola is the world's leading operator of wind turbines, but Fenosa relies heavily on coal-fired plants, so a merger would sully3 Iberdrola's image.本周Iberdrola公司總裁伊格萊西奧加蘭說，該公司收購蘇格蘭電力公司的原因之一就是歐洲放寬市場在即，大型跨國公司因此將處于更加強勢的位置。不過這筆交易很可能另有所圖，但加蘭并未提及。西班牙ACS建筑公司最近收購了Iberdrola10的股份，期望Iberdrola能與西班牙另一家

12、電力公司Unión Fenosa合并，而ACS已持有Unión Fenosa 40.5的股份。加蘭并不贊成這一合并交易。Iberdrola是全球風力發(fā)電機的主要運營商，但Fenosa則高度依賴火力發(fā)電，因此合并會招致Iberdrola形象受損。Investors and analysts are lukewarm4 about his proposed alternative, however. （3）There is an obvious logic to buying PPM Energy, an American wind-power developer owned

13、by Scottish Power, given that Iberdrola took over two other wind-power companies in America earlier this year. But PPM is only one-fifth of Scottish Power's business. Combining Iberdrola with Scottish Power will achieve very few cost savings as there is no other geographic overlap. And Iberdrola

14、 is taking on lots of debt to finance the pricey takeover.但是，投資者和分析人士對他收購Scottish Power的主張反應都比較冷淡。鑒于伊維爾德羅拉公司今年早些時候已經(jīng)并購了另外兩家美國風力發(fā)電公司，接下來收購美國PPM能源公司（Scottish Power旗下的一家風力發(fā)電開發(fā)公司）顯然是順理成章的事情。不過PPM僅占Scottish Power公司總交易量的五分之一。由于Iberdrola與Scottish Power在運營地域上并不存在重疊，因此雙方聯(lián)手并不能縮減多少成本，而且Iberdrola為了籌措巨額收購費也將重債纏身

15、。（4）But at least the objections to the deal are commercial, rather than political or legal, which is more than can be said for Europe's two other big energy mergers. It is a full year since a failed bid for Scottish Power prompted Wulf Bernotat, the boss of E.ON, to plot his big coup: a takeover

16、 of Endesa, which would make E.ON one of the world's largest electricity and gas firms, with over 50m customers in more than 30 countries. 不過即便有人反對這次收購，那也是出于商業(yè)角度考慮，而與政治抑或法律無關。然而，兩宗能源巨頭的合并案就不好說（是否受到政治或法律因素干涉）了。自從競購Scottish Power失敗整整一年來，E.ON公司總裁伍爾夫伯諾泰特一直都圖謀卷土重來收購恩德薩，從而使E.ON公司成為在30多個國家擁有5千余萬客戶的全球最大

17、電力與燃氣公司之一。Mr Bernotat's grand plan is facing strong resistance in Madrid. The Spanish government wants to keep Endesa in Spanish hands, so the country's regulator imposed no fewer than 19 conditions on the German bid (and later added some more for good measure). The deal is also entangled in

18、 a legal dispute between Endesa and Gas Natural, another Spanish power company that wants to buy Endesa. Meanwhile the merger of GDF and Suez is in serious trouble. On November 21st a judge in Paris blocked GDF from completing the deal. The judge agreed that workers' representatives, who are afr

19、aid of job cuts, needed more time to look at the terms of the deal. GDF immediately appealed, but the appeals court upheld5 the ruling. 伯諾泰特的宏偉藍圖正面臨馬德里方面強有力的阻撓。西班牙政府希望Endesa繼續(xù)掌控在西班牙人手中，所以該國監(jiān)管機構對德國人的收購強加了不下19個限制條件（后來又追加了一些條款）。這場收購還卷入了西班牙燃氣公司Gas Natural與其欲收購的Endesa之間的法律爭論之中。其間，GDF與Suez的合并也遇到了大麻煩。11月21

20、日，巴黎一位法官判令禁止GDF繼續(xù)實施合并。該法官認為，擔心合并會招致裁員的工人代表需要更多的時間來考慮這筆交易的各項條款。GDF隨即提出了上訴，但上訴法庭維持了一審法庭的判決。（5）The delay will postpone a shareholders' vote on the deal until next spring, when the campaign for the French presidency will be in full swing6. Doing the deal just before the election will be tricky, but

21、trying to do it afterwards will be even harder. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist candidate for the presidency, has vowed to renationalise GDF if she wins. And Nicolas Sarkozy, the most promising candidate of the centre-right, might well drop his half-hearted support for the merger. 如此拖延下去的話，股

22、東對這次交易的投票就只能推遲到恰逢法國總統(tǒng)競選熱火朝天的明年春天舉行了。要在選舉前做成這筆交易很難，然而想在選舉后做成就更是難上加難。社會黨總統(tǒng)候選人塞戈雷納勞爾已經(jīng)立誓一旦獲選就將GDF重新收歸國有。最有希望獲勝的中右翼總統(tǒng)候選人尼古拉斯薩爾科奇對這次合并的態(tài)度原本就比較曖昧，他最終也完全有可能徹底放棄對它的支持。But insiders still reckon the two mega-mergers will go ahead. “We are confident the Spanish and French deals will eventually go through,” say

23、s José Javier Ruiz Fernández, a utilities analyst at Exane, a French broker. The political cost of the Spanish government's tactics is high, so it will probably give up its resistance to E.ON. The European Commission ruled in September that all but one of the 19 conditions imposed on t

24、he E.ON bid were illegal, and it said on November 29th that all of the regulator's new conditions were illegal too. 不過知情人士仍認為兩大公司的合并會進行下去。法國Exane經(jīng)紀公司公用事業(yè)分析專家路易斯費爾南德斯說：“我們堅信法西之間的這筆買賣最終是可以做成的。”西班牙政府將為它所采取的手段付出高昂的政治代價，因此它很有可能不再阻撓E.ON公司入主Endesa。歐盟委員會于9月裁定強加給E.ON公司的19個附加條件幾乎無一例外都是不合法的，接著在11月29日又稱監(jiān)管部門

25、新增的條款也都不合法。Next year consolidation will continue, though at a less busy pace. Valuations of European utilities are now very high. Governments remain opposed to acquisitions of utilities by foreignersexcept, that is, in Britain. After the takeover of Scottish Power, foreigners will own four of Britai

26、n's six big utilities. Only Centrica, a gas retailer, and Scottish and Southern, the third-biggest energy utility, will remain in domestic hands. （6）They are tempting targets, but any suitor7 will need deep pocketsand confidence that the European market will indeed, despite all the political med

27、dling, soon become truly open.合并明年還將繼續(xù)，不過步子會稍慢一些。目前收購歐洲公用事業(yè)公司的門檻還非常高。各國政府依舊反對外商并購本國公用事業(yè)公司英國除外。收購Scottish Power后，外商將入主英國6家大型公用事業(yè)公司中的4家。掌握在英國人自己手中的僅剩下天然氣零售商Centrica和第三大公用能源公司Scottish&Southern。這兩家公司具有很強的吸引力，但任何打算收購他們的公司都必須有殷實的家底，并且確信無論遭到怎樣的政治干預，歐洲能源市場都會很快真正實現(xiàn)開放。QUIZ英譯漢（將劃線部分英文翻譯成中文）：NOTES(OXFORD)1.

28、 bog v. v (-gg-) (phr v) bog (sth) down (usu passive 通常用于被動語態(tài)) (a) (cause sth to) sink into mud or wet ground （使某物）陷入泥沼: The tank (got) bogged down in the mud. 坦克陷入泥沼之中. (b) (fig 比喻) (cause sth to) become stuck and unable to make progress （使某物）陷入困境不能前進: Our discussions got bogged down in irrelevant detail. 我們的討論糾纏在無關緊要的細節(jié)上.2. fren