科技企业要明白1999年一去不返
Expensive, gratuitous M&A eventually came to exemplify the indulgent decline of Yahoo in recent years. The $1.1bn acquisition of picture website Tumblr in 2013 has just been written down to less than $400m. It is a lesson Yahoo’s acquirer, Verizon, would be wise to acknowledge.
代价高昂且无意义的并购最终成为雅虎(Yahoo!)近年来自我放纵的衰落的例证。2013年，雅虎斥资11亿美元收购图片网站Tumblr，最近这项资产的价值被减记为不到4亿美元。如果聪明的话，刚收购雅虎的美国电信巨头Verizon要记取这个教训。
Yesterday, the US telecoms titan confirmed it would acquire Yahoo’s internet search and email businesses for $4.83bn. Yahoo will be combined with AOL, that other 1990s internet dynamo that Verizon bought last year for $4.4bn. The telco wants to create a solid third digital advertising option for marketers, after Google and Facebook, one that can energise a company whose mobile and landline phone businesses have stagnated (their revenues fell by nearly 2 per cent in the last quarter).
昨日，Verizon证实，将以48.3亿美元收购雅虎的互联网搜索和电邮业务。雅虎将与美国在线(AOL)合并，后者是上世纪90年代另一家互联网巨头，去年被Verizon以44亿美元收购。Verizon希望面向企业营销人员打造一个仅次于谷歌(Google)和Facebook的优秀数字广告平台，从而为这家移动和固话业务陷入停滞（上季度收入下滑近2%）的电信公司带来活力。
Whatever bet Verizon is making, it is not a massive one. Its market value is a juicy $230bn, while the combined value of the AOL and Yahoo acquisitions is less than $10bn ( Facebook and Google, against whom AOL/Yahoo will line up, have a combined market cap of a whopping $850bn). There is a certain sense of humiliation for Yahoo. Having once claimed it was a winner in the mobile internet age, Yahoo had to sell itself quickly under siege from activist investors. Its growth rate, once merely mediocre, turned truly dreadful last quarter, dipping nearly a fifth.
不管Verizon押注什么，这反正不算豪赌。该公司市值高达2300亿美元，而美国在线和雅虎加起来不到100亿美元（二者合并后的竞争对手Facebook和谷歌的市值之和为8500亿美元）。雅虎肯定有耻辱感，它曾自称移动互联网时代的赢家，如今却在维权投资者围攻之下不得不迅速卖身。其业绩曾经只是增长平平，但上个季度开始变得可怕起来，下滑了近五分之一。
Still, for an enterprise derided as literally worthless — remember, the $37bn group equity value consists largely of its stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan — a price tag approaching $5bn counts as a near-miracle for Yahoo shareholders. Ultimately, trying to resurrect the online business while simultaneously sorting out what to do with these Asian investments proved exhausting for Yahoo.
然而，对于一家被嘲笑为实际上一文不值的企业——记住，该集团370亿美元的股权价值大部分是其在阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和雅虎日本(Yahoo! Japan)的股权——而言，接近50亿美元的售价对于雅虎股东而言近乎奇迹。毕竟，试图重振在线业务同时又想处理好亚洲的这些投资已弄得雅虎精疲力尽。
Technology companies live in less lenient times than the heady 1990s; witness the hurried sale of social network site LinkedIn to Microsoft recently for $26bn, well short of the former’s all-time high. Giant tech and telecom vendors like Microsoft and Verizon, with their annuity-like businesses, certainly have the cash flow and capacity to swallow the minnows. Yet they have not shown that their corporate visions are much more than educated guesses. And Verizon’s dealmaking adventures could prove as ill-fated as Yahoo’s. Thanks to its scale, Verizon will have a much wider margin for error.
科技公司现在所处的环境不像令人兴奋的上世纪90年代那么宽松了；看看最近社交网站领英(LinkedIn)被微软(Microsoft)以260亿美元匆匆收购的事实吧，这个价格远远低于领英曾经达到的最高价值。微软、Verizon等大型科技和电信集团凭借它们年金式的业务，肯定拥有吃掉小鱼小虾的现金流和实力。然而它们并没有证明，它们的公司愿景绝不只是根据经验推想出来的。Verizon的并购冒险也可能与雅虎的并购一样没有好下场。还好Verizon规模大，它将拥有更多犯错的空间。
