科技企業要明白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.

代價高昂且無意義的併購最終成爲雅虎(Yahoo!)近年來自我放縱的衰落的例證。2013年，雅虎斥資11億美元收購圖片網站Tumblr，最近這項資產的價值被減記爲不到4億美元。如果聰明的話，剛收購雅虎的美國電信巨頭Verizon要記取這個教訓。

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證實，將以48.3億美元收購雅虎的互聯網搜索和電郵業務。雅虎將與美國在線(AOL)合併，後者是上世紀90年代另一家互聯網巨頭，去年被Verizon以44億美元收購。Verizon希望面向企業營銷人員打造一個僅次於谷歌(Google)和Facebook的優秀數字廣告平臺，從而爲這家移動和固話業務陷入停滯（上季度收入下滑近2%）的電信公司帶來活力。

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押注什麼，這反正不算豪賭。該公司市值高達2300億美元，而美國在線和雅虎加起來不到100億美元（二者合併後的競爭對手Facebook和谷歌的市值之和爲8500億美元）。雅虎肯定有恥辱感，它曾自稱移動互聯網時代的贏家，如今卻在維權投資者圍攻之下不得不迅速賣身。其業績曾經只是增長平平，但上個季度開始變得可怕起來，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，對於一家被嘲笑爲實際上一文不值的企業——記住，該集團370億美元的股權價值大部分是其在阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和雅虎日本(Yahoo! Japan)的股權——而言，接近50億美元的售價對於雅虎股東而言近乎奇蹟。畢竟，試圖重振在線業務同時又想處理好亞洲的這些投資已弄得雅虎精疲力盡。

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.

科技公司現在所處的環境不像令人興奮的上世紀90年代那麼寬鬆了；看看最近社交網站領英(LinkedIn)被微軟(Microsoft)以260億美元匆匆收購的事實吧，這個價格遠遠低於領英曾經達到的最高價值。微軟、Verizon等大型科技和電信集團憑藉它們年金式的業務，肯定擁有吃掉小魚小蝦的現金流和實力。然而它們並沒有證明，它們的公司願景絕不只是根據經驗推想出來的。Verizon的併購冒險也可能與雅虎的併購一樣沒有好下場。還好Verizon規模大，它將擁有更多犯錯的空間。