阿里巴巴收購優酷土豆或許是一次雙贏
What may soon be streaming at the Chinese video site Youku Tudou are tears of relief.
可能很快，中國視頻網站優酷土豆便會流下如釋重負的淚水。
Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company, has offered to buy the 82 percent of Youku that it doesn’t already own, at a 30 percent premium to the market price. A deal would end Youku’s unprofitable run as a public company and help Alibaba realize its multiscreen strategy. The move should also create value. Though that bit is most likely an afterthought.
中國最大的電子商務企業阿里巴巴提出購買優酷餘下的82%股份，其出價高於市價30%。這宗交易將終止優酷作爲上市公司的虧損營運，並有助阿里巴巴實現多屏戰略。此舉應該也能帶來收入，但這應該不是主要目的。
Youku is the dominant force in Chinese online video — effectively the YouTube of the People’s Republic. Like YouTube, it has never reported a profit. Aside from advertising fees, Youku is now charging users to watch its best content, but that means giving them something worth watching.
優酷在中國網絡視頻中舉足輕重，實際上如同中國的YouTube。跟YouTube一樣，優酷從未報告過盈利。除廣告費外，優酷目前還向用戶收費，收費用戶能觀看最精彩的內容，但這意味着優酷需要爲用戶提供有觀看價值的視頻。
The fees Youku paid for content increased 78 percent over the last year to 744 million renminbi, or about $117 million, in the latest quarter. Larger rivals like Baidu, a search engine that also owns an online video site, can swallow those costs with ease. That’s not the case for tiny Youku.
在最近一個季度，優酷在內容方面的支出較一年前增加了78%，達到了7.44億元人民幣（約1.17億美元）。搜索引擎百度也擁有網絡視頻網站。像百度這種大型競爭對手，能輕鬆地承擔這筆成本，但弱小的優酷就不能了。
It may seem petty to consider whether the deal creates value for Alibaba shareholders, but, as it happens, it probably does. The 30 percent premium is worth around $1.2 billion. Yet Youku’s bandwidth costs alone — what it pays for telecoms and data storage — are an annualized $213 million. If the data colossus Alibaba can eliminate those, the savings, taxed at Youku’s 15 percent rate and capitalized, are worth more than $1.8 billion.
這宗交易能否爲阿里巴巴的股東創造價值？或許考慮這個問題會顯得很小氣，但這還真有可能發生。阿里巴巴給出的30%溢價大約相當於12億美元。然而，單單是花在電信企業和數據存儲上的帶寬成本，優酷每年的支出便達到2.13億美元。如果數據巨頭阿里巴巴能消除這方面的支出並注入資本（優酷需繳納15%的稅款），便能節省超過18億美元。
Beyond that, the benefits of the deal are fairly abstract. Perhaps Alibaba will create a Chinese answer to Netflix. Perhaps it will sell more video advertising spots to its online merchants. Alibaba and Youku may even be able to use data about shoppers’ online habits to create programming relevant to their activities.
除此之外，這宗交易帶來的收益相當抽象。或許阿里巴巴會創造一箇中國版的Netflix。或許阿里巴巴會向網上店鋪推銷更多視頻廣告位。阿里巴巴和優酷甚至還可以利用購物者上網習慣的數據，製作與用戶活動有關的節目。
But really, who cares? Youku is less than 3 percent of the combined companies’ market value. And approval is more than likely a given, since almost 60 percent of the shares are held by Alibaba and its supporters, such as Victor Koo, a Youku founder, who will also receive an undisclosed package for staying on as chairman.
不過說真的，誰在乎呢？優酷佔合併後公司市值不足3%。而且阿里巴巴及其支持者持有優酷近60%的股份，批准合併已如探囊取物。支持者就包括優酷創始人古永鏘，他將會收到條款未對外公佈的補償，以換取其留任董事長。
