浑水、奥兰都该质疑

Muddy Waters took its name from a Chinese proverb about fishing in unclear waters. It doesn’t get much cloudier than a company whose operations span Uruguayan dairy farming, California tomato-processing and flour-milling in Ghana. That makes the shortseller’s long-awaited report on Olam, the Singapore commodities trader, equally hard to assess. But the report, now published online, does raise questions to which Olam must respond.

浑水公司(Muddy Waters)得名于中国的一句成语——浑水摸鱼。但比起一家在乌拉圭经营奶牛尝在加州做番茄加工、在加纳开面粉加工厂的企业，浑水公司并没有“浑浊多少。考虑到这一点，我们同样很难对这家做空公司令人期待已久的有关新加坡大宗商品交易商奥兰(Olam)的报告做出评估。但这份现在已在网上公布的报告，确实提出了一些令奥兰无法回避的问题。

The claims include typical accounting eyebrow-raisers, such as frequent revisions that rarely affect profits and potentially curious moves in cash balances. Muddy Waters also claims that Olam’s profits are bolstered by paper gains and the use of derivatives recorded at modelled, not market, prices. Capital spending it describes as “a black hole. Olam has rejected the claims, saying that there was “no substance in the broad allegations and that it would respond in further detail. It filed a defamation claim in the Singapore high court last week over similar comments by Carson Block, Muddy Waters’ research director, at a recent presentation in London.

浑水提出的指控包括一些典型的可疑会计处理，例如几乎不影响利润的频繁报表修正，以及可能有蹊跷的现金余额处理。浑水还声称，奥兰的利润得益于它的账面利润以及一些衍生品的使用，这些衍生品以模型价格（而非市场价格）入账。浑水称奥兰的资本支出为“一个黑洞。奥兰否认这些指控，它表示，这一大串指控“缺乏根据，公司将做出进一步具体回应。奥兰上周向新加坡高等法院提起诉讼，指控浑水研究主管卡森·布洛克(Carson Block)最近在伦敦一次发布会发表的类似言论为诽谤。

Not all the report’s claims seem to merit the same attention from Olam. The paper gains are fairly well-understood by Olam’s followers. Derivatives marked to models exist the world over. Investors can choose to avoid derivatives traders if they like. But Olam should address the restatements and its capex in far more detail. Better understanding of niche commodity trading would be generally helpful.

在这份报告提出的指控中，似乎并不是所有的指控都值得奥兰予以同等的关注。奥兰的支持者们比较充分地理解账面利润的问题。衍生品以模型价格入账的做法也非常普遍。如果他们愿意的话，投资者可以选择不投资衍生品交易商。但报表重述以及资本支出(capex)问题则需要奥兰做出详细解释。更好地理解利基的大宗商品交易，通常有助于发现真正的问题所在。

Muddy Waters’ goal is not to demand explanation but to profit from falling shares and bonds. To that end, its own numbers are not above reproach: it presents many findings as a percentage of post-tax, not pre-tax profits, which makes them look larger. Investors must question Olam, but they should not take any accusations as read.

浑水的目标不是要求奥兰做出解释，而是从股价和债券价格下跌中获利。就这一点而言，浑水自己的数据也并非毫无瑕疵：它给出的很多数据都是占税后利润（而非税前利润）的比例，这样得出的数据看上去数值更大。投资者必须对奥兰这家公司打个问号，但他们也不应不假思索地把任何指控都当真。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析