港交所竞购LME的数字玄机

When it comes to valuing a business as complicated as the London Metal Exchange, you would think the advisers to Hong Kong’s bourse would not have resorted to a kind of numerical feng shui.

说到给一家像伦敦金属交易所(London Metal Exchange)这样复杂的企业估值，你会认为香港交易所的顾问们不会求助于数字风水一类的东西。

Yet the ￡1.388bn that Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearinghas offered in an agreed bid for the venerable British institution is, whether by accident or design, curiously close to the Asian bourse’s own stock ticker of “388.

然而，说来奇怪，香港交易所(Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing)竞购这家久负盛名的英国企业的出价——13.88亿英镑，却包含了（不管是无意还是有意）这家亚洲交易所自己的股票代码“388这几个数字，伦敦金属交易所接受了这一报价。

It is a strange twist in a deal that underscores yet again the China factor in the global economy. China accounts for 40 per cent of worldwide demand for metals, and HKEx believes it has a chance to use its connections there to boost Chinese participation on the LME beyond its current 25 per cent level.

这是这笔交易中的一个奇怪之处，这笔交易再次突显出全球经济中的中国因素。中国金属需求占全球的40%。香港交易所认为，它有机会利用自己在中国内地的关系，让中国在伦敦金属交易所的参与水平超过目前的25%。

Yet the deal is about more than that. Assuming it is approved by LME shareholders, it signals the start of a shift away from the west to Asia in how prices are fixed between buyers and sellers – a process known as “price discovery.

然而，这笔交易还具有更深远的意义。假设交易获得伦敦金属交易所股东的批准，这表明，买家和卖家之间的价格确定过程（即“价格发现）已开始从西方转移到亚洲。

For exchanges, where much of that price discovery takes place, this is an important moment. For more than a century, Chicago, with its noisy pits, was the place where prices were set and hedged by farmers and commercial buyers of wheat. The same was true of crude oil at the New York Mercantile Exchange. London also has its massive oil market and the LME, where global benchmarks are set daily in the prices of copper, aluminium and zinc.

对于交易所——交易所是价格发现的重要场所——而言，这是一个重要时刻。100多年来，芝加哥是农民和小麦商人确定价格并进行相应对冲的地方，各个交易场所里向来熙熙攘攘。在纽约商品交易所(New York Mercantile Exchange)，原油的价格在这里确定。伦敦也拥有大规模的石油市场，还有伦敦金属交易所，每日铜、铝和锌的国际基准价格就是在这里确定的。

It has taken an Asian exchange – with no previous record of acquisitions – to land the last remaining prize in the exchange business and set that shift towards Asia in motion. HKEx’s western peers have spent much of the past two years entangled in a string of failed mergers – most recently, an attempt by NYSE Euronext, operator of the New York Stock Exchange, to combine with Deutsche B?rse. NYSE Euronext was among the losing bidders for the LME, withdrawing after deciding that the auction had bid the LME’s price up too far.

一家此前没有任何并购记录的亚洲交易所获得了交易所行业仅存的最后一件珍宝，并启动了价格发现向亚洲转移的进程。在过去两年的大部分时间里，西方交易所的许多并购行动均以失败告终，最新一个例子是纽交所(NYSE)的运营商纽约-泛欧交易所集团(NYSE Euronext)试图与德意志交易所(Deutsche B?rse)合并而未能成功。纽约-泛欧交易所集团也曾有意竞购伦敦金属交易所，后来认为伦敦金属交易所的价格被哄抬得过高而退出了。

Now investors in HKEx think the same and have been heading for the exits, put off by a price that is 180 times the LME’s earnings last year. Even stripping out that the LME was not run on a for-profit basis, and a fee increase planned for next month, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods estimates the deal is still being done on a forward earnings multiple of 46 times.

如今，香港交易所的投资者也这样认为，他们一直希望退出，香港交易所的收购价是伦敦金属交易所去年收益的180倍，这令投资者望而却步。即便不考虑伦敦金属交易所在经营中不以盈利为根本目的，并且计划下月提高收费，Keefe, Bruyette & Woods估计，这笔交易中的预期市盈率也达到了46倍。

Shares in HKEx now stand a third lower than their January level, making them the worst performing of the largest 20 exchanges, according to Bloomberg.

根据彭博(Bloomberg)的数据，香港交易所股价较1月水平已跌去三分之一，这令其成为全球最大20家交易所中表现最差的一家。

This is knee-jerk stuff. HKEx probably had no choice but to try, precisely because of where exchanges are likely to make a lot of money in coming years: commodities and commodity derivatives in Asia. And there is no shortage of precedents for richly valued deals in the sector, where scarcity value and strategic necessity have driven deals that initially looked crazy.

这是一种下意识的反应。或许港交所没有别的选择，只能去试一把，原因是未来几年交易所可能在下列领域获得丰厚利润：亚洲的大宗商品和大宗商品衍生品。在该行业，估值很高的交易之前并不少见，稀缺价值和战略必要性促成了这些一开始看上去有些疯狂的交易。

The London Stock Exchange’s acquisition in April of a controlling stake in LCH.Clearnetis one. Yet securing a clearing house in London was seen as crucial to the UK bourse’s ability to punch its weight globally.

今年4月伦敦证交所(LSE)购入LCH.Clearnet控股权的交易就是这样一个例子。这家英国交易所能否在全球范围内发挥影响力，在伦敦拥有一家清算所被视为是一个关键。

Asia is starting to mature beyond a culture of equities and one where fixed income, currencies, commodities and derivatives are in demand as companies seek more sophisticated risk management tools. That is pushing exchanges to diversify. This month the Thai exchange launched its first foreign currency futures contract, on the US dollar.

在亚洲，随着企业寻求更复杂的风险管理工具，股票文化以外的各个领域正开始走向成熟，固定收益、外汇、大宗商品和衍生品市场需求旺盛。这正促使交易所走向业务多元化。本月，泰国交易所推出了首份外币（美元）期货合约。

Bursa Malaysiahas been making it easier for local investors to trade derivatives – mostly the exchange’s benchmark palm oil futures.

马来西亚交易所(Bursa Malaysia)一直在为本地投资者的衍生品交易提供更多的便利，主要是该交易所的基准棕榈油期货。

This week an Indonesian government official was reported as saying Jakarta plans to allow foreign investors to buy stakes of up to 40 per cent in the country’s commodity exchanges, which already offer palm oil and tin futures. CME Groupand IntercontinentalExchange, the two biggest US derivatives exchanges – which lost out to HKEx in the LME battle – are also expanding in Asia, using Singapore as a base.

上周，据报道，一位印尼政府官员表示，印尼政府计划允许外国投资者持有该国大宗商品交易所最高40%的股权，该国的大宗商品交易所已经在提供棕榈油和锡的期货合约。

Against this backdrop, HKEx could hardly stand still. UBS estimates that this will be the fifth straight year that HKEx will have shown little or no earnings growth, thanks to over-reliance on weak equity market volumes and on listings that, though headline-grabbing, still only deliver 12 per cent of revenues.

此外，美国两大衍生品交易所——芝加哥商品交易所集团(CME Group)和洲际交易所(IntercontinentalExchange)正以新加坡为基地，在亚洲扩张。两家交易所在竞购伦敦金属交易所的过程中输给了香港交易所。

Nonetheless, Hong Kong’s London venture comes with a health warning. With signs not only of weakening trading volumes globally but that the much-vaunted commodities supercycle may be over, it would take a brave investor to put any hard numbers on earnings potential. Time to pick a lucky number, perhaps.

在这种背景下，香港交易所几乎无法止步不前。瑞银(UBS)估计，由于过度依赖于疲弱的股市成交量以及仅占收入12%的上市交易（尽管媒体极为关注），这将是港交所连续第5个收益增速较低甚至没有增长的年头。

Jeremy Grant is the Financial Times’s Asia Regional Corporate Correspondent

然而，香港交易所收购伦敦金属交易所的举动带来了一份健康警告。有迹象显示，不仅全球交易量正在下滑，而且被大肆夸耀的大宗商品“超级周期可能也已结束，因此，要确切地预估收益前景，投资者需要勇气。或许，现在是该选一个幸运数字。