(本文选自《经济学人》20201017期)

背景介绍：

自2018年以来，由唐纳德·特朗普总统领导的美国政府便将贸易战的枪口对准了中国，不仅通过一系列出口禁令阻碍中国企业的发展，还对一些中国热门应用实施封禁。在中美贸易战的背景下，中国企业的海外发展受到了巨大的影响，但即便如此，仍有大批中国企业赴美上市。

Why Chinese firms still flock to American stock exchanges

为什么仍有大批中国企业赴美上市?

Washington is increasingly hostile to Chinese firms. Not Wall Street

华盛顿对中国企业的敌意越来越大，但华尔街并非如此

Chinese firms get a frosty reception in America these days. President Donald Trump is a relentless China-basher. His administration has tried to crush Huawei, a telecoms giant, ban TikTok and WeChat, two popular Chinese-owned apps, and expel Chinese companies listed on American stock exchanges.

近日来，中国企业在美国受到了冷遇。美国总统唐纳德·特朗普毫不手软地打压着中国。他所领导的美国政府试图击垮电信巨头华为、封禁两款中国热门应用(抖音和微信)，并试图对在美国证券交易所上市的中国公司进行驱逐。

No wonder that some have steered clear of late. Ant Group, a fintech star that may once have followed Alibaba, the tech titan with which it is affiliated, onto the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is about to float in Hong Kong and Shanghai instead.

难怪最近有些企业不再选择赴美上市了。金融科技明星企业蚂蚁集 团本可追随科技巨头阿里巴巴(同时也是蚂蚁集 团的母公司)的步伐，前去纽约证券交易所上市，但最终转而打算在香港和上海上市。

Last month Sina, the Nasdaq-listed owner of Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter, said it would go private in a $2.6bn deal. A day later Tencent, another Chinese online colossus, said it would buy out Sogou, a NYSE-traded search company, for $3.5bn.

上月，在纳斯达克上市的新浪(中国版推特、新浪微博的所有者)表示，将通过一笔26亿美元的交易实现私有化。一天后，中国另一家互联网巨头腾讯宣布，将以35亿美元的价格收购搜狗(一家在纽交所上市的搜索公司)。

Many Chinese firms that might once have flocked to New York are eyeing their home stockmarkets. According to consultants at Deloitte, from January to September new listings in Hong Kong raised some $28bn, two-thirds more than in the same period last year. The money raised by newcomers to the biggest mainland exchanges, in Shanghai and Shenzhen, has reached 355bn yuan ($53bn), 2.5 times the comparable figure in 2019.

许多曾经赴美上市的中国企业如今将目光转向了国内股票市场。德勤会计事务所的咨询师表示，今年1月至9月，香港新股发行募资约280亿美元，较去年同期增长了三分之二。而在中国内地两家交易所(分别位于上海和深圳)，新股发行募集资金已达3550亿元(约合530亿美元)，是2019年同期的2.5倍。

Look closer, though, and plenty of Chinese startups continue to covet American listings. In August KE Holdings, an online property firm backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group, raised $2.1bn; XPeng, an electric-car maker, picked up $1.5bn. Lufax, a fintech firm which this month filed to go public on the NYSE, may raise $3bn. All told, Chinese firms have raised nearly $9bn in American initial public offerings (IPOs) since January, and another $8bn in secondary share sales.

不过，仔细观察，你就会发现，仍有许多中国初创企业渴望赴美上市。今年8月，由日本软银集 团参与投资的在线房地产公司贝壳找房和电动汽车制造商小鹏汽车先后赴美上市，分别募资21亿美元和15亿美元。而本月申请在纽交所上市的金融科技公司陆金所或将募资30亿美元。自今年1月以来，中国企业在美国首次公开募股募集资金总额已达近90亿美元，而在增发中又募资80亿美元。

Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, reckons that the money raised from Chinese IPOs on the NYSE and Nasdaq has held up during Mr Trump’s presidency. The market value of Chinese listings in America now exceeds $1.6trn, of which American investors hold nearly a third. Goldman Sachs forecasts a record number of Chinese listings in New York this year.

据投资银行高盛估计，在特朗普就任总统期间，中国企业在纽交所和纳斯达克首次公开募股募集资金的势头一直未减。在美上市中国企业的总市值现已超过1.6万亿美元，其中近三分之一的股票由美国投资者持有。高盛预 测，今年赴美上市的中国企业的数量将创下历史新高。

Why would Chinese companies flock to America given the apparently toxic environment? For one thing, as Adam Lysenko of Rhodium Group, a research firm, points out, it is often easier to list on American exchanges than in China, with its more restrictive regulatory regime. Ant’s blockbuster stockmarket debut hit a last-minute snag this week when China’s top securities regulator unexpectedly delayed approval for the Hong Kong leg of its dual listing.

在如此不利的环境下，为何仍有大批中国企业涌向美国呢?首先，正如研究公司荣鼎集 团的亚当•李森科所指出的那样，由于中国股市的监管制度更为严格，因此在美国上市往往更容易一些。蚂蚁金服在股市的首次亮相受到万众瞩目，但本周却在最后一刻遭遇了挫折，中国证监会出人意料地暂缓了对其在香港上市的批准。

An overseas listing also allows mainland companies to get round China’s strict currency controls. Gary Rieschel of Qiming Ventures, a venture-capital firm, says that going public in New York, the world’s pre-eminent financial centre, makes sense for Chinese firms like Lufax keen on global expansion. For rising technology startups in particular Wall Street also represents an imprimatur from the world’s most sophisticated investors, and access to its deepest and most liquid capital markets.

在海外上市的另一个好处是，能使内地公司绕开中国严格的货币监管机制。风投公司启明创投的盖里·瑞斯彻说，对于像陆金所这样热衷于全球扩张的中国企业来说，选择在全球最著名的金融中心纽约上市有着重要的意义。对于正在迅速崛起的科技初创企业来说，华尔街还代表着全球最富经验的投资者的认可，以及进入资金最深厚、最 具流动性的资本市场的途径。

Shareholders, for their part, get a slice of its perkiest stocks. Total returns for an index of Chinese firms listed in America tracked by BNY Mellon, a bank, have risen by nearly half in the past 12 months, twice the rate for the S&P 500 index of big American firms.

对于股东来说，他们可以分得最 具潜力的股票。纽约梅隆银行追踪的在美上市中国公司指数的总回报率在过去12个月里增长了近50%，是追踪美国大型企业的标准普尔500指数增幅的两倍。

Mr Lysenko calculates that from 2017 to 2019 Chinese firms listed on American exchanges traded at higher valuations relative to earnings than companies in the S&P 500, on the Nasdaq, or indeed those whose shares changed hands on the Shenzhen and Hong Kong stockmarkets. These “red” stocks are simply too tasty for American investors, red as they already are in tooth and claw, to forgo.

据李森科估计，从2017年到2019年，在美上市的中国公司的市盈率高于在纳斯达克上市的标准普尔500指数成分股公司，甚至高于在沪深股市转手的公司。这些“红色”股票虽是“红牙血爪”，但对于美国投资者来说却是真香的存在，有什么理由拒绝它们呢。

(红色标注词为重难点词汇)

重难点词汇：

relentless [rɪˈlentləs] adj. 无情的;残酷的;不间断的

colossus [kəˈlɑːsəs] n. 巨像;巨人

covet [ˈkʌvət] v. 垂涎;觊觎

blockbuster [ˈblɑːkbʌstər] n. 轰动;巨型炸弹

snag [snæɡ] n. 障碍 vt. 造成阻碍

imprimatur [ˌɪmprɪˈmɑːtər] n. 批准;认可

perky [ˈpɜːrki] adj. 神气的;得意洋洋的;自信的