华尔街重返硅谷，淘金行为或遇冷

    他们回来了。

    在第一次网络泡沫破裂后弃硅谷而去的华尔街投行家们已全体回到这个科技业的圣地，寻找的当然是帮助初创企业上市的赚钱机会。不然还能是什么？

    然而，华尔街投资银行界——美国银行美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)、花旗集团(Citigroup)、高盛(Goldman Sachs)、JP摩根(JP Morgan)、摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和瑞银(UBS)——的银行家们这次可能会受到冷遇。这种敌意有点类似翰•休斯的电影里描绘的情形：勤奋的孩子们就是不想让有钱人从他们的发明中赚钱。此外，投行们是否对IPO交易进行低定价，以便能以低廉的价格卖给机构客户——损失初创企业内部人士和创始人的利益，硅谷对此也心存疑问。前瑞银媒体研究全球策略师、现任Minyanville Media副董事长克里斯托弗•迪克森直言，“硅谷对华尔街一直是爱恨交加。”

    迪克森和其他长期关注这一现象的人士表示，现在业界对投行两头吃的做法日益反感：IPO前购入看好企业的股份，当这些企业上市时，收取承销和其他客户费用。

    例证A：高盛最近与Facebook的交易。1月份，高盛对这家社交网站投资了4.50亿美元，并代表其再筹资15亿美元，为高盛在美国以外地区的高净值客户提供了一个投资Facebook的机会。因此，高盛似乎有近水楼台的优势来承销Facebook的IPO发行。

    有人说，这种层层关系存在的问题是投行总是能稳赚不赔，即便初创企业和个人投资者亏了。同时扮演投资者和承销商角色的投行往往有能力决定一家公司应何时发行股票——通常是在他们拥有公开上市的财务实力前——收取费用，获得高额回报，但无需用太多自身资金承担风险。

    “当泡沫破灭时，受伤的是他们的客户，因为涉险资金主要是投资者的钱，”肯•马林表示。马林在建立自己的咨询公司为中间市场科技业服务前，曾担任众多科技公司的首席执行官。

    迄今为止，承销市场的大赢家看来是担任5月份社交网站LinkedIn和6月中旬音乐网站Pandora IPO主承销商的JP摩根和摩根士丹利，其中摩根士丹利有望从LinkedIn一单IPO中收取700-1，000万美元的费用(JP摩根和高盛同为Zipcar 4月份的IPO承销商。)

    租车网站ZipCar、LinkedIn和Pandora首日上市均大幅超越发行价，虽然Pandora现已比发行价16美元低了几美元。

    为何发行价和二级市场价之间存在差距？许多硅谷风险投资人和融资家表示，这是因为投行家是外来投机分子，他们没有在硅谷以及他们帮助上市的公司中花费足够的时间来准确评估公司潜力。

    不幸的是这些初创公司不能像Hambrecht & Quist投资银行和其他专业小型银行时代那样，绕过这些大投行。一些新成立的公司计划募集的资金达到50-100亿美元，数目庞大，只有高盛、摩根士丹利或者JP摩根有办法完成。而且，正如迪克森所说，“事情不仅仅是公开上市这么简单；它还涉及到上市后如何为公司提供支持等，这使得大券商有能力把大科技公司玩弄于鼓掌之间。”

    但像Facebook这样的热门公司确实有讨价还价的砝码，至少在向承销商支付费用时是这样：消息人士预测Facebook将就标准的7%费率进行讨价还价，自从谷歌(Google) IPO以来这一标准费率已略降至5%或更低。如果一家投行不愿接受，肯定会有竞争对手愿意为一项大规模发行交易做出让步。(美国CNBC电视台最近报道，Facebook正在筹划估值1,000亿美元的IPO发行。) 专业小型银行MESA的管理合伙人马克•帕提考夫表示：“由于表现出色或品牌认可度高而处于优势地位的科技公司显然已在市场中比投行拥有更高的议价力。资金已经商品化；对这些公司而言，投行只是获取资金的渠道之一。”

    They're back.

    After all but abandoning Silicon Valley in the wake of the first dotcom implosion, Wall Street bankers have returned to the tech Mecca en masse, in search of -- what else? -- riches to be made taking startups public.

    But the moneymen of the bulge-bracket -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JP Morgan (JPM), Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS (UBS)—can expect a chilly reception. Some of the ill will feels a bit like something out of a John Hughes movie: The studious kids simply don't like the richies making money off their inventions. And there are questions about whether banks are underpricing the public offering deals they covet, allowing them to sell stock to institutional clients cheaply—at the expense of startup insiders and founders. "Silicon Valley has always had a love-hate relationship with Wall Street," says Christopher Dixon, the former global strategist for media research at UBS and current vice-chairman of Minyanville Media.

    Dixon and other longtime observers of the scene say there's now growing resentment over the banks' practice of double dipping: taking pre-IPO positions in promising startups then collecting underwriting and other client fees when those companies go public.

    Exhibit A: Goldman Sachs' recent deal with Facebook. In January, Goldman invested $450 million in the social networking site and presented its non-U.S.-based high net worth clients with an opportunity to invest in Facebook as part of an effort to raise an additional $1.5 billion on the company's behalf. As a result, Goldman would seem to have an inside track to underwriting Facebook's public offering.

    The problem with these kinds of multilayered relationships, some say, is that the bank always wins, even if the startup and individual investors lose. By being both an investor and an underwriter, the banks are often in a position to dictate when a company should do a stock offering -- often before they have the financial strength to be traded publicly -- collecting fees and seeing big returns without putting much of the banks' own money at risk.

    "When the bubble bursts it is their clients who will get harmed because the money at risk is largely investor money," says Ken Marlin, who served as the CEO of numerous tech companies before founding his own advisory shop serving the middle market tech industry.

    Thus far the big winners in the underwriting game appear to be JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, which served as lead underwriters for LinkedIn's May IPO and Pandora's IPO in mid-June, with Morgan Stanley looking collect $7 to $10 million in fees from the LinkedIn IPO alone. (JP Morgan was an underwriter, along with Goldman Sachs, of Zipcar's April IPO.)

    On the day of their initial offerings shares of ZipCar (ZIP), LinkedIn (LNKD) and Pandora (P) all soared past their offer prices, though Pandora has settled a few bucks below its $16 initial price.

    Why the mismatch between the offering prices and the market values? Many Silicon Valley venture capitalists and financiers say that's because bankers are carpetbaggers who don't spend enough time in the Valley and with the companies they represent to accurately assess their potential.

    Unfortunately for the upstarts, they can't bypass the big banks the way they might have in the days of Hambrecht & Quist and other boutique banks. The sums some new companies are raising -- $5 billion to $10 billion -- are so great that only a Goldman, Morgan Stanely or JP Morgan has the wherewithal to do it. Moreover, as Dixon notes, "it isn't just about getting into the public markets; it's also about being able to support the company in the aftermarket, and that puts these big tech companies right in the hands of the large brokerage firms."

    But hot companies like Facebook do have leverage, at least when it comes to the fees they pay their underwriters: Sources predict Facebook will try to negotiate the standard 7% fee, which has already inched downward since Google's (GOOG) IPO, down to 5% or less. If one bank doesn't like it, there's sure to be a rival that would be willing to take a haircut to be part of what's sure to be a huge offering. (CNBC recently reported that Facebook is planning an IPO that would value the company at $100 billion.) Says Mark Patricof, managing partner at boutique bank MESA: "Technology companies that are in a privileged position through performance or brand acceptance have significantly more leverage than banks in the marketplace. Money is commoditized; the banks are just one source of capital for them."