解锁股票套现获利是风投的本份

    眼下，社交媒体、金融媒体乃至整个媒体圈都在浓墨重彩地报道一些互联网大公司的股票锁定期到期以及内部人士卖盘的消息。作为一个风险投资者，我也卖过几回解锁股，在这里我想就此谈谈自己的一些看法。

    首先，这篇文章无关我所在的风投公司已经、可能或正在考虑对我们可能持有/或不持有的股票采取的行动。这个免责声明是针对那些不了解情况的人。

    当一家风投支持的公司公开上市，市值数十亿美元（或数千亿美元），向这家公司提供早期投资的投资者将拥有很多股票。他们可能很容易就获得这些公司15-20%乃至更多的股票。即便他们拥有的股票不到10%——就像Accel Partners拥有的Facebook股份一样——这些股票的价值可能也会达到几十亿美元。

    实现投资回报是投资者的职责。我再重申一遍。实现投资回报是投资者的职责。这是评判我们的标准。账面收益是不错。但最终，对投资者的评判还要看他们获得的现金或流动股回报除以投资资本。对于一只风险投资基金而言，3倍回报算是不赖，5倍回报就可以称得上相当出色，10倍则要十年一遇。

    当一位投资人看到单一持股市值已达到他们整个基金的3倍、5倍或10倍时，你可以肯定他们将锁定这些收益。这可以产生出色的投资表现。而且，不锁定收益的下行风险远远超出持股市值相比基金规模再涨上一、两倍的上行风险。

    那么，问题就来了：风险投资公司是好的公开市场投资者吗？他们应当管理/持有上市股票吗？我手头没有掌握翔实的数据，但一些数据显示，我们风险投资公司是糟糕的公开市场投资者。因此，很多风险投资公司的政策都是公开上市股票要尽可能快地剔除出投资组合。

    我认为，这是一项好政策。风险投资就是赚取从公司初创到公开上市前的价值。其他人应当将重点放在赚取公开上市后的价值。

    那么，让我们再回到锁定期到期和由此产生的内部人士卖盘潮。这是意料之中的现象，事实上公开市场也有心理准备。看看在这些新上市公司的股票锁定期到期前几周所有新建的空头头寸吧。投资者们知道将有大量股票流入市场，赌定它将影响股价，而且大多数情况下它的确影响了股价。就像JLM总是喜欢说“性不是这一代发明的”，这种状况自我上世纪80年代中期进入风险投资行业以来就一直存在，我预计还会延续比这长得多的时间。

    因此，对于所有那些对当前的内部人士卖盘感到震惊和愤怒的人们，我建议他们将愤怒转向资本主义的本性。那些当年冒着血本无归风险、押注于年仅20岁的马克•扎克伯格的人们有权获得回报。他们会获得回报。不愿意这么想的人都是在逃避现实。

    本文作者弗莱德•威尔森（@fredwilson）从1996年起担任风险投资人，现为美国合广投资（Union Square Ventures）的执行合伙人。他定期在www.avc.com上发表博客文章。

    译者：早稻米

    There is a lot of sturm und drang out there in the worlds of social media, financial media and just plain media about all the lockups coming off and all the insider selling going on in some big Internet stocks. As someone who has played this game a few times, I thought I'd post some thoughts about this.

    First and foremost, this post has nothing to do with what my venture capital firm has done, might do, or is thinking about doing with specific stocks we might own or not. That's a disclaimer for those who aren't familiar with one.

    When a venture-backed company goes public and is worth billions (or even hundreds of millions), the investors who provided the early capital to that company are going to be sitting on a lot of stock. They can easily own 15-20% or more of these companies. But even if they own less than 10% -- as Accel Partners does in Facebook (FB) -- they can be looking at billions of dollars of value.

    It is an investors job to return capital. I will say that again. It is an investors job to return capital. That is how we are measured. Paper gains are fine. But at the end of the day, an investor will be measured by the amount of cash or liquid stock they return divided by the amount of cash that was invested in their fund. A multiple of three is good for a venture capital fund. A multiple of five is great. A multiple of ten is once a decade.

    When an investor is looking at a single holding being worth three, five, or possibly ten times their entire fund, you can be sure they are looking to lock in that gain. That's a recipe for fantastic performance and the downside of not locking that in is a lot bigger than the upside of another one or two times their fund size.

    And then there's the question of whether venture capital firms are good public market investors and whether they should be managing/holding public stocks. I don't have any hard data here, but my anecdotal data says that we are terrible public market investors. That is why many VC firms have a policy of moving the public stocks out of their portfolios as quickly as they can.

    I think that is a good policy. Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase. Others should be focused on capturing the value post the public offering.

    So let's go back to the expiration of lockups and the waves of insider selling that result. This is to be expected and in fact is expected by the public markets. Look at all of the short positions that get built up in the locked up newly minted public companies in the weeks before the lockups come off. Investors know that a ton of stock is going to hit the markets and they make bets that it will impact the stock price and in most cases it does impact the stock price. As JLM likes to say "this generation did not invent sex." This has been going on since I got into the venture capital business in the mid 80s and I expect its been going on for a lot longer than that.

    So to all the folks out there who are shocked and outraged at all the insider selling going on, I would suggest they park their outrage at the door of capitalism. Those who took the risk of losing all the capital they bet on 20 year old Mark Zuckerberg are entitled to their return. And they will get it. And anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand.

    Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) has been a venture capitalist since 1996, and currently serves as managing partner of Union Square Ventures. He blogs regularly at AVC.