Centerview逆市进军中型市场科技投资

    现在成立风投公司非常有可能是个糟糕的时机。经历了失去的十年之后，这个行业终于过上了几年好日子。估值已经非常高，明智的资金都在退出，而不是进入。同样的，现在也很难对大型私募公司发起挑战，它们所运作的庞大交易只有规模最大而且资金最充实的私募公司才能胜任。

    不过，如果你曾在大型科技企业或者已经失败的科技公司工作过，而且你的投资主题是寻找不起眼的中型科技公司——它们的发展脚步有些凝滞，或者在资金方面需要一针强心剂，情况又会怎样呢？ Centerview Capital新的科技投资团队就是这样。这是这家私募公司的又一个分支机构，核心成员是吉列（Gillette）前首席执行官吉姆•吉尔茨。

    Centerview因为对德尔蒙食品公司（Del Monte，吉尔茨在该公司任董事长）和尼尔森公司（Nielsen）等消费类企业的投资名声鹊起。它的姊妹公司Centerview Partners是一家精品投资咨询公司，服务对象包括亨氏集团【Heinz，被3G资本（3G Capital）和伯克希尔-哈撒韦收购（Berkshire Hathaway）】、戴尔【Dell，被银湖资本收购（Silver Lake Partners）】以及制药公司Onyx Pharmaceuticals【被安进公司（Amgen）收购】，这几笔交易的规模都达到了数十亿美元。

    Centerview涉足科技领域的时机看起来非常好。微软（Microsoft）、思科公司（Cisco）、甲骨文（Oracle）和惠普（HP）等一众科技大哥大的市盈率都非常低，至少和整个市场以及Twitter、Facebook和商务社交网站LinkedIn等社交媒体新贵相比是这样。Centerview的科技投资基金规模为5亿美元，合伙人包括45岁的奈德•胡铂和38岁的桑德雅•万卡塔查兰，两人都曾在思科的业务开发和战略部门担任要职。另一名合作伙伴是美国电话电报公司（AT&T）前首席执行官、摩托罗拉（Motorola）前董事长大卫•多曼，现年59岁（我第一次见到多曼时，他的头衔是PointCast首席执行官，这家公司在互联网泡沫破裂时倒闭。Centerview在网站上介绍多曼的背景时略过了这段不堪回首的往事）。

    这个团体最近刚刚完成集资，本刊编辑丹•普利麦克今年6月份曾对此进行过报道，当时他们还没有公开谈论过自己的计划。现在他们已经完成了第一笔投资：胡铂说这家公司的规模符合他们的标准，即收入在2500万美元到1亿美元之间，而且很可能不是私有企业（胡铂表示，Centerview计划在明年1月份公布这项投资，对该公司来说届时披露此事更为有利）。在这样的投资中，控股需要6000-8000万美元，参股需要2000-4000万美元，而Centerview的目标是每年完成三到四笔投资，也就是说它手中的资金应该能用上好几年。

    收入接近1亿美元的私营公司对于普通生意人来说已经很大了。但私募行业把这个层次称为“中型市场”，这是对小公司的一种委婉称呼（另外说一句：大家可以读一下杰西•艾辛格的论述，他在其中哀叹，金融本来是一种有用的媒介，作用于储蓄者和公司之间，我们却把它完全当作了一种产业）。在这个领域中和Centerview进行竞争的包括银湖资本的Sumeru基金、Thoma Bravo、Technology Crossover Ventures和Vista Equity Partners公司。

    在科技领域，中型市场投资的意思是Centerview投资或收购的公司绝对不会像Facebook那样迅猛增长，甚至连Skype的发展速度也达不到。万卡塔查兰和前思科同事托尼•贝茨曾在Skype公事（人们经常说贝茨是微软首席执行官的竞争者，他现在仍在微软工作，后者则收购了Skype）。反过来说，明智的投资者可以从这样的公司得到更稳定的回报——这种回报的波动较小，而且可能不那么容易受到科技领域风险的影响。

    同时，中型市场以增长缓慢甚至不增长的经济为基础，在资金匮乏的环境下它也能蓬勃发展——随着时间推移，出现这种情况的可能性越来越大。此外，在首席信息官需要少花钱多办事的时候，向企业提供技术的公司将成为受益者。胡铂说：“我们的主题所围绕的是那些能提高生产率和竞争力的公司。”

    Centerview的主题还牵涉到时机。目前看来，这方面的情况也很有利。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    Now would very likely be a horrible time to start a venture capital firm. After a lost decade, that sector finally has had some decent years, valuations are astronomical, and the smart money is getting out, not in. It would be a similarly complicated time to challenge the giants of private equity, which are slapping together the types of gargantuan deals that only the biggest and best-financed can handle.

    But what if your background were in big, beaten-down technology companies, and your investment thesis called for finding under-the-radar, mid-sized technology companies that are somewhat stalled or otherwise in need of a financial shot in the arm? Then you'd be the new tech-investing arm of Centerview Capital, an addition to the private equity firm built around former Gillette CEO Jim Kilts.

    Centerview rose to prominence for its investments in consumer companies like Del Monte (where Kilts is chairman) and Nielsen. Its sister organization, Centerview Partners, is a boutique investment-advisory firm that has represented the likes of Heinz (in its sale to 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway), Dell (in its sale to Silver Lake Partners) and Onyx Pharmaceuticals (in its sale to Amgen), billion-dollar-plus deals all.

    Its entry into technology comes at what looks like a decent time. Big- and old-tech stalwarts like Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and HP all trade for tiny multiples to their earnings, at least compared with the overall market and particularly with social-media growth engines like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The new partners of Centerview's $500-million tech fund are Ned Hooper, 45, and Sandhya Venkatachalam, 38, both former business-development and strategy executives at Cisco, and David Dorman, 59, a former CEO of AT&T and chairman of Motorola. (I first met Dorman when he was CEO of bubble-era flameout PointCast, a tremendous cautionary tale from yesteryear that Dorman omits from his Centerview bio.)

    The group just recently completed raising its fund, which Fortune's Dan Primack wrote about in June, before the partners began to talk publicly about their plans. It already has made one investment, Hooper says: a company in its target size of companies with between $25 million and $100 million in revenue, and more likely than not privately held. (Hooper says Centerview plans to announce the investment in January, a more advantageous time for publicity for the company in which it has invested.) Investments like these typically would require equity checks in the neighborhood of $60 million to $80 million for control of the company or $20 million to $40 for a stake in it, meaning Centerview's capital should last a handful of years at its targeted pace of three to four deals a year.

    To normal businesspeople, private companies with revenues of nearly $100 million would be big. But the name-brand private equity industry calls this the "mid-market," a euphemism for small. (A total digression: Read Jesse Eisinger's screed lamenting that we think of finance as an industry at all, rather than as the useful intermediary between savers and companies that it was intended to be.) Centerview's competition in this end of the market includes firms like Silver Lake's Sumeru fund, Thoma Bravo, Technology Crossover Ventures, and Vista Equity Partners.

    The knock on mid-market technology investing is that the types of companies in which Centerview either will invest or buy outright will never have the type of rapid growth of a Facebook or even a Skype, where Venkatachalam worked with ex-Cisco colleague Tony Bates. (Bates frequently is mentioned as a contender for the CEO job at Microsoft, which bought Skype and where Bates still works.) The reverse of that argument is that the savvy investor can make steadier returns in such companies, which are less volatile and potentially less susceptible to technology risk.

    The mid-market also is predicated on a slow- or even no-growth economy, and it prospers in an environment where capital is scarce -- a scenario that is becoming more likely as time goes by. What's more, companies that sell technology to businesses stand to benefit when chief information officers need to make do with less. "Our thesis," Hooper says, "is around companies that improve productivity and competitiveness."

    Centerview's thesis also is about timing. So far, it appears to be good.