2015年美股最差新股出炉

    手工艺品交易网站Esty的IPO仿佛在当红夜总会一夜狂欢，之后，从股价来看，这家公司及其投资者就一头跌向了“贫民窟”。

    上周，走势低迷的Etsy的股价首次跌破16美元的发行价，和上市首日收盘价相比，股价已下跌超过50%。今年新股表现并不是很好，平均涨幅仅为15%，低于去年的21%和前年的40%。而Etsy则是其中最差的一只。

    看了Etsy提交的IPO文件后，我就猜到人们对这只股票过于热情了。上市以来，该公司的业绩一直下滑。

    今年第一季度，该公司收入增长44%，接近5900万美元。增幅确实可观，但在线商城收入增速继续放缓。一季度此项收入尽管上升了27%，但增幅低于2014年全年的38%，也稍低于当季在线交易总额28%的升幅。这意味着Etsy收取的交易手续费也呈下降趋势，只是幅度较小。

    一季度收入猛增的动力来自Etsy向个人和小企业卖家提供的服务。但如果在线交易增速放慢，可以想见卖家很快就会发现购买Etsy的额外服务没什么好处。

    不过，Etsy的最大问题在于费用比销售额增长得更快。一季度，公司的费用同比上升了72%。在这种情况下，通常亏损额会增加，除非在测算业绩时另辟蹊径，Esty显然就是这么做的。

    除了按通用会计准则（GAAP）公布官方业绩，Etsy还披露了所谓的非通用会计准则调整后息税折旧摊销前利润，且声称这才是其衡量业绩采用的方法。果不其然，Etsy表示，按照这个标准，一季度净利润增长了近10%，并没有受到成本大幅上升的影响。实际上，该公司当季净利润下降了近3600万美元。

    同时，Etsy“设想的”净利润和实际数字之间的差距也在变大。一年前，二者相差700万美元；今年一季度已经达到4300万美元。

    如果说Etsy的股价像其网站上出售的手工艺品一样以质定价，这也没什么问题。但Etsy的股票完全不是那么回事。尽管股价下跌，该公司目前的市销率仍接近8倍。而作为规模远超Esty的竞争对手，亚马逊的市销率仅略高于2倍。而且，亚马逊已经打算推出名为Amazon Handmade的业务，将和Esty展开更直接竞争。

    总之，Esty身为上市公司的苦日子还在后头。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    审校：夏林

    Etsy’s initial public offering felt like a night at the Stork Club. But since then, the stock price of the vintage and craft online marketplace suggests that the company and its investors are headed for a Hooverville.

    Last week, Etsy’s stock price dropped below its $16 offering price for the first time since its IPO. But the company’s shares have been doing terribly for a while. Shares of Etsy ETSY 7.60% have fallen more than 50% from where they stood at the end of its first day of trading. That makes it the worst performing IPO, based on that measure, in a year when IPOs haven’t been doing all that well. The average IPO has risen 15% from its offering price this year. That’s down from 21% last year, and 40% the year before that.

    I predicted that the enthusiasm for Etsy’s shares was overblown, based on the filing it made for its IPO. Since going public, Etsy’s numbers have only grown worse.

    Revenue in the first quarter at the company did grow an impressive 44% to nearly $59 million. But the increase in revenue the company received from selling stuff on its website continued to slow. It was 27% in the first quarter, down from 38% for all of 2014. And that 27% was slightly slower than the 28% increase in total merchandise sold on Etsy’s site during the first quarter, meaning the transaction fees Etsy is collecting must be shrinking, but only by a little bit.

    The big jump in revenue for Etsy came from selling services to people and small businesses who sell their stuff on Etsy’s website. But if sales of stuff on Etsy’s website are slowing, you would expect merchants would quickly see little benefit in paying for additional services from Etsy.

    Etsy’s biggest problem, though, is that its expenses grew even faster, up 72% from the quarter a year ago, than its sales. And when that happens, you typically lose more money; except, apparently, when Etsy does the counting, probably on an abacus or something like that.

    Along with its official earnings, as measured by generally accepted accounting principles, Etsy releases something called its non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA profits, which is the way it says it measures results. Unsurprisingly, Etsy says, by its profit measure, earnings were up nearly 10% in the first quarter, despite the huge jump in costs. Etsy’s actual bottom line fell by nearly $36 million.

    What also grew was the gap between Etsy’s imagined earnings and its real bottom line. A year ago, the gap was $7 million. It grew to $43 million in its most recent quarter.

    That might be okay for a company that, like the stuff sold on Etsy, seems to be priced for the quality you are getting. But that’s not the case for Etsy’s shares. Despite the drop, Etsy’s stock still trades at nearly 8 times its sales. That compares to just over 2 times for much larger rival Amazon, which has plans to launch a service called Amazon Handmade, which will more directly compete with Etsy.

    Etsy’s life as a public company will continue to be one of hard knocks.