阿里巴巴IPO背后的华尔街神话故事

    为了了解资本市场从业者的“这场狂欢”，让我们来看看阿里巴巴在9月5日公布的招股说明书中披露的上市计划。这家来自于中国的在线和移动商务巨擘计划发行约3.68亿股股票，主承销商有6家：瑞信（Credit Suisse）、摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）、摩根大通（JPMorgan Chase）、高盛（Goldman Sachs）、花旗集团（Citigroup）和德意志银行（Deutsche Bank）。按询价区间上限，也就是每股66美元计算，这次首发将为阿里巴巴融资超过240亿美元，使该公司的市值达到1630亿美元。那么，如果上市当天阿里巴巴的股价上涨25%，会出现什么情况呢？它的收盘价将达到82.50美元，通过承销商认购了该公司股票的机构每股将赚到16.50美元。如果阿里巴巴的管理层按这个真正的市场价格首发，他们就能多筹集60亿美元资金。没错，60亿美元。如果这就是“小费”的话，它的数量真是让人乍舌（对此Peter Luger的服务员绝对会竞相争夺）。而小费就是小费——它只能留在餐桌上。

    受损失的可以分为两组。一是包括雅虎（Yahoo）在内的大股东和创始人马云。他们拿出了2.19亿股股票，也就流失了约36亿美元资金。二是阿里巴巴本身，该公司出售其余待售股票，也就是说，它给的“小费”差不多有24亿美元。可以认为，如果一家公司手里的资金多24亿美元，它的价值就会上升24亿美元。因此，阿里巴巴有可能因为股价低估25%而牺牲1.5%的潜在市场价值。

    那么，谁是大赢家呢？答案并不意外——华尔街公司和它们下了大赌注的客户，后者有机会买到了这些价格偏低的股票。带来丰厚利润的并非是承销手续费。佛罗里达大学（University of Florida）的一位教授杰伊•里特指出：“承销商倒是希望拿到更多的手续费，但是和首发规模相比，来自于中国和其他地区的公司为发行规模固定的IPO所支付的手续费偏低。同时，这次首发备受关注，这让阿里巴巴在讨价还价时处于很有利的位置。”这些投行通过这次首发将得到约3.5亿美元的手续费，只占阿里巴巴所筹资金的1%左右，远低于大多数IPO的正常水平。

    和把钱交到投行人士手里相比，再没有什么付款过程能更加曲折迂回了。这些煞有介事的华尔街公司让自己所青睐的客户迅速赚到了60亿美元。这大约是1999-2001年整个科技热潮期间华尔街所得“小费”的十分之一。随后，投资者非常有可能在接下来的几天乃至几周时间里通过高额交易佣金来回报这些公司。佣金给的最多的往往是对冲基金，因此可以推断对冲基金的认购份额通常最大。支付佣金较低的共同基金则不那么受投行欢迎。

    里特说，一般来讲，华尔街公司会通过佣金拿到总利润的30%，也就是18亿美元。再加上手续费，这些公司的利润有可能远高于21亿美元。

    当然，我们并不知道阿里巴巴上市当天会不会大幅上涨，或者到底会上涨多少。但这正是金融领域的奇观之一。华尔街正打算再次施展这个让人兴奋的魔法，而且和我们最先认识的那个阿里巴巴相比，华尔街人士应该非常清楚，他们认同的这个故事并不比《一千零一夜》可信。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    To understand the jubilation among the fraternity of capital-markets types, let’s examine Alibaba’s plan, as revealed in its prospectus released on Sept. 5. The Chinese online and mobile commerce colossus is offering a maximum of 368 million shares for sale through six principal underwriters: Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Deutsche Bank. If the shares sell at the top of the pricing range, at $66, the IPO would raise more than $24 billion, putting Alibaba’s market cap at $163 billion.

    So what happens if the company’s shares pop 25% on Day One? They would then close at $82.50, handing the institutions that purchased them through the underwriters a gain of $16.50 a share. If Alibaba and insiders had gotten that realmarket price instead of $66, they would have collected an additional $6 billion. That’s right: $6 billion. As far as tips go, that’s a staggering sum. (Any waiter at Peter Luger would be thrilled to get it.) But a tip is what it is—because that’s what’s being left on the table.

    The losers would divide into two categories. Large shareholders including Yahoo! and founder Jack Ma are selling as many as 219 million shares, so their portion of the foregone cash comes to about $3.6 billion. The company itself is selling the balance of the shares. Hence, it’s leaving around $2.4 billion on the table. It’s reasonable to assume that the same company with $2.4 billion more in cash is worth $2.4 billion more than the same company sans that cash. It’s therefore likely that Alibaba would sacrifice about 1.5% of its potential market value by allowing its shares to be 25% underpriced.

    So who are the major winners? No surprise here: the Wall Street firms and their high-roller clients who get to buy the underpriced shares. It’s not in banking fees where the big money resides. “The underwriters wanted higher fees but Chinese companies and those outside the U.S. pay less for a given sized deal,” says Jay Ritter, a professor at the University of Florida. “This is also a high-profile deal that put Alibaba in a strong bargaining position.” The investment banks are garnering around $350 million in fees, or only around 1% of the proceeds, well below the norm on most IPOs.

    No the cash payout to the bankers travels in a more circuitous route. These fabled Wall Street firms are handing their favorite clients $6 billion in quick profits. That’s around 10% of the total amount left on the table in the entire tech boom from 1999 to 2001. Investors, in turn, are very likely to repay the firms with big trading commissions in the days and weeks to come. The biggest such payers tend to be hedge funds, so hedge funds usually get the meatiest share allocations. Mutual funds that pay low commissions have less favored status.

    The rule of thumb, says Ritter, is that Wall Street recoups 30% of the total windfall in commissions. That’s $1.8 billion. So including fees, Wall Street’s potential take mounts to well over $2.1 billion.

    Of course, we don’t know if Alibaba will pop at all—or if so, by how much. But this is one of the great spectacles in the financial world. Wall Street is trying to work its intoxicating magic once again, and they’ve got folks who should know a lot better believing a tale no more believable than the Arabian Nights: the fables that brought us the first Alibaba.