时下流行的“科技泡沫”观点不值一信

    如今，私营高科技企业似乎轻轻松松就能获得十亿美元以上的估值，有些新上市科技公司的股价飙升，存在科技泡沫的说法又开始兴起。金融市场分析师宣称，科技公司的估值已经高得离谱，硅谷需要制度化，否则将玩火自焚，还会殃及投资者。

    存在科技泡沫这种论调确实很吸引眼球，但如果我们把眼光放到科技新创企业估值飙升之外，就会发现这种说法根本没道理。要得出泡沫正在形成的论断，我们得先考虑科技公司估值飙升的原因。我认为有以下三个因素在驱动估值的飙升：

    驱动因素之一：上市准备时间大幅延长

    依靠风险投资建立的科技公司如今的上市准备时间要比早些年长得多。在2000年左右的那场真正的网络泡沫时代，风投型科技公司的平均上市时间为成立后的第四年。如今这个数字是九年。诚然，以前的IPO规模也不大（80%的募资额少于5000万美元），那时的公司也远称不上成熟（80%的公司年营收额低于5000万美元）。

    放眼当下，形势已经完全不同。2013年，科技企业的平均IPO规模已超过2亿美元，当然，它们的平均年营收也已高达1.04亿美元。这意味着我们可以预见，如今大部分“尚处于襁褓期的10亿美元级私营企业”最终将走上公开上市之路。虽然十几年前的网络泡沫还历历在目，但如今时移势易，我们的估值其实有理有据，这些企业早已在私募市场完成了估值任务。所谓的上市也不过是一次财富转移的过程，劳苦大众们拿出血汗钱投资公开市场，而之前有能力投资私募市场的大财阀、私募资本、基金公司和公共养老基金则欣然笑纳。

    那么导致这种现象出现的原因是什么？一句话：百分位报价改革和美国证券交易委员会（the Securities and Exchange Commission）一系列的政策让低价股票交易环境荡然无存。低价股票在市场上被严重不看好。所以，没有哪家私营公司敢冒低价上市的风险，他们唯有一拖再拖，等待时机不断成熟。

    毫无疑问，这是一个重要的公共政策问题，而不是估值问题。

    驱动因素之二：高速增长无法复制

    暂且不说这两年上市的科技公司，如今市值最高的一批科技企业——微软（Microsoft）、SAP、甲骨文（Oracle）等，共计市值2.5万亿美元。不过，这些公司增长乏力，营收增速目前仅为6%。从公开市场来看，这批巨头的市值与年营收之比为两倍。

    现在我们拿这些庞然大物与2011到2013年上市的25家科技公司做一番对比，后者的年营收增幅在30%以上，这是绝大多数投资者都认定的“高速增长”。这些新生儿的总市值只有3000亿美元，其中还有一半是Facebook。如果加上Twitter和商务社交网站LinkedIn，三家公司已占据总市值的三分之二之多。他们目前的市值与年营收之比为八倍。

    我们静下心来想一想。如果你是公开市场上寻找高增长科技公司的投资人——比如普信集团（T Rowe Price）和富达投资（Fidelity），你有25家公司可以选择，其中有三家公司获得投资的几率最大，远超其它公司。这就是最基本的经济学供需关系在发挥作用：投资需求节节高涨，但公开市场的股票就那么几支，所以市值攀升也就是意料之中的事情了。

    这也恰恰解释了为什么大量共同基金（和部分对冲基金）喜欢参与IPO之前的私募投资。公开市场科技企业的增长难以满足他们的胃口。所以，大量逐利资金涌入后期私募市场，从而推高了各家公司的估值。

    不过，并不是所有IPO科技企业都能搭上这班车。我们同样可以列举一系列失意者：Demand Media、Chegg以及Violin Memory。这些年营收增速不足20%的新上市公司市盈率只有高增长科技公司的四分之一。这是一件好事，至少说明投资者做足了功课，而不是在盲目地跟风。这些认真钻研的投资者未来将获得丰厚的回报。

    With private tech companies pulling down billion-dollar-plus valuations with seeming ease, and shares of some newly public tech outfits soaring, talk of a tech bubble is on the rise again. Financial market prognosticators have declared that technology valuations defy logic and that Silicon Valley needs to be institutionalized before it becomes a danger to itself and investors everywhere.

    All of this bubble-mongering encourages headlines, but it makes little sense if we look beyond the run-up in valuations of tech startups. Before we can say a bubble is brewing, we need to consider what's causing the value of tech companies to soar. Here's a look at three drivers:

    Driver No. 1: Going public today takes a long, long time

    For venture-funded technology companies, the time it takes to go public is inexorably longer today than in previous years. In the decades leading up to the "real" tech bubble of 1999-2000, the average venture-backed company went public soon after its fourth year in existence. Today it's nine years or more. Not surprisingly, IPO sizes used to be smaller (80% were less than $50 million), and the companies were less mature (80% had annual revenue less than $50 million).

    Today, these numbers have completely reversed. In 2013, the average tech IPO had annual revenues of $104 million and raised more than $200 million. What that means is that most of today's "private billion-dollar babies" would have been public in the markets of old. Rather than question the value of immature public companies as we eventually did in the last bubble, today we wring our hands because they now achieve these valuations in the private markets. In reality, this is nothing more than a wealth transfer from ordinary individuals who invest their retirement dollars in the public markets to wealthy individuals, endowments, foundations, and public pension funds who can invest in private equity.

    So how did we get here? The short answer is that decimalization and various other policies implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission have destroyed the trading environment for small cap stocks. As a result, the prospects of being a small cap public company are truly daunting; private companies go public only at a much later and more mature stage.

    No doubt this is an important public policy question, but it's not a valuation question.

    Driver No. 2: Growth is hard to find

    Putting aside the IPO class of 2011-2013, the largest tech companies -- Microsoft (MSFT), SAP (SAP), Oracle (ORCLE), etc. -- represent a combined $2.5 trillion in market cap. Yet, these companies are barely growing. The revenue growth rate for these companies is about 6%. At that pace the market values them at about two times their annual revenue.

    Now compare this to the 25 companies in the 2011-2013 IPO group with annual revenues growing at more than 30% -- what most investors would consider "high growth." This group has a combined market cap of only $300 billion, half of which is represented by Facebook (FB) alone. Add in Twitter (TWTR) and LinkedIn (LNKD), and these three companies make up roughly two-thirds of this total market cap. The market values these companies at eight times annual revenue.

    Think about that for a moment. If you are a public tech investor looking to buy growth -- e.g., T Rowe Price, Fidelity -- you have about 25 companies from which to choose, three of which account for the vast majority of the total investment opportunity. This is basic Economics 101 supply-and-demand at work: Investors demand growth, but there isn't a lot to satisfy this demand so the price rises.

    Interestingly, this also explains why you see many of these mutual funds (and some hedge funds) investing in the private financing rounds of pre-IPO companies. There simply is not enough growth in the public tech universe to satiate their appetite. They must buy growth via late-stage private financings; therefore, pushing valuations higher.

    So not all IPOs are on a rocket ride up -- to name a few, just look at companies like Demand Media, Chegg, Violin Memory. Such companies that recently went public with annual revenue growth of less than 20% trade at multiples fully 75% less than their high-growth peers. This is a good thing - investors are doing their homework, rather than putting money to a bubble. And they stand to do very well by their studiousness.