并购传闻如何不胫而走

    的确，传闻经常引起波澜的原因并不是要发生什么事，而是人们认为将要发生，或者应该发生什么事。投资者同样关注这些潜在并购信号，分析某些和并购有关的金融和经济指标，仔细聆听首席执行官和首席财务官的并购兴趣，以寻找蛛丝马迹。摆放在大多数职业投资者和交易员案头的彭博（Bloomberg）终端不停地滚动着一份“全球潜在收购目标”名单。目前，这份名单上的公司已经超过3300家。

    投资公司Barrow Street Advisors已将其注意力从私募股权转向共同基金。该公司指出，2009年以来，真正被收购的美国公司有987家，而它持有其中60家公司的股份，占了整整6%，是整个市场平均水平的三倍以上。该公司主管大卫•贝克特尔说：“我们当然不会从传闻中寻找思路。”他指出，该公司寻找的投资对象都有让收购方感兴趣的特点。

    不过，条件恰当时，投资者几乎会相信任何跟并购有关的消息——当有人抱着这份信心开始交易时，其他人也会更加相信这个消息，并且也会开始进行同样的交易，从而让相关股票变得诱人，也让期权市场变得热闹起来。联博资产管理公司（Alliance Bernstein）前证券投资经理斯科特•华莱土最近在芝加哥成立了对冲基金公司Shorepath Capital Management。他说：“最终，如果出现了传闻，就会有人觉得可信，随后就会有人在股市里采取和传闻所指方向一致的行动，这就会引起很多人的注意。有许多人相信的传闻就是好传闻。如果相关股票随之而动，那就可能意味着别人掌握了我不知道的信息。”

    投资老手都说，华尔街妥善地隐藏着一个秘密，那就是专业交易员相互交换想法的频繁程度远远超过了合规部门允许的水平。当这些交易员在股东大会上见面，相互打电话，或者通过网络论坛进行交流时，交易所一般都被蒙在鼓里。

    兰迪说：“有了社交媒体，你就不必再通过高层中的朋友来了解人们的想法了。这些消息会迅速而广泛地传播开来。”他曾目睹这种情况——他在一篇分析师评论中猜测某家公司可能成为别人收购的对象。几经加工后，他的保守猜想让整个网络都把这家公司视为收购目标，后者的股价因此大幅上涨。

    当然，如果投资者分享的不仅仅是个假设，而是有关未来并购的机密信息，就会出现问题。基于这样的非公开信息采取行动叫做内幕交易，这是违法行为。

    不过，传闻开始四处流传的原因往往是投资者就某个特定并购思路寻找反馈意见，或者一些打着如意算盘的人（比如股东和投行人士）有意延续这些传闻；又或者做预测就是那么有意思，就像《财富》杂志在今年1月刊中体会到的那样——当时《财富》正在猜测美国电话电报（AT&T）和沃达丰（Vodafone）以及亚马逊（Amazon）和美国邮政（United States Postal Service）会不会合并。

    以StockTwits为例，这家网站专门通过最多140个字符的帖子共享股市投资思路，其中许多帖子都涉及潜在并购对象。该网站创始人霍华德•林德扎说：“我就是这么做的。我会思考‘Twitter收购这家公司，或者那家公司买下这家公司是否合理？’这可不是内幕交易，这只是分享一个想法，看看是不是有人也这样想。”

    Indeed, rumors frequently swirl not because something is going to happen, but rather because people think it will…or should. Investors watch for the same signals of potential deals, analyzing certain financial and economic measures associated with acquisitions, and listening for hints of M&A interest from CEOs and CFOs. Bloomberg terminals—on the desks of most pro investors and traders—keep a running list of “potential global takeover targets” that currently number more than 3,300.

    Barrow Street Advisors, an investment firm that has switched its focus from private equity to mutual funds, points out that 60 of its portfolio holdings have been acquired since 2009—a full 6% of the 987 U.S. companies that were actually acquired during the period, which is more than triple the acquisition rate for the market as a whole. “And that’s without going to the rumor mill for ideas,” boasts David Bechtel, a principal at Barrow, saying that his firm looks for companies with the same characteristics that buyout firms would find attractive.

    When the right factors are present, though, investors will believe almost any whisper of a deal—and when someone begins trading on that belief, it strengthens the belief of others, who often start trading, too, juicing the stocks and lighting up the options market. “At the end of the day, if there is a rumor, and there is credibility—and there’s action in the stock market that points in the direction of the rumor—that’s something that a lot of people would pay attention to,” says Scott Wallace, a former Alliance Bernstein portfolio manager who recently launched a hedge fund firm in Chicago, Shorepath Capital Management. “What makes a good rumor is a lot of people believe it. And if the stock’s moving on it, then maybe they know something I don’t know.”

    A well-kept Wall Street secret, say veteran investors, is that professional traders bounce ideas off each other much more often than their compliance departments would allow. The exchanges are typically behind the scenes, when they run into each other at shareholder meetings, or chat over the phone or in online forums.

    “With social media, you don’t have to have friends in high places to see what people are thinking,” Landy says. “And that can be spread wild and fast.” Landy has seen this firsthand—when he speculated in an analyst commentary that a certain company could be a takeover candidate. His gentle musing snowballed into the company being labeled a target all over the web, bumping up the stock’s price.

    Of course, problems arise when investors share not a mere hypothesis, but rather confidential intel about a future M&A deal. Acting on such non-public information is known as insider trading, and it’s illegal.

    But often, rumors begin to circulate because investors are looking for feedback on a particular M&A theory—or wishful thinkers (say, shareholders and investment bankers) perpetuate them. Or because it’s just fun to make predictions, as Fortune learned when, in our January issue, we took odds on potential mergers between AT&T and Vodafone , and Amazon and the United States Postal Service.

    Take, for example, Howard Lindzon, the founder of StockTwits, the site dedicated to sharing stock ideas in 140-character posts—many of which include potential M&A candidates, he says. “I do it. I’ll speculate on my stream, ‘Wouldn’t it make sense if Twitter bought this company, or that company bought this one?’” Lindzon says. “It’s not insider trading; it’s just sharing an idea. Just to see if somebody else is thinking the same thing.”