2018.2.19經濟學人官方譯文：戰爭迷霧

Schumpeter

The fog of war

If they are to save the firm, General Electric』s bosses and board need far better information

熊彼特

戰爭迷霧

通用電氣的高管和董事會若想拯救這家公司，需要大大提高信息的質量

IN THEIR documentary 「The Vietnam War」, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, the directors, dwell on the flawed information that American politicians got from Indo-China. The generals on the ground focused on the 「kill ratio」, or the number of enemies killed per American or South Vietnamese soldiers killed. That bore no relationship to victory—North Vietnam quickly replaced its dead soldiers. And it corrupted behaviour, leading American troops to embellish numbers and count dead civilians as 「wins」.

肯·伯恩斯（Ken Burns）和林恩·諾維克（Lynn Novick）在他們執導的紀錄片《越南戰爭》（The Vietnam War）中詳述了美國政客從印度支那獲取的情報有多不可靠。前線的美軍將領一味強調「殺敵比率」，即每個美國士兵的殺敵數量，或南越士兵的殺敵數量。這與勝利並無關聯——北越很快就補充了士兵。這也將人們引入歧途，美軍開始美化數字，將死亡的平民也算作「勝利」。

The curse of rotten information can strike companies, too. That seems to be the case with General Electric (GE), which has had a vertiginous fall. Its shares, cashflow and forecast profits have dropped by about 50% since 2015. On January 16th it disclosed a huge, $15bn capital shortfall at its financial arm due to a revision in insurance reserves. And on January 24th it revealed a $10bn loss for the fourth quarter. In its core industrial arm, returns on capital have sunk from 20% in 2007 to a puny 5% in 2017.

糟糕的情報這一禍根也會在企業中埋下。慘遭重大滑坡的通用電氣（GE）似乎便屬於這種情況。自2015年以來，其股價、現金流和利潤預期已下跌了約50%。上月16日，GE透露其金融部門因保險業務儲備金方面的調整而出現150億美元的巨大資本缺口。24日，公司公布第四季度虧損100億美元。其核心工業部門的資本回報率從2007年的20%縮水至2017年慘淡的5%。

GE』s boss, John Flannery, an insider who took office in August, must clear up the mess made by his predecessor, Jeff Immelt. He seems to recognise the gravity of the situation. In November he gave a frank presentation to investors. Last month he suggested that GE might be broken up. Yet an unnerving sense lingers that no one fully understands what has gone wrong.

GE的老闆約翰·弗蘭納里（John Flannery）從公司內部一路成長起來，於去年8月走馬上任。他必須清理前任掌門人傑夫·伊梅爾特（Jeff Immelt）留下的爛攤子。他似乎也認識到了局勢的嚴峻。11月，他向投資者做了坦誠的報告。上月，他暗示GE也許會分拆。不過，一種讓人不踏實的感覺仍揮之不去：恐怕沒人完全明白GE到底是哪裡出了問題。

Is the conglomerate formerly known as the world』s best-run firm a victim of weak demand for gas turbines, a low oil price, lavish digital initiatives, timing lags in client payments, morbidity rates, bad deals, cost overruns or a 20-year squeeze in industrial-equipment margins because of Chinese competition? You can imagine GE』s 12-man board blinking at this list, like Pentagon generals huddled around maps of the Gulf of Tonkin which they are too embarrassed to admit they do not understand.

這家曾列全球運營最佳的企業集團何以落入困境？是因為燃氣輪機需求疲軟嗎？油價低？數字項目燒錢？客戶延遲付款？患病率影響？糟糕的併購交易？成本超支？還是因為來自中國的競爭在過去20年里持續擠壓工業設備利潤？想像得出GE的12人董事會正盯著這些選項茫然地眨著眼睛，就像五角大樓里的將軍們聚集在北部灣地圖的周圍，人人都不好意思承認自己其實一頭霧水。

Schumpeter』s theory is that GE』s flow of financial information has become fantastically muddled. There is lots of it about (some 200 pages are released each quarter) and it is audited by KPMG. But it offers volume and ambiguity instead of brevity and clarity. It is impossible—certainly for outsiders, probably for the board, and possibly for Mr Flannery—to answer central questions. How much cashflow does GE sustainably make and where? How much capital does it employ and where? What liabilities must be serviced before shareholders get their profits?

本專欄認為，GE的財務信息已變得極其混亂。GE披露了大量財務信息（每個季度公布的信息多達二百來頁），又有畢馬威來做審計，但這些信息龐雜而含混，欠缺簡潔和明晰。靠這些信息無法回答那些關鍵問題：GE持續獲得的自由現金流有多少，來自哪裡？它動用了多少資本，資本流向了哪裡？在股東們獲得收益之前，GE須先償還哪些債務？公司以外的人士肯定無法回答，董事會很可能也一樣，弗蘭納里說不定也是如此。

Perhaps GE has a better, parallel accounting system that it keeps under wraps. But the public one reveals eight problems. First, it has no consistent measure of performance. This year it has used 18 definitions of group profits and cashflow. As of September 2017, the highest number was double the average one. There is a large gap between most measures of profits and free cashflow.

也許GE有一個更好的、未公之於眾的平行會計系統，但其公開的系統暴露出八個問題。首先，GE缺少衡量績效的一致標準。今年，它採用了18個定義來衡量集團的利潤和現金流。截至2017年9月，最高數字比平均數字高出一倍。大部分利潤及自由現金流衡量結果之間都存在巨大差異。

Second, GE』s seven operating divisions (power, for example, or aviation) are allowed to use a flattering definition of profit that excludes billions of dollars of supposedly one-off costs. Their total profits are almost twice as big as the firm』s. It is the corporate equivalent of China』s GDP accounting, where the claimed outputs of each province add up to more than the national figure.

第二，GE的七大業務部門（例如電力或航空）被容許使用一個會讓結果比較好看的利潤定義，將數十億美元的所謂一次性成本刨除在外。這些部門的總利潤幾乎是公司利潤的兩倍。這相當於將中國的GDP統計方法運用在了企業上：中國各省聲稱的產值相加後高於全國數字。

Third, GE does not assess itself on a geographical basis. Does China yield solid returns on capital? Has Saudi Arabia been a good bet? No one seems to know. This is unhelpful, given that the firm does half its business abroad and that the long-term decline in returns has taken place as the firm has become more global.

第三，GE沒有按照區域來評估自身。公司是否從中國獲得了豐厚的資本回報？對沙烏地阿拉伯的押注對不對？答案似乎無人知曉。公司一半的業務都是在海外開展，然而隨著公司全球化程度加深，回報率卻長期下滑，有鑒於此，這種無知對公司實在無益。

Fourth, GE pays little attention to the total capital it employs, which has ballooned by about 50% over the past decade (excluding its financial arm). Its managers rarely talk about it and have set no targets. It is unclear which parts of the firm soak up disproportionate resources relative to profits, diluting returns.

第四，GE幾乎不關心自己投入的資本總量。過去十年間，這些資本已激增約50%（不包括其金融部門）。其管理者很少談論資本問題，也未為之設立目標。無法確知公司的哪些部門耗費了與其收益不相稱的資源，導致收益被稀釋。

Fifth, it is hard to know if GE』s leverage is sustainable. Its net debts are 2.6 times its gross operating profits, again excluding its financial arm. That is high relative to its peers—for Siemens and Honeywell the ratio is about one. Some of those profits are paper gains. And the average level of debt during the year is much higher than the figures reported at the end of each quarter.

第五，很難說GE的槓桿水平是否可持續。其凈債務是其經營毛利的2.6倍——同樣不包括它的金融部門。這個比率相對同類企業來說較高：西門子和霍尼韋爾的數字大約是1。GE的部分經營毛利是賬面收益。而且，這一年間的平均債務水平比每季度末公布的數字高出許多。

Sixth, the strength of GE』s financial arm is unclear. The new insurance loss will lower its tangible equity to 8% of assets. This is well below the comfort level, although regulators seem to have granted it forbearance in order gradually to rebuild its capital.

第六，GE的金融部門實力如何也無從知曉。由於新近保險業務的虧損，GE的有形股本將降至其資產的8%。這遠遠低於令人安心的水平，不過監管部門似乎給予了GE一些寬限，好讓它逐漸重建資本。

Seventh, it is hard to calibrate the risk this poses to GE shareholders. GE likes to hint that its industrial and financial arms are run separately. But they are umbilically connected by a mesh of cross-guarantees, factoring arrangements and other transactions.

第七，很難評估這對GE的股東構成了怎樣的風險。GE很喜歡暗示其工業和金融部門的運營彼此獨立。但一系列交叉擔保、應收賬款保理協議以及其他交易將它們緊密聯繫在一起。

Eighth, is GE sure that its industrial balance-sheet accurately measures its capital employed and its liabilities? Some 46% of assets are intangible, which are hard to pin down financially: for example, goodwill and 「contract」 assets where GE has booked profits but not been paid yet. Hefty liabilities, including pensions and tax, are also tricky to calculate. Based on GE』s poor record of forecasting, it seems that large write-downs are possible. On January 24th GE said that regulators were looking into its accounting.

第八，GE是否能肯定其工業資產負債表精確記錄了公司投入的資本及承擔的債務？GE無形資產的佔比約為46%，很難確定這類資產的價值——公司商譽及「合約資產」（GE將之登記為利潤，但尚未收到付款）便屬於此類。包含養老金及稅在內的高昂債務同樣難以估算。GE的預測水準歷來欠佳，就這一點來看，有可能發生大規模的資產減記。上月24日GE表示正在接受監管部門對其財報的調查。

Time for some command and control

該來些指揮與控制了

GE』s situation is like that of the global bank conglomerates after the financial crisis. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and HSBC did not entirely trust their own numbers and lacked a framework for assessing which bits of their sprawl created value for shareholders. Today, after much toil, the people running these firms know whether, say, loans in California or trading in India make sense.

GE的情形與金融危機後那些全球銀行集團的境況相似。花旗、摩根大通和滙豐並不完全相信自己的數字，也缺乏一個框架來評估自己龐雜的業務中有哪些為股東創造了價值。下了一番苦功後，如今這些銀行集團的高管們已經清楚在加州放貸或在印度開展業務的做法是否明智。

This does not happen naturally. If neglected, financial reporting becomes a hostage to internal politics, with different constituencies claiming they bring in sales, while arguing that costs and capital are someone else』s problem. Mr Flannery is a numbers guy who wants to slim GE to its profitable essence. But he is trapped in a financial construct that makes it hard to pursue that mission intelligently. Until he re-engineers how GE measures itself, he will be stumbling about in the murk.

這一切並不是自然而然發生的。如果不多加重視，財務報表就會受制於內部紛爭，局面就是各方紛紛聲稱是自己貢獻了銷售額，同時辯稱成本和資本是別人的問題。弗蘭納里是一個注重數字的人，他想令GE瘦身，只保留能夠盈利的業務。但由於GE財務體系的牽絆，他要巧妙地完成這一任務困難重重。他需要改造GE衡量自身業績的方法，否則他只能在黑暗中踉蹌前行。