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由“嫉妒高盛”到“嫉妒贝莱德”
Six years ago, Wall Street and the City of London were consumed with “Goldman envy”.
六年前，华尔街和伦敦金融城到处弥漫着一种“嫉妒高盛”(Goldman envy)的情绪。
Never mind the fact that Goldman was producing eye-popping profits, with returns on equity of 40 per cent at the peak. What fuelled that envy was that Goldman had the banking equivalent of the “it” factor (to use the phrase beloved by celebrity magazines). The smartest graduates wanted to work at Goldman, the savviest clients used its services and when senior public figures left office, they often jumped aboard, not just because its desks were paved with bonus gold, but because the company was at the centre of so much cutting-edge financial and policy innovation.
尽管高盛创造了令人瞠目的利润，资本回报率最高曾达到40%，但最让其他公司心生嫉妒的是，高盛拥有银行业中的“它”因素（这里借用一下名人杂志喜欢用到的短语）。最聪明的毕业生想去高盛工作，最精明的客户使用高盛的服务，而当政府高官们离任时，也往往会加入高盛，这不仅是因为在高盛可以拿到高额奖金，更是因为当时的高盛正处于金融及政策创新前沿的核心地带。
But is the “it” factor now stealthily passing from Goldman to companies such as BlackRock? That is one intriguing question running through my mind following this week’s news that Philipp Hildebrand, the former chairman of the Swiss National Bank, is becoming vice-chairman for BlackRock, based in Europe.
但眼下，这个“它”因素是否正从高盛悄然向贝莱德(BlackRock)等公司转移呢？最近，当看到有消息称瑞士央行(SNB)前行长菲利普?希尔德布兰德(Philipp Hildebrand)将出任贝莱德副董事长时（常驻欧洲），我想到了这个有趣的问题。
Quite why Hildebrand decided on this move is not something he has discussed at length in public; it probably reflected personal, as much as strategic, reasons.
希尔德布兰德为何做出这样的决定，个中原因他不曾在公开场合详细谈论；可能既有个人方面的原因，也有战略方面的考虑。
But if an anthropologist were to look at this move, in terms of what it reveals about the modern financial tribe, it looks symbolic on at least two counts.
如果让人类学家来研究此事，那么就现代金融“部落”而言，这至少反映出两种象征意义。
For one thing, it points to the extraordinary position of BlackRock itself. When Larry Fink, the sharp-eyed former bond trader, first joined BlackRock more than two decades ago, asset management was a very unglamorous field and fixed income assets had none of the glitz of, say, equity trades. But in the intervening years, Fink has stealthily created a behemoth, through organic growth and mergers, with some $3,700bn of assets under management. That is some way bigger than the entire British economy.
首先，这反映出贝莱德自身非同寻常的地位。当目光敏锐的前债券交易员拉里?芬克(Larry Fink)20多年前加入贝莱德时，资产管理还是一个很不起眼的领域，固定收益资产也不像股票交易那样，拥有炫目的光环。但随后几年间，通过有机增长和兼并，芬克不动声色地缔造了一个资产管理规模达到约3.7万亿美元的庞然大物。这甚至超过了英国的总体经济规模。
Arguably more striking though is its information and infrastructure edge. As its assets have swelled, the company has built a vast database to track and measure the value of assets, particularly in the fixed-income and distressed-asset fields. As a result, during the 2008 crisis, both private financial firms and branches of the US government alike repeatedly drew on its consultancy, valuation and risk-management skills.
但可以这么说，更令人吃惊的是贝莱德所拥有的信息和架构优势。随着资产规模的扩大，贝莱德建立了一个庞大的数据库，用以追踪并衡量资产价值、尤其是固定收益和不良资产领域的资产价值。因此，在2008年金融危机期间，无论是私人金融公司还是美国政府所属部门，都纷纷向贝莱德寻求咨询、估值以及风险管理技能方面的服务。
And European governments and companies are following suit: BlackRock is currently playing a crucial advisory role in places ranging from Ireland to Greece. Indeed, the total sum of assets which it is monitoring is worth $12,000bn. That is almost the size of the US economy.
一些欧洲国家的政府和公司也在效仿：从爱尔兰到希腊，贝莱德目前正向许多国家提供至关重要的咨询服务。事实上，贝莱德目前所监控的资产总额已达12万亿美元，几乎和美国经济总量不相上下。
This puts BlackRock in an extraordinarily influential position. But it also creates challenges. Managing a company this big is tough. So is creating fresh sources of revenue and profit (though BlackRock’s profits have been reasonable recently, margins are not spectacular). And as it dances ever closer with governments, the reputational challenges are rising. BlackRock, like Google, benefits from the fact that it dominates an infrastructure niche – but that creates political risks. Little wonder it likes hiring people with senior policy knowledge.
这就把贝莱德推到了一个极具影响力的位置，但同时也给它带来了挑战。管理如此大规模的公司并非易事。寻找新的收入和利润来源同样并非易事（尽管贝莱德近期的利润尚算合理，但利润率却是差强人意）。此外，由于贝莱德与政府的联系日益紧密，其在声誉上面临的挑战正在加剧。像谷歌(Google)一样，贝莱德也得益于在基础架构上享有的优势，但这也带来了政治上的风险。难怪贝莱德喜欢聘用熟谙政策的人才。
But aside from the company itself, the wider structural symbolism of Hildebrand’s move is fascinating too. Back in the old days – or before 2007 – one of the biggest reasons why Goldman had the “it” factor was that there was real intellectual excitement and profit potential to be found from trading securities, devising funky derivative instruments and concluding corporate deals. That was cutting edge. These days, however, profit and innovation in those fields is being undercut by financial reform and overcapacity, particularly at regulated banks. A sense of stigma is afoot.
但除了贝莱德本身，希尔德布兰德的举动所折射出的宏观象征意义也十分有趣。早在过去——或者说在2007年之前——高盛享有“它”因素优势的最主要原因之一在于，从事证券交易、设计出新颖的衍生品工具以及促成公司交易，这些都有着潜在的利润可赚，也能带来真正的心理满足感。这在当时属于“前沿”业务。然而如今，这些领域的利润和创新正受到金融改革和“僧多粥少”局面的压制，尤其是受到监管的银行，情况更是如此。一种耻辱感正在浮现。
Life outside regulated banks, in fields such as asset management, still offers the potential for thrills, particularly when conducted in non-banks. It currently requires a lot of brainpower, for example, to work out how to generate reasonable investor returns in a zero-interest rate world. So too does devising solutions for the looming pensions crunch (which is going to be as big, if not bigger, a headache for the next decade as the eurozone crisis is today). True, this may not sound as sexy or as lucrative as, say, prop trading, but the potential for creativity is there.
受监管银行之外的业务，比如资产管理等领域，仍具有创造惊人业绩的潜力，尤其是在非银行部门。例如，这些领域眼下需要招募大量的人才，从而找到在“零利率”世界中，为投资者获取合理回报的方法。还需要为逐渐逼近的养老金危机制定出解决方案（未来十年中，这场危机引起的麻烦将不亚于当下欧元区危机所引发的问题）。诚然，这或许听起来没有自营交易那么吸引人或是利润丰厚，但它所拥有的创造性潜力却是毋庸置疑的。
Now it remains to be seen, of course, whether BlackRock (or anyone else) can produce such innovation. It is also unclear whether BlackRock will be able to sidestep all the political challenges. Some rumblings of discontent about conflicts of interest have already surfaced in places such as Spain. These may spread, unless BlackRockis extraordinarily savvy in the coming years (memo to Fink: just look at Goldman’s own story to see how sentiment can turn). But, if nothing else, his ascent shows that the financial crisis is not just producing big losers – but some significant winners too.
当然，贝莱德（或是其他公司）能否引领如此的创新，目前尚有待观察。贝莱德今后能否避开政治上的所有挑战，也还是个未知数。在西班牙等地，已经出现了对利益冲突的不满之声。这种声音可能会向别处蔓延，除非贝莱德在未来几年里表现出足够的智慧（请芬克注意：看看高盛的经历，就能明白大众情绪可以发生怎样的变化）。但是，芬克地位的提升即便不能说明其他问题，它也表明，金融危机不仅产生了大输家，同时也造就了一批大赢家。
“BlackRock envy” is not a phrase that trips off the tongue; but it may point to the way that finance is evolving today.
“嫉妒贝莱德”(BlackRock envy)不是一个朗朗上口的短语；但它可能揭示了当今金融业的演进方向。
译者:邢嵬
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Post By：2012/6/21 11:54:23
