经济学人(1-3)

The redback abroad人民币在境外

Offshore thing离岸那些事

London wants to become a hub for trading in the yuan

伦敦想成为人民币离岸交易中心

WHEN the pound sterling reigned as the world’s dominant international currency, the City of London claimed the lion’s share of the market for sterling bills of exchange, with which foreigners financed their cross-border trade and investment. After sterling was toppled by the greenback, London then invented the “euro-dollar” market, which allowed people to deposit dollars and borrow them in an of fshore market beyond the reach of America’s capital controls. London’s banks are now readying themselves to profit from the growing offshore market in China’s currency, the yuan.

当英镑还在国际货币市场中占据统治地位的时候，伦敦城在英镑交易市场中占有很大的份额，通过英镑外国人可以进行跨国贸易和投资。在英镑被美元击败之后，伦敦创造了“欧洲美元”市场，在这个市场中人们可以在不受美国资本管制的情况下储蓄和借贷美元。现在，伦敦的银行已经做好了从不断发展的人民币离岸市场中获利的准备了。

According to the Financial Times, Wang Qishan, a Chinese vice-premier, was due to give China’s official blessing to London’s efforts during a visit to Britain this week. The offshor e business is still in its infancy, but is growing fast. China now allows yuan to circulate freely outside its borders, but not across them. Foreigners must earn yuan by selling goods to China or, in some cases, direct stakes in their companies. They can deposit these yuan in banks offshore, or invest them in offshore bonds, but they cannot invest them on the mainland without the government’s permission.

据金融时报报道，中国副总理王岐山在这周的英国之行中对伦敦方面的努力给予了赞许。人民币离岸业务仍然出去萌芽阶段，但增长迅速。中国现在允许人民币在境外自由流通，但并未放开跨境流转。外国人要获得人民币必须向中国出口货物，或者，在一些情况下，直接出售公司的股份。他们可以在境外银行中储蓄这些人民币，或者投资境外债券，但在没有政府同意的情况下不可以在中国境内进行投资。

The bulk of this offshore business now resides in Hong Kong, where yuan deposits totalled over 572 billion (almost $90 billion) in July. All of the offshore bonds launched to date have been issued in Hong Kong, where they are known as “dim sum” bonds, after the popular Cantonese dishes. Hong Kong and Macau also host the only two banks outside the mainland that can clear yuan claims with China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of Ch ina (PBOC).

人民币离岸业务很大一部分集中在香港，7月份香港人民币存款总额超过了5720亿元（约900亿美元）。所有离岸有期债券都在香港发行，这些债券被称为“点心”债券，以大受欢迎的广东菜命名。香港和澳门还拥有仅有的两家可以与央行（中国人民银行）进行人民币结算的境外银行。

Potential rivals, such as London, are unlikely to knock Hong Kong off its perch. The territory enjoys an inimitable position as an offshore, yet in-country, financial centre—its success is even written into China’s latest five-year plan. But there is little to stop other financial centres

competing for a smaller share of the offshore business. In Singapore, for example, banks now offer yuan deposits and bond funds. Its central bank is one of a dozen that have agreements with the PBOC to swap their currencies for yuan. Nigeria’s central bank hopes to set up a similar swap line; its governor would also like to park up t o 10% of the country’s $35 billion of foreign-exchange reserves in the yuan. If China wants foreigners to trade its currency, it cannot be too fussy about where they do it.

潜在的对手，如伦敦，不太可能把香港从制高点拉下。这块地区有着不可复制的地位，既是处于境外又是属于国内的金融中心，它的成功甚至被写入了中国最新的五年计划。但中国并不会过多阻止其他金融中心竞争较小的人民币离岸结算份额。比如说，新加坡的银行现在提供人民币存款和债券基金业务。其央行是众多与中国人民银行签署人民币兑换协议的央行之一。尼日利亚央行希望获得一个相似的换汇额度；其政府还希望将国家350亿美元外汇储备的10%投资于人民币。如果中国希望外国人交易其货币，那对于在哪交易就不必太大惊小怪了。

London can boast great depth of experience in foreign exchange and a convenient time zone. Now all it needs is a deep pool of yuan deposits, a generous swap line with the PBOC, an enticing menu of yuan securities, and a catchy, local name with which to market them. Egg-fried bonds, anyone?伦敦可以自豪于其丰富的外汇交易经验和便利的时区。现在它所需要的是一个有深度的人民币存款池，一个足够大的换汇额度，一个有吸引力的人民币证券清单，还有一个惹眼的有地方特色的交易名字。荷包蛋债券，有谁想要吗？

Diaspora bonds散居移民债券

Milking migrants吸收移民存款

How poor countries can tap emigrants’ savings

看贫穷国是怎样吸引移民存款的。

HOW can emigrants help the countries they have left? The usual answer is: by sending money home to support their parents, put cousins through college, and so on. Such remittances are important, says Dilip Ratha of the World Bank, but it is not enough to tap the income of migrants abroad. Poor countries should also tap their savings. One way is to sell diaspora bonds.

移民是怎么帮助他们的故乡的？通常的答案是：通过往国内寄钱来赡养父母、来资助兄弟姐妹们上大学等等。世界银行的Dilip Ratha说，这些侨汇当然扮演着重要角色，但是要想攫取海外移民的收入，这样做是远远不够的。贫困国应该把他们的存款也挖掘出来。一种方法就是发放散居移民债券。

The idea is simple. Poor-country governments can issue bonds and market them to emigrants in rich countries. There are several advantages to milking members of a diaspora. They are often patriotic: they like the idea that their savings will pay for bridges and clinics at home. They are patient, since they have a long-term tie to the issuer. They are less jittery than other investors, too, since they have friends who can tell them whether political unrest is really as bloody as it looks on television. And they are sanguine about currency risk. If the Zambian kwacha crashes, an expat Zambian can buy his mother a cheap house.

这个主意很简单。贫困国政府可以发行债券并且卖给在富裕国的移民。吸收移民的钱有几点优势。比如，他们通常很爱国，他们希望他们的存款被用来建设家乡的桥梁和诊所。他们很有耐心，因为他们与发行人有很深的渊源。他们也不会像其他投资人那样大惊小怪，因为他们有朋友可以告诉他们政治动乱是否真的像电视上报道的那么血腥。而且他们对汇率风险更乐观。如果赞比亚的克瓦查贬值了，一个海外的赞比亚人可以给他妈妈买一栋便宜的房子。

Israel and India have successfully issued diaspora bonds in the past. A desperate Greek government is pursuing the idea, too. Diasporas are larger than ever—more than 200m people live outside the countries where they were born. They are richer, too: migrants from developing countries have saved an estimated $400 billion. Thanks to cheap phone calls and flights, migrants often remain in close touch with their homelands. And they are not hard to reach: governments could approach them via the money-transfer companies that they already use.

过去，以色列和印度已经成功地发行了移民债券。焦头烂额的希腊政府也正在施行这个办法。移民规模空前强大——2亿多人住在他们出生国之外。他们也更富裕了，发展中国家的移民地存款大约有四千亿美元。由于廉价电话和机票，移民们与他们的故乡保持着紧密的联系。而且容易联系到他们，政府可以通过他们已经在用的汇款公司接近他们。

Japan’s economic prospects日本经济前景

Out of the ruins祸兮福之所倚

A decent recovery may be on the way强劲复苏时代也许即将到来

FIVE months after a tsunami and nuclear meltdown assailed Japan, the economy has been pummelled by fresh blows. Share prices have followed global stockmarkets down, with the Nikkei 225 index revisiting its nadir in the days after the earthquake in March. As if the fears about a global slowdown that have depressed equity investors were not enough, the yen has been soaring, which will hurt Japanese exporters. Adding to the pain, Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, downgraded Japan’s debt rating one notch to Aa3 on August 24th because of its huge public debt and chaotic politics.

距离海啸以及核泄漏事件已经五个月，这段时间以来日本经济遭受连串打击。股价随全球股市低潮的大流，日经指数又一次跌至3月地震发生以来的最低点。老天似乎嫌全球经济放缓的忧虑把权益投资人打击得还不够，日元又开始猛涨，影响了日本出口。更糟的是，8月24日信用评价机构Moody’s还以公共债务过多以及政局不稳为由把日本债务评价降级至Aa3

Yet amid the gloom the outlook for a robust recovery has actually been brightening. Private economists are forecasting a boom in 2012 and 2013, as the rebuilding of the devastated Tohoku region in north-eastern Japan acts as a big stimulus, which will offset slower growth in America and Europe. Official estimates put the damage at between ￥16 trillion and ￥25 trillion ($210 billion-330 billion). The government has already budgeted for ￥6 trillion to pay for reconstruction, which has yet to kick in. An additional stimulus package, perhaps as large as ￥10 trillion, is being debated in the Japanese parliament. The surge in public spending means that Japan is almost certain to resume growth in the second half of this year.

日本经济虽然目前并不景气，但事实上强劲的复苏势头却现出了曙光。公共部门外的经济学家预测日本会在2012年到2013年期间迎来经济高峰，因为东北受灾严重的福岛地区灾后重建工作将大幅拉动经济增长，这让欧美的缓慢增长不足为惧。官方预计受灾损失在16到25兆日元之间（相当于210到330亿美元之间）。政府已经拨了6兆日元的预算用于灾后重建，但资金还未到位。另外可能有一揽子10兆日元的大型经济刺激计划正在议会探讨中。公共支出突然增加预示着日本几乎确信经济形势有望在后半年得到恢复。

One auspicious sign is that the economy did rather better in the second quarter of 2011 than had been feared. The recession continued, as GDP fell for the third successive quarter. But the contraction of 0.3% (an annualised fall of 1.3%) from the first quarter was half the rate that had been predicted. The main reason for the weakness was that exports declined by almost 5% because of power shortages and the disruptions to the supply chain that followed the disastrous events of March 11th.

日本2011年第二季度的经济表现高于预期，可视为一个好兆头。随着GDP在接下来第三季出现下滑，经济衰退仍在持续。但第二季下滑的百分比仅为0.3%（按这个百分比算来，年下滑率为1.3%），只达预计结果的一半。出现下滑的主要原因是由于电力短缺，加上3月11日的灾难破坏了供应链，导致日本出口几乎下降了5%。

These impediments to growth are being removed but a fresh cause for concern is the strengthening yen. The government is striving to prevent this but the fretting may be overdone. In nominal terms, the value of the yen is hitting new highs. But in real terms, taking into account Japan’s persistent deflation and inflation elsewhere, the yen is in line with its average over the past two decades (see chart). That is one reason why Japanese manufacturers have continued to make decent profits. Companies gripe that the strong yen may push them to move operations overseas. Yet they are heading there anyway, to be closer to consumers in faster-growing markets.

这些妨碍增长的障碍因素已经消除，但日元的强劲趋势成了人们关注的新焦点。日本政府正竭力防止日元进一步升值，然而欲速则不达。日元的名义值已经达到了新高峰，但考虑到世界各地均受通胀困扰唯独日本经济长期通缩，日元的实际价值仍和过去20年的平均值保持一致(见图表)。这就是日本制造上能够继续赚取丰厚利润的原因之一。各企业纷纷抱怨称，也许会被强势的日元逼至海外。但即使日元不升值，企业也会这么做，因为这样离高增长市场的消费者更近。

信用评级机构终身裁判

降低金融机构对评级的依赖不是件容易事

Aug 13th 2011 | NEW YORK | from the print edition

WARREN BUFFETT did not mince his words after Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s long-term debt.Treasuries deserved a “quadruple-A” rating, he harrumphed. The world’s best-known investor may be short some of the ratin gs agencies’ opinions, but he is long their equity. With a 12.5% stake (as of March 31st), his holding company is one of the largest shareholders in Moody’s, S&P’s main rival.

针对标普调低了美国长期债权等级一事，沃伦巴菲特并不讳言他的异议，他认为美国的债权甚至可以达到“AAAA”的级别。这位世界最知名的投资人可能看不上某些评级机构的某些观点，但要注意，他可是他们的老东家了。巴菲特的控股公司持有标普主要竞争对手穆迪12.5%的股份（3月31日前统计数据），是穆迪最大的股东。

Mr Buffett understands that, for all the politicians’ pledges to clip ratings firms’ wings, the trio that dominates the industry—the smaller Fitch is the third—will continue to wield hu ge influence. And where there’s power, there’s money. Moody’s enjoys operating margins of 35-40%. Activist investors are pushing for a break-up of S&P’s parent, McGraw-Hill, to free its more promising divisions, including ratings, from the more sluggish publishing units.

巴菲特显然知道，虽然所有政客都决心剪除评级机构的羽翼，但是当前的评级三巨头（排名第三的是规模较小的惠誉）仍将保持着巨大的影响力，而权利在哪里，金钱就将涌向哪里，穆迪的营运利润率就达到了35-40%。激进的投资者正催促标普母公司麦格希进行拆分，把包括评级在内更有前景的部门从增长缓慢的出版部门独立出来。

The opprobrium heaped on ratings firms is only partly deserved. They acquitted themselves poorly in the run-up to Enron’s collapse in 2001. Their number-crunching reached a nadir in the more recent mortgage debacle, which was exacerbated by their willingness to award AAA ratings to thousands of structured-mortgage time-bombs.

评级机构承担的恶名一部分属于自作自受，另一部分确却是无辜受累。2001年安然破产，在整个事件的发展过程中，评级机构难辞其咎。在距今更近的按揭危机事件中，评级机构更是名声扫地，由于它们向众多堪称定时炸弹的结构化按揭产品授予AAA评级，导致了事态的恶化。

On the debt of countries, however,their record is considerably better. In a study last year, the International Monetary Fund concluded that ratings were a reasonably good indicator of sovereign-default risk. All countries that have defaulted since the

mid-1970s had their grade cut to junk by ratings agencies at least a year beforehand.

In the current European crisis, ratings firms had begun to downgrade peripheral

euro-zone countries years before bond markets woke up to default risk.然而评级机构在国家债务方面的一贯表现明显要好得多。去年国际货币基金组织执行的一项研究表明，评级是衡量主权违约风险的较好指标。自20世纪70年代以来，所有违约国家至少在违约之前的一年，信用评级就被评级机构调到了垃圾的级别。如今的欧洲危机中，评级公司更是在债券市场意识到违约风险之前几年，就开始降低欧元区外围国家的信用评级。

Still, there are awkward questions to answer. Some wonder how S&P can rank America below France, which is knee-deep in the euro-debacle. In recent

years it has tended to downgrade sovereigns ahead of its rivals, leaving some wondering if its criteria are too harsh (see chart). It has, to be fair, strived to explain which factors affect its decisions. It has been less good at clarifying their relative weight. The big ratings firms provide “an ingredients list with no recipe,” says GlennReynolds of CreditSights, a research company. Indeed, markets were taken by surprise when, three days after the American downgrade, S&P said that some state and local governments might be able to keep their top-notch ratings if they could, for instance, show how they would cope with reduced federal benefits.

然而人们仍有些不太客气的问题要问。有些人诧异，标普怎么会把美国的等级定得比深陷欧元崩溃危机的法国还低。近年来，标普倾向于先于竞争对手降低主权国家信用评级，让人们不禁怀疑它的标准是否太严格（见图）。平心而论，标普确实在尽量试图解释影响其决策的要素，但是却没有说清楚这些要素的相对权重。研究公司CreditSights的Glenn Reynolds评论说该评级机构巨头提供了张“配料单，但却没有菜谱”。而标普调低美国信用评级三天后，又声明说可能会保留某些州和地方政府的顶级评级，只要它们证明能够应对联邦福利减少等问题即可。此举令市场大为惊讶。

The power that the big three wield over debt markets stems from their designation (along with seven much smaller outfits) as “nationally recognised” ratings firms. This confers quasi-regulatory status on them and ensures their judgments are hard-wired into rules governing banks, insurers and funds. Ratings are, for instance, used in evaluating capital standards and in central banks’ collateral-eligibility rules. Rescue proposals in Europe have turned on how ratings agencies define a sovereign default.

追根溯源，三巨头能对债券市场施加如此的影响力，是因为它们及另外七家规模更小的机构是“国家认可”的评级机构。如此一来，它们就拥有了半官方监管机构的身份，并能把它们的判断渗透到监管银行、保险商和基金的规则中。例如，评估资产标准时要用到评级，中央银行有关抵押资格的规则也要使用评级，欧洲救援提案的主要考量依据就是评级机构将会如何定义主权违约。

Ratings are also embedded in private contracts: witness the ruinous amounts of extra collateral demanded by AIG’s derivatives counterparties after it was downgraded. Some two-thirds of American pension funds with investment charters limit themselves to buying bonds rated by the industry’s triopoly.

在私有合同中也时时出现评级的身影：想想AIG降级后，其衍生产品购买方提出了多么巨额的额外担保要求吧。美国约有三分之二的养老基金都在投资章程中规定，只能购买经过评级三巨头评分的债券。

The increase in references to ratings in regulations over time, combined with limited competition, has created “a more or less ‘guaranteed market’with few incentives to compete on the basis of rating quality,” the IMF notes. Worse, it creates so-called cliff effects: a rush to the exits when

assets are downgraded (or likely to be),especially to below investment grade.

长期以来，评级越来越经常成为监管活动的参考，再加上竞争有限，便形成了一个“近乎‘铁饭碗’的市场，没有人有动力在评级质量方面一较高下”，IMF评

论说。更糟糕的是，评级还导致了所谓的悬崖效应：即资产降级（或可能降级）时，尤其是降到投资级别以下时，人人都会争先恐后地离场。

The obvious answers are to sever the link to regulation and to increase competition. The Financial Stability Board, which co-ordinates the G20’s financial policies, has asked standard-setters and regulators to find ways of yanking ratings out of rules on bank capital, fund holdings, margin agreements and so on. America’s Dodd-Frankact requires their removal, or replacement by “appropriate” alternatives,within two years. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed numerous changes to this end, covering securities registration, money-market funds and capital standards for brokers. Reliance on external ratings has been reduced in Japan and Argentina, too.

很明显，解决之道就是割断监管与评级的联系，并加强竞争。金融稳定委员会在20国集团的金融政策中发挥着协调作用，它已要求标准制定者和监管者想办法从银行资产、基金持有、保证金贷款协议等事项的监管规则中剔除评级因素。美国的Dodd-Frank法案要求在两年内删除或以其他“合适”参数替代评级。证券交易委员会(SEC)已为此目标提出了多项修改方案，涉及方面包括证券注册、货币市场基金及券商资产标准等。日本和阿根廷也降低了对外部评级的依赖。

On rating watch negative评级进入负面观察名单

Counter-intuitively, some industry leaders back these moves. Deven Sharma, S&P’s boss, argues that the firm’s analysis would still find takers without a regulatory stamp of approval. It might also become easier to defend the industry’s much-pilloried line against those who bring liability lawsuits: that ratings are mere opinions, protected by

free-speech laws.

令人匪夷所思的是，有些评级业的公司高管也支持这些举措。标普的老板Deven Sharma称就算没有监管机构的批准，仍然会有买家购买公司的分析。以上举措

推行后，评级业在遭受责任诉讼时，也可以更理直气壮地说“评级仅仅是种见解，受到自由言论法的保护”，过去人们对这种说法一直颇为嘲讽。

Unfortunately, finding alternatives to ratings is proving difficult. Some suggest using credit-default-swap prices,but these too can exacerbate market swings. Others propose a minimum volume of past debt issuance, but this discriminates against smaller entities. Regulators remain open to suggestions for how to assess risk in bank-capital rules without ratings.然而要找到评级的替代品并非易事。有人建议使用信用违约掉期价格，但是这种做法也会加剧市场的动荡。还有人建议对以往债券发行量规定最低限额，但是该做法对较小型的实体不利。监管者仍在征集建议，找出如何在银行资产规则中使用评级以外的方法评估风险。

Even in the absence of a panacea to replace ratings, officials could do worse than to scrap the “nationally recognised” imprimatur, throwing

the game open to any firm that meets basic standards. Encouragingly, new competitors are entering the arena, including Kroll, a

corporate-investigation firm, and Bloomberg, a financial-information firm. (The Economist Intelligence Unit, a sister company of The Economist, is among the outfits that produce sovereign ratings.) Ratings agencies based in emerging markets can expect their clout to grow, too (though few pulses quickened when China’s Dagong Global cut America to five notches below AAA on August 2nd.)

即使现在没有替代评级的万全之策，撕毁“国家认可”特令，让任何达到基本标准的公司参与到竞争中来也是官方最好的选择。可喜的是，新竞争者已陆续开始进入竞技场，其中有公司调查机构Kroll，也有金融信息公司Bloomberg。（经济学人的姊妹公司经济学人信息部也是开展主权评级的机构之一。）位于新兴市场的评级机构也有望扩张自己的影响力（虽然中国大公国际在8月2日将美国的评级调到比AAA低五个等级时，并没有人多么在意）。

The danger is that many institutional investors will be reluctant to do their own credit analysis and will continue to rely on the big three even if ratings are pulled from the rules. That would be an easy option, but ultimately a masochistic one. For the biggest beneficiaries of ratings have not been long-term bond investors but the Wall Street firms that used the system to foist misrated debt on them.

危险在于，即使规则中已经消除了评级因素，许多机构投资者可能并不情愿自己开展信用分析，而是将继续依靠三巨头的工作。这样选择看起来理所当然，其实却是受虐狂才会做的选择。因为评级的最大受益人并非长期债券投资者，而是利用这套系统将错误评级的债务转嫁到投资人身上的华尔街公司们。

Private-equity firms私募基金

Between a clock and a hard place度日如年

The turmoil in stockmarkets has hit the private-equity industry混乱的股票市场打击了私募产业

BOSSES of private-equity firms may have impeccable timing when doing deals but it fails them when throwing parties. In 2007 Steve Schwarzman, the joint founder of Blackstone, had a $3m bash for his 60th birthday, just months before the first tremors of the credit crisis. On August 13th Leon Black of Apollo celebrated his 60th birthday in style while stockmarkets were gyrating. That night Lloyd Blankfein, the boss of Goldman Sachs, quipped to Mr Schwarzman, a fellow guest: “Your 60th got us into the financial crisis. Let’s hope this party gets us out of it.”

私募公司的老板在交易时或许有绝佳把握机会的能力，但他们选择开派对的时机却不合时宜。就在2007年，信用危机爆发前几个月，黑石集团联合创始人史蒂夫·施瓦茨曼(Steve Schwarzman)为自己的60岁生日大肆挥霍了三百万美元。今年8月23日股市开始震荡，阿波罗投资公司(Apollo)利昂·布莱克（Leon Black）却在奢侈地庆祝其60岁生日。当晚的宾客劳尔德·贝兰克梵（Lloyd Blankfein），高盛投资银行的总裁，揶揄施瓦茨曼先生说：“您的60大寿开始了金融危机，现在让我们祈祷这个生日派对能帮我们逃离危机。”

So far partying like it’s 2007 does not seem to be helping. The share prices of publicly listed private-equity firms have been tumbling. Apollo has fallen by 21% over the past month, while KKR and Blackstone are down 29% and 33% respectively. During downturns, such firms get “whacked” from several directions, explains Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The companies they own are vulnerable when the economy slows because they are leveraged. And they find it harder or less lucrative to cash in their investments through initial public offerings (IPOs). By late August private-equity firms had cancelled four IPOs scheduled for the month, according to Dealogic, a research outfit.

但是像2007年那样大手大脚地开派对似乎已经没用了。公开上市的私募公司的股价已经暴跌。阿波罗投资公司(Apollo)在过去的一个月里股价跌了21%，KKR集团和黑石集团的股价分别下跌了29%和33%。股价下跌，使这些公司疲于奔命却又无能为力，芝加哥大学布斯商学院教授史蒂芬?卡普兰（Steven Kaplan）解释说。因为他们的收购多是杠杆投资，所以经济增速一旦下降，他们的损失非常大。这时他们很难通过首次公开募股(IPO)将自己的投资变现，即使能够变现，收益也远不如以前丰厚。Dealogic研究表明，截止8月底，私募投资公司已经取消了四个首次公开募股(IPO)的计划。

In normal times such delays might simply be inconvenient, but now they could prove devastating.Most buy-out firms urgently need to return cash to investors in their funds, who are impatient to see returns. Behind the scenes they are selling as much as they can, provided they can get a decent price. “Everything is for sale,” says an investment banker. But the high-profile auctions of the boom era are over, and firms are instead plumping for stealth sales to save their blushes if there are no reasonable offers. If markets remain volatile, many firms will want to hold on to their investments until they can secure a better price, but that is itself a gamble.

放在平时上市计划推迟也不会伤筋动骨，但在这个时候推迟，对私募基金而言却是灭顶之灾。由于期望的回报迟迟未到，很多专门从事收购的公司现在急需归还

其资金。别看投资公司表面风光，一旦有合适的价格，暗地里他们尽可能的出售其资产。“一切都待售，”一位投行经理说。但是引人关注的公开叫价时代已经过去，如果没有合适的价格，很多公司宁愿私下交易，以掩饰其囊中羞涩的尴尬状况。如果市场持续动荡，大部分公司在获得较好的价格前不会出售其投资，但这本身就是一场赌博。

The tougher conditions may force a restructuring of the industry. In the near-term more private-equity firms will take minority stak es in each other’s companies, says Michael Magliana of Moelis & Company, an investment bank. For example, in June 2010 Blackstone sold a 28% stake in Merlin, a theme-park operator it owns, to CVC, another private-equity firm. This kind of transaction lets firms retain a piece of their investment until markets swing back. Already, secondary transactions, in which private-equity firms sell whole investments to each other, make up a quarter of deals by value, according to Preqin, a data provider.

艰难的状况可能会导致行业内部重组。短期内，更多的私募公司会相互持有对方少量股票，投行Moelis & Company的麦克·玛格丽娜(Michael Magliana)说。2010年6月黑石集团将其控股的主题公园运营公司——美林娱乐集团(Merlin)——28%的股份卖给私募公司CVC。类似的交易会让私募公司保有投资对象的部分股票，一直坚持到市场回暖。而在二级市场上，Prein提出的数据表明，已经有些公司将其投资整体打包卖出，这类交易占整个市场总交易价值的四分之一。

There are bound to be some casualties. According to a survey by Coller Capital the typical private-equity investor expects one in five firms in the industry to fail at raising another fund. That is hardly surprising since the vast majority of those surveyed said they were unlikely to stump up money when a private-equity firm they have already invested in raises a new fund.总有人要出血。据科勒资本(Coller Capital)调查，投资者大多预测该行业内五分之一的公司融资失败。这并不奇怪，大多数被调查者说，如果自己已投资的私募公司还要进行新的融资，他们不会追加投资了。

Investor confidence has been knocked by seeing just how vulnerable the lords of the private-equity business are to swings in listed markets. The precarious economic outlook is also bad for a business that requires long-term funding. As a private-equity executive explains, “People are loth to commit money for five to ten y ears at a time when they don’t have clarity about what the next six months look like.” Perhaps most important of all, in rich-world economies that need urgently to lower their debt burdens, buoyant credit can no longer grease the buy-out industry as it did in its heyday.当面对股市震荡，私募公司老板的脆弱性一览无余，这严重地打击了投资者的信心。经济前景不明朗，这对需要长期投资的公司很不利。就像一位私募公司执行总裁解释的，“如果人们看不清楚未来6个月的经济走势，他们不会将钱投在5-10年的项目上。”也许最关键的问题在于，那些急于减轻债务压力的发达国家，已经不能像在经济鼎盛期时那样，为收购行业提供充足的信贷支持了。