2009年12月1日

通用汽车CEO韩德胜宣布辞职 GM CEO Henderson Resigns

通
用汽车(General Motors)周二宣布，公司首席执行长韩德胜(Frederick Henderson)已经辞职，董事长惠塔克(Edward E. Whitacre Jr.)将暂时代理这一职位。

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韩德胜
韩德胜是在通用汽车在底特律召开一次董事会会议之后辞职的。今年3月，奥巴马政府迫使通用汽车前任首席执行长瓦格纳(Rick Wagoner)辞职，在通用汽车效力多年的韩德胜随后被推选为公司总裁兼首席执行长。在此之前，韩德胜是通用汽车首席营运长，并曾出任过首席财务长。

惠塔克在通用汽车总部召开的新闻发布会上对记者表示，韩德胜工作表现得很不错，但我们都认为未来需要作出一些改变。

惠塔克说，我们现在需要加快进程。他此前曾是美国电话电报公司(AT&T)首席执行长，是作为奥巴马政府救助通用汽车计划的一部分，被安排出任通用汽车董事长职位的。

通用汽车CEO韩德胜辞职，董事长惠塔克(Ed Whitacre Jr)将暂时代理这一职位。《华尔街日报》底特律主编Neal Boudette与记者Lee Hawkins在本期的《新闻中心》中对此进行了讨论。
惠塔克说，公司的当务之急是重新盈利，偿还从美国和加拿大纳税人获得的数百亿美元贷款。惠塔克说，他每天都会在通用汽车底特律总部。

通用汽车发言人普鲁斯(Chris Preuss)对记者说，惠塔克并不打算长期出任首席执行长，但寻找新首席执行长的过程需要耗时数月。

普鲁斯说，公司已就这一决定通知了奥巴马政府，但政府并没有参与此事。他说，这是董事会作出的决定。

今年51岁的韩德胜带领着通用汽车走出了破产程序，并试图将公司业务精简至四个核心品牌：凯迪拉克(Cadillac)、别克(Buick)、雪佛兰(Chevrolet)以及GMC。虽然他的这一目标已经基本实现，但试图出售其他几个品牌的努力遭遇到了挫折。

韩德胜此前曾希望将土星(Saturn)品牌出售给赛车大亨彭斯克(Roger Penske)，但交易最终告吹，该品牌目前正在被清算。上周，瑞典跑车制造商Koenigsegg AB放弃了收购萨博(Saab)品牌。

John D. Stoll


General Motors Co. said Tuesday its chief executive, Frederick 'Fritz' Henderson, has resigned from the auto maker and will be replaced on an interim basis by board chairman Edward E. Whitacre Jr.

The departure came after a meeting of GM's board in Detroit. Mr. Henderson, a veteran GM executive, was selected as GM's president and CEO in March when the Obama administration forced out his predecessor, Rick Wagoner. Previously, Mr. Henderson was GM's chief operating officer and served as chief financial officer.

'Fritz has done a remarkable job.' Mr. Whitacre told reporters at a news conference at GM headquarters. But 'we all agreed that some changes needed to be made going forward.''

'We now need to accelerate our progress,' said Mr. Whitacre, the former chief of AT&T Inc., who was installed as GM chairman by the Obama administration as part of the government's rescue of the car maker.

Mr. Whitacre said the company's priorities were returning to profitability and repaying the tens of billions of dollars in loans GM received from U.S. and Canadian taxpayers. He said he will be at GM's Detroit headquarters 'on a daily basis.'

A GM spokesman told reporters that Mr. Whitacre had no intention to remain CEO on a permanent basis. But the spokesman, Chris Preuss, said the search for a new CEO could take months.

Mr. Preuss said the Obama administration was notified of the decision after it was made but played no role in the move. 'This was a board decision,' he said.

Mr. Henderson, 51 years old, steered the company through bankruptcy proceedings and has tried to scale GM down to just four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. While he has largely succeeded in that goal, attempts to sell several of its other brands have hit obstacles.

Mr. Henderson's bid to sell Saturn to racing mogul Roger Penske fell through and the brand is now being liquidated. Last week, Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg AB dropped out of a deal to buy Saab.

John D. Stoll

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中国刺激性投资可能令市场难以招架 China's Stimulus Investments Could Swamp Markets

国
际商业组织中国欧盟商会(European Union Chamber of Commerce in China)说，中国刺激计划带来的新增投资可能会压垮全球市场，导致贸易冲突激增，显示出外界日益担心中国政府支持增长所带来的副作用。

中国欧盟商会周四在一份报告中说，宽松信贷和其他刺激中国企业扩张的措施加在一起造成钢铁、铝业、水泥和化工等领域新建了很多工厂。该组织说，在全球经济危机期间，工业产能的增加可能会压缩全球的利润率，导致其他国家的强烈反对。

报告说，中国的刺激计划向越来越值得质疑的项目发放大量信贷，几乎可以肯定会增加投资和制造业的直接和间接补贴。中国的增长模式要求欧盟和美国等外部需求能够消化中国的过剩产能；由于发达国家经济复苏乏力，这种可能性越来越小。

中国欧盟商会敦促美国和欧盟帮助中国调整政策，以防止贸易冲突出现破坏性的爆发；目前贸易冲突已经在增加。

如果来自中国企业的竞争更少的话，该组织代表的企业确实能够受益。不过很多分析人士认为，中国大规模扩大工业产能的做法与持续的贸易顺差、高企的全国储蓄率和巨额外汇储备等广泛的经济问题有关。

中国政府也日益专注银行贷款和公共建筑工程项目激增所带来的风险。近几个月来，北京方面宣布对产能过剩行业的新增投资实施限制，监管部门也悄悄行动起来给银行贷款的大幅增长降温。

国务院9月份在一份声明中说，不少领域产能过剩和重复建设问题仍很突出，有的甚至还在加剧。不仅是钢铁和水泥等传统行业在盲目扩张，风电设备和多晶硅等新兴产业也是如此。

举例来讲，尽管钢铁行业去年产能6.6亿吨，已经超过了约5亿吨的国内需求，然而政府估计目前在建的钢铁厂将有5,800万吨的年产能。政府说，水泥的年产能有望达到27亿吨，远远超过预测的16亿吨需求，而甲醇企业的开工率只有40%。

由于中国的快速增长使需求可以很快地赶上供应，长期以来，中国企业都在建设比短期需求还要大的产能。在某一年算过剩产能，在下一年可能就算产能不足了。因此，今年中国经济的复苏鼓励了企业投资不断增长的市场。

比如，随着建筑行业的需求强劲反弹，钢铁生产一再刷新纪录。花旗集团(Citigroup)分析师维格勒沃斯(Thomas Wrigglesworth)说，很多新增钢铁产能实际上是政府在刺激计划推出之前就已经计划好的，目的是用更先进的钢铁厂替代过时的。他说，更令人担心的是，小规模、低效产能的关闭实际上并没有贯彻执行。

地方政府没有关闭小钢铁厂，而是常常鼓励它们扩大产能以增强竞争力。中国欧盟商会的报告指出了若干这样的系统性问题，正是这类问题促使中国继续扩大企业产能。很多经济学家都认为，中国经济过度倾向于投资，同时指出很难说现在看似过剩的产能今后是否是不需要的。

摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)经济学家王庆说，我认为，如果以静止的眼光来看，往往会夸大问题。我们必须看看供需关系中的需求一方。不过中国企业确实拥有大量的存款和宽松信贷，使它们可以迅速进行新的投资。他说，每当一个赚钱的机会出现时，就往往会有大量的资金流入那个领域，而供应的增加会压缩利润率。

Andrew Batson


The new investments funded by China's stimulus plan may swamp world markets and lead to a surge in trade conflicts, an international business group said, in a sign of the rising concerns over the side effects of the government's drive to support growth.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, in a report released Thursday, said a combination of easy credit and other incentives for Chinese companies to expand has led to the construction of many new factories in areas like steel, aluminum, cement and chemicals. The increase in industrial capacity--at a time of global economic weakness--could drive down profit margins worldwide and lead to a backlash from other countries, the chamber said.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)

'The Chinese stimulus package has poured credit into increasingly questionable projects and will almost certainly increase direct and indirect subsidies to investment and manufacturing,' the report says. 'China's growth model requires that external demand--the European Union and the United States--be able to absorb the overcapacity it produces,' a prospect that is increasingly unlikely given the weak economic recovery in the developed countries.

The chamber urged the U.S. and EU to help China change its policies to prevent a damaging eruption in trade disputes, which are already on the rise.

The chamber of commerce does represent businesses that could benefit if there were less competition from Chinese factories. But many analysts do believe that China's massive expansion of industrial capacity is tied to broader economic problems, like its persistent trade surpluses, high national savings rate and enormous foreign-exchange reserves.

China's government has also increasingly focused on the risks from the boom in bank loans and public-works projects. In recent months Beijing has announced restrictions on new investment on sectors it has identified as having excess capacity, and regulators have quietly moved to cool down the surge in bank lending.

'In many sectors the problems of excess capacity and redundant construction are still very serious, and in some areas they are even worsening,' China's State Council said in a September statement. 'It is not only traditional industries like steel and cement that are blindly expanding, but also new industries like wind-power equipment and polycrystalline silicon.'

For instance, the government estimates that new steel mills capable of producing 58 million metric tons a year are now under construction--even though the industry's annual capacity, at 660 million tons last year, already exceeded domestic demand of around 500 million tons. Cement capacity is on track to reach 2.7 billion tons a year, against forecast demand of 1.6 billion tons, the government says, and methanol plants are operating at just 40% of capacity.

It has long made sense for Chinese companies to build more factory capacity than is immediately needed, since the country's rapid growth allows demand to quickly catch up with supply. What is excess supply in one year may not be enough by the next year. And so the recovery in China's economy this year has encouraged companies to invest in growing markets.

Steel production, for instance, has broken one record after another as demand from construction recovered strongly. And Thomas Wrigglesworth, an analyst at Citigroup, said the government actually planned much of the new steel capacity before the stimulus, in order to replace outdated mills with more modern facilities. 'What's more worrying is that the closure of small and inefficient capacity hasn't really taken place,' he said.

Rather than shutting down small steel producers, local governments often encourage them to expand to become more competitive. The chamber's report identifies a number of such systemic problems that encourage China's continued expansion of factory capacity. Many economists agree the economy has a bias toward investment, while noting that it's difficult to tell whether what looks like excess capacity now will turn out to be unneeded in the future.

'I think if one takes a static view, one tends to exaggerate the underlying problem. One has look at the demand side of the equation,' said Wang Qing, an economist for Morgan Stanley. But Chinese companies do have large savings and easy credit, enabling them to quickly pile into new investments. 'Whenever a profitable opportunity arises, there tends to be tons of money flowing into that sector, and increased supply results in compressed margins,' he said. 

Andrew Batson

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巴菲特一个电话敲定投资高盛 Buffett Played Hardball With Goldman

众
所周知，在2008年秋季金融危机最严重的时候，巴菲特(Warren Buffett)突然向有着金字招牌的投行高盛集团(Goldman Sachs)出手，向其注资50亿美元，获得了以每股115美元的价格买进高盛股票的认股权证。

不过，从2010年1月份出版的《名利场》杂志(Vanity Fair)刊登的一篇麦克林(Bethany McLean)对高盛情况的详尽分析中，我们可以更多地了解当时的高盛投资银行家特洛特(Byron Trott)如何向巴菲特草拟了这桩交易，交易又是如何在高盛主要人物的通话中敲定下来。

在去年秋季的那个下午，巴菲特与高盛首席执行长布兰克梵(Lloyd Blankfein)、特洛特和当时的联席总裁温克里德(Jon Winkelried)通了电话，通话简短、具有典型的巴菲特风格。巴菲特在电话中说，他将投资50亿美元，作为交换条件，他要获得10%的高额股息以及未来5年以每股115美元的价格买进更多股票的认股权证。巴菲特对他们说，我正要带孙子们去DQ吃冰淇淋；晚点给我打电话，告诉我你们想怎么做。

当然，他们接受了巴菲特的提议。此外，据麦克林报导，他们还得以利用巴菲特的投资，向其他投资者出售了约57.5亿美元的股票。当然，巴菲特的谈判技巧并非对任何人都有效。（不过，下次我买二手车讨价还价的时候，可能会试试这个老办法："我正要去Arby's买个烤牛肉三明治，你要是接受我的最后提议，就打电话给我！"）

对于巴菲特这个世界上最知名的价值投资者对高盛作出的决定，还有一点让我们感到有趣的是其胆量和直觉。当时，巴菲特对《华尔街日报》说，我没有看帐目，我只是作了判断。这可不是普通散户投资者应该做的决定。不过当你拥有巴菲特那样的优良投资纪录时，你很可能会非常心安理得地作出大胆的决策。

Matt Phillips


We all know how Warren Buffett swooped into Goldman Sachs at the peak of the financial crisis in fall of 2008, sinking $5 billion into the gold-plated investment bank and picking up the rights to buy Goldman shares at $115 apiece.

But in Bethany McLean's exhaustive look at Goldman in the January 2010 Vanity Fair, we get a bit more detail on how the deal was roughed out by then Goldman investment banker to Buffett, Byron Trott, and finalized in a call with with Goldman big shots:

In a very brief--and very Buffett--call that afternoon with Blankfein, Trott, and then co-president Jon Winkelried, Buffett said he would invest $5 billion in exchange for a hefty 10% dividend and rights to buy additional stock over the next five years at a price of $115 a share. 'I'm taking my grandkids out to Dairy Queen,' he told the Goldman men. 'Call me and let me know what you want to do.'

Of course, they accepted. And they were able to leverage Buffett's investment, using it to sell some $5.75 billion worth of stock to other investors. McLean reports. Of course, Buffett's negotiating techniques aren't going to work for everyone. (Although, next time I'm negotiating over a used car, I may try the old, 'I'm going to Arby's for a roast beef sandwich, call me when you accept my final offer!')

Another thing that struck us as sort of interesting about the decision the world's most famous value investor's made on Goldman was its gut nature. At the time, Buffett told the Journal, 'I didn't see a book. I just made a judgment.' Not the type of decision your run-of-the-mill retail investor should make. But when you've got Buffett's track record, you've likely grown pretty comfortable with your gut decisions.

Matt Phillips

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