收購公司新玩法 搜索基金

Starting your own business is risky, so why not buy one that someone else has already steered through the perilous formative years? That is the logic behind the search fund, a specialist vehicle in which investors back a promising individual rather than an existing start-up team.

自己創業是有風險的，所以幹嘛不去買一家已經度過危險的成長期的公司呢？這就是搜索基金(search fund)背後的邏輯，利用這一專業工具，投資者可以資助一個有前途的人，而不是一支現有的初創團隊。

In the first stage, money is raised to pay the individual a nominal salary and expenses, sometimes for several years, while they hunt for an acquisition target in which they believe they can add value. Further funds are used to manage and grow the company.

在第一階段，籌集的資金用於支付這個人的名義工資和開銷，這個階段有時達數年時間，與此同時他們尋找一個他們認爲自己可使其增值的收購目標。後續籌集的資金用於管理和發展這家公司。

The concept was developed at business school more than 30 years ago, led by Irving Grousbeck, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business in the US, who started teaching the concept to his MBA students.

這一概念於30多年形成於商學院，先驅者歐文•格勞斯貝克(Irving Grousbeck)是美國斯坦福大學商學院(Stanford Graduate School of Business)教授，當時他開始向他的MBA學生傳授這一理論。

Now, like that other Californian creation, the venture capital-backed model for high-growth tech start-ups, search funds are being tried in countries around the world.

現在，正如高增長科技初創企業的風投模式——加州創造的另一個融資工具，搜索基金也在世界各地獲得嘗試。

In April, for example, Barcelona’s Iese Business School, one of the first business schools outside the US to teach the theory of search funds, is hosting a conference for entrepreneurs and investors involved in more than 20 search funds from five continents.

比如，美國以外首批教授搜索基金理論的商學院之一——巴塞羅那的IESE商學院(Iese Business School)，定於今年4月舉辦一場會議，參加者有來自五大洲20多支搜索基金的企業家和投資者。

Since the first search fund was created in the early 1980s, almost 200 funds have been raised in the US and Canada. A study of 134 of these, by Stanford’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies in 2013, found that the aggregate pre-tax internal return on investment was a healthy 34.9 per cent.

自20世紀80年代初第一支搜索基金建立以來，迄今美國和加拿大已有近200支搜索基金成立。2013年斯坦福創業研究中心(Stanford’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies)對其中134支搜索基金做的一項研究發現，總體稅前內部報酬率(IRR)爲34.9%，相當健康。

This method of backing an entrepreneur, who can be given guidance to making a company acquisition, is seen as less risky by some angel investors.

一些天使投資者認爲，這種投資於一名企業家的方式風險更低，這名企業家在收購企業時可接受指導。

Peter Kelly is a lecturer in management at Stanford who has also run search fund classes at Iese. “It is highly unlikely that an investor will lose all their money,” he says.

彼得•凱利(Peter Kelly)是斯坦福大學管理學講師，他也在IESE商學院教授搜索基金課程。他說：“投資者賠掉所有錢的可能性極低。”

“People do it mostly because they want a return, but it is also fun and interesting to be involved with these potential chief executives and see them become real chief executives.”

“人們這樣做主要還是想獲得回報，但與那些潛在的首席執行官打交道，看着他們成爲真正的首席執行官也是件有趣的事。”

Having said that, even enthusiasts like Mr Kelly admit that search funds should come with a warning sign. About a third of them lose capital after an acquisition, although he notes this is still better than the failure rate for start-ups, where investors lose all their money if the venture collapses.

話雖如此，即便像凱利這樣的熱衷者也承認，應該給搜索基金加上警示標。約有三分之一的搜素基金在完成收購後會損失本金，不過他指出這仍好過初創企業的失敗率，初創企業一旦倒閉，投資者所有的錢都將打水漂。

“Running a search fund is hard to do,” he says. “If you start one and it goes wrong, it is a serious sidetrack to your career.”

凱利說：“運營一個搜索基金是很難的。如果啓動了一個搜索基金，結果失敗了，將導致你的職業生涯嚴重偏離正軌。”

This probably explains why in Mr Kelly’s classes of about 40 MBA students, only three or four each year choose to set up a search fund. “It is not right for everybody,” he says.

這或許解釋了爲什麼凱利班上的約40名MBA學生裏，每年只有三四個人選擇去創建一支搜索基金。他說：“不是所有人都適合做搜索基金。”

Europe should be ripe for search fund entrepreneurs because it has so many family businesses with succession problems. Recent years have also seen a more risk-taking culture among investors, encouraged by the emergence of start-up hotspots in cities such as London, Berlin, Stockholm and Barcelona.

歐洲出現搜索基金企業家的時機應該已經成熟，因爲該地區有很多存在接班問題的家族企業。此外，最近幾年，投資者中間還出現了一種願意承擔更多風險的文化，在倫敦、柏林、斯德哥爾摩和巴塞羅那等城市，初創企業匯聚地的出現推動了這種文化的興起。

However, understanding of the concept remains limited largely to those who have been through business school.

然而，理解這一概念的仍基本上限於讀過商學院的人。

Furthermore, only a few schools have it on their curriculum, such as Insead in France and Singapore, and Harvard and Chicago Booth in the US.

另外，只有爲數不多的幾所商學院將這一理論列入課程表，例如在法國和新加坡均有校區的歐洲工商管理學院(Insead)、以及美國的哈佛大學(Harvard)和芝加哥大學布斯商學院(Chicago Booth)。

Simon Webster was the first person outside North America to create a search fund, after reading about a US one on his MBA at London Business School in 1989. “Most [case studies] send me to sleep but this one kept me awake all night,” he admits.

西蒙•韋伯斯特(Simon Webster)是北美以外第一個創建搜索基金的人，1989年，他在倫敦商學院(LBS)攻讀MBA時曾讀到過有關一隻美國搜索基金的資料。他承認：“多數（案例研究）讓我昏昏欲睡，這個案例卻讓我徹夜未眠。”

Before his MBA, Mr Webster had only worked for large companies such as IBM. He dreamt of working for an entrepreneurial company but lacked “the big idea” as he calls it. Search funds were a way around this.

在攻讀MBA之前，韋伯斯特只爲IBM等大企業工作過。他曾夢想爲一家初創企業工作，但缺乏他所說的“好點子”。搜索基金則爲他指出了一條路。

Although it only took Mr Webster seven months to persuade 70 US and UK-based investors to back him — raising £80,000 — he admits it was “bloody hard” to get the British backers on board compared with their counterparts.

儘管韋伯斯特只花了7個月的時間就說服70名英美投資者支持他（籌得資金8萬英鎊），但他承認，與美國投資者相比，獲得英國投資者的支持“非常困難”。

Some of those British investors may have felt their caution was justified in the early stages since Mr Webster admits he almost ran out of money finding the right acquisition target. Fortunately, UK access to a greater amount of data on potential companies helped.

在初期，其中一些英國投資者可能曾認爲他們的謹慎是有道理的，因爲韋伯斯特承認，在尋找合適收購目標的過程中，他幾乎耗盡所有資金。幸運的是，在英國可以獲得更多有關潛在被收購企業的數據，這幫了他的忙。

Under British corporate law, UK-registered businesses must provide the names and ages of all directors. This makes it easier to spot companies where the owners are approaching an age when they might be looking to hand over the reins.

根據英國公司法，在英國註冊的公司必須提供所有董事的姓名和年齡。因此找到那些所有者已到了可能已開始考慮接班問題的公司較爲容易。

In total, it took Mr Webster and his team more than three years to find their company, a prosthetic limb supplier called RSL. But after 10 years in charge they were able to create what Mr Webster calls “a nice return” for his investors, through a mixture of acquisition and organic growth. This increased turnover 10-fold to £30m.

總之，韋伯斯特和他的團隊用了3年多的時間找到了他們心儀的公司——假肢供應商RSL。在管理10年後，通過併購和有機增長，他們已經能夠爲投資者創造出韋伯斯特所說的“不錯的回報率”。該公司營業額增長了9倍，至3000萬英鎊。

Yet despite the success stories, expansion of the search fund market looks like a slow-burn activity. While there are now at least three private equity funds in the US dedicated to the model and some investors backing more than 100, it remains a niche concern even among business students.

然而，儘管有成功的案例，但搜索基金市場的擴張好似小火慢燒。儘管目前美國至少有3傢俬人股本基金致力於這種模式，一些投資者投資的企業家超過100名，但即便在商學院學員中，這也仍屬於一個小衆領域。

Mr Webster now spends a chunk of his time sharing his story at LBS, Insead and Iese. This is not so much to help raise the profile of search funds, as it is to make people aware of the risks, he concedes, adding that search funds are never going to overtake the VC model of backing start-ups, even among MBA graduates, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

韋伯斯特現在正花費大量時間在倫敦商學院、歐洲工商管理學院和西班牙IESE商學院分享他的故事。這不是爲了提高搜索基金的知名度，他承認，這是爲了讓人們瞭解風險。他補充稱，即便在MBA畢業生中間，搜索基金也永遠不會取代投資初創企業的風投模式，但這未必是件壞事。