一家西方瑞典私募爲何加註俄羅斯

Russia is not a place where Western private equity wants to play right now. Too much conflict, too many sanctions.

俄羅斯現在可不是西方私募基金爭相投資的地方。那裏的衝突太多，制裁也太多。

For example, The Blackstone Group recently said that it was “giving up” on the country, just weeks after a group of ex-Goldman Sachs bankers abandoned plans for a $2 billion emerging markets fund that was expected to have a major Russian allocation. And then there are the PE bigs who either are leaving the advisory board of the $11 billion state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund, or who are at least reconsidering their involvement.

比如，黑石集團（The Blackstone Group）最近就表示將“放棄”這個國家。數週前，一羣前高盛（Goldman Sachs）銀行家也放棄了一個20億美元的新興市場基金計劃，該基金原本打算對俄羅斯進行高比例配置。還有一些私募巨頭打算離開資產規模達110億美元的俄羅斯國有直接投資基金(Russian Direct Investment Fund)顧問委員會，至少也在重新考慮他們的參與程度。

So why is Sweden-based private equity firm CapMan not only maintaining its Moscow team, but this morning announcing that it has closed its second Russia-focused fund with nearly EUR100 million in capital commitments?

那麼，爲什麼總部位於瑞典的私募股權公司CapMan不僅保留了其莫斯科團隊，日前還宣佈，第二隻專注投資俄羅斯的新基金已完成近1億歐元的資本認繳額？

Jerome Bouix, CapMan’s head of biz dev and investor relations, tells me that most of the fundraising occurred last year (i.e., before Russia’s annexation of Crimea), acknowledging that many promising leads dried up as the geopolitical situation intensified in 2014. But he says that none of the 2013 commitments bailed, and argues that the sanctions should not be too problematic for the fund, which focuses on “consumer-driven” small and mid-sized companies inside of Russia.

CapMan公司業務開發和投資者關係事務主管傑羅姆o布伊告訴本文作者，大部分募資發生在去年（即俄羅斯吞併克里米亞之前）。他承認，隨着地緣政治局勢在2014年趨於緊張，很多原本前景很好的投資線索最終不了了之。但他表示，2013年認繳的資本無一退出，併力稱制裁不會給該基金造成太大問題，這隻基金專注於投資俄羅斯國內“受消費驅動的”中小企業。

For starters, the Russian consumer isn’t going anywhere. Second, some of these companies actually are in an improved position today, as a combination of sanctions and the ruble’s devcaluation have made locally-produced goods more affordable than rival imports. Third, many of CapMan’s historical exits of Russian portfolio companies were trade sales to Russian buyers (of course, many were not, which seems to be a plausible cause for concern).

首先，俄羅斯消費者沒有離開。其次，有些公司所處的環境其實還比以前更好，因爲制裁和盧布貶值使得國產商品比同類進口商品更可承受。第三，CapMan公司過去撤出投資的很多俄羅斯公司都是賣給了俄羅斯買家（當然，也有很多不是這樣，這似乎是一個值得擔憂的因素）。

“We started in Russia in 1996, and have had a lot of similar discussions in years like 1998 and 2000,” Bouix explains. “We are confident that the companies were are investing in will find buyers in the future.”

“我們是1996年進入俄羅斯的，在1998年和2000年等年份也有過很多相似的討論。”布伊解釋說，“我們有信心，過去和現在進行投資的公司未來將找到買家。”