李嘉誠爲何此時重組商業帝國

Around Asia, Li Ka-shingis watched as much for business acumen as his status as one of the region’s richest men. With his move on Friday to overhaul his business empire, the 86-year-old tycoon appears to have pulled off another masterstroke.

Investors yesterday gave his plans for a complete overhaul of his two main companies an emphatic thumbs-up, with double-digit rallies adding $11.5bn to their market capitalisation.

The market cheer followed Mr Li’s announcement late on Friday that he planned to merge his two main businesses — his flagship Cheung Kong group and blue-chip conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa — and then spin off the property assets to shareholders. The deal will provide a clean split between a conglomerate including telecoms, retail, infrastructure and energy, and the property which was the basis for his $34bn fortune.

Cheung Kong closed up 14.7 per cent and Hutchison gained 12.5 per cent in Hong Kong yesterday. All of which has left investors, bankers and analysts asking why Mr Li did not do this sooner.

A reorganisation of some sort has been a perennial topic of debate among Hong Kong dealmakers for at least a decade, while the absence of actual change has been the death of many an investor arbitrage strategy.

Analysts and dealmakers have produced a host of possible reasons for the timing of the deal. Some suggest it is related to succession planning, since Mr Li turns 87 this year. They also point to the possibility that Mr Li is seeking to free up capital for a target the group is quietly stalking; or that it is about escaping Hong Kong by moving the companies’ domicile to the Cayman Islands.

In terms of succession, Mr Li laid out his main plan two years ago, with eldest son Victor taking over his father’s stake in Cheung Kong — now to be a 30.15 per cent stake in each of the two new groups, Cheung Kong Hutchison and Cheung Kong Properties. “The new structure does make it simpler for Victor to take over,” says one merger specialist.

In choosing the Cayman Islands, Mr Li is following the more than 40 per cent of Hong Kong-listed companies already domiciled there, including groups such as Tencent, the Chinese internet group, and the listed units of many of China’s biggest state-owned enterprises.

The charge that he is seeking to escape Hong Kong is laid at Mr Li’s door whenever he rejigs part of his empire, which spans 52 countries. However, several people involved in the deal said planning began this summer. This would place the decision to proceed before the Occupy protests this autumn turned the spotlight on Hong Kong’s government and its connections with local tycoons.

“We do not believe this reflects on management’s view on the Hong Kong business environment,” says Danie Schutte, analyst at CLSA.

The companies themselves say the move is about releasing shareholder value trapped by the discounts inherent in their linked nature.

Analysts estimate that Cheung Kong tends to trade at about 50 per cent of its net asset value if its 49.97 per cent of Hutchison is excluded. Hutchison, meanwhile, averages an 18 per cent discount to its book value for being a conglomerate, according to CLSA, but before the news it was trading at a 37 per cent discount.

But the timing, according to both companies, was driven by their increasingly entwined businesses. This was brought to a head last year by Cheung Kong’s move into aircraft leasing — a business that more logically belonged among Hutchison’s mix of telecoms, retail, infrastructure, ports and energy.
The aircraft deal, however, helped alleviate a build-up of cash at Cheung Kong as the property-focused group struggled to find land at good prices.

“We found another business to put some money to work which was aircraft leasing. Then questions started to come up — ‘why are you in aircraft leasing? Are you not a property company any more?’ So it became clear to us that a decision needed to be made on how we were going to delineate the businesses,” said Gerald Ma, head of strategy at Cheung Kong.

The blurring lines in turn increased investor uncertainty over where to invest. “Its not like we came up with an idea and they [Cheung Kong] said ‘Oh we should have this’,” said Frank Sixt, chief finance officer of Hutchison. “But you do get to a situation . . . where shareholders are saying ‘Well, where’s the growth going to be in this group?’”

The new structure will be completed by June if shareholders and the courts approve. If speculation about a new deal target proves true, the proof of the new, more cleanly structured Li empire will come in watching how many pieces of the group end up involved in that new deal.

在亞洲，李嘉誠引人注目既是因爲他是該地區最富有的人之一，也因爲他敏銳的商業頭腦。上週五，這位86歲的企業大亨提出重組其商業帝國的計劃，此舉似乎又是一步妙棋。

投資者昨日對他徹底重組旗下兩家主要企業的計劃明顯表示贊成，兩家上市公司的股價漲幅達到兩位數，市值增加115億美元。

在市場喝彩之前，李嘉誠於上週五下午宣佈，計劃將其旗艦企業長江實業(Cheung Kong Holdings)與藍籌股綜合企業和記黃埔(Hutchison Whampoa)合併，然後將房地產資產剝離給股東。這筆交易將實現包括電信、零售、基礎設施和能源在內的綜合企業與房地產的徹底分離。房地產曾是李嘉誠340億美元財富的基礎。

長江實業股價昨日在香港股市收漲14.7%，和記黃埔則上漲12.5%。所有這些都讓投資者、銀行人士和分析師不禁要問：李嘉誠爲何沒有早一點這麼做？

至少10年來，重組一直是香港交易撮合者長期辯論的一個話題，而缺乏實際變化讓很多投資者套利策略流產。

分析師和交易撮合者爲李嘉誠選擇此時進行重組提出了很多可能的理由。一些人認爲，這與交接計劃有關，因爲今年李嘉誠就87歲了。他們還指出，李嘉誠可能在尋求爲該集團悄悄逼近的一個收購目標騰出資金；或者可能是爲了通過把公司的註冊地遷到開曼羣島來逃離香港。

從接班的角度來看，李嘉誠兩年前就提出了其主要計劃，大兒子李澤鉅將接管李嘉誠在長江實業的股權，也就是重組後在兩個新公司長江和記實業(Cheung Kong Hutchison)和長江實業地產(Cheung Kong Properties)的持股比例將分別爲30.15%。一位併購專家表示：“新的架構確實讓李澤鉅接班變得更爲簡單。”

在選擇開曼羣島爲註冊地方面，李嘉誠效仿了超過40%的在港上市公司的做法，這些公司就是在開曼羣島註冊，包括中國互聯網集團騰訊(Tencent)以及很多中國最大國有企業的上市公司。

無論李嘉誠何時調整其覆蓋52個國家的商業帝國的架構，都會有人抨擊他試圖逃離香港。然而，數位參與該交易的人士表示，該計劃開始於去年夏季。這意味着在去年秋季“佔中”抗議活動使得人們聚焦於香港政府及其與當地商業巨頭的關係之前，重組決定已經作出。

里昂證券(CLSA)分析師丹尼爾•舒特(Danie Schutte)表示：“我們相信這並非反映了管理層對香港商業環境的看法。”

兩家公司自己也表示，此舉是爲了消除從控股公司的關聯性導致的折讓，爲股東釋放價值。

分析師們估計，如果不考慮其持有的49.97%的和記黃埔的股份，長江實業的股價往往爲每股淨資產的50%左右。與此同時，里昂證券表示，綜合集團和記黃埔的股價平均較其賬面價值折讓18%，但在重組消息曝出之前，該公司股價折讓37%。
但按照這兩家公司的說法，選擇此時重組，是因爲兩家的業務日益交錯。去年長江實業進入飛機租賃業務更是讓這一點急劇凸顯——從邏輯上來說，飛機租賃業務更應屬於集電信、零售、基礎設施、港口和能源於一身的和記黃埔。

然而，在以房地產爲主的長江實業很難以合適價格拿到土地之際，飛機交易幫助其緩解了現金過多的問題。

長江實業企業戰略主管Gerald Ma表示：“我們發現可以在另一個領域將一些資金投資利用起來，那就是飛機租賃業務。於是有人提出疑問，‘你們爲什麼進入飛機租賃領域？你們不再是一家房地產公司了嗎？’因此我們明白了，有必要就如何明晰業務範圍作出決定。”

模糊的業務界限讓投資者更加不確定將資金投向哪裏。和記黃埔首席財務官陸法蘭(Frank Sixt)表示：“這不是我們提出一個想法，然後他們（長江實業）說‘哦，我們應該有這個想法’。但你的確會進入這樣一種局面……股東會問，‘好吧，這家集團的增長方向在哪裏？’”

如果獲得股東和法庭的批准，重組將會在今年6月完成。如果對新收購目標的懷疑證明是真的，通過觀察集團中最終有多少部分捲入這筆新交易，就可以瞭解李氏帝國的新架構是否真的變得更加清楚明晰。