在2007年结束之际, 挂在并购业者嘴边最热门的话题就是主权财富基金(或称主权基金)对并购的影响. 中国主权财富基金—中国投资有限责任公司(中投)一改过去只支持国有银行的策略, 出人意料的以50亿美元投资华尔街最具名声的摩根士丹利.

    这种主权财富基金通过解救银行中介机构对并购产生影响. 主权财富基金成为了西方金融机构欢迎的拯救者，持续对并购业产生着影响。

    多年来, 西方的银行家们总是傲慢地指责中国的借贷不是根据信贷的基本原则, 而是取决于政治因素, 从而导致灾难性结果. 令人尴尬的是, 如今, 这种灾难也发生在西方银行业精英们的身上. 如那些违背信贷基本原则的次级房贷.

    对于美国来说, 石油和货币储备被主权基金控制不利于国家安全, 特别象是中投这样的公司, 是可怕的. 华尔街日报也评论说: 2008年, 美国会不会被杠杆收购呢? 但是中投投资摩根士丹利应当是不具有敌意的, 那是对西方金融机构的一个拯救行动. 况且, 中投只有三分之一的资金投资于海外.相对于第一单对黑市的投资，此次交易无疑又是一次惊人之举，但 中投的这笔交易要明智的多，是中国历史上真正有附加值的投资.

    从全球投资博弈的角度讲, 50亿美元是微不足道的. 中国抓住了一次用风险最小的最少投资和有利的条件为自己树立了良好形象的机会, 同时也缓解了人们指责她是抱有邪恶政治目的的投资者. 这样的交易艺术, 孙子也会自豪的吧.

    As we end 2008, the hot topic on the tongues of M&A professionals is what impact Sovereign Wealth Funds (“SWFs”) will have on M&A deals.? Maybe a better question is what effect will they have on M&A banks?? In recent months Abu Dhabi’s SWF infused $7.5 billion into Citibank, and Singapore’s SWF (along with an unnamed middle eastern investor) put over $10 billion into UBS. The original draft of this article addressed these two deals and the fact that China’s SWF (China Investment Corporation, “CIC”) had taken a different tack and chosen to shore up its own nation’s banks rather than those of the west.? However, literally on this column’s deadline date (December 20th) I had to rewrite this article because China surprised the M&A investment community by also stepping into the business of state-sponsored bank bail-outs.? CIC had thrown a $5 billion life-preserver to perhaps the most venerable name on Wall Street, Morgan Stanley!? It was now clear how SWFs were going to effect the M&A industry - by saving its intermediary banking institutions.
How quickly things change!? For years China has? been struggling with the hundreds of billions of dollars of non-performing loans that were inherited from its central-planned economy.? It was embarrassing, especially when some haughty western bankers would sometimes condescendingly point out that the problem could be directly traced back to the patently flawed practice of lending on political policy, rather than sound financial and credit principles.?? It was all too obvious to these western bankers that abrogating basic credit principles was a guaranteed prescription for disaster.? It was.

    But what no one anticipated was that a similar disaster would also come home to roost at the sophisticated western banking elite – and for the very same reason – disregarding basics.?? Today, the hundreds of billions of dollars of non-performing loans being bailed out are not policy loans in China, but the subprime mortgages that the supposedly most sophisticated financiers in the world had recklessly written in blatant disregard of fundamental credit principles.? It did not take an expert to sense that granting loans without even income verification, among other practices, was an algorithm for disaster.? It was.

    In less than a quarter, holdings of about 10% of each of these four premiere institutions, has been put into the hands, not of private funds, but directly or indirectly, of sovereign states!? How hard it will be for them to now teach the “art of the deal” to developing country investors!? Also, in less than a decade, China’s hoard of foreign reserves grew from essentially not material (N/M) to the largest of any country on the planet - $1.43 trillion!? This accumulation of unprecedented trade surplus wealth has been the result of one man’s taking a journey to the south.? Even Deng Xiaopeng could not have envisioned China’s burgeoning at the rate of a billion dollar a day over several years!? Conversely, the United States finds itself, not in the position of accumulating, but of needing some $2 billion a day just from foreign investors. Who is teaching whom the dao of deal making?

    One gets the feeling that we are in an axial time.? Like1973 when another person singularly changed the global game by dramatically raising the price of oil.? The world has never been the same.? As I write, oil is broaching the historic threshold of $100 a barrel!? Two acts by two men in two developing countries – and the world has never been the same since!? And, ironically, both moves involve the same type of asset: reserves.?? While one is oil and the other is monetary, the utilization by a single sovereign was the torque turning the axel.? But the irony gets even more extreme.? CIC bailing out perhaps the flagship of American capitalism, comes at a time when there is a growing xenophobia and jingoism in the U.S. is focused specifically on SWFs.

    Recent Wall Street Journal articles proclaimed that “some of the largest [sovereign wealth] funds are owned by countries least trusted by the U.S. and European public: China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait and the United Arab Republic . . .? ”? and that there was concern over whether the U.S. will be LBOed in the Year of The Rat!? Senator Evan Bayh attested that SWFs are reason enough for the U.S. to rewrite the definition of “national security interest” (read “threat”) and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has publicly warned that because almost half of America’s foreign debt is held by non-US investors, the U.S. needs to protect itself from being “held hostage to economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo.”? One faintly hears a familiar refrain in the background:”Axis of Evil!? However, this time it’s Axis of Evil Assets.

    The irony is compounded further by the fact that all had seemed quiet on the financial front, in part because CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) had had its provisions strengthened in response to Cnooc’s attempt to acquire control of Unocal two years ago.? And then came the spring offensive when? the Middle Kingdom’s tradition of slowly and carefully feeling one’s way with his toes across the slippery stones when crossing a river – seemed to have been abandoned when it announced an investment in one of these stones – Blackstone!? Tremors rippled through the ranks of financial forces when CIC’s precursor, Central Huijin Investment Co., announced a $3 billion investment in the U.S. investment and M&A firm’s up-coming IPO.? To the west, the dragon had again become financially bellicose.?

    But wait! The Morgan Stanley transaction is not a hostile offensive, but, embarrassingly, a rescue operation!? CIC’s investment is totally passive.? Fears that offshore U.S. dollars might be a WMD (Weapon of Monetary Destruction) should dissipate as these SWFs investments are seen to not sink key western financial institutions, but keep them afloat!

    The Morgan Stanley bail-out must taste sweet to the deciders of CIC policy in Beijing.? It is now western global bankers’ turn to eat bitter. The Blackstone investment drew wide criticism inside the PRC because it lost almost a third of its value in a matter of months.? To make the matter worse, an investment by the CIC in China Railways gained almost a third over a shorter period of time when it IPO’d in Hong Kong.? Perhaps as a result, CIC announced in December that it would dedicate two-thirds of its $200 billion in funds to shoring up domestic banks, the Agricultural Bank of China and the China Development Bank.? Another third would go to Central Huijin Investment (the investor in Blackstone), and, only the remaining third would be placed? overseas, primarily with portfolio managers.? It was anticipated that these allocations would be in small amounts among many money managers. So today’s news is yet another surprising, but very geopolitically astute, maneuver.

    In a single transaction, China has made one of the most truly value-added investments of all time! While $5 billion sounds lot a lot, in the global game of finance it isN/M.? It is almost nothing, less than 0.0035%, of PRC Forex reserves.? In addition to seizing an opportunistic coup? by putting such a minimal amount at minimal risk, and on very favorable terms, and generating considerable good will,? it has simultaneously? defused arguments that it is a bellicose investor with only a nefarious political agenda.? Sun Tzu would be proud!