经济学人下载:一周商业要闻

Business this week 

一周商业要闻

Sep 28th 2013 |From the print edition

After admitting in August that it was considering its options, BlackBerry announced that it had agreed to a $4.7 billion buy-out from a consortium headed by its biggest shareholder. (The deal is not final; the board may explore alternative bids.) The company’s announcement came after it reported a $960m write-down because of poor sales of its latest touchscreen phone. Once so addictive it was dubbed “CrackBerry”, BlackBerry’s share of the global smartphone market has fallen to less than 3%, from 11% in 2011.

在八月份承认其正在考虑其选择之后，黑莓宣布同意以其最大股东为首的财团47亿美元的收购。（交易还没最终确定，董事会可能会选择其他出价。）由于最新款的触屏手机销量不佳导致其产生了9.6亿美元的减记，此后黑莓宣布了出售的消息。曾经一度如此流行并冠名为“CrackBerry”的黑莓全球智能手机市场的份额从2011年的11%下降到了如今的不到3%。

Anger mounted in Finland, Nokia’s home country, about the euro 19m ($25m) pay-off that Stephen Elop will receive when he takes up his new job at Microsoft. Microsoft is buying Nokia’s once-proud handset division, which saw its business slip further under Mr Elop’s tenure as chief executive. According to a Finnish newspaper, he refused a request to hand back some of the money because he is battling a divorce from his wife.

诺基亚的祖国芬兰最近很生气，因为史蒂夫埃洛普在微软任职新工作之后将从诺基亚获得1900万欧元（2500万美元）的辞退金。微软正在收购诺基亚曾经辉煌的手机部门，埃洛普任职首席执行官时该部门的业务进一步下滑。据一份芬兰报纸报道，他拒绝交回部分辞退金的要求，因为他正在跟其妻子离婚。

Gold dust

金粉

Once again proving the naysayers wrong, Apple sold 9m of its new iPhone 5C and 5S models in their first weekend on the market, doubling its previous launch record for an iPhone. The figure was boosted by including sales from China for the first time, where the new gold-coloured iPhone was particularly popular.

再次证明了唱衰者的错误。苹果iPhone5S和iPhone5C在上市一周的销量达到了900万，是上代iPhone上市首周销售记录的两倍。数字大幅上升，其中原因包括首次在中国发行，中国市场香槟金的iPhone尤其受欢迎。

Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce firm, failed to reach an agreement with the Hong Kong stock exchange about how it will structure its board after an IPO, and is now likely to list in New York, according to reports. Alibaba’s valuation is expected to be at least $60 billion when it makes its stockmarket debut next year.

中国最大的电商阿里巴巴在于港交所关于首次公开招股后如何构建其董事会未能达成协议，据报道，现在有可能选择在纽约上市。明年上市时，阿里巴巴的估值预计会达到600亿美元。

Applied Materials, which is based in Silicon Valley, agreed to merge with Tokyo Electron in a deal that shakes up the business of supplying equipment to the semiconductor industry. The combined pair will account for a quarter of the market. Shareholders in Applied Materials will own 68% of the new entity, which is valued at $29 billion. That makes it one of the biggest foreign takeovers of a Japanese company.

总部位于硅谷的应用材料公司同意来自东京电子的合并，这将会使得半导体工业设备供应业务产生巨大变动。合并之后这两家的份额将会占到四分之一。应用材料公司的股东将会在新公司中占股68%，价值290亿美元。这将会使得它成为日本公司收购的最大外国公司之一。

A bump in the road 

颠簸的道路

The United Auto Workers’ health-care trust exercised its right as the holder of a 41.5% stake in Chrysler to require the carmaker to file for an IPO. The trust is in dispute with Fiat, Chrysler’s majority owner, about the value of the shares it holds, which Fiat wants to buy in order to own Chrysler outright. The IPO’s prospectus warned that a flotation could see Fiat divorcing itself from Chrysler, which has blossomed since their marriage in 2009. No date was forthcoming as to when the IPO might happen.

美国汽车工人医保信托作为克莱斯勒占股41.5%的股东，要求克莱斯勒提交首次公开募股，行使了其作为股东的权力。该信托与克莱斯勒的主要拥有者菲亚特关于其所持股份价值存在争议，菲亚特想将这些股份买回，从而彻底掌管克莱斯勒。这次首次公开募股的招股章程警告菲亚特一次发行股份可能使其与克莱斯勒脱离关系，这从2009年他们的联姻以来就在酝酿了。首次公开募股的日期还未确定。

JPMorgan Chase was rumoured to be nearing an $11 billion mega-settlement that covers all its outstanding legal issues with regulators. On September 19th the bank was fined $920m by American and British authorities for its conduct in the “London whale” trading scandal.

传言摩根大通为其与监管机构未解决的法律问题支付了将近110亿美元的巨额偿付费用。9月19日，摩根大通被英美政府罚款9.2亿美元，原因是其在“伦敦鲸”交易丑闻中的行为。

ICAP, a London-based broker, was fined $65m by America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission and $22m by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority for manipulating the LIBOR benchmark interest rate. America’s Department of Justice brought criminal charges against three former employees at ICAP, only the second group of bankers it has charged over the LIBOR scandal (the first were at UBS).

总部位于伦敦的经纪公司ICAP被美国商品期货交易委员会罚款6500万美元，同时被英国金融市场监管局罚款2200万美元，原因是其操纵伦敦银行同业拆息基准利率。美国司法部对三名ICAP的前雇员提出刑事指控，这是继瑞银之后第二组被指控操纵伦敦银行同业拆息基准利率的银行家。

The Swedish government sold its remaining 7% stake in Nordea, ending its involvement with the Nordic region’s biggest bank, which was bailed out in the early 1990s. The government is using the proceeds from the sale to repay public debt. 

瑞典政府出售了其在Nordea银行最后的7%的股份，结束了其对北欧最大银行的参与，该银行在1990年代早期接受政府金援。政府正在利用出售所得款项偿还公共债务。

The IMF cut its GDP growth forecast for Russia for the third time this year, partly because of weak investment. It now expects the Russian economy to grow by 1.5% this year and 3% in 2014. That is far below the growth of 5-8% in the years before the financial crisis.

国际货币基金组织今年第三次更改其对俄罗斯GDP增长的预期，部分是因为投资的疲软。现在，该组织预计今年俄罗斯经济增长1.5%，2014年会增长3%。这相比金融危机前5-8%的增长下降了很多。

New rules came into force in America that allow private firms to advertise publicly for funding from accredited investors. A ban on what is known as general solicitation was passed in the 1930s to protect investors from an abundance of money-raising scams during the Depression. The new rules should help start-ups in their quest for seed money by allowing them to place adverts on anything from the internet to buses.

美国允许民营企业做广告吸收合格投资者资金的新规生效。1930年代通过了一般招揽禁令，为了保护投资者免受大萧条时期大量的集资诈骗。新规会有助于创业公司通过在网络和汽车等地方投放广告来筹集资金。

Mixed messages

混杂的信息

Speaking a few days after the Federal Reserve decided not to start tapering its $85-billion-a-month asset-buying programme, William Dudley, the vice-chairman of the Fed’s policymaking committee, said the economy remained “tepid” and that “no one in markets should have been surprised” by the decision. Mr Dudley still thinks tapering could begin this year, though it “depends on the data”. The Fed’s next meeting is in October 

在美联储决定不启动每月850亿美元的资产购买计划后不久，美联储决策委员会的副主席威廉达德利表示经济仍然不温不火，市场中没有人对此决定感到惊讶。达德利先生仍然认为此项计划会在今年进行，尽管取决于数据。美联储的下次会议在十月举行。