Western investors have long been beguiled by the sheer size of the Chinese market. But the reality has often failed to match their visions — just take the entertainment industry in China.
西方投资者一直被中国市场的庞大规模所迷惑。但现实往往达不到他们的期待——只要看看中国的娱乐业就会明白这一点。The quest to combine the best of Hollywood magic with Chinese audiences has been playing out for some time now, with mixed results. Over the next year, investors are likely to be pitched a new wave of young companies wanting to go public and promising to succeed where others have failed.
将好莱坞模式的精华与中国观众结合起来的尝试已经进行了一段时间，结果好坏参半。在接下来的一年里，可能会有新一波想要上市并承诺会在其他公司跌倒过的领域取得成功的年轻公司，来到投资者面前进行推销。In a few months, STX, the second-tier Hollywood studio whose backers include Beijing-based Hony Capital, is expected to list its shares in Hong Kong. If all goes to plan, Open Road, another smaller Hollywood studio, will follow suit with an initial public offering in Hong Kong in 2019. Open Road was bought late last year by Tang Media Partners, which is based in Shanghai and Los Angeles, and counts, China Media Group; Tencent Holdings; and Neil Shen, founder of Sequoia Capital China, as investors.
好莱坞二线影业公司STX预计将会在几个月内在香港上市，其投资方包括北京弘毅投资(Hony Capital)。如果一切顺利的话，另一家较小的好莱坞影业公司Open Road将于2019年在香港首次公开发行(IPO)。Open Road去年底被Tang Media Partners收购，后者在上海和洛杉矶设有办公室，其投资方包括华闻传媒投资集团股份有限公司(China Media Group)、腾讯控股(Tencent Holdings)以及红杉中国(Sequoia China)创始人沈南鹏(Neil Shen)。
Over the past two years, the dominant story about China and the entertainment industry has been the serial acquisitions of western assets by former high-flying companies such as Dalian Wanda. Those transactions involved the conversion of massive amounts of Chinese renminbi to dollars to pay — or more likely overpay — for assets such as Wanda’s $3.5bn purchase of Legendary Entertainment, or its first signature deal, the $2.6bn purchase and subsequent listing of the AMC cinema chain.
在过去的两年里，关于中国和娱乐业的主要故事是大连万达(Dalian Wanda)等曾经飞得极高的公司连续收购西方资产。这些交易涉及将大量人民币兑换为美元来支付（很多时候过高的）收购款，比如万达以35亿美元收购传奇影业(Legendary Entertainment)，或者其首笔标志性交易——26亿美元购买AMC娱乐控股公司(AMC Entertainment Holdings)以及随后推动AMC上市。That wave of deals is now over, having fallen victim to Beijing’s displeasure and concerns about capital flight. That should sharpen investors’ focus on trying to pick the companies that will profit from the mixing of Hollywood and China, where the entertainment industry is changing fast.
这波交易潮如今已经结束——北京对资本外流不满和担忧的牺牲品。这应该会让投资者更加注重挑选那些将受益于好莱坞与中国市场相结合的公司。中国的娱乐业正在快速变化。Investors, for example, say Amazon is in talks that will probably result in its earmarking $1bn to acquire the rights and to produce three seasons of episodes based on a science fiction trilogy known by the title of the first volume, The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, a work that is wildly popular in China. It will prove more of a blockbuster than Game of Thrones, some mainland industry insiders predict. The rights are held by Lin Qi, the chairman of Youzu Interactive, primarily a developer of online games that is listed in China
例如，投资者们说，亚马逊(Amazon)正在进行相关谈判，谈判结果很可能促使亚马逊拨出10亿美元，购买《三体》(The Three Body Problem)相关版权并基于该书制作三季连续剧。这部刘慈欣创作的三部曲科幻小说在中国广受欢迎，书名取自三部曲的第一部。中国内地一些业内人士预测，根据《三体》改编的连续剧将比《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)还要火。《三体》的影视版权握在游族网络(Youzu Interactive)董事长林奇手中。游族网络主要是一家网络游戏开发商，在中国上市。Open Road is scouring the Chinese web for content (and is obtaining properties from online novel sites) to boost its fortunes ahead of that tentative listing. Many of the companies plotting IPOs over the next 12 months have attracted capital from some of the most respected venture capitalists.
Open Road正在中文网络中搜罗内容（以及从网络小说站点获取版权）以便在其上市计划落实之前提升发展势头。许多计划在未来12个月IPO的公司吸引了一些最受尊敬的风险投资家的资金。That is no guarantee they will prove a savvy investment for later stage investors, but the optimism about future Chinese entertainment and media consumption is growing. Analysts at Credit Suisse recently published a report on the prospects for the media industry in China, noting that it has “transitioned from a supply side and quantity driven expansion to a new age of growth underpinned by content and quality…Meanwhile, the TV drama industry has been transformed with the rise of online video websites as the primary distribution channel.” (That market has tripled in value to $42bn in 2016 from five years earlier, the brokerage notes.)
这并不能保证后来投资这些公司的人一定大赚，但人们对中国娱乐和媒体消费的前景日益感到乐观。瑞士信贷(Credit Suisse)分析师最近发布了一份关于中国传媒业前景的报告，指出“中国传媒业已经从供给和数量驱动的扩张过渡到以内容和质量为支撑的新时代……与此同时，随着在线视频网站崛起为主要分销渠道，电视剧行业发生了巨变”（瑞信指出，2016年该市场的价值增至2011年的3倍，达到420亿美元）。Part of the report’s optimism again rests on the size of the potential market — as it always does with China. “If the US is the dragon’s head, China is the dragon’s tail,” says one investor. “It is fat and growing. To really prosper, you need the Chinese tail; you need to pre-sell in China as well as the US.” Box office revenues [in China?] are expected to grow at a rate of 15 per cent in the next three years to$87, Credit Suisse says.
报告的部分乐观情绪同样源于潜在市场的规模——谈到中国时情况总是如此。一位投资者说：“如果美国是龙的头，那么中国就是龙尾。这条龙肥硕，而且还在继续长大。要想真正兴旺，你需要中国龙尾；你需要在中国以及美国预售。”瑞信表示，预计未来3年票房收入将以每年15%的速度增长至870亿美元。In addition, protectionism gives Chinese mainland players an unfair advantage in the domestic market. Despite Beijing’s problems with overpaying for foreign entertainment content, studios and sports teams, the government is still determined to see Chinese content go global.
此外，保护主义让中国内地企业在国内市场上享有不公平的优势。尽管中国政府不满于中国企业出过高价格收购外国娱乐内容、制片厂和运动队，但中国政府仍然决心让中国内容走向全球。Most importantly, China’s growing clout in the global entertainment industry reflects its edge when it comes to mobile technology. Entertainment companies are developing short video streaming services for their mobile customers. Sequoia and Tencent, for example, are backing Kuaishou and plan to take the company, which is valued at $18bn, public this year. Meanwhile, Bilibili, another Chinese short-form video company in which Tiger Global and Li Ruigang’s China Media have invested, will soon go public in the US with a valuation of $4bn-$5bn.
非常重要的是，中国在全球娱乐业日益扩大的影响力反映出其在移动技术上的优势。各娱乐公司都在开发面向移动客户的短视频流服务。例如，红杉和腾讯投资了快手(Kuaishou)，并计划在今年让这家估值180亿美元的公司上市。与此同时，老虎环球基金(Tiger Global)和黎瑞刚的华人文化产业投资基金(China Media Capital)投资的另一家中国短视频公司哔哩哔哩(Bilibili)即将在美国上市，估值为40亿至50亿美元。
As tantalising as these prospects seem, it is worth noting that just one of the three companies covered in the Credit Suisse report — Beijing Enlight Media — has an outperform rating. The challenge for investors is that many of these companies are young with a track record that is too short to judge. Not all of the new generation of aspiring media titans will succeed. Hollywood has always been about marketing dreams to investors as well as to audiences.
虽然这些前景看起来很诱人，但值得注意的是，在瑞信报告中所涵盖的三家公司中，只有北京光线传媒(Beijing Enlight Media)获得了跑赢大盘的评级。投资者面临的挑战是，许多此类公司都很年轻，业绩记录太短而无法判断好坏。并非所有新一代的有抱负的媒体巨头都会取得成功。好莱坞总是致力于向投资者和观众推销梦想。Investors should not be too starry-eyed.
投资者不应被冲昏头脑。