领导人们

　　Investment management

　　投资管理

　　The rise of BlackRock

　　贝莱德来了

　　In 25 years, BlackRock has become the world's biggest investor. Is its dominance a problem?

　　贝莱德二十五年间成为世界上最大资产管理公司，一家独大会出问题吗？

　　ASK conspiracy theorists who they think really runs the world, and they will probably point to global banks, such as Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.

　　问问阴谋论者到底是谁主宰着世界，他们很可能会将矛头指向跨国银行，比如花旗银行、美国银行、摩根大通，

　　Oil giants such as Exxon Mobil and Shell may also earn a mention.

　　石油巨头埃克森美孚、壳牌可能也会躺枪。

　　Or perhaps they would focus on the consumer-goods firms that hold billions in their thrall: Apple, McDonald's or Nestlé.

　　或许，还会有人揪着几家资产亿万的消费品公司不放：苹果、麦当劳、雀氏，诸如此类。

　　One firm unlikely to feature on their list is BlackRock, an investment manager whose name rings few bells outside financial circles.

　　有一家公司不大可能会入其法眼，那就是贝莱德集团，这家投资管理公司出了金融界可谓是知之者甚少。

　　Yet it is the single biggest shareholder in all the companies listed above.

　　然而，贝莱德却是上述所有上市公司中最大的一家。

　　It owns a stake in almost every listed company not just in Americabut globally.

　　贝莱德持有几乎所有上市公司的股票，不仅仅持有美国公司的股票，而是世界各国上市公司的股票。

　　Its reach extends further: to corporate bonds, sovereign debt, commodities, hedge funds and beyond.

　　贝莱德涉猎领域远不止这些：企业债券、债权债务、商品期货、对冲基金等其他投资项目都可以看到他的身影。

　　It is easily the biggest investor in the world, with $4.1 trillion of directly controlled assets and another $11 trillion it oversees through its trading platform, Aladdin.

　　贝莱德直接管理的资产总值为4.1万亿美元，还通过Aladdin交易网络监管着11万亿美元的投资，这就使得贝莱德毫不费力便可登上全球最大投资公司的宝座。

　　Established in 1988 by a group of Wall Streeters led by Larry Fink, BlackRock succeeded in part by offering passive investment products, such as exchange-traded funds, which aim to track indices such as the S&P 500.

　　1988年，拉里芬克带着一帮华尔街精英成立了贝莱德集团，公司的成功在一定程度上要归功于推出诸如交易所交易基金的被动投资产品，该产品以同标普500这样的基础指数保持联动关系为目的。

　　These are cheap alternatives to traditional mutual funds, which often do more to enrich money managers than clients.

　　同传统的共同基金相比，该基金成本更低，通常投资公司会比客户收益更高。

　　The sector continues to grow fast, and BlackRock, partly through its iShares brand, is the largest competitor in an industry where scale brings benefits.

　　并且，交易所交易基金的业务增长迅速，在一个规模化才能产生效益的行业中，贝莱德成为了佼佼者。

　　Its clients, ranging from Arab sovereign-wealth funds to mom-and-pop investors, save billions in fees as a result.

　　贝莱德的客户，从阿拉伯的主权财富基金持有者到小投资者却因此省下了数以亿计的费用。

　　The other reason for its success is its management of risk in its actively managed portfolio.

　　贝莱德成功的另一原因在于对投资组合的风险的积极管理。

　　Early on, for instance, it was a leader in mortgage-backed securities.

　　比如，公司在其曾是按揭证券行业的领跑者，

　　But because it analysed their riskiness zipcode by zipcode, it not only avoided a bail-out in the chaos that followed the collapse of Lehman, but also advised the American government and others on how to keep the financial system ticking in the darkest days of 2008,

　　通过一步步分析发现风险，不仅规避了雷曼兄弟破产后混乱的救市局面，还在2008年金融市场最黑暗的时候谏言美国政府及其他投资者，如何让市场继续运转下去。

　　and picked up profitable money-management units from struggling financial institutions in the aftermath of the crisis.

　　与此同时，在危机对金融机构带来的冲击余波未息之际，贝莱德自谋出路，甄选可盈利的资金管理项目。

　　Other people's money

　　借鸡生蛋

　　Compared with the many banks which are flourishing only thanks to state largesse, BlackRock's success—based on providing value to customers and paying attention to detail—is well-deserved.

　　同许多依靠政府援手才能风光无限的银行相比，贝莱德的成功—基于让客户实现盈利及注重细节—实至名归。

　　Yet when taxpayers have spent billions rescuing financial institutions deemed too big to fail, a 25-year-old company that has grown so vast so quickly sets nerves jangling.

　　然而，当纳税人投入数以亿计的资金拯救一家被视作太大而不可能破产的金融机构时，这家成立仅25年却以惊人的速度发展壮大的公司不免会让人捏一把汗。

　　American regulators are therefore thinking about designating BlackRock and some of its rivals as systemically important. The tag might land them with hefty regulatory requirements.

　　因此，美国监管机构正考虑将贝莱德及其竞争对手定义为极为重要，或许这一标签会让监管部门背上强权机构的恶名。

　　If the regulators' concern is to avoid a repeat of the last crisis, they are barking up the wrong tree.

　　如果监管部门想避免上次金融危机重演，那么他们就找错对象了。

　　Unlike banks, whose loans and deposits go on their balance-sheets as assets and liabilities, BlackRock is a mere manager of other people's money.

　　同借、贷款都会以资产与负债形式计入资产负债表的银行不同，贝莱德更多只是客户资产管理者的身份。

　　It has control over investments it holds on behalf of others—which gives it great influence—but it neither keeps the profits nor suffers the losses on them.

　　他只是代表客户管理投资—这也让其影响力巨大—却不以投资的盈亏而赚钱或赔本。

　　Whereas banks tumble if their assets lose even a fraction of their value, BlackRock can pass on any shortfalls to its clients, and withstand far greater shocks.

　　银行只要出现一丁点亏损，便会牵一发而动全身；而无论客户出现任何损失，贝莱德都可以相安无事，即便再大的冲击都是如此。

　　In fact, by being on hand to pick up assets cheaply from distressed sellers, an unleveraged asset manager arguably stabilises markets rather than disrupting them.

　　事实上，通过低价收购亏损方出售的资产，毫无疑问一家独大的投资管理公司能够为市场带来稳定，而非混乱。

　　But for regulators that want not merely to prevent a repeat of the last blow-up but also to identify the sources of future systemic perils, BlackRock raises another, subtler issue, concerning not the ownership of assets but the way buying and selling decisions are made.

　　要不是监管机构不仅希望避免上次金融危机重演，还想确认未来体系风险的来源，贝莱德还会引发另一微妙的问题，不是资产的所有权，而是买入或卖出的决策方式。

　　The $15 trillion of assets managed on its Aladdin platform amount to around 7% of all the shares, bonds and loans in the world.

　　Aladdin交易平台上监管的股票、债券、贷款占世界交易的7%左右，涉及资金总额为15万亿美元。

　　As a result, those who oversee many of the world's biggest pools of money are looking at the financial world, at least in part, through a lens crafted by BlackRock.

　　正是如此，那些监管世界上最大金库的人在一定程度上是通过贝莱德精心打磨的镜头审视金融界；

　　Some 17,000 traders in banks, insurance companies, sovereign-wealth funds and others rely in part on BlackRock's analytical models to guide their investing.

　　近1.7万来自银行、保险公司、主权财产基金或其他机构的交易员都会关注贝莱德提供的分析模型，进而指导自己的投资。

　　Aladdin's genius

　　Aladdin的高明之处

　　That is a tribute to BlackRock's elaborate risk-management models, but it is also discomfiting.

　　上述成就皆源于贝莱德精心设计风险管理模式的馈赠，但问题也随之而来。

　　A principle of healthy markets is that a cacophony of diverse actors come to different conclusions on the price of things, based on their own idiosyncratic analyses.

　　健康市场的一大原则便是不同的参与者会就价格得出不同的结论，任何资产的价值都是不同意见相互妥协而得出最终价格。

　　The value of any asset is discovered by melding all these different opinions into a single price.

　　不论是从政治角度、还是自然角度、亦或是市场角度来讲，一个有单一思维主宰的生态系统是不健康的。

　　An ecosystem which is dominated by a single line of thinking is not healthy, in politics, in nature or in markets. Such groupthink in finance is a recipe for booms.

　　在金融领域，集思广益是市场繁荣、或是萧条的秘诀。

　　Though Aladdin advises clients on investment decisions rather than making them, it inevitably frames how they think of market risk.

　　Aladdin交易网络向客户提供投资决策的建议，而非强迫客户投资，这必然会让客户对市场风险的分析陷入思维定势。

　　The last crisis had many causes.

　　导致2008年金融危机的原因有很多，

　　One of them, which perhaps lay behind all the others, was that investors stopped thinking critically about what they were buying.

　　其根本原因或许是投资者缺乏批判思维，只知道一味的投资却不思考。

　　Too many decided to trust credit-rating agencies, which assured them, for example, that packages of American subprime mortgages were extremely unlikely to default.

　　太多投资者选择了相信信用评级机构，比如，这些机构向他们保证美国次级房贷是最不可能违约的贷款项目。

　　BlackRock's models are no doubt better than the clunkers put out by Moody's or Standard & Poor's up to 2008:

　　毫无疑问，贝莱德模式要比穆迪、标普在2008年前发布的信用评级信息准确的多：

　　the firm's relative recent success has proved that.

　　近期贝莱德的成功便是证明。

　　But too many investors relying on a single model spreads an unhealthy orthodoxy and is likely to make the markets more volatile than they otherwise would be.

　　但是，过多投资者依赖单一模式会造成一个恶性的正统体系，而这很可能会让市场比起多种模式时更加脆弱。

　　That is probably not a serious systemic risk, for it will be self-limiting: the more money follows BlackRock, the more money there is to be made betting against it.

　　或许，这并不是什么严重的系统风险，因为市场会发挥其自身调节作用：贝莱德监管的资金越多，便会有更多资金。

　　The real danger is for investors.

　　真正危险的是投资者，

　　The more they rely on BlackRock's analysis, the smaller the upside when it gets things right and the greater the downside when it gets things wrong—as, one day, it eventually will.

　　他们越是依赖贝莱德的风险分析，当分析结果正确的时候，股价上扬时利润越小，而当分析错误的时候，股价下跌时赔的越多。终有一天，上述情景便会成为现实。

　　Until then BlackRock's single-minded focus on mastering risk is to be commended.

　　到那时，贝莱德一心致力于风险控制的做法将会受到表彰。

　　If its peers in the financial world had taken the same approach in the run-up to 2008, much of the chaos of the past five years would have been averted.

　　如果金融界的同仁在08年金融危机初始阶段采取了同样的措施，过去五年的混乱局面本可规避。