2020年经济学人 工业废弃地成为房地产巨头的新战场(1)

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The warehouse¹ king

仓库之王

Why industrial wasteland is the new battltground for property giants

工业废弃地为何会成为房地产巨头的新战场

In the late 1990s Hamid Moghadam, an Iranian-born property developer, made a $5m bet on Webvan, an American online grocer. It was a bust². Webvan was one of the most spectacular casualties of the dotcom crash. More galling³ still, Mr Moghadam turned down the opportunity to invest in another e-commerce upstart called Amazon, thinking its focus on books was too narrow compared with groceries. Yet some people can win even by losing. Sensing a potential bounty⁴ in the online craze, the firm he cofounded, AMB, sold its portfolio⁵ of shopping centres and bought millions of square feet of warehouse space on the tarmac of American airports instead. "We got the company wrong, but we got the big trend right," he says. Two decades later the company he heads, Prologis, is Amazon's biggest landlord. Mr Moghadam, now 63, stands tall over the world's warehouse business.

20世纪90年代末，出生于伊朗的房地产开发商哈米德·穆加达姆以500万美元的价格押注于美国的网上杂货零售商Webvan。而这场赌注破产了。Webvan是泡沫崩溃中损失最惨重的公司之一。更令人恼火的是，穆加达姆拒绝了投资另外一家电子商务新贵Amazon的机会，他认为与杂货零售商相比，亚马逊对图书的关注相对狭隘。然而有些人能够反败为胜。他意识到了网络热潮中的潜在利益，所以他卖掉了自己创建的公司AMB的购物中心组合，转而在美国机场的停机坪上购买了数百万平方英尺的仓库空间。他说，“我们投资错了公司，但是我们准确地把握住了大趋势，”20年后，他领导的公司Prologis是亚马逊最大的业主。穆加达姆现在63岁了，他屹立在全球仓储业务之上。

A Stanford graduate who got his start in property because no one else in America would hire him during the Iranian revolution,Mr Moghadam has made a career of bold bets. In 2011, with property still reeling from the financial crisis of 2007-09, he led a bumper⁶ deal to unite AMB and Prologis, a bigger rival, with a combined $46bn of owned and managed assets. Since then the propertyinvestment firm has expanded globally. It has assets of $125bn and floor space of lbn square feet (90 square kilometres, or a Manhattan-and-a-half). A surge of e-commerce during the covid-19 pandemic has helped underpin⁷ its share price; its market value of $68bn is just below an all-time high. Yet Mr Moghadam is not alone in realising that the humble⁸ shed can be as good an investment in the e-commerce era as shovels⁹ were during the Gold Rush. Blackstone, the world's largest alternative-asset manager, invested more than $25bn last year in warehouses¹⁰ in America and Europe. It calls logistics its "highest-conviction global investment theme". A battle over industrial wasteland is underway.

穆加达姆作为一个斯坦福的毕业生，因为在伊朗革命期间，没有其他的美国人会雇用他，他就大胆地赌了一把并开始了自己的房地产生涯。在2011年，房地产业仍在2007-09年的金融危机的影响中挣扎，于是他主导了一场非常大的交易，他以自有资产和管理资产，共计460亿美元，将AMB与更大的竞争对手Prologis联合了起来。从那时起，这家房地产投资公司就在全球扩张。它的资产为1250亿美元，建筑面积为10亿平方英尺（90平方公里，相当于1.5个曼哈顿）。由于新冠肺炎疫情期间电子商务激增，帮助支撑了其股价；其市值680亿美元，略低于历史最高水平。然而并非只有穆加达姆一人意识到，在电子商务时代，简陋的棚屋可以像淘金热时期的铁锹一样成为一项不错的投资。世界最大的另类资产管理机构黑石，去年在美国和欧洲的仓库投资超过150亿美元。它将物流业称为“全球最具说服力的投资主题”。一场关于工业废弃地的战争正在进行。

1 warehouse   

n.仓库；vt.存入仓库

参考例句：

• We freighted the goods to the warehouse by truck.我们用卡车把货物运到仓库。
• The manager wants to clear off the old stocks in the warehouse.经理想把仓库里积压的存货处理掉。

2 bust   

vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部

参考例句：

• I dropped my camera on the pavement and bust it. 我把照相机掉在人行道上摔坏了。
• She has worked up a lump of clay into a bust.她把一块黏土精心制作成一个半身像。

3 galling   

adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的

参考例句：

• It was galling to have to apologize to a man she hated. 令人恼火的是得向她憎恶的男人道歉。
• The insolence in the fellow's eye was galling. 这家伙的傲慢目光令人恼怒。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

4 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

5 portfolio   

n.公事包；文件夹；大臣及部长职位

参考例句：

• He remembered her because she was carrying a large portfolio.他因为她带着一个大公文包而记住了她。
• He resigned his portfolio.他辞去了大臣职务。

6 bumper   

n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的

参考例句：

• The painting represents the scene of a bumper harvest.这幅画描绘了丰收的景象。
• This year we have a bumper harvest in grain.今年我们谷物丰收。

7 underpin   

v.加固，支撑

参考例句：

• China needs regional stability to underpin its continued economic growth.中国需要地区稳定来巩固其持续的经济增长。
• These developments are underpinned by solid progress in heavy industry.重工业的稳固发展为这些进展打下了基础。

8 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

9 shovels   

n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份

参考例句：

• workmen with picks and shovels 手拿镐铲的工人
• In the spring, we plunge shovels into the garden plot, turn under the dark compost. 春天，我们用铁锨翻开园子里黑油油的沃土。 来自辞典例句

10 warehouses   

仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee. 威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
• Row upon row of newly built warehouses line the waterfront. 江岸新建的仓库鳞次栉比。