2020年经济学人 工业废弃地成为房地产巨头的新战场(2)

It is bard¹ to imagine Stephen Schwamnan, Blackstone's highsociety boss, talking as passionately² about the nitty-gritty of logistics as Mr Moghadam (who has a fraction of Mr Schwarzman's wealth). Yet a contest between the king of warehouses⁴ and the baron⁵ of private equity⁶ will be worth watching. It will not just shape the future of e-commerce. It will change the urban landscape, too.

很难想象黑石集团的高层老板斯蒂芬·施瓦姆南会和穆加达姆先生（他拥有的财富是施瓦姆南先生的一小部分）一样，在谈论起物流的本质时，十分激动。然而，仓库之王和私人股本巨头之间的竞争将值得关注。它不仅将塑造电子商务的未来。它也将改变城市景观。

To see why, cycle, as Schumpeter did last weekend, up London's Lea Valley, an idyll of canal boats and riverside vegetable gardens running from the graffiti-covered East End to the capital's north. Stop at the Ravenside Retail⁸ Park, a place of shuttered stores like Mothercare, a well-known British brand, and Maplin, an electronics retailer⁹. It is destined¹⁰ to become ground zero for the retail apocalypse. In January Prologis spent ￡51n ($68m) acquiring the site, just before covid-19 accelerated the agony of its remaining tenants¹¹. In a few years, once they, or their leases, expire, Prologis hopes to turn the area into a multistorey warehouse³ for e-commerce firms like Amazon. That is part of a global pattern. In America such logistics hubs are rising from the rubble¹² of dead shopping malls.

为了弄清原因，像熊彼特上周末那样，骑自行车沿着伦敦利阿谷向上行驶，从涂鸦覆盖的东端到首都北部，是一片运河船只和河畔蔬菜园的田园风光。在Ravenside零售园停下来，这里有很多关闭的店铺比如英国知名品牌Mothercare以及电子商品零售商Maplin。它注定会成为零售业末日的起点。今年一月，就在新冠疫情加剧了剩余的租赁店铺的痛苦之前，Prologis斥资5100万英镑（合6800万美元）收购了这个地方。几年后，一旦他们或他们的租约到期，Prologis希望把这个地区变成像亚马逊这样的电子商务公司的多层仓库。这是全球格局的一部分。在美国，这样的物流中心正从废弃的购物中心废墟中崛起。

It is easy to dismiss the warehouse business. As one industry boss puts it, investors¹³ used to think of it as "four walls and a roof that you hope doesn't leak"-in other words, highly commoditised. Yet Mr Moghadam says it is enthralling¹⁴. The first task, he says, is to decide on which end of the supply chain to be. He settled on mass consumer markets around the world rather than serving producers, because, as he puts it, "Consumers do not move, factories do." As a result, his warehouses sit close to huge urban areas where land is scarce. It also requires patience. In America it has taken decades for e-commerce to eke⁷ out a double-digit share of retail spending. Lockdowns have turbocharged the shift. Before the pandemic about a fifth of Prologis's warehouse construction was for e-commerce, and the rest for other forms of logistics. The e-commerce share is now as high as 40%, Mr Moghadam says.

人们很容易会不考虑开展仓库业务。正如一位行业老总所言，投资者过去认为这是“四堵墙和一个你希望不会漏水的屋顶”——换句话说，高度商品化。然而，穆加达姆表示，仓库令人着迷。他说，第一项任务是去决定为供应链的哪一端服务。他在全球范围内建立了大众消费市场，而不是为生产商服务，因为正如他所说，“消费者不会移动，工厂会”因此，他的仓库就坐落在土地稀缺的大城市附近。这也需要耐心。在美国，电子商务花了几十年时间才在零售支出中占据两位数的份额。 封锁措施这种转换加速。在疫情之前，Prologis将自己大约五分之一的仓库建设用于电子商务，其余用于其他形式的物流。穆加达姆表示，目前电子商务的份额高达40%。

1 bard   

n.吟游诗人

参考例句：

• I'll use my bard song to help you concentrate!我会用我的吟游诗人歌曲帮你集中精神！
• I find him,the wandering grey bard.我发现了正在徘徊的衰老游唱诗人。

2 passionately   

ad.热烈地，激烈地

参考例句：

• She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿，也能爱得一往情深。
• He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。

3 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。

4 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。

5 baron   

n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王

参考例句：

• Henry Ford was an automobile baron.亨利·福特是一位汽车业巨头。
• The baron lived in a strong castle.男爵住在一座坚固的城堡中。

6 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

7 eke   

v.勉强度日，节约使用

参考例句：

• They had to eke out a livinga tiny income.他们不得不靠微薄收入勉强度日。
• We must try to eke out our water supply.我们必须尽量节约用水。

8 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

9 retailer   

n.零售商(人)

参考例句：

• What are the retailer requirements?零售商会有哪些要求呢？
• The retailer has assembled a team in Shanghai to examine the question.这家零售商在上海组建了一支团队研究这个问题。

10 destined   

adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的

参考例句：

• It was destined that they would marry.他们结婚是缘分。
• The shipment is destined for America.这批货物将运往美国。

11 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

12 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

13 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

14 enthralling   

迷人的

参考例句：

• There will be an enthralling race tomorrow. 明天会有场吸引人的比赛。
• There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. 在这样地施加影响时，令人感到销魂夺魄。