《金融时报》：阿斯利康开始像乐购
上周阿斯利康股价下跌，或许有人觉得这只是“神秘”肺癌药物试验失利这一孤立事件所致。但我怀疑，阿斯利康的问题远不止某一款药物受挫那么简单。
It might be tempting to view last week’s fall in the AstraZeneca share price in isolation, related to the results of the “Mystic” lung cancer drug trial. However, I suspect that AstraZeneca’s problems go much deeper than a setback for a single drug.
借用佩里·科莫 1951 年那首圣诞金曲的歌名来说，阿斯利康正越来越像乐购。
To paraphrase the title of a Christmas song which was a hit for Perry Como in 1951, AstraZeneca is beginning to look a lot like Tesco.
大约两年前，我在《金融时报》财富版写过一篇关于阿斯利康会计手法的专栏（《何苦要篡改账目》），文中指出，阿斯利康 2007 年改用“核心”盈利口径后，其报告的业绩以及大多数投资界人士得以将三项主要成本排除在报告利润之外，即：
In FT Money nearly two years ago I wrote a column about AstraZeneca’s accounting (Why bother cooking the books at all) in which I highlighted that AstraZeneca’s move to “core” earnings in 2007 had allowed its reported results and most of the investment community to exclude three major costs from its reported profits, namely:
• 重组费用
• “特殊”法律成本
• 无形资产摊销
• Restructuring charges • “Exceptional” legal costs • Intangible asset amortisation
换句话说，在计算利润时，这些主要成本被忽略不计了。正是这种会计处理方式，让我开始联想到乐购。
In other words, major costs were being ignored in the calculation of profits. It is this approach to accounting which is beginning to remind me of Tesco.
历史上，在 1998 年至 2011 年期间——也就是特里·莱希担任首席执行官的那些年——乐购也曾经八次调整已动用资本回报率的定义（我在 2014 年 9 月的财富版专栏《投资者如何无视乐购的警告》中探讨过此事）。
Historically, Tesco also managed eight changes in the definition of return on capital employed over the period 1998-2011, years when Terry Leahy was the chief executive (I examined these in an FT Money column in September 2014, How Investors ignored the warnings at Tesco).
阿斯利康 2007 年转向报告“核心”盈利。2012 年，它进一步改为将所有无形资产摊销和减值费用全部剔除，而此前只是剔除部分摊销费用。对于一家制药公司来说，几乎所有资产都是无形资产——也就是药品专利。这一改动导致 2012 年报告的“核心”盈利上升了。真是意外啊。虽然这种会计处理骗不过优秀的分析师——他们无论如何都会盯着现金流而不是利润——但它的确骗过了一些人。
AstraZeneca moved to reporting “core” earnings in 2007. In 2012 it moved to excluding all intangible asset amortisation and impairment charges as opposed to only certain amortisation charges. In a pharmaceutical company, almost all the assets are intangible-namely the drug patents. This change led to reported “core” earnings in 2012 going up. Quelle surprise. While this accounting treatment would not fool a decent analyst, who in any event would be looking at cash flows rather than earnings, it certainly seems to have fooled some people.
阿斯利康开始像乐购的另一个方面，是它以牺牲回报为代价，大幅增加投入资本。您可能知道，我认为资本回报率是衡量一家企业财务成功与否的最佳单一指标（沃伦·巴菲特也这么看，虽然这未必说明什么）。
The other way in which AstraZeneca is beginning to resemble Tesco is its vast increase in invested capital at the expense of returns. As you may know, I regard return on capital as the single best measure of financial success for a business (as does Warren Buffett for what it’s worth).
在我 2014 年 9 月的文章中，论证乐购将要走下坡路的一个论据是一张图表——此处转载——它把乐购每股收益的稳步攀升（这似乎迷住了投资者）与已动用资本回报率几乎持续不断的下跌进行了对比。
In my September 2014 article, one of the planks in the argument that Tesco was headed for a fall was a chart - reproduced here - which contrasted the steady upward march of Tesco’s earnings per share (EPS) which seemed to have mesmerised investors with the more or less continuous fall in its return on capital employed (ROCE).
乐购图表旁边是一张显示阿斯利康 2001 年至 2016 年已动用资本回报率的图表。您会看到，回报率从 2001 年出色的 28.4% 和 2006 年极佳的 40.9%，下降到该期间勉强能接受的 11.9%（最近甚至低至 5.1%）。
Alongside the Tesco chart is one showing AstraZeneca’s ROCE for the period 2001-16. You will see that the returns fall from a superior 28.4 per cent in 2001 and a wonderful 40.9 per cent in 2006 to a barely acceptable 11.9 per cent over the period (and have been as low as 5.1 per cent recently).
考虑到投入资本——即这一计算的除数——自 2006 年回报率达到顶峰以来已经增长了 114%，这并不令人意外。即便“核心”每股收益同期累计也只增长了 10%，而这就是所有这些“核心”调整带来的好处。
This is hardly surprising given that invested capital, the denominator in this calculation, has risen 114 per cent since returns peaked in 2006. Even “core” EPS has risen by just 10 per cent in total over the same period, and that’s the benefit of all those “core” adjustments.
看起来，所有这些额外资本并没有得到很好的配置。2007 年以 156 亿美元收购美国生物技术企业 MedImmune 或许就是一个例子。
It looks as though all that additional capital has not been very well invested. An example may be the 2007 acquisition of US biotechnology business MedImmune for $15.6bn.
MedImmune 的收入仅为 13 亿美元，其当时的主要产品——一种名为 FluMist 的鼻喷流感疫苗——未能达到预期。然而，阿斯利康还是支付了比 MedImmune 公司挂牌出售前股价高出 53% 的溢价——这个价格被一位分析师（加拿大帝国商业银行世界市场的布莱恩·连）形容为“非同寻常”且“难以合理化”。
MedImmune had revenues of just $1.3bn and its main product at that time - a nasal flu spray called FluMist - had failed to live up to expectations. Yet AstraZeneca paid a premium of 53 per cent to MedImmune’s share price before the company put itself up for sale - a price that one analyst (Brian Lian at CIBC World Markets) described as “extraordinary” and ”difficult to rationalise”.
如果从利润计算中剔除由此产生的任何重组费用和所购无形资产的减记，我想这大概没那么难以合理化吧。阿斯利康的已动用资本回报率在这笔收购前一年达到顶峰，而它也在那一年转向报告“核心”盈利，这绝非巧合。
I guess it’s not that difficult to rationalise if you exclude any resulting restructuring costs and write down of the intangible assets acquired from the calculation of earnings. It is no coincidence that AstraZeneca’s ROCE peaked the year before this acquisition and that it moved to reporting “core” earnings that year.
抛开阿斯利康在收购和会计方面的作为不谈，上周的“神秘”药物试验问题也不是它的头一遭。过去，一些号称可能成为重磅炸弹、用于治疗心脏病、中风、肺癌、糖尿病和血栓的药物，其临床试验也曾经失败。
Leaving aside AstraZeneca’s exploits in acquisitions and accounting, last week’s Mystic drug trial problem was hardly their debut. In the past, clinical trials have also failed for drugs billed as potential blockbusters to treat heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, diabetes and blood clots.
考虑到任何一种化合物能够通过所有临床试验阶段并最终上市的概率大约只有万分之一，这并不奇怪。而且，即使一种药物成功了，专利的寿命也是有限的，制药公司就像在跑步机上奔跑，需要不断有更多、更大的发现和产品开发来推动增长。
This is hardly surprising given that the odds of any one compound making it through all the stages of clinical trials and to market are about one in 10,000. Moreover, even when a drug is successful, patents have a limited life and the drug companies are running on a treadmill which requires more and bigger discoveries and product development to drive growth.
这让我不禁想知道，投资者到底看中了它们哪一点。你可能会说是股息收益率——阿斯利康目前的股息收益率接近 5%——但股息覆盖率只有 1.1 倍，所以股息命运不久后也可能让我想起乐购，这种可能性相当大。
It makes me wonder what investors find so attractive about them. You might say the dividend yield, with AstraZeneca’s shares now yielding nearly 5 per cent, but with the dividend cover at 1.1x there must be a reasonable chance that the fate of the dividend may also soon remind me of Tesco.
我猜想，阿斯利康的股东如今一定在懊悔，三年前他们曾支持以每股 55 英镑的价格拒绝辉瑞的收购要约。
I would guess that by now AstraZeneca shareholders are ruing the support they gave to reject the Pfizer bid at £55 a share three years ago.
许多投资者对待这些公司及其会计问题的态度，让我想起了另一首歌的副歌——《花儿都到哪里去了？》——彼得、保罗和玛丽在 1962 年演唱的那首。
Many investors’ approach to these companies, with their accounting issues, remind me of the chorus of another song Where Have All the Flowers Gone? performed by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962.
特里·史密斯是 Fundsmith 律师事务所的首席执行官。
Terry Smith is chief executive of Fundsmith LLP