【雙語閱讀】錢多了該怎么花.

　　Business

　　How to spend it

　　The tech giant should give cash back to shareholders

　　NOT long after Steve Jobs died last year, wags eulogised the Apple co-founder with a joke: "Ten years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Now we have no jobs, no hope and no cash." Apple may no longer have Jobs, but it fills investors with hope and is brimming with cash. Its market capitalisation recently passed $500 billion, and it has a whopping $100 billion or so of cash on its balance-sheet.

　　That mountain of money is about to get higher. Apple aficionados are poised to snap up the new gadgets that the company unveiled on March 7th. These include a new iPad, the latest in the firm&aposs wildly popular range of tablet computers, and a revamped Apple TV device.

　　If the new iPad, which boasts a super-sharp screen and lightning-fast connectivity, wins friendly reviews, it will give a big boost to Tim Cook, Jobs&aposs handpicked successor. But the extra cash it delivers will also increase pressure on Apple&aposs boss and board to explain what they plan to do with the company&aposs embarrassment of riches. Last month Mr Cook admitted that the firm has more cash than it needs for its operations. It&aposs a nice problem to have.

　　The obvious solution would be to give cash back to shareholders, either via dividends or share buybacks. This is a surprisingly sensitive subject. Mr Jobs was obsessed with hoarding cash, not least because of Apple&aposs near-bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. Returning money to shareholders would mark a big departure from the revered founder&aposs philosophy. Another reason Mr Cook will want to tread carully is that some pundits see a tech firm&aposs decision to start paying dividends as a signal that its glory days are behind it. One oft-cited example is Microsoft, whose growth slowed after it began returning cash to shareholders in 2003.

　　Apple is unlikely to suffer a similar fate. Demand for its iGizmos seems insatiable. That is why it needs to come up with ways to invest more of its cash sensibly. Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm, reckons Apple could ramp up its forward purchases of components and set up its own semiconductor factories, to give it a tighter grip on a critical link in its supply chain. It could open more physical stores—though their sales would only add to its cash pile. And it may have to fork out more on lawyers&apos fees to fight patent lawsuits and deal with other problems, including allegations that it colluded with publishers to fix the price of digital books.

　　On the acquisition front, the firm has long shunned megadeals, prerring to swallow smaller firms with technology and people it covets. That policy is unlikely to change, though Apple may well accelerate its deal-making tempo. Among its likely targets are firms that offer video and other entertainment content, and others with data that could enhance services such as Siri, its virtual personal assistant.

　　None of this would put much of a dent in $100 billion. So Apple will probably start handing cash back to shareholders later this year. Working out how to do so will take time, not least because the firm holds much of its money outside America in order to avoid hty US corporate-tax rates.

　　Some Apple fans fret that if the company decides to pay regular dividends, it could end up regretting it. "Apple needs to watch out for dividend addicts," says Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University who owns Apple stock. Such shareholders, he adds, will be obsessed with extracting as much cash as possible from Apple rather than with its mission of making mind-blowing products. Perhaps. But the point of shares is that they confer ownership. They are valuable only because shareholders expect—and are entitled to—a share of profits. Apple may have trouble finding a good use for its cash, but its shareholders will not.

　　【中文對照翻譯】

　　商業(yè)

　　錢多了該怎么花

　　巨額現(xiàn)金流應該部分返還股東

　　蘋果公司創(chuàng)始人史蒂夫·喬布斯去年病逝后不久，就有這樣一個贊頌他的笑話流行起來： "10年前，我們有史蒂夫·喬布斯, 鮑勃·霍普和約翰尼·卡什， 現(xiàn)在呢，手頭沒有工作(喬布斯姓Jobs，意為工作)，內(nèi)里缺乏信心(霍普姓Hope，意為希望)，腰包里也早就沒錢(卡什姓Cash，意味現(xiàn)金)了"。 是的，喬布斯永遠地離開了蘋果，但他給投資者留下了巨大的財富和希望： 蘋果市場總值超過5000億美元，資產(chǎn)負債表顯示庫存現(xiàn)金約1000億美元。

　　而且，這個"錢山"還會越堆越高。 蘋果迷已經(jīng)蓄勢待發(fā)搶購3月7日發(fā)布的新產(chǎn)品， 如頗受追捧的掌上電腦即新一代IPAD，以及升級版的電視設備。

　　新一代IPAD裝備了超高清屏幕，連通性如閃電一般迅速，如果新產(chǎn)品市場反應良好，這不僅是對于現(xiàn)任執(zhí)行官蒂姆·庫克的肯定，也會再次給蘋果帶來巨額利潤。 同時，"蘋果公司老板和董事將如何處理這筆巨額財富"將成為輿論焦點，而也恰恰是尷尬之處。 上個月，庫克先生曾承認蘋果現(xiàn)有的現(xiàn)金流超出了運營日常業(yè)務所需， 這是個讓人高興的"富貴病"。

　　最現(xiàn)成的方法，似乎是通過股息分紅或股票回購把現(xiàn)金返還給股東， 但這是個很敏感的話題。 鑒于上世紀90年代中期時蘋果差點破產(chǎn)，所以前任執(zhí)行官喬布斯推崇囤積現(xiàn)金，以備意外。 因此，返現(xiàn)金給股東這個方法，很明顯與這位備受尊敬的創(chuàng)始人的理念大相徑庭。 除了這一點，現(xiàn)任執(zhí)行官庫克在處理這件事之所以小心翼翼，還有另外一個原因：某些權威認為，技術型企業(yè)一旦分紅，即暗示該企業(yè)走向沒落。 一個經(jīng)常提到的例子是微軟：2003年，微軟將部分現(xiàn)金流返還股東之后，發(fā)展逐漸變緩。

　　蘋果可不想走上這條路。 人們對蘋果的新發(fā)明似乎永遠期待， 這也是督促蘋果一定要明智地投資這筆巨額現(xiàn)金流的壓力來源。 創(chuàng)意策略咨詢公司的蒂姆·巴家瑞認為，蘋果可以投資建設自家半導體工廠并提前購買電子元件，眾所周知，半導體是電子產(chǎn)業(yè)供應鏈中重要一環(huán)，蘋果正好可以借此牢牢把握這一點。 當然，也可以投資實體店——盡管實體店依然會再賺錢進來。 最近蘋果一直在打?qū)＠裙偎?，如被指控與出版社合謀操縱電子書價格，因此律師費也將是一筆值得考慮進來的支出。

　　那不如這樣：趁有錢，多收購些公司擴大營收?如果關注過蘋果你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，它從未收購過大型公司。 相反，蘋果會不時收購小型公司，以獲取技術和人才。 即使現(xiàn)在發(fā)展步伐加快，這一基本思想也很難改變，即搜尋研究影音技術、游戲服務以及一切其他能豐富蘋果產(chǎn)品功能的小公司，這里的功能所指廣泛，如虛擬個人助手Siri系統(tǒng)等等。

　　這些支出跟1000億美元相比，簡直是"九牛一毛"。 因此，蘋果應該會在今年年底，將部分現(xiàn)金流返還給股東。 因為避稅(指美國高額企業(yè)稅)其所持有的現(xiàn)金很多不在美國本土，返現(xiàn)計劃從計劃到施行還需要一段時間。

　　不少蘋果迷擔心：定期發(fā)放紅利將不是個明智的選擇。 來自紐約大學的金融學教授Aswath Damoaran是蘋果的股東， 他說："公司需要注意，發(fā)放股息返現(xiàn)將會吸引來不少過分追求紅利的投資者，這群人所重視的，不是公司能否推出令人耳目一新的產(chǎn)品，而是盡可能地利用股息賺錢(如此追"紅"逐"利"的股東大會可能會影響公司良性運轉(zhuǎn))。" 也許吧，但各位別忘了，股票的性質(zhì)之一就是憑證所有權， 也正是因為股東相信股票并有權享有公司部分權益，它這才有了價值。 蘋果公司會因如何妥善安排現(xiàn)金流而備受苦惱，但股東們卻不會。

　　Business

　　How to spend it

　　The tech giant should give cash back to shareholders

　　NOT long after Steve Jobs died last year, wags eulogised the Apple co-founder with a joke: "Ten years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Now we have no jobs, no hope and no cash." Apple may no longer have Jobs, but it fills investors with hope and is brimming with cash. Its market capitalisation recently passed $500 billion, and it has a whopping $100 billion or so of cash on its balance-sheet.

　　That mountain of money is about to get higher. Apple aficionados are poised to snap up the new gadgets that the company unveiled on March 7th. These include a new iPad, the latest in the firm&aposs wildly popular range of tablet computers, and a revamped Apple TV device.

　　If the new iPad, which boasts a super-sharp screen and lightning-fast connectivity, wins friendly reviews, it will give a big boost to Tim Cook, Jobs&aposs handpicked successor. But the extra cash it delivers will also increase pressure on Apple&aposs boss and board to explain what they plan to do with the company&aposs embarrassment of riches. Last month Mr Cook admitted that the firm has more cash than it needs for its operations. It&aposs a nice problem to have.

　　The obvious solution would be to give cash back to shareholders, either via dividends or share buybacks. This is a surprisingly sensitive subject. Mr Jobs was obsessed with hoarding cash, not least because of Apple&aposs near-bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. Returning money to shareholders would mark a big departure from the revered founder&aposs philosophy. Another reason Mr Cook will want to tread carully is that some pundits see a tech firm&aposs decision to start paying dividends as a signal that its glory days are behind it. One oft-cited example is Microsoft, whose growth slowed after it began returning cash to shareholders in 2003.

　　Apple is unlikely to suffer a similar fate. Demand for its iGizmos seems insatiable. That is why it needs to come up with ways to invest more of its cash sensibly. Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies, a consulting firm, reckons Apple could ramp up its forward purchases of components and set up its own semiconductor factories, to give it a tighter grip on a critical link in its supply chain. It could open more physical stores—though their sales would only add to its cash pile. And it may have to fork out more on lawyers&apos fees to fight patent lawsuits and deal with other problems, including allegations that it colluded with publishers to fix the price of digital books.

　　On the acquisition front, the firm has long shunned megadeals, prerring to swallow smaller firms with technology and people it covets. That policy is unlikely to change, though Apple may well accelerate its deal-making tempo. Among its likely targets are firms that offer video and other entertainment content, and others with data that could enhance services such as Siri, its virtual personal assistant.

　　None of this would put much of a dent in $100 billion. So Apple will probably start handing cash back to shareholders later this year. Working out how to do so will take time, not least because the firm holds much of its money outside America in order to avoid hty US corporate-tax rates.

　　Some Apple fans fret that if the company decides to pay regular dividends, it could end up regretting it. "Apple needs to watch out for dividend addicts," says Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University who owns Apple stock. Such shareholders, he adds, will be obsessed with extracting as much cash as possible from Apple rather than with its mission of making mind-blowing products. Perhaps. But the point of shares is that they confer ownership. They are valuable only because shareholders expect—and are entitled to—a share of profits. Apple may have trouble finding a good use for its cash, but its shareholders will not.

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