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中国的“钢铁公主”
作为中国最富有的女性之一，陈宁宁(Diana Chen)并不是人们印象中典型的钢铁大王。
Diana Chen, one of China’s richest women, is not your typical iron industry baron.
陈宁宁今年36岁，是受过西方教育的“高干子弟”她已故的外祖父吕东曾于上世纪60年代和70年代担任原冶金工业部部长。
Ms Chen, 36, is a Western-educated “princeling”, as the children and grandchildren of China’s communist elite are known. Her late grandfather, Lu Dong, was China’s metallurgy minister in the 1960s and 1970s.
今年夏天，陈宁宁对香港上市的中国东方集团(China Oriental Group)发起了敌意收购。此前，她与持有东方集团45%股权的主席韩敬远闹翻。东方集团控制着湖北省一座中等规模的钢铁厂。
This summer, Ms Chen launched a hostile takeover for Hong Kong-listed China Oriental Group, which controls a mid-sized steel mill in Hebei province. Her bid came after a falling out with Han Jingyuan, Oriental’s chairman, who controls 45 per cent of the company.
在由陈宁宁外祖父等保守派中央计划官员打造出的钢铁产业中，这种举动颇不寻常。但这位中国“钢铁公主”的职业路径就颇不寻常。 Such manoeuvres are unusual in an industry forged by conservative central planners such as Ms Chen’s grandfather. But then so is the career path of China’s “iron princess”.
上世纪90年代早期，陈宁宁到纽约理工学院(New York Institute of Technology)攻读MBA学位，毕业后回香港与母亲一同创办了嘉鑫钢铁集团有限公司(Pioneer Iron & Steel Group)。她的母亲在大学期间曾学习冶金专业，但此前从未涉足该行业。在此后短短10年时间，嘉鑫钢铁成为中国最大的铁矿石民营进口商。去年，《福布斯》杂志(Forbes)估计，陈宁宁个人财富高达2.16亿美元。
In the early 1990s, Ms Chen studied for an MBA degree at the New York Institute of Technology before returning to Hong Kong to start Pioneer Iron & Steel Group with her mother, who had studied metallurgy in university but was not previously involved in the industry. In little more than a decade since, Pioneer has become one of the largest private importers of iron ore into China. Last year Forbes magazine estimated Ms Chen’s wealth at $216m.
“这其实就是通过非传统手段进入一个传统行业，”陈宁宁表示，“从前，所有人都从事简单的贸易。我们利用无形资产和技术帮助（武汉钢铁集团和鞍钢新轧等国有企业）获得贷款，并对其进行改造，准备进行首次公开发行(IPO)。”
“It was a matter of using non-traditional means to approach a traditional industry,” Ms Chen says. “Before, everyone just did simple trading. We used intangible assets and skills to help [state-owned companies such as Wuhan Iron and Steel Group, and Angang New Steel Company] get loans and to reform themselves to prepare for IPOs.”
陈宁宁表示，这些服务都是免费提供的，但它们有助于建立关系，并使她对这些公司有了深入了解。到世纪交替之际，钢铁行业开始在中国经济发展的推动下复苏，当时，嘉鑫处在将中国钢铁制造商与外国铁矿企业结合的良好位置。她表示：“到2003年，中国大约15%至20%的铁矿石由我们进口。”
Those services were provided free of charge, says Ms Chen, but they helped build relationships and gave her an in-depth knowledge of the companies. By the turn of the century, when the steel industry revived on the back of China’s economic growth, Pioneer was well-positioned to bring together China’s steel makers and foreign iron miners. “By 2003, we were importing about 15-20 per cent of China’s iron ore,” she says.
陈宁宁承认，作为中国共产党高层官员的后代，身份对她有所帮助，“但只是人们知道你来自一个有名望的家庭。我的外祖父从没贪污过，我母亲经常教导我不要令我外祖父的名声蒙羞……我有关系，但我从没用过。”
Ms Chen admits that being the descendant of a top communist official has helped, “but only in the sense that people knew you came from a respectable family. My grandfather was never corrupt, and my mother always told me not to shame my grandfather’s name?.?.?.?I had the guanxi [connections], but I never used them.”
陈宁宁表示，她向中国东方集团股东提出的竞价，代表着复兴这家公司的“最后努力”。她声称，该集团是为数不多的完全不受国家控制的上市钢铁公司之一，但它没能充分利用其作为一家香港上市公司，可以进入现代金融市场的渠道。
Ms Chen says her offer to China Oriental’s shareholders represents a “final effort” to revitalise the company. She claims the group, one of China’s few publicly listed steel companies that is completely free of state ownership, failed to make full use of its access to modern financial markets as a Hong Kong-listed company.
