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Back when the Chinese government was encouraging state-owned enterprises and private sector companies to “go out” of the country, few responded as energetically as ChemChina and Ren Jianxin, its entrepreneurial chairman.
当中国政府最初鼓励国有企业和私营企业“走出去”时，很少有企业像中国化工(ChemChina)及其积极进取的董事长任建新那样热情响应号召。
In March 2015, the Beijing SOE paid 7.3bn for Pirelli, the Italian tyre company. Less than a year later it agreed to purchase Syngenta, the Swiss agribusiness group, for $44bn. So far, so standard. At a time of relative euro weakness, ChemChina took advantage of the renminbi’s purchasing power to acquire overseas companies with better technology and brand recognition.
2015年3月，这家总部位于北京的国企以73亿欧元收购了意大利轮胎公司倍耐力(Pirelli)。不到一年后，中国化工同意以440亿美元收购瑞士农业企业先正达(Syngenta)。到这里为止，一切还算平常。在欧元相对疲软的时候，中国化工利用了人民币的购买力，收购了拥有更好的技术和品牌认知度的海外企业。
It is what often happens after ChemChina buys a foreign target that differentiates its overseas investment strategy from so many of its Chinese peers. In what might be termed a kind of Trojan horse strategy, ChemChina then uses its foreign acquisitions — and foreign managers — to win market share back at home.
使中国化工的海外投资战略区别于其他众多中国企业的，是它在收购一家外国目标企业之后时常采取的做法。中国化工接下来会利用收购的海外企业——和外国管理者——在中国国内赢得市场份额，这或许可以称为某种特洛伊木马策略。
The Pirelli deal is an example. A year after the acquisition, ChemChina’s Aeolus Tyre unit sold most of its car tyre business to Pirelli. Headquartered in Milan and boasting a long association with the Formula 1 motorsport championship, Pirelli has a much more attractive brand than Aeolus, a relatively anonymous company from an even more anonymous city — Jiaozuo, in Henan province.
收购倍耐力就是一个例子。在完成收购一年后，中国化工旗下的风神轮胎(Aeolus Tyre)把绝大多数汽车轮胎业务卖给了倍耐力。总部位于米兰、与一级方程式赛车(F1)锦标赛建立了长期联系的倍耐力，品牌吸引力远远超过风神这家相对默默无闻、来自更加默默无闻的河南焦作市的轮胎公司。
An earlier but much lower profile ChemChina deal provides an even better illustration of this strategy at work. In 2011, ChemChina acquired 60 per cent of Adama Agricultural Solutions, an Israeli agrochemical company that competes against global heavyweights such as Bayer, DuPont and Monsanto. Back in China, Mr Ren’s group had four domestic agrochemical companies, the most substantial of which was Shenzhen-listed Sanonda. According to Chen Lichtenstein, a former Israeli paratrooper who now runs Adama, Mr Ren had a vision of uniting its disparate China agrochemical units under the Israeli company.
中国化工另外一笔时间更早、但更为低调的交易，更好地阐释了这种有效策略。2011年，中国化工收购了以色列农用化学品制造商安道麦农业解决方案有限公司(Adama Agricultural Solutions)的60%股份，后者是与拜耳(Bayer)、杜邦(DuPont)和孟山都(Monsanto)等全球巨擘竞争的公司。在中国国内，中国化工拥有四家农用化学品公司，其中规模最大的是在深圳上市的沙隆达(Sanonda)。据如今执掌安道麦的前以色列伞兵翰林(Chen Lichtenstein)介绍，任建新的设想是把中国化工旗下各个中国农化业务整合到安道麦之下。
“ChemChina said well, we actually have some agrochemical businesses in China,” Mr Lichtenstein recalls. “The notion was that ChemChina would let [Adama] management study its businesses in the area of agrochemistry and determine which ones were suitable to be integrated into a combined company.”
“中国化工说，我们实际上在中国有一些农化公司，”翰林回忆道，“意思是，中国化工会让（安道麦的）管理层研究它在农化领域的公司并决定哪些公司适合整合到合并后的企业中。”
The result, it was envisioned, would be the world’s “first integrated global China” agrochemical group. Like so many other industries, the global agrochemical sector and that of China resemble two parallel but separate universes. Just as multinational companies often struggle to get a foothold in China’s intensely competitive domestic market, Chinese companies often make little progress internationally.
根据设想，结果将打造全世界“第一家全球性一体化中国”农化集团。像其他很多行业一样，全球农化行业和中国农化行业类似于两个平行但独立的宇宙。正如跨国企业往往很难在中国竞争激烈的国内市场站稳脚跟，中国企业往往在国际化方面几乎毫无进展。
In 2015 China’s crop protection market was the world’s third-largest, valued at $5.4bn, but it was also incredibly fragmented. No one player had more than a 10 per cent market share, and foreign entrants had a total share of less than 25 per cent. A combined Adama-Sanonda entity, Mr Ren reckoned, would have a solid foothold on both sides of the divide.
2015年，中国作物保护市场为全球第三大，总值达到54亿美元，但该市场四分五裂的程度也令人难以置信。没有任何一家企业拥有10%以上的市场份额，外国企业所占的总份额不足25%。任建新认为，安道麦和沙隆达组成的合并企业在两边都会拥有稳固的立足点。
So ChemChina boosted its interest in Adama to 100 per cent last year and injected it into Sanonda. The merged entity, which in October reported a 5.4 per cent increase in third-quarter sales to $844m, will retain the Adama brand, not Sanonda’s.
因此去年中国化工将对安道麦的持股增至100%，并把它与沙隆达合并。这家合并后的企业将保留安道麦的品牌，而不是沙隆达的品牌。10月，该企业公布财报称第三季度销售额增长5.47%，至8.44亿美元。
It is also headed by Mr Lichtenstein, highlighting another unusual aspect of Mr Ren’s strategy. While many Chinese SOE bosses retain existing managers to run overseas acquisitions, Mr Ren has appointed foreign nationals to senior positions within ChemChina itself. Before the Adama-Sanonda merger, Mr Ren asked Mr Lichtenstein to head the ChemChina division that oversaw both units. In February 2016 he hired Michael Koenig, a German national and former Bayer executive, to run China National Bluestar, another ChemChina division.
该企业仍然由翰林执掌，这突显了任建新策略的另一个不同寻常的方面。尽管中国很多国企老总会选择让现有管理者继续掌管收购来的海外企业，但任建新是任命外国人担任中国化工的高级职位。在安道麦与沙隆达合并前，任建新让翰林领导中国化工负责管理两家企业的部门。2016年2月，他聘请前拜耳高管、德国人米夏埃尔?柯尼希(Michael Koenig)来执掌中国化工旗下另一家公司中国蓝星(China National Bluestar)。
Many observers attribute Mr Ren’s willingness to do things differently to his experiences in building ChemChina from a small state-owned industrial cleaning company into one of China’s largest industrial groups. ChemChina has always had to compete to survive. As Mr Lichtenstein says, “they are always coming from behind with this notion, OK, let’s be a bit more clever”. At a time when SOE reform in China largely consists of using mergers to create ever larger domestic monopolies, ChemChina’s strategy of “going out” to improve its domestic competitiveness shows another way.
很多观察人士把任建新愿意另辟蹊径的思路，归功于他把中国化工从小型国有工业清洗企业打造为中国最大工业集团之一的经验。中国化工一直都不得不在竞争中搏生存。正如翰林所说的那样，“他们总是带着‘好吧，我们做得聪明点’的想法后来居上”。在中国国企改革主要利用合并来打造更大的国内垄断企业之际，中国化工通过“走出去”来提高其国内竞争力的策略展示了另一条改革之路。
