科技股IPO：利潤沒那么重要 成長性和市場才重要
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????上周一，云存儲和文件共享服務(wù)商Box公司提交首次公開招股文件（IPO）之后，許多記者和專家就紛紛抓住一點(diǎn)不放：這家公司存在巨額虧損（2013年，它的營收共計(jì)1.24億美元，虧損1.69億美元）。一時(shí)間，Box公司備受矚目的種種承諾瞬間淹沒在了一片口誅筆伐之中。如果你此時(shí)購買這家估值幾億美元公司的股票，那么你多半會被認(rèn)為是個(gè)容易上當(dāng)?shù)娜恕?/p> ????不過沒關(guān)系，企業(yè)級軟件公司Castlight Health也是一家?guī)缀鯖]有營收、利潤稀薄的公司，但是這家公司最近不但以最高發(fā)行區(qū)間價(jià)格成功上市，而且股價(jià)還飆漲了超過60%。凈利潤真的是王道嗎？ ????再來看個(gè)完全不同的例子。另外一家公司以2013年?duì)I收18億美元、凈利潤5.68億美元的驕人業(yè)績公開上市，它就是熱門手機(jī)游戲《糖果粉碎傳奇》（Candy Crush Saga）的開發(fā)商King Digital公司。這家公司上市首日發(fā)行價(jià)為每股22.5美元（處于發(fā)行定價(jià)區(qū)間中部），首日募集資金達(dá)70億美元。不過，截至發(fā)稿之時(shí)，King Digital公司的股價(jià)卻已跌去10%。很顯然，人們開始有一點(diǎn)擔(dān)心，King Digital會不會成為Zynga Part Duex公司的翻版，這家公司曾在旗下熱門游戲處于巔峰之時(shí)公開上市。如今，令人感到一絲憂慮的是，King Digital公司上市之初的市值與星佳公司（Zynga）在2011年底上市時(shí)的市值完全相同。 ????那么，我們從中可以學(xué)到什么道理呢？也就是說，如果是科技公司上市，利潤真的沒那么重要。或者說，利潤并不是公司股價(jià)走勢的決定性因素。 ????如今的投資者最關(guān)注以下兩個(gè)關(guān)鍵要素： ????1. 成長 ????2. 是否有支持公司成長的市場 ????對于像Box這樣的公司，懷疑論者們的看法很有可能是錯(cuò)的。過去的兩個(gè)財(cái)年，這家公司的營收每年都增長了3倍，而去年的虧損額僅增加了50%。而且，這家公司才剛剛開始試水企業(yè)級客戶，特別是它的銷售模式依賴于員工在向公司推銷企業(yè)級客戶付費(fèi)版之前，就已經(jīng)將免費(fèi)版本整合至工作流程中（2,500萬用戶中僅有約7%的用戶使用付費(fèi)版）。同樣，Castlight公司頗有爭議的定價(jià)也是因?yàn)楹Ａ坑唵我约昂暧^醫(yī)保政策的變化而確定的，醫(yī)保改革會為公司醫(yī)療解決方案產(chǎn)品提供巨大的市場機(jī)會。 ????另一方面，人們也擔(dān)心King Digital公司已經(jīng)發(fā)展到頂，增長乏力了。這樣的結(jié)論并不是因?yàn)楣矩?cái)報(bào)顯示，2013年公司營收和凈利潤都大幅超過2012年水平，而是因?yàn)橛兄笜?biāo)顯示，《糖果粉碎傳奇》游戲的增長開始放緩，而這款游戲占據(jù)了公司全年?duì)I收的近80%。換句話說，這不禁令人想起星佳和FarmVille的前車之鑒。 ????雖然這樣說可能有失偏頗，但我還是認(rèn)為，利潤并不能決定公司在股票市場上的成敗。如果真是以利潤定輸贏的話，那么專注于成長的亞馬遜公司（Amazon）的股價(jià)不會漲到350美元。 ????亞馬遜的例子具有啟發(fā)性的另一個(gè)原因是：許多科技類上市公司，特別是企業(yè)級科技類公司，如果有必要，無論如何都可以以某種方式實(shí)現(xiàn)盈利。這些公司或許會慢慢衰落、直至消亡，但它在技術(shù)上卻是可以盈利的（與投資未來成長的觀念截然相反）。而這也是時(shí)下科技類股票市場與當(dāng)年互聯(lián)網(wǎng)泡沫時(shí)期最大的區(qū)別之所在，當(dāng)時(shí)的那些泡沫膨脹的公司并沒有扎實(shí)基本的商業(yè)模式，一旦市場出現(xiàn)風(fēng)云變幻，它們就會無以為繼。或許營收增長高于盈利性的說法會遭到質(zhì)疑，但幾乎可以肯定的是，市值總歸會滑落，總歸會令許多科技股投資者們損失慘重。但今天的投資者至少能關(guān)注到這些基礎(chǔ)指標(biāo)，而不是被“吸引眼球”的炒作所蒙蔽。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)) ????譯者：唐昕昕 |
????When cloud storage and file-sharing company Box filed for its IPO on Monday, many journalists and pundits pounced on the company's massive losses ($169 million on $124 million in revenue for 2013). In an instant, the company's high-profile promise was washed away in a sea of red ink. If you buy into this thing at a multi-billion dollar valuation, conventional wisdom is that you're a sucker. ????Never mind that fellow enterprise software company Castlight Health (CSLT) -- a wildly unprofitable business with barely-discernable revenue -- recently priced its IPO above range and continues to trade another 60% higher. No net income, no love. ????Today, a different company came to market, armed with $568 million in 2013 profits on $1.8 billion in revenue. That would be King Digital (KING), maker of highly-addictive mobile games likeCandy Crush Saga. It managed to price its shares at $22.50 (middle of its proposed range), giving it an initial market cap just north of $7 billion. As of this writing, however, King shares are down more than 10%. Apparently folks are a bit worried that this is Zynga Part Duex, a gaming company that has tied its IPO to the moment of peak popularity for its flagship game. And it probably doesn't help that King's initial market cap was virtually identical to that of Zynga (ZNGA) at the time of its late 2011 IPO. ????So what have we learned here? Namely, that profits don't really matter when it comes to tech IPOs. Or, at the very least, they are not determinative. ????Today's IPO buyers care about two key metrics: ????1. 1. Growth. ????2. 2. Total available market, into which that growth can be realized. ????For a company like Box, chances are that the skeptics are wrong. Its revenue has effectively tripled over each of the past two fiscal years, while its losses only increased by 50% last year. Moreover, it's only begun to scratch the surface of possible enterprise customers -- particularly because its sales model relies on employees incorporating the free version into their workflow before approaching corporate about an enterprise-wide pay version (only 7% of its 25 million registered users currently pay). Likewise, a company like Castlight was arguably being valued by its order backlog and macro healthcare insurance changes that are creating a vast opportunity for its solution. ????On the other hand, there seem to be concerns that King Digital may already have peaked in terms of growth. Not so much because of its reported financials -- 2013 revenue and profits were both up exponentially over 2012 -- but rather because there are some indications that Candy Crush growth is slowing, and that game accounts for nearly 80% of the company's revenue. In other words, shades of Zynga and FarmVille. ????That may be unfair, but my overarching point remains: Profits do not decide a company's success or failure in the public markets. If they did, growth-focused Amazon (AMZN) wouldn't be trading at more than $350 per share. ????The Amazon example also is instructive for one other reason: Many of these tech issuers -- particularly the enterprise tech ones -- could be profitable if it was somehow required. They'd probably shrivel up and eventually die, but it technically could be done ( ????as opposed to investing into future growth). This is a key difference between today's tech IPO market and the dotcom boom -- where many of the frothiest companies had no underlying business to fall back on if times got lean. You may disagree with the notion of revenue growth trumping profitability -- and it's a near certainly that valuations will eventually fall, leaving many tech IPO investors with losses -- but at least today's buyers are looking at those metrics, instead of something like "eyeballs." |
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