最近幾年，很少有哪家公司換CEO換得像美泰公司這樣快。從2015年到現在，美泰的CEO寶座已經三次易主。最近一次是去年4月，前谷歌高管瑪爾戈·喬治亞迪斯從美泰離職，由伊農·克雷茲接任。

美泰走馬燈似的換CEO其實并不令人意外，畢竟克雷茲的幾個前任都沒能阻止住公司業績下滑的頹勢。從2014年到2017年，美泰的營收下跌了23%，在亞馬遜的強勢絞殺下，美泰的線下零售伙伴（如玩具反斗城等）紛紛潰不成軍，美泰的銷售網點越來越少。與此同時，它的競爭對手們卻依然保持增長。可想而知，美泰的股價也是老一年不如一年。

不過從最近公司領導層的變化看，投資者還是能找到一些希望的。不少案例表明，CEO的離職往往反映了企業深層的大范圍戰略調整，因而經常會給企業及其股東帶來顯著利好。

眼下企業界正在經歷一輪深度震蕩，投資者需要考慮的變革因素也比以往多得多。根據再就業公司Challenger, Gray & Christmas的數據，2018年，美國有1452家擁有10名以上員工的企業的CEO離職，比2017年足足多出四分之一，這也是自2008年經濟危機以來CEO離職人數最多的一年。在離職者中，有四分之一被歸為“退休”，還有一部分CEO是因為性騷擾等不當行為離職的。總之，CEO的高離職率表明，新一輪的衰退趨勢已經影響了很多企業的收益和股價，而這些企業也正在通過人事調整，積極適應不斷變化的外部經濟環境。

在某些情形下，CEO更替對企業可能是特別有利的。比如一份最近發表的研究表明，如果一家公司的CEO和董事會在戰略上存在分歧，并由此導致CEO下課，則公司更有可能在長期實現顯著的業績提升。

該報告的作者研究了1995年至2012年間發生的97起CEO因與董事會存在戰略分歧而被迫離職的案例。該報告的作者之一、密蘇里大學的金融學教授昆塔拉·普克薩東指出：一般來說，并不是CEO一離職了，企業的境況就會一夜之間出現改善。CEO離職引發的業務問題和大眾的消極反應一般會使公司股價遭受長達12個月的影響。不過接下來幾年，這種影響會越來越小。普克薩東的研究團隊發現，在CEO離職三年之后，這類企業的股價都恢復到了行業平均水平——也就是說那些選擇在低位抄底的股民都賺了一筆。

為何會發生這種現象？原因是在領導層多次變動后，企業重新調整了自己的長期目標。這些企業新招募的CEO更加青睞長期獎勵機制——比如限制性股權，而不是短期獎勵機制——比如達到季度業績目標就拿獎金。另外，這類公司也更加注重自我改革，而不是利用股票回購等策略刺激短期股價。在這些公司領導層發生更替的三年后，它們的資本支出平均增長了36%——這是一個非同尋常的速度。而它們的資產賬面價值也大幅上升，這也是企業內部投資增加的一個跡象。

In recent years, few corner offices have had doors that revolved as fast as Mattel’s. The toymaker has replaced its CEO three times since 2015—most recently last April, when former Google executive Margo Georgiadis stepped down from the post, to be replaced by Ynon Kreiz.

The turmoil isn’t surprising: After all, Kreiz’s predecessors weren’t able to stanch the decline in Mattel’s revenues, which dropped 23% from 2014 to 2017. With brick-and-?mortar retail partners like Toys “R” Us struggling or collapsing under the Amazon onslaught, Mattel has fewer sales outlets, even as the ranks of its competitors grow. And Mattel’s stock price, to borrow a phrase from one of its vintage games, has gone Ker Plunk.

But investors can find reason for hope in Mattel’s most recent leadership change. There’s growing evidence that CEO departures that are driven by a wider strategic realignment often result in substantial improvements—for the business and its shareholders.

These days, investors have many more changes than usual to consider. According to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, 1,452 CEOs at U.S. companies with more than 10 employees left their jobs in 2018—a 25% increase from 2017 levels and the largest wave of departures since the 2008 recession. About a quarter of those leave-takings were classified as retirements, and a handful were driven by #MeToo issues and other misconduct. But the high turnover also reflects businesses coping with a changing economic environment in which recessionary trends have begun to undermine their earnings and share prices.

Amid all this disruption, there’s one category of CEO change with potential to be particularly profitable. A recently published study indicates that in situations in which the CEO and the board disagree on strategy, leading to the chief executive’s resignation or dismissal, companies are more likely to see a meaningful performance boost over the long term.

The study’s authors found 97 cases between 1995 and 2012 in which a CEO was forced to leave a position owing to a disagreement over strategy with the board. Improvement doesn’t happen overnight, explains co-author and University of Missouri finance professor Kuntara Pukthuanthong: The business problems and public disagreements surrounding the departure often depress the company’s share price for the 12 months after the turnover. Over the ensuing years, however, such businesses narrow the gap. Pukthuanthong’s team found that three years after the change, stock performance for companies in the group was back on par with their industry’s—rewarding those who took a chance on the stocks at their nadir.

One reason for the success has to do with the way companies reoriented around longer-term goals after many leadership changes. The new hires the team studied were more likely than their predecessors to get more of their compensation in the form of long-term incentives, like restricted stock options, than in short-term ones, like bonuses for hitting quarterly benchmarks. Not coincidentally, there was evidence that such companies focused more on improving themselves than on using tactics like share repurchases to lift their stock in the short term. Three years after the firms underwent leadership changes, their capital expenditures had risen by 36% on average—an unusually fast pace. The book value of their assets had risen substantially too, another sign of greater internal investment.

當然，去年有多少前任CEO下崗，就有多少新任CEO上位，這也給投資者帶來了很多抄底的機會。《財富》對部分管理層變動的企業進行了研究，發現如果一些公司的新管理層如果戰略執行得好，他們的股票很可能將出現飆升。

首先是吉利德科學公司（Gilead Sciences）。這家公司的前任CEO約翰·米利根于2018年年底辭職。在米利根的任期內，該公司股價下跌了24%。在幾家新晉競爭對手的圍剿下，作為該公司主打產品的丙肝藥物銷售收入大幅下降。Cowen公司的分析師菲爾·納多認為，到2023年，吉利德丙肝藥物的銷售額將從2017年的91億美元下跌至不足30億美元。瑞士羅氏的前高管丹尼爾·奧迪將于今年3月接任吉利德公司CEO，他的任務是從其他領域彌補這筆損失——比如在抗癌藥物領域，吉利德最近剛剛收購了凱特制藥（Kite Pharma），從而獲得了后者的免疫療法藥品生產線。吉利德也在積極拓展抗艾滋病藥物市場。它的抗艾特效藥Truvada（中文名為特魯瓦達）和Genvoya（中文名為捷扶康）可用于治療全球53%的艾滋病感染者，銷量也比上年增長了12%。納多表示，以該公司目前的股價看：“可以說是一只很有價值的股票”。

其次是施樂（Xerox）。光是印刷行業的日薄西山就已經夠讓它鬧心的了，然而在2017年到2018年的大部分時間里，施樂居然還有閑心跟“華爾街狼王”卡爾·伊坎斗得其樂無窮。《財富》最近曾專門撰文揭露過雙方的齟齬。簡言之，伊坎和另一位大股東達爾文·迪森反對施樂CEO杰夫·雅各布森將施樂與長期合作伙伴富士控股進行合并的動議。在這兩位投資人的操作下，施樂選出了一個新的董事會，與富士控股合并的計劃打了水漂，雅各布森也只得“下課”，交權給現任CEO約翰·維森丁。直到現在，施樂還在和富士就10億美元的分手費打官司。摩根大通的分析師保羅·科斯特表示，在這出鬧劇背后，人們忽略了施樂仍然有“產出大量現金”的能力。施樂的現金流占到了營收入的10%，這是非常了不起的。這樣一來，施樂就有能力維持5%的股息率，并有余力進行創新投資，這有利于公司抵消印刷業務下滑造成的損失。維森丁計劃在今年2月公布他的戰略。至于他能否給出一份讓大家認為有希望的路線圖，投資者們將拭目以待。

The past year’s bumper crop of new CEOs, of course, leaves investors with plenty of opportunities to take a flier on a business in mid-shake-up. Fortune took a look at companies in that category and identified a few whose stocks could surge if new management executes well enough on a new vision.

John Milligan stepped down at the end of 2018 as CEO of Gilead Sciences, which endured a 24% decline in its share price during his tenure. Revenue from Gilead’s hepatitis C drugs, formerly blockbusters, has plummeted as rivals have entered the scene: Cowen analyst Phil Nadeau estimates sales will fall from $9.1 billion in 2017 to just under $3 billion by 2023. Former Roche Holdings executive Daniel O’Day will become CEO in March with a mandate to make up those losses in other areas—including in cancer treatment, where Gilead’s recent purchase of Kite Pharma gives it a portfolio of immunotherapy drugs. Gilead is also capturing significant growth in its HIV segment. Its therapies, including Truvada and Genvoya, are used to treat 53% of those infected with HIV worldwide, and sales rose 12% over the past year. At today’s prices, “it’s very much a value stock,” says Nadeau.

As if operating in a declining industry like printing weren’t challenging enough, Xerox spent much of 2017 and 2018 in a battle with activist investor Carl Icahn. As Fortune chronicled in a recent feature, Icahn and fellow shareholder Darwin Deason opposed CEO Jeff Jacobson’s efforts to merge Xerox with longtime partner Fujifilm Holdings. The two investors secured election of a new board, the Fuji deal fell through, and Jacobson gave way to current CEO John Visentin. Xerox is still fighting with Fuji over a $1 billion breakup fee. But the drama has obscured the fact that Xerox “generates a bunch of cash,” says JPMorgan analyst Paul Coster. Its operating cash flow adds up to an impressive 10% of revenues. That gives the company the ability to support a 5% dividend yield, as well as the flexibility to invest in innovations that could help Xerox offset the decline in printing. Visentin is scheduled to outline his strategy in February; investors will be watching to see whether it looks like the road map to a rebound.

另一家值得關注的公司是服務零售商Lands’ End，它是2013年從西爾斯控股拆分出來的一家公司。該品牌的標志性產品是卡其褲和休閑服飾，為了吸引年輕消費者，它的前任CEO費代麗卡·馬爾基翁尼決定向更加時尚的設計轉型。但她的戰略既未得到消費者的追捧，也沒有贏得董事會的支持。馬爾基翁尼于2016年辭去CEO一職，由現任CEO杰羅姆·格里菲斯于2017年3月接任。格里菲斯恢復了品牌的原有風格，更加注重大衣和外套等產品。從短期看，他的戰略對這價市值14億美元的公司是有效的。公司的營業收入從2017年前三個季度的虧損，轉為2018年同期的盈利1190萬美元。C.L. King公司的分析師史蒂芬·馬洛塔認為，如果該公司的銷售增長率能繼續提速（目前約為6%），那么Lands’' End可能是個不錯的投資選擇。馬洛塔目前對該公司的股票持中立態度。

最后我們也不要忘了接連換了幾位掌門人的美泰公司。美泰的現任CEO克雷茲來自電視制作行業，他的戰略是對孩之寶等競爭對手采取跟隨策略，同時通過大屏幕來與小朋友們建立紐帶。2020年，一部真人版芭比娃娃電影將登陸各大影院，本片主演是曾獲得奧斯卡影后提名的瑪歌特·羅比。這也是克雷茲為了重振芭比娃娃這一品牌祭出的殺招。對費雪、小火車托馬斯等稍顯過時的老品牌，預計也會采取類似的社交媒體渠道進行包裝。與孩之寶不同，美泰旗下的玩具很多都是自行生產的，而不是外包出去。克雷茲計劃在今年年底前削減6.5億美元的生產成本。這些舉措已經開始對利潤產生積極影響。當然，要讓的投資者真正享受到他的改革紅利，克雷茲還需要一種他的前任最缺少的東西——時間。（財富中文網）

本文的另一版本登載于2019年2月刊的《財富》雜志，題目是《首席執行官變動可能對公司有利》。

譯者：樸成奎

A company further along in its revamping journey is clothing retailer Lands’ End, which was spun off from Sears Holdings in 2013. Its previous CEO, Federica Marchionni, sought to woo a younger demographic, moving a brand known for khakis and casual wear to more fashionable designs. But her strategy neither gained traction nor won over the board. She left in 2016, and current CEO Jerome Griffith replaced her in March 2017. Griffith has gone back to the company’s roots, focusing on coats and other outerwear. Short term, the strategy has worked for the $1.4 billion company. Operating income flipped from a loss in the first three quarters of 2017 to an $11.9 million gain over the same period in 2018. If the company’s pace of sales growth—currently 6%—accelerates, Lands’ End could be a good buy, says C.L. King analyst Steven Marotta, who’s currently neutral on the stock.

And let’s not forget turnover-plagued Mattel. Kreiz, the latest CEO, comes from the world of television production, and he aims to follow the lead of Hasbro and other competitors by connecting with kids via the big screen. In 2020 a live-action Barbie film, starring Academy Award nominee Margot Robbie, will hit theaters as part of a revitalization of that iconic doll line; similar media splashes could turn around big but aging brands like Fisher-Price and Thomas the Tank Engine. Mattel, unlike Hasbro, makes many of its own toys instead of outsourcing the process. Kreiz is seeking $650 million worth of cuts to its manufacturing costs, among other areas, by the end of the year, and those efforts have already begun to improve margins. Of course, to yield results for investors, he may need something his predecessors didn’t get much of: time.

A version of this article appears in the February 2019 issue of Fortune with the headline “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama.”