麦格理银行的国际扩张

麦格理银行的国际扩张
 

麦格理银行（现为麦格理集团）已经从一个小型的英国投资银行的澳大利亚子公司发展成为世界最著名的银行之一，它在基础设施的创新领域尤为突出，有着专业的投资方法并建构了一个平台，同时资产和收入的增长以及安全基础设施私有化在文艺复兴早期占有一定的市场份额。
 

麦格理集团成功的国际扩张开始于真正的资产管理和投资专业技能的积累，这主要由于地处于澳大利亚，得益于两个同时重要的发展定位：政府寻求更多基础设施融资的创新形式的意愿与他们养老基金的扩张，恰逢他们对这些投资项目看法一致。
 

养老基金在澳大利亚很早就引起人们的重视，他们的目标就是可以提供长期稳定的收入，退休后可以通过投资基础设施得到便利，这就提供了良好的责任匹配。
 

The International Expansion Of Macquarie Bank

 

Macquarie Bank (now Macquarie Group) has risen from a small, Australian subsidiary of a UK investment bank to become one of the world’s most prominent banks. It is particularly prominent in the field of infrastructure where an innovative, specialist approach to investing and structuring has given it a platform to grow assets and revenues and secure early market share in an infrastructure privatisation renaissance. 

 

Macquarie Group successful international expansion began with the accumulation of specialist skills in “real asset” management and investing. This is primarily due to its location in Australia where it benefited from two simultaneous and important developments: the willingness of governments to seek more creative forms of infrastructure finance coincided with the expansion of superannuation funds and their capacity to invest in these projects. 

 

Superannuation funds in Australia recognised early that their aim to provide long-term, stable income for retirement could be facilitated by investing in infrastructure, which can provide a good liability match. In Australia, industry funds are the fastest growing sector of the pension market, and this is where the most interest in infrastructure assets can be seen (Deloitte, 2007). One major Australian consultant to industry funds has a typically very high allocation (approximately 5 to 8%) within balanced portfolios (Baltazar, 2008). In the mid-1990’s the Australian Federal Government changed the landscape for retirement savings in the country by legislating compulsory retirement savings schemes, or superannuation. Superannuation funds have long had allocations to real assets such as real estate and infrastructure creating steady demand for expertise in this area (Oliver, 2006). Australia’s massive privatisation programme during this time, particularly tollroad privatisations, followed on the coat tails of other nations. Recent private infrastructure investing actually has its origins in Europe and is now enjoying a renaissance in terms of private ownership that really began with Margaret Thatcher's Government during the early 1980's through the introduction of Public/Private Partnerships. Later in her tenure, Prime Minister Thatcher privatised many UK utilities. Moreover 200 years ago most infrastructure in the US and UK was privately owned. Where Australia, and Macquarie Group, has led the way has been the mass privatisation of user-pays infrastructure, which has not only included regulated utilities but also, transport or patronage infrastructure, including tollroads and airports. These are the types of assets and models that Macquarie has been able to market so successfully here and overseas (Lazard Asset Management, 2005). #p#分页标题#e#

 

Macquarie developed a specialty-funds business in the mid-1990s, using such funds to package infrastructure assets into fixed-income type funds that produced high yields. Newly created super funds in Australia were looking for stable annuities at that time, as prevailing bond market yields were skinny (Oliver, 2006). The main problems were that, like the private equity fund model, a feature of these infrastructure funds was their high cost, which required investors to fork out large capital outlays. This is because more often than not infrastructure investments are multi-billion dollar propositions. Furthermore, funds generally held only a few assets making diversification difficult. Macquarie clients were therefore primarily large institutional investors and large industry super funds. Industry funds have benefited greatly from being early adopters of infrastructure investing (both through funds offered by Macquarie and by investing directly in projects) and have been able to achieve very high returns. This captured the attention of the world’s pension fund industry. 

 

The average investor was unable to make an investment in the area, despite being attracted to the same characteristics. Macquarie saw an opportunity and took the infrastructure fund concept one step further. Macquarie began bundling assets into closed end funds and listing them on the stock exchange. Because these listed vehicles offered high yields to investors and that they were accessible on the stock market (i.e. did not have large capital requirements) Macquarie opened up these investments to a broader base of investors (i.e. retail). Macquarie then charged lucrative fees, most funds incur a 1% annual fee plus an additional performance bonus of up to 20% if the funds outperform a benchmark (Oliver 2006). Macquarie chief, David Moss began to look at taking this concept global. 

 

As Macquarie innovated and began solidifying its reputation as a domestic leader in infrastructure it found that an appetite for infrastructure assets had spread globally. Institutional investors including pension plans in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada and increasingly, the United States have been attracted to infrastructure. This attraction in infrastructure stems from the long-term liabilities these pension plans face (pension payments), which makes them natural investors in infrastructure assets that can match these liabilities with long-lived, inflation-linked, low risk revenues. Simultaneously there developed a greater supply of privatisation of assets by governments. The budgets of governments in developed economies have generally been stressed and an increase in fiscal discipline has constrained them in terms of their ability to both maintain existing infrastructure and develop new infrastructure to meet the needs of often growing populations. The culmination of these two factors only increased the opportunities for Macquarie Group to both secure new assets in privatisations, but also to bundle them into funds (either unlisted or listed) and secure more fee revenues. Over the 2 year to September 2007 Probitas Partners estimates there have been over US$250 billion in infrastructure transactions in Europe, the US and Canada taking the form of Public Private Partnerships, taking the form of Public Private Partnerships, mergers and acquisitions and privatizations. Indeed, Global infrastructure fundraising doubled to US$34bn in 2007 from 2006 levels (Spellman, 2008) and there are some who estimate that the world requires over $US53 trillion in infrastructure investment over the next 25 years (Spellman, 2008). #p#分页标题#e#

 

Macquarie has reacted to these positive trends by expanding its procurement operations into different regions and then bundling them into funds that are marketed both to investors in those regions and elsewhere. It has also begun listing some of its funds on stock exchanges around the world including the US, UK, Canada and South Korea. However, the profitability and relative safety of Macquarie’s businesses in infrastructure has attracted competitors seeking economic returns on many fronts, particularly in the marketing of infrastructure funds. Compared to many of these new entrants such as the big (and surviving) global and European banks, Macquarie Group is relatively small. The additional competition for assets has meant that it has not always been able to secure the assets it desires and has probably lowered returns as competition for assets bids up their price. Furthermore, in bidding for assets it has increasingly run up against not only major global investment banks but also other institutional investors such as pension plans themselves. For example, one of the world’s largest pension plans, the Ontario Teachers’ pension Plan that manages over C$80 billion in assets directly acquired national Grid, which owns Scotland’s gas networks. These entrants have changed the landscape greatly for Macquarie, however, even faced with the presence of such big names as Goldman Sachs and their greater reach in terms of their ability to raise funds, Macquarie has, to the amazement of many market participants, journalists and commentators offshore, still been able to secure infrastructure assets to package and sell to investors worldwide, in both unlisted and listed varieties. For example, in January 2006 the Governor of Indiana in the US announced that one of Macquarie’s listed infrastructure vehicles, Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) and consortium partner, Cintra were selected as preferred bidder for the 75-year lease of the Indiana Toll Road for US$3,850million (Macquarie Group, 2006). Macquarie often (like other players) teams up as part of consortiums to do so, however, it is often takes significant equity in the interests. In the aforementioned deal MIG has a 50% equity interest and has similar interests in conjunction with Cintra in assets like the 407ETR (tollroad) in Ontario, Canada. 

 

Such bids are spectacular for a relatively small (by market capitalisation) bank, however, many have attributed such successes to able to fund better and more innovative ways to finance their bids. Certainly their long and successful operations in the area have led to much experience in structuring deals. Many have attributed their successes in outbidding other banks to their ability to operate the assets more efficiently, their better understanding of the revenues able to be generated, the structures in place and their ability to “beat up the banks” for better financing terms (the Economist, 2008). 

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Yet for all its apparent competitive strengths and distinct management qualities, Macquarie has recently come under intense scrutiny lately (not to mention the nose dive its share price has taken recently due to the credit crisis, questions over its use of leverage and the onset of the US and global financial crisis). Indeed, there has been a lot of press and industry commentary recently heralding the demise of the so-called ‘listed infrastructure model’ that it spearheaded. 

 

The ‘model’ is a vehicle (e.g. MIG) containing several infrastructure assets, the management of which is outsourced to Macquarie Group that earns management fees. The following criticisms about such vehicles are commonly made: (1) managers have conflicts of interest, in that they are employed by a third party who also transacts assets with the vehicle; (2) management fees are excessive and higher than would be charged in an arms-length relationship. They also incentivise managers to grow assets rather than make value-accretive investments; (3) dividends are paid out of debt refinancings rather than free cash flow, and are unsustainable; and (4) their structures are too complex. Such criticisms have been widespread but one of the most vocal critics has been RiskMetrics, a risk-management firm who produced a report to this end on April 3 (the Economist, 2008; the Age, 2008). 

 

There is some truth to some of these criticisms, but as with most things, one needs to understand the detail before making a judgement. For example, the level of dividends paid doesn’t affect the value of the equity. Paying higher dividends than can be currently sustained by free cashflow is an accounting sleight of hand used to give comfort to retail investors looking for ‘stability’. It can be something of a misrepresentation, but makes no difference to the professional investor who does proper work on the company. The same is true for the complexity of the structure argument as well. Provided you understand it and model it correctly, there’s no problem here. Furthermore, just recently Macquarie announced that it would be allowing shareholders to appoint independent board members, which helps clear up some of the problems relating to conflicts of interest. 

 

As mentioned, the global financial crisis has seen Macquarie Group shares fall from where they traded at around $80 in December 2007 to, at times during October 2008, levels below $30. It has been widely reported that investors are concerned primarily with the debt carried by Macquarie, as well as the myriad of structuring that was highlighted by RiskMetrics (already discussed above). 

 

Recent high oil prices have also placed pressure on its infrastructure funds, particularly the listed vehicles that hold tollroads and airports as concerns arose regarding possible declining volumes (i.e. traffic and passengers) due to higher costs of transit (e.g. airlines passing on higher fuel costs in the form of higher ticket prices, hurting demand and cars staying off roads due to higher prices at the pump). #p#分页标题#e#

 

The global financial crisis, higher oil prices (i.e. if the oil price resumes its rise following recent falls), general economic activity in its countries of operation and tighter credit markets are all problems that face Macquarie Group in the future. However, while growth in the future is likely to be weaker given the aforementioned issues, and provided the more material of these issues are dealt with appropriately, Macquarie Group is well placed to succeed both domestically and internationally in the future.