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香港買殼全攻略
朱林瑤控制的華寶國際為何在買殼後的兩年內無法完成資產註入？黃光裕在國美電器買殼時付出了怎樣的代價？三元集團買殼後為何被判摘牌？通過代理人曲線買殼存在哪些風險？近來，買殼成為資本運作中的流行詞，香港主板市場的殼公司價格已經超越歷史高位，達到1.8-2.4億港元，然而，由於殼公司的類型復雜，其流通股權的分布、原有業務情況、交易結構設計、股東結構等各種變數不僅影響借殼上市的速度和成本，也會影響公司上市後的二級市場表現，因此，針對不同的殼公司需要註重不同的買殼技巧，同時回避各種陷阱。
隨著全球經濟和股市的反彈，在金融危機中一度大幅縮水的各種資產價格已經回升了1-2倍，恒生指數也從2009年初的低位大幅反彈，但與歷史高位仍相距甚遠，只有一種資產的價格早已超越歷史高位—香港的上市殼。近期買殼成為資本運作中的流行詞，僅內地企業在香港借殼上市的案例就包括中核國際（02302.HK）借殼科鑄技術、合生創展（00754.HK）董事長朱孟依之兄朱拉伊控制的廣東珠光集團借殼南方國際（01176.HK）、羅韶宇控制的重慶東銀集團借殼香港飲食管理（00668.HK）等。
在香港，上市公司的董事會控制權就像異常保值的商品，為了獲得董事會的控制權，買家可以支付驚人的溢價。如果殼可以作為一項投資長期持有的話，過去10年其價格增幅甚至大於物業投資，例如1997年的香港主板上市公司殼價約為5000-6000萬港元，而在目前的各種交易中，其價格在1.8-2.4億港元之間，香港創業板上市公司的殼價也達到了0.8-1億港元之間。當然，市場上所說的殼，指的是可供作為收購對象註入資產的上市公司，殼價顧名思義是買家為控制其董事會所支付的上市公司凈資產以外的溢價。計算殼價永遠不是易事，因為股權交易中每股的收購價對價是由每股凈資產、凈資產溢價、控股股權溢價和殼價等四個要素組成，交易雙方往往無法明確區分哪一部分屬於殼價，要計算為單純獲得零資產上市公司而付出的代價有時相當困難，因為真正的零資產上市公司並不存在。
香港買殼的技巧
香港是國內企業最為青睞的買殼市場，然而，香港資本市場上殼公司的種類非常復雜，其流通股權的分布情況、殼的資產類型、原有業務情況、交易結構設計、資產註入的速度、股東組成結構等各種變數不僅影響借殼上市的速度和成本，也會影響上市後的二級市場表現。大致來看，針對不同類別的殼公司，需要註重不同的影響因素乃至陷阱。
經行家處理過的殼。殼公司早已被部分資本玩家變成一種產品和牟利工具，對懂行的人而言，上市殼的投資幾乎成了穩賺不賠的生意。香港有一些人專門從事殼的買賣甚至造殼業務，他們在買家進入前就對上市公司進行了處理，作好了將其出售的準備。經過處理的殼一般凈資產規模較小，運營性資產和業務很少，收購後較易管理，賣方通常希望吸引一些資產和業務具備較強贏利能力的買家。但是，其中也不乏陷阱。
有的殼公司大股東表面持股量少，但幕後人士實際操縱了大量市場流通股份。在幕後人士的安排下，賣方一般不會一次性給予買家高比例的股權，而只是把大股東已經披露的股權出售給買家作為誘餌，而以剩余的大量公眾股份作為牽制，買家往往進場後才發現上當了。買家因為受上市規則對大股東買賣股份的限制，對被操縱的二級市場完全失去影響力，導致買殼後股價經常大起大落，形成了公司業務由大股東控制、股價和二級市場被莊家控制的局面，使公司後續的籌資活動受到極大的幹擾，國美電器（00493.HK）大股東黃光裕就曾為此付出了巨大的代價。由於黃光裕從資本玩家處獲得的控制權是通過曲線買殼法在前後3年的時間內收購的，致使其在後續的資產註入中因為屬於關聯交易而失去大股東投票權，在資產註入對價上吃了大虧，被幕後人士狂賺了一把。為了增加對二級市場的控制，黃光裕不得不高價私自回購市場的股份。因此，買家在決定買殼前，應該仔細調查殼的實際公眾股分布情況及其實際控制人，避免所買的殼成為莊家的賭桌。
未經處理的殼。這類殼一般仍正常運作，無重大財務或法律問題，股東也是有實際經營業務的企業家。其類型也是多種多樣，比如，從大股東的持股比例看，有高（＞70%）、中（60-50%）、低（＜50%）之分；從凈資產值指數看，亦有高（＞4億元）、中（2-4億元）、低（＜2億元）之分。雖然凈資產越高，資產註入的規模越大和速度越快，但凈資產值越高的殼公司價格也越高，動用的現金也越多。特別是殼中均為現金或比較容易套現的資產時溢價就更高，這直接影響買家動用的收購資金量，基本上，購買4億元凈資產以上的公司需要動用的資金大約在6億元以上。對於凈資產值較高且業務以房地產為主的殼而言，難度在於雙方如何達成互信從而完成資產置換，因為在香港資產的置換是受限制的。
未經處理的殼中，有許多殼主處於觀望狀態，出售意欲搖擺不定，除非能套現大量現金，否則不會出售。單純以資產換控股權的方案恐怕難以被他們接受，一般買方須支付資金達1億港元以上。如不涉及資產換股權方案，可能涉及的資金將更多。通過向殼公司註入流動性很好的優質資產，可以減少現金的總支出，但資產換股權方案只有在殼價相當部分用現金支付時才有商談的余地。
許多地產界買家希望以資產換取上市公司股權作為部分股票對價的支付方法並不受許多殼主歡迎，因為地產在資本市場不屬於具備想象空間的資產，資產註入的質量往往成為交易完成的重要因素。此時，買方應確保該資產能在極短時間內完成向外商投資企業的轉變，並在與賣方談判前獲取國際會計師事務所對資產的審計報告和中國律師的法律意見書。由國際評估師出具的評估報告雖非必需，卻是談判重要的根據。在香港有一個潛規則，如擬註入資產未經以上步驟，賣方不會跟你動真格，只會應付了事，因為整個方案可能因資產註入失敗和延誤而取消，此時談判會難有實質性深入。
存在財務困難的公司。這類公司往往已經是負資產，但仍未進入清盤程序，由於存在財務困難，需要進行債務重組。在公司沒有資金進入就會面臨清盤和退市的情況下，證監會可以同意豁免收購方的全面收購要求。買這種殼，動用的資金總量一般比前幾種要小，殼價一般在5000-6000萬港元左右，但卻可以拿到相當高比例的股權。
理論上，香港市場不存在空殼公司，一家上市公司如被定義為現金公司（空殼）公司，就將面臨除牌的風險。能成為殼的公司不僅有資產較少的公司，也不乏凈資產達數億元的公司。香港上市公司的上市載體不少在百慕大和開曼群島註冊，控股公司不從事任何業務經營，實際業務經營的載體可能在中國境內或者其他國家成立。這猶如一道防火墻，使可避免受其業務經營上的牽連（上市公司對銀行擔保除外）。
買殼需關註的重點
由於香港與內地市場存在差異，在香港買殼亦有不少需要特別註意的地方。
防止在資產註入時被作為新上市處理。2004年4月前，香港對買殼後資產註入的監管寬松，之後相關上市規則大幅收緊，規定買方在成為擁有超過30%普通股的股東後的24個月內，累計註入資產的任一指標高於殼公司的收益、市值、資產、盈利、股本等五個測試指標中任何一條的100%，則該交易構成非常重大交易，該註入可能要以IPO申請的標準來審批。這等於資產註入胎死腹中，許多國內企業家在買殼後才知道這最重要的一條，結果兩年內無法完成資產註入，被迫把殼丟空24個月，這種案例不在少數。華寶國際（00336.HK）實際控制人朱林瑤2004年4月16日通過旗下BVI公司Mogul完成收購香港上市公司力特後，即為了避免資產註入被當作新上市處理而等待了漫長的24個月，到2006年6月方把華寶上海等資產註入上市公司（詳見本刊2008年5月號文章《朱林瑤:低調的產業與資本雙面手》）。凈資產值、銷售額和市值較大的上市公司允許註入的資產規模大，不易被當作新上市處理，但其缺點在於買家需動用的現金量非常大，尤其是在方案涉及全面收購之時。當然，也有一些技巧可以回避這一限制（案例一）。
收購股權比例太小存在風險。通常，對大股東股權的收購價比一般流通股增加了殼價和控股權溢價，全面收購價往往遠超過二級市場股價。有的買家為了避免以高於市場價向小股東展開全面收購，降低整體收購成本，而選擇只收購殼公司30%以下的股權。有的則在取得接近30%的股權後，通過代理人繼續持有超過30%部分的股權份額。若買家意圖通過這種曲線方式進行全面收購，以降低成本並避開公司被作為新上市處理的限制，那麽需要註意，此舉違反股東應如實披露權益的條例，一旦被證明可能面臨刑事指控。而且，香港證監會會關註原上市公司大股東處置余下股份的安排（如售予其他獨立第三者） ，不會令買方對這些剩余股份行使控制權。過去證監會曾多次因不滿意余下股份接手人士的獨立性而拖延或不確認買方“無須提出全面收購”的要求。這一做法不僅不合法，日後也容易遭到其他股東的挑戰。按照上市規定，大股東註入資產時自己無權投票，其最後命運會由小股東控制，如果原來的股東分散或者其他股東的投票權接近，不滿的小股東可跳出來反對資產註入（案例二）。
盡量獲得清洗豁免。根據香港《公司收購、合並及股份回購守則》，新股東如持有股權超過30%，可能被要求向全體股東提出全面收購要約，並證明買方擁有收購所需資金。最近香港股市暢旺，殼價水漲船高，已達1.8-2.4億港元，買殼加上實施全面收購須動用的資金至少需要3億港元，要減少收購所動用的現金，就必須獲得香港證監會的全面收購豁免（又稱“清洗豁免”）。證監會對清洗豁免審批有嚴格的要求，除非證明如果沒有買家的資金註入，殼公司可能面臨清盤，否則不會輕易批準。
盡量避免被認為是現金公司而停牌。香港上市公司要保持上市地位，就不能是純現金公司（只有現金沒有業務），因此，假如收購對象的業務基本停頓，除非買家能協助殼公司在短時間內開展新業務，否則可能面對無法復牌的風險。在港上市的三元集團就因為殼公司已沒有業務，新股東買殼後提出復牌建議不獲港交所同意，最終被判摘牌而導致買方巨大損失。三元後來向香港高等法院上訴，要求推翻港交所的判決並獲勝，但其後又被上訴庭推翻高院的裁決，目前看來已經無力回天。
註重原有資產清理的復雜程度。殼中業務的資產構成決定收購方在買殼後進行清理的難度和成本，一般在容易處理的資產中排名第一的是現金和有價證券，因其具備高流通性、有公開的交易市場和價格；排名第二的是土地和房地產，它們在持有期間極少需要管理，且價值不容易迅速減少；第三是不需要經營性的固定資產、資金回收周期短的貿易、軟件和服務業務；第四是固定資產需求較少的加工業和輕工業；第五是帶工廠和設備的工業類上市公司。買家應該盡量避免業務需要持續關註和精良管理的殼，涉及龐大生產性機器設備、存貨、應收賬款和產品周轉期長的殼公司最難清理，該類資產套現困難，原大股東贖回也會因須動用大量現金而無法實施。而且，擁有大量經營性資產的殼如果資產置換耗時長，其業務和資產就存在貶值風險，且這些業務的管理需要專業技能，容易令外行的買方撓頭。
交易期越短越好。股份交易與資產退出和註入的整個交易期越短，買殼的成功率越高。一方面，市場氣氛和經濟形勢千變萬化，任何因素都會影響價格和雙方完成交易的決心，光匯就是通過在下跌趨勢中拖延時間而獲得超過1億元的價格折讓。而且，新舊股東在交易完成前有一段“你中有我、我中有你”的共處時期，這一時期，如果董事會上兩股力量互相牽制的話，可能導致雙方的矛盾和火拼。為避免潛在爭執，理想的做法是在新股東進入的同時把原有股東需要取回的資產剝離。
需周詳地協調新舊資產更替。由於香港上市規則對原有資產的出售速度有所限制，部分殼中的資產難以在兩年內售出，這使如何協調買方新註入資產與殼中原有資產的方案設計提出了較高的難度。
做好審慎調查。買方可買有業務的殼，也可買業務已萎縮的殼。買有業務的殼，危險在於公司過去的經營中可能有潛在負債、不良資產或者法律糾紛，因此，買方應從法律、財務、股東和業務等方面進行足夠的審慎調查，否則會自咽苦果。香港上市的百靈達集團（02326.HK）就是因為國內買家放棄了做仔細的謹慎調查和讓賣方出資產質量承諾，在金融危機來臨時，其下屬的百靈達實業深圳有限公司持續虧損、資不抵債，在2008年10月20日停業，並引致當地政府部門幹預，雖未連累上市公司清盤，但嚴重影響了企業的聲譽和股東價值，公司至今仍然停牌。
買殼是很多民營企業建立資本平臺、進入資本市場的開始，而不是最終的目的。上市殼如不能發揮在較高股價上再融資的能力，這一平臺亦失去意義。因此，企業買殼前應作全面的準備，包括考量公司內不同項目的價值和投資安排、融資計劃、擬註入上市公司的價格、對投資者的吸引力等。選擇殼公司時亦需考慮將來註入上市公司的資產、註入時間及規模等。
在收購過程中，必須掌握的原則按照重要性排列則包括：速度快，即以盡可能快的速度完成買殼交易，否則不僅成本增加，也延誤後續資本運作；合法合規，交易中不要留下後遺癥，特別要避免對未來產生不良影響的違規行為；未來能控制自己的命運，買殼後，要使殼公司具備足夠的二級市場操作自由度，對二級市場和股東結構的了解是關鍵。有買殼計劃的企業可以先對自身條件進行評估，如果具備相關的要素並遵從上述原則，加上有精於企業運作和資本運作顧問的協助，買殼可以使股東財富倍增、企業躍上新臺階。■
海外買殼的選擇
買殼還是IPO？
企業選擇IPO還是買殼上市，取決於自身條件、股東目標、大規模融資的急迫性和計劃采用的融資模式。已滿足上市要求的企業，IPO是最好的選擇，上市和集資可一步到位。直接IPO的最大好處是可以“強迫”公司管理層按照上市地的監管法例和市場遊戲規則玩牌，但這對一些企業是難以逾越的門檻或是遠水難救近火，比如，IPO有固定業績要求，企業最好處於業績增長期，有一半的企業最終因為業績倒退無法上市;有的企業因為歷史遺留問題或稅務原因無法達標，或者在復雜的重組過程中發現短時間內解決IPO的障礙有困難，以及業務重組的稅務成本相當高，股東會考慮與其在不確認成敗的情況下支付巨大代價，不如選擇代價與成功幾乎同時實現的買殼;此外，IPO對上市的時機要求很高，市場氣氛不好時很難成功發行股票，例如一周的股市持續調整可以使孫宏斌的融創上市暫時擱置，有的企業甚至因錯過時機而永遠錯過了上市的機會。
而且，香港交易所和香港證監會對中國企業在上市階段的合規考量尺度相當嚴格，兩地監管機構交流頻繁，監管機構會有針對性地針對企業的軟肋要求披露和確保合規，這對許多摸著石頭過河的民企提出了重大挑戰。有時，對需要短期大規模融資的企業而言，IPO也可謂遠水救不了近火。買殼通常成為企業在IPO之外的後備方案。尤其在商務部2006年9月出臺《關於外國投資者並購境內企業的規定》（簡稱“十號文”）以來，民企海外上市的渠道被堵，不少難以在A股上市的企業把重點從IPO轉向了買殼。
買殼的成本無疑高於直接上市，不過其優點在某些特殊情況下也難以替代。買殼可令企業先控制上市公司，再按時機成熟的程度逐漸註入業務，等待最佳的融資時機，無需為應付“考試”一次性付出重大的代價，無需等待而獲得上市地位。但是，買殼更適合股東有一定資金實力、能先付錢買殼再解決融資需求的企業，盈科數碼、國美電器和華寶國際都是買殼後抓住機會成功集資套現的案例，國美和華寶甚至為資產註入等待了24個月。而且，殼公司上市已有年頭，有時能提供比IPO更廣泛的股東基礎，使股票更活躍。相反，企業IPO後如跌破發行價，會造成股票流通性和投資者參與程度較差，這會成為日後融資的難題。
選擇最佳的買殼地點
企業買殼可選的主流地點分別為A股市場、香港交易所、新加坡交易所和美國的各個交易所，香港和新加坡分為主板和創業板殼，美國則包括美國證券交易所、納斯達克（分小型股市場和國際板市場）、紐約證券交易所、櫃臺交易市場（OTCBB）等。企業選擇哪個市場，需要根據自己的切身利益，針對殼價、殼幹凈程度、後續籌資能力、資產註入速度、股東個稅籌劃、成功率、交易時機等因素進行綜合考量。
上市主體在內地註冊的企業一般適合在A股買殼，要在境外買殼的企業，其控股公司必須為離岸公司，否則資產註入將存在障礙。因此，控股公司的註冊地很大程度上決定了其在境內還是境外買殼的決策，如果擬註入資產未轉變為外商投資企業，未來的資產註入將會存在諸多困難。需要提醒的是，過多比較A股和香港買殼的差異意義不大，香港的優勝之處在於其國際水平的監管和公司治理結構使殼的或然負債風險較小，面向全球化的金融市場和多種金融工具使其擁有較強的後續籌資能力，具備整體成功率高和操作迅速的優勢，但資產註入可能需要更精密的設計，否則可能需要較長時間才能完成。A股的優勢是市盈率比較高，但一旦被ST，後續融資能力會受損。
整體而言，每個市場可謂各有利弊，而單看買殼的成本，由高到低分別是中國香港、中國內地、新加坡和美國。香港殼價在四者中最貴，但貴得有道理。香港在殼的幹凈程度、後續籌資渠道多元化、買殼成功率以及股東稅務籌劃方面均具優勢。所謂一分錢一分貨，不同的殼適合不同支付能力的買家，其融資成功率也有很大的差別，也許這不一定與買殼地點有關，而與企業的不同規模等因素有關。
美國OTCBB的殼成本最低，如果付現金加上基礎中介機構費用，一般只需100萬美元左右。但櫃臺交易市場並非交易所市場，受投資者關註度少，企業交易量並不活躍，這使二級市場維護難度和後續融資難度高，正是這些缺點使其門檻也較低。不過好處是這一市場對買殼後的資產註入限制較少，但因為沒有針對中國企業的操作標準來維護投資者利益，大部分基金都不願意投資在這市場交易的股票，如果不是為了以此作為轉到納斯達克或者其他主板市場的跳板，買OTCBB的殼意義不大。
與海外市場中介紛紛對中國民企老板進行遊說不一樣，一般香港的買殼無需遊說，因為效果顯而易見，需求也是自發性的，但當中門道非常多、水也很深。首先，香港主板和創業板買殼屬於“高消費”，非財力雄厚者不能為之。一方面，香港近年成為中國中大型企業的海外募資中心，動輒百億甚至千億港元的集資可輕易完成，殼價貴也因為上市地位這一“會籍”幾乎是“終身制”，除非公司出現破產和成為凈現金公司，否則極少被除牌。而美國則普遍采用“淘汰制”，在交易所市場上市的交易權屬於“臨時會員”，必須維持一定的標準，一旦公司無法滿足有形資產規模、流通股數目、流通股市值及股價等方面的要求就可能被迫除牌，新浪、搜狐、網易、中華網這些公司都曾遭遇被除牌的威脅。
新加坡和香港的監管機構希望企業直接上市而不鼓勵買殼，因此設置了限制。新加坡的殼價介乎美國和香港之間，但限制最多。有些買家為了避開限制和避免全面收購所需支付的成本，采用化整為零的手法操作，但這些操作由於屬違規操作，在新加坡較難獲得配合。
除上述因素外，在海外買殼還需作其他三方面考慮。首先，是投資者關系管理因素的考量。美國是做市商制度，上市公司的投資者關系管理費用較高，需要花更多費用聘請做市商來維持交易量。其次，是董事承擔的責任及風險。美國註重事後監管，也就是事後嚴懲違規高管和董事，董事承擔的風險比較高。在美國，小股東集體訴訟比香港普遍得多。香港既重事前監管也重事後監管，港交所事前監管力度較強，事後監管力度比美國弱，因此，董事承擔的風險比美國低。第三是股票活躍的程度。就同等規模的中國企業而言，三地投資者的關註程度及股票的活躍程度不一，在美國和新加坡上市的中國股票屬於少數族群，除非是知名的科技型和新經濟企業如新浪、搜狐等，其他企業除了在當地IPO的一刻較受矚目外，難以長期被主流投資者關註，中小企業受到的關註更少。香港是投資中國概念股的首選市場，因其靠近內地，投資者更容易掌握最新的行業和企業資訊，這對提高投資意欲和交易活躍度有所幫助。一般而言，香港的中國股票活躍度比美國和新加坡高一倍以上，這直接影響著買殼的後續成功率。
案例一
光匯石油：
巧妙的資產註入
通過註入客戶而不註入資產，光匯石油集團的海上免稅供油業務大部分
被註入到上市公司，從而避免了資產註入構成非常重大交易被當新上市處理而
需等待24個月的限制。
近年能源和資源公司的買殼熱一度使香江投資者獲利甚豐，但在金融危機後也一度使投資人受傷不淺。若說買殼後能迅速令公司業務改善、投資者獲利豐厚的，當數2007年底光匯石油對先來國際（00933.HK）的收購，其中最大的受益者當屬深圳石油大亨薛光林。2008年初，薛光林通過其持有的離岸控股公司收購先來國際大股東劉東海所持有的68.26%股權，該收購給予先來國際的估值約為10億港元，如今事隔不到兩年，光匯石油市值已達150億港元，增長了14倍，而原股東保留的3%股份也從每股0.84港元升到10港元，獲利10倍多。
洽購先來國際
光匯石油集團有限公司是薛光林1996年在深圳成立的民營石油公司，主要業務包括石油倉儲與保稅中轉、成品油批發銷售、海上免稅供油，並擁有國內多處港口貨輪加油業務的特許經營權。其海上免稅加油業務2007年從零起步，但成長迅速，當年為往來貨輪加油約84萬噸，當時預計2008年僅這一業務的銷售額就可達到12億美元。海上免稅加油采用的船用重油屬於大宗商品，需要大量的流動資金和信貸，光匯石油勘探業務的高速發展也帶來了同樣的需求，因此，在短時間內完成上市成為光匯石油的迫切要求。考慮到商務部“十號文”對內資企業海外上市的限制和海上免稅供油的行業特點，其在未來兩三年內直接上市不可能實現，在香港買殼成為最佳的資本運作方案。
對於光匯石油這樣的公司，在選殼時考慮了多方因素。首先，公司對融資需求迫切，因此買殼要幹凈利落、速戰速決，切忌與原股東出現大量糾紛和矛盾，這就需要一次性購買大比例股權。根據有關法例，買方因此將被迫啟動全面收購要約程序，需動用的資金量很大；同時，還需要選擇大股東持股比例高的殼，防止過多股份散落在市場或不明人士手中，導致今後操作的困難。其次，現行的上市規則規定，如上市公司在買殼兩年內出售、註入資產和業務量超過規定限制，可能會被視為非常重大交易而當作新上市處理，因此，如果殼公司資產規模過小，會使得資產註入緩慢，影響上市公司迅速改善業績；如果規模過大，又會衍生許多資產置換的問題。為尋找完全滿足要求的殼公司，光匯前後花費了一年多時間，接觸了不下20家殼公司，最終把目標鎖定在業務量小但手上現金充裕的先來國際身上。
劉東海通過Linwood Services持有的先來國際是一家投資控股公司，在1998年亞洲金融風暴前曾擔任成衣品牌“夢特嬌”的中國總代理，後來因品牌商收回代理權業務開始沈寂。公司出售前，主要從事成衣的設計產銷和證券投資等業務。由於長期持有大量現金和有價證券而缺乏活躍的業務支撐，其股價長期低於每股賬面凈資產值和現金值。截至2007年12月31日，股東權益為6.74 億港元，其中現金和可套現財務資產達6.7億港元，主營業務資產不超過2000萬港元。大股東長期維持如此小規模的資產通常只有一個原因，就是維持最簡單的業務，以便找到合適的買家高價售出。先來國際由於持續運營業務少，無大量固定資產需要處理，較好地防止了買殼過程中原股東要求取回資產而帶來的資產置換的問題，而維持較少的業務量可防止被港交所認定為現金公司而除牌。
光匯集團與劉東海的接觸，使得先來國際股價在2007年11月突然大幅上揚，從徘徊在0.4港元左右上漲一倍達0.8元/股左右。2007年12月13日，雙方談判進入白熱化階段。在雙方開始談判前，劉東海的開價很高，收購其手中71.31%的股權涉及的對價高達8.3億港元。隨著談判時間的拖延和股市的降溫，其大幅讓價1.3億元。2008年1月16日，先來國際公告，其主要股東Linwood Services與薛光林持有的Energy Empire及Canada Foundation（均為加拿大基金）原則上達成收購協議。最終，薛光林通過上述兩家基金收購先來國際8.3億股份，約占68.26%股權，每股對價約0.84337港元，總價約7億港元，劉東海則通過Linwood Services繼續持有3.04%股權。由於先來國際內部賬面凈資產達6.23億港元，其中包括約6億港元的現金，所以，7億港元中很大一部分是支付先來國際凈資產的價格。
為減少收購所用資金，光匯方面註入了一處香港物業（對價4200萬港元）和一處新加坡物業（對價約6280萬港元），並出售Everview、Pearl River兩家公司全部已發行股本（對價分別為1350萬港元和2.4714億港元）給原大股東（這兩家公司主要持有原大股東有意保持的有價證券）。2008年5月13日，雙方簽訂收購合同，隨後，先來國際股價從每股0.97港元漲至最高2.98港元。
業務註入
要避免違反商務部“十號文”的要求和被港交所判定業務註入作新上市處理，買殼的操盤人給光匯的資產註入方案訂立的原則包括：1、利用海上供油業務客戶均在中國境外的特征，註入客戶不註入資產；2、必須在上市公司內部迅速發展新的業務，讓上市公司持有整個海上供油價值鏈的每個環節；3、資產註入和售出不能超過特定的價值。
在這一原則下，2008年6月10日，上市公司與光匯石油集團簽訂了相關協議，其具體內容包括：光匯石油集團向先來國際提供燃油付運服務收費報價協議；先來國際可根據其訂單銷售的需求向光匯石油集團采購燃油，並由其負責替指定的客戶加油；光匯石油集團向先來國際提供燃油儲存服務，並按月向上市公司收取相關租金。這一協議通過由光匯石油集團為上市公司提供部分物流、倉儲、采購服務的方式，在未註入任何資產的情況下，使光匯石油集團的海上免稅供油業務大部分被註入到上市公司。該交易不構成非常重大交易，但構成持續關聯交易，成功避免了資產註入構成非常重大交易被當新上市處理而需等待24個月的限制。
成功的交易設計使公司的業績迅速改善。雖然受金融危機影響，但由於海上供油業務在短期內產生大量業務收入，上市公司在改名光匯石油後2008年給客戶的供油量仍然大增，截至2009年6月底止純利達2.63億港元，同比上升3.16倍，每股盈利0.206港元（附表）。
光匯石油的股價也從2009年6月的每股1.9港元起步，進入上漲周期。2009年8月，光匯石油與大連工業區管委會成立光匯大連投資公司，雙方分別占60%和40%股權。光匯大連將建設油管，以連接光匯石油倉儲項目與國家油管，整個項目投資額約100億港元。這一消息為光匯石油的股價又註入了一劑強心劑，使之從4港元每股最高漲到2009年12月的10港元（附圖）。
仍需清除的障礙
光匯買殼受到投資者的追捧，股價一度升到10港元，但該股票估值較高，加上股權過度集中的風險，也使一些機構投資者望而卻步。
借殼上市後，光匯石油連續兩次向公司主席薛光林持有的加拿大基金發行可轉債。2008年11月28日，向加拿大基金配售1.1億股和1.159億港元的可換股票據：加拿大基金可以每股0.61港元認購1.1億股，總價6710萬港元；並可將可換股票據按初步兌換價0.61 港元兌換為1.9億股。此次認購股份占光匯石油已發行股本約9.05%，占公司擴大後股本約8.3%；可換股票據占已發行股本約15.63%，占擴大後股本約12.53%。2009年6月，加拿大基金再次認購光匯石油9.3億港元可換股票據，這些票據可按初步兌換價1.5港元兌換，最高將配發及發行6.2億股新股。兌換股份相當於光匯石油已發行股本約43.2%，相當於公司擴大後股本約30.2%。這些可轉債如果全數行使，扣除大股東2009年10月減持的股份，大股東將擁有公司擴大後股本的75%，加之采購、倉儲和運輸部分業務仍在上市公司之外，降低了機構投資人參與的熱情。
另外，目前上市公司96%的采購成本來自與光匯石油集團的關聯交易，這使投資者對公司真正的盈利能力懷有戒心，長遠看，光匯要獲得機構投資者的認同，還須盡量減少關聯交易，引入機構投資者，使持股更加多元化。■
案例二
失控的買殼
由於閩泰集團被質疑借道中興集團曲線買殼上市，新股東不僅不斷受到其他股東的挑戰，買殼後的資產註入難以實施，買家最後也失去了對董事會的控制。
鈞濠集團（00115.HK）由香港地產商曾煒麟、郭慧玟夫婦創辦，其主業為在深圳、東莞等地從事房地產開發。1999年10月，鈞濠通過重組香港“殼王”詹培忠旗下的忠德石油，以介紹方式在港上市。
2007年1月，曾氏夫婦通過旗下Rhenfileld Development向香港中興集團出售1.805億股鈞濠股份，每股作價0.1057元，後再以同樣價格與鈞濠集團簽訂認購1.805億股股份的協議，經過這種先舊後新的配股後，中興集團成為鈞濠股東。2007年7月，曾氏夫婦辭任董事，並於次月出售1億股予中興集團。香港中興通過其後的多次配股，成為鈞濠的單一第一大股東，完成了殼的收購。截至2008年12月31日，中興集團持有鈞濠22.32%的股權，而同期曾煒麟夫婦通過Rhenfield Development Corp.持有公司19.03%的股權（圖1）。
按慣例，第一大股東自然成為公司的董事會主席，然而，中興集團的持有人黃炳煌卻意外地僅被選為鈞濠的執行董事和總裁，董事會主席由未持有鈞濠任何權益的深圳閩泰集團主席朱景輝擔任，2008年10月，朱景輝更兼任鈞濠行政總裁。由此不僅引起一些人士質疑閩泰借道中興集團曲線買殼上市，一場長期的股東糾紛亦揭開了序幕，新股東的後續運作因而難以實施。
資產註入受阻
2008年6月，鈞濠宣布以9600萬港元收購朱景輝之妻翁玉蓮持有90%權益的揚州地產項目，展開了資產註入的行動。但有媒體質疑揚州閩泰屬劣質資產，此舉嚴重損害股東利益。朱景輝控制下的鈞濠董事會進行了反擊，並發出傳訊令狀，指前大股東（即曾氏夫婦）違反公司受信責任。
2008年7月，鈞濠計劃以0.16港元每股配售1億股，用於收購閩泰集團的揚州項目。但是，由於曾煒麟以董事涉嫌收受利益、盜用簽名非法成立下屬公司轉移資金、多項交易涉及侵吞公司現金損害股東利益、股東大會選舉不公為由，向法院申請到了新股配售的禁止令，這一配股計劃胎死腹中。同時，法院也接納了曾氏以上市公司名義對包括朱景輝、黃炳煌在內的多位董事的訴訟，成為香港有史以來第一宗該類官司，後續發生的許多事情在香港上市公司中都鮮有先例。
據報道，鈞濠原股東向港交所和香港證監會提供的資料中指，香港中興2007年1月入股鈞濠的資金由深圳中港投資支付，而翁玉蓮占中港投資60%的股權，中興集團後續的多次股權收購資金大部分也由朱或翁的關聯公司提供。
董事會失控
面對曾煒麟的指控及其重新控制公司的意圖，朱景輝控制的鈞濠董事會多次拒絕其作為超過10%的股東按照其享有的權利提出的召開特別股東大會的要求（這在過去沒有先例），又向百慕大最高法院申請禁制令，阻止召開特別股東大會。2008年8月，鈞濠又以市價向公司董事及部分員工發出了接近2.5億份立刻可行使權證，成為香港第一家一次性向董事、員工和第三者發出接近總股數10%該類權證的上市公司。而這一行為又被部分股東向法庭提出訴訟，指此舉向董事會成員輸送利益，意圖影響股東大會投票結果。
2008年12月2日，曾煒麟等鈞濠舊股東自行召開特別股東大會，通過8位新董事加入董事會、否決與翁玉蓮持有的揚州項目交易的議案。新董事的加入使糾紛在董事會內部蔓延。而為了防止失去對董事會的控制，在特別股東大會召開前一天，朱景輝控制的董事會就突擊委任了5名新董事，加上6名舊董事，使得新舊股東提名的董事以11：8的比例展開對決。2009年8月，香港高等法院裁定突擊委任5名董事的提名不合法，這意味著，朱景輝已經失去了對董事會的完全控制。2009年10月，朱景輝被撤銷鈞濠主席一職，調任為非執董，改由馬學綿出任董事會主席。朱景輝所提名的董事大部分在剛結束的周年股東大會上出局，可以說買殼近乎失敗。目前，鈞濠原股東以公司名義對朱景輝等董事會成員的訴訟仍在進行中，而鈞濠的經營也受到影響，2008年全年虧損擴大至9165.5萬港元，其股票由2009年3月停牌至今。
買殼中的教訓
這是一個典型的買殼失敗案例，在這場股東爭鬥中沒有贏家。從2007年1月曾氏夫婦第一次向中興集團配售股份開始，隨著多次配股，鈞濠集團股價本已從0.1港元最高升到0.64港元，但在2008年6月展開資產註入後，其股價從0.34港元開始下行。而後，隨著股東之間出現權益紛爭，官司不斷，其股價最低跌至0.07元，最終以0.12港元的價格停牌（圖2）。根據最新的公告，公司正委任獨立會計師對2007-2008年的財務狀況進行全面核查，事態仍在不斷發展。
一般買殼需要滿足三個條件：資金緊張或需要迫切解決資金危機的公司不宜買殼；買方要習慣香港公司的規範；買殼後要馬上產生利潤，改變上市公司的營運狀況。上市公司是公眾公司，如果新股東缺乏對上市公司治理結構的理解和對全體股東利益的尊重，存在損害公司利益的行為，會引起其他股東群起而攻之，所以，雖然雙方持股勢均力敵，但在周年股東大會和特別股東大會上仍以買方大比例失敗而告終。因此，買殼後，新股東在公司的運作中應充分考慮小股東的利益，並按上市規則的要求披露信息。根據香港聯交所的上市要求，董事必須如實申報其在上市公司中的權益。部分買殼者若通過代理人持有股權，以降低成本並避開公司被作為新上市處理等限制，那麽不僅在後續的資產註入時無法投票，受制於其他小股東，這一做法還屬於用欺騙的手法繞開香港證監會的收購兼並條例和港交所上市規則的有關要求，若最後有證據證明鈞濠的實際控制人為閩泰集團的話，有關人士可能因為觸犯了香港的刑事條例而面臨法律訴訟。如果因買殼而引起官非，無疑是得不償失。■
案例三
中國礦業
之股價沈浮
2006年，通過註入兩個礦業資產，創富生物科技完成了向中國礦業的華麗轉型，股價大幅攀升，此後，由於沒有實際業績支撐和所註入資產的原小股東的訴訟，股價又迅速回落，業務也再次轉向茶業，跡象顯示其實際控制方可能已經換手。
有一種買殼方式手法更加隱秘，買家每一步運作的真正動機更加難以識別，有的買家買殼上市的真實目的往往並非以提高上市公司的長遠價值為目的、著重於收購支持其主營業務發展的融資平臺，而更多是利用金融手段和財技牟利。他們按照不同時期資本市場對不同行業的炒作興趣，把一些具備想象空間的資產註入殼公司，這時，二級市場的公司股價會被人為推高，不明實情的投資者會被吸引入市，上市公司因此成為莊家和散戶博弈的平臺。
具體來看，這類買殼主要有以下特點：
1、買家一般選擇大股東持股比例小而且股權分散的公司，並在收購過程中盡量不觸動全面收購，因為當目的不是對殼的長遠控制時，是否擁有絕對控股就顯得不是那麽重要了。
2、收購資產的融資來源一般是一些不知名人士或公司，顯示公司有極強的融資能力。有時買家會以發行可轉債或者現金方式註入資產，收購原股東手上股份，買家對殼公司股權的現金收購以化整為零的方式在二級市場交收，或由買家向原股東分批協議收購。
3、大筆持有殼公司股票的投資人，賬戶上的持股比例都不會超過5%，外人很難判斷股票的分布狀況，上市公司的股票真正由誰控制難以知曉。
4、實際控制人通過上市公司董事會，同意以天價收購一些未來想象空間大、一般人難以估算其價值的資產。這些資產的估值設定在上市公司有能力並能成功實施相關計劃的基礎上，因此容易從評估公司處獲得較高估值，導致在註入上市公司時易被嚴重高估，但實際上，這些資產的估值存在未來運營時無法實現的風險，短期難以產生現金流。而且，因為面上不存在關聯交易，大股東可以投票，監管機構則會尊重股東大會的投票結果，往往使得交易對價對小投資者不公平，一眾股民的權益被嚴重攤薄。
5、買家會通過增發新股或者發行可轉債，使自己的一致行動人在股價上漲前控制更大比例的低成本股份。
6、如采用發行可轉債的方式註入資產，被註入業務的出售方股東（也是“代理人”）會獲得大量可以低價換股的可換股債券；如采用現金收購方式，則上市公司通過配股獲得現金的大部分會被用於資產的收購，而且錢很快會被支付出去，上市公司不會長期持有大量現金。
7、資產註入完成後，股價會被逐漸炒高，當大量散戶跟入時，則開始長期的持續下跌。
8、嚴重高估的被註入資產逐漸會露出破綻，出現大幅虧損，這時公司再大幅撥備，把上市殼中高值的資產賬面價格與實際價值並軌。
9、幕後控制人都是資本玩家，該走的程序往往一個不差，表面程序上完全合法，就算股民受到巨大損失，也是投訴無門。
分析香港股票市場，一度被熱炒隨後股價大跌的上市公司很多，而在種種特征上比較吻合的，可能是中國礦業（00340.HK）。在中國礦業借殼上市的操作中，資產註入采用現金、股份置換加物業換股的模式，足見操盤人實力不弱。但相關資產在註入上市公司前被低價轉讓，難免令人懷疑被註入資產的實質控制人與殼公司股權的認購人之間有著密切的關系。同時，註入想象空間巨大的礦產資源，配合巨額成交和股價上揚，吸引了許多散戶的參與，使其一時風光無限。隨後其在2008年一次性減值和虧損31億港元，股價也從2007年初接近2.5港元的高點下跌90%，到現在的0.2港元左右，令許多中小投資者損失慘重。
註入礦業資產帶來股價節節攀升
中國礦業前身為香港創富生物科技集團有限公司（簡稱“創富生物科技”），其在2001年1月借殼當時出現財務困難的廣信企業有限公司，在港交所上市。在被中國礦業再次借殼前，其股價也一直低迷不振，徘徊在0.415港元左右。而且，其股權較為分散，沒有任何一個股東超過30%。根據公司2005年年報，大股東蔡原通過Greater Increase Investments Limited持股20.29%，第二大股東陸健通過Equity Valley Investments Limited持股14.06%。
2006年6月13日，創富生物科技宣布以8.126億港元收購Lead Sun的57%股權，開始了中國礦業的借殼與資產註入行動。8.126億港元的支付方案包括三部分：以4.33億港元代價向Lead Sun的四家股東發行共10.8億股（相當於當時股本的43.75%及經擴大股本的23.76%），每股作價0.4元；向賣方另一股東轉讓廣州一處物業，作為支付1.75億港元的代價；余下2.05億港元用現金支付。隨後，創富生物科技即通過配售集資約3.97億港元。創富生物科技的股東權益只有區區2.27億港元，主要資產是廣州一處最終被作為支付代價的物業，公司能在短時間內完成集資3.97億港元購買一個未產生任何收入的礦產，融資能力令人驚嘆，但到底是原股東融資能力驚人還是後續的持股人才是真正買殼者，至今只有局內人才知道。而且，通過以物業和現金支付收購款，創富生物科技把殼公司中原股東的資產和配股所獲資金中的2.05億現金置換出了上市公司以外。
被收購的Lead Sun，由郭敏、葉東明、吳曉京、吳凱持有（圖1），於2006年4月6日才在英屬維爾京群島註冊，除了全資擁有高標公司（Top Rank）外，並無其他業務或資產，事實上屬於為本次交易專門成立的空殼控股公司。而高標公司則擁有山西神利航天鈦業有限公司（簡稱“山西神利”）90%股權，因而，創富生物科技間接持有山西神利51.3%股權。山西神利擁有全國第二大鈦礦金紅石礦的開采權，據上市公司的評估師出具的報告估計，其天然紅石礦的地質儲量約為182.6萬噸，有關礦產資源量約為189.35萬噸，價值在18-22億元之間。金紅石礦是生產海綿鈦的主要原料，鈦在航空航天、醫療等領域運用廣泛，近年國內海綿鈦一直供不應求，每年都需大量進口。因此，收購消息公布後，創富生物科技的股價逆市大漲63.86%達0.68港元。
然而據報道，在註入上市公司前的2006年6月1日，高標公司100%股權才被股東以270萬美元賣給了剛剛成立的Lead Sun，而且，買家黃士林和謝南洋放棄了其中的2699999美元，等於Lead Sun將高標公司收入囊中的實際代價僅為1美元。在不到一個月的時間裏，高標公司的價值從270萬美元增加到14.25億港元，增值約66倍，新股東的眼光和創富能力可謂空前絕後，上市公司對所購資產價值的認同度更是非常高。因為就算在之前的2005年3月9日，高標公司45%股權的轉讓價也只有450萬元。至於為什麽這樣的交易能獲得上市公司股東大會通過，只能解析為在股東大會召開時贊成方已經控制了足夠的同意票數。
出售Lead Sun的57%股權後，郭敏、葉東明、吳曉京持有的Lead Sun股權分別降至14%、14%、15%。但通過向其配售股份作為支付代價，創富生物科技的股權也發生了變動，原大股東蔡原的股權減持到10.63%。郭敏、葉東明分別各自持有其7.84%股權，吳曉京持有7.31%股權。另外，超大現代農業老板郭浩也收購了創富生物科技6.36%的股權。四人收購的股權共占上市公司的29.36%，沒有超過30%，即使四人被確認為一致行動人士，也不構成觸動全面收購要約，否則他們可能因構成一致行動人士要以同樣的價格向全體股東提出全面收購。
2007年2月，創富生物科技更名為中國礦業。2007年5月23日，中國礦業又公告稱，計劃籌資約18億港元，用於收購哈爾濱松江銅業（集團）有限公司75.08%的股權，後者主要從事銅、鉬及鋅開采與提煉，其中，鉬的開采占企業生產及盈利的大部分。殼公司被兩度註入礦業資產後，二級市場出現瘋狂的炒作，中國礦業的股價最高時一度接近2.5港元（圖2），公司市值也由5億港元暴漲到60億港元。
無業績支撐股價大跌，轉型茶業
如同絢麗的海市蜃樓，中國礦業買殼光環下的股價炒作持續到2007年中，此後，公司股價因沒有實際業績支撐和高標公司小股東的訴訟迅速回落。2008年9月18日，隨著金融風暴的深化和受累於公司的盈利預警，股價更是暴挫，盤中最多下跌38.5%。其2008年上半年度業績重大虧損來自於包括暫停旗下山西神利金紅石礦建設，並為有關投資作出減值撥備；此外，哈爾濱賓縣的銅鋅礦亦暫停營運，以進行安全檢查，要到2009年下半年才復產（該銅礦上年度收益1.15億港元）。
2009年6月5日，執行董事楊國權在股東會上表示，因礦產市價下跌，當年上半年暫停金紅石項目及鉬礦開采，銅礦則因礦場老化而結束。中國礦業承認，此前進行戰略布局的內蒙古諾爾蓋銅礦資源已被證實品質不足，商業上並不可行，另外兩處主要礦場則分別因老化暫停運營和市場遇冷延遲開發，半年巨虧近8.7億港元，短短的兩年時間，剛好把8億多收購的資產基本貶值完畢。公司股價自2008年至今也已跌回買殼前的價位。
回顧中國礦業股價過山車式的大幅起落，跟該公司註入的礦產無法產生收入有著極大的關聯。未正式進入產出階段的礦，在價值評估上因為許多數據有猜測成分，評估師的估值主要基於樂觀的價格估計和假設該礦能如期成功開采，也能如期成功獲預測的銷售，水分可以非常巨大，往往被買殼者作為註入到殼公司換取現金和股票進行增持的重要手段。
與公司股價走勢相同，中國礦業自2006年買殼上市到現在的業績也呈倒U形，在2007年時達到高峰，當年收入升39倍至6.96億元，股東應占溢利達2.12億元，每股盈利3.9元，之後業績不斷下滑，到2009年上半年又扭虧為盈，盈利828.6萬元。
在礦產業務遭遇巨虧後，中國礦業的業務方向開始轉變。2009年4月，其投資6.4億港元收購King Gold的80%股權，從而在重組後全資控股星願（中國）茶業公司和中國大紅袍茶業。中國礦業表示，目前中國大紅袍茶業尚未全面展開業務，而星願茶業在武夷山擁有一座占地面積2萬平方米左右的生產基地，主要通過向當地農民租賃茶田並訂立分包協議經營，武夷山種茶區面積中約有28%供給星願茶業，星願茶業已自2007年開始盈利，當年凈利潤近990萬港元。
2009年6月8日，中國礦業公告稱，主席蔡原正式退任，副主席兼行政總裁遊憲生調任主席，執董陳守武則任副主席兼行政總裁。其股權也發生了重大的變化，目前，何豪威持股10.77%，葉東明仍持股6.5%，其他人則均在主要股東項下消失。種種跡象表明，中國礦業的真正控制人已經易手。
從2006年以創富生物科技的業務置換兩個價值巨大的礦產，完成向中國礦業的華麗轉型，到現在中國礦業的主營業務大幅度貶值，公司業務由礦產資源轉為茶業，這是不是預示著又一輪的資產轉換，從而達成下一個類似當年中國礦業的變身呢？要得到答案還需拭目以待，但從股價分析，自宣布轉向茶業以來，其股價從約0.35元突然在一周內被拉升到0.53元，高位震蕩後從2009年7月末開始進入了長達5個月的持續下跌，到目前的0.22元，看來股民又經歷了一次過山車式的投資體驗。
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The Guardian: Editted Excerpt From “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” By Michael Lewis
This is a fairly long and intense read but very well worth it. For an in-depth and fascinating look at the real game that played out to become the most major economic crisis of our times, this will give readers some very interesting background. And no one will ever again be able to tell you that it was not pre-meditated, nor that it was not known, and seen, well ahead of time. Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and settle in for a fascinating inside look at how we got to where we are…
The willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grown-ups remains a mystery to me to this day. I was 24, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. I’d never taken an accounting course, never run a business, never even had savings of my own to manage. I’d stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985, and stumbled out, richer, in 1988, and the whole thing still strikes me as totally preposterous – which is one reason the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud.
When I sat down to write my account of the experience – Liar’s Poker – it was in the spirit of a young man who thought he was getting out while the getting was good. Unless some insider got all of this down on paper, I figured, no future human would believe that it had happened.
Up to that point, just about everything written about Wall Street had been about the stock market. My book was mainly about the bond market, because Wall Street was now making even bigger money packaging and selling and shuffling around America’s growing debts. This, too, I assumed was unsustainable. I thought that I was writing a period piece about the 1980s in America, when a great nation lost its financial mind.
What I never imagined is that the future reader might look back on any of this, or on my own peculiar experience, and say, “How quaint.” How innocent. Not for a moment did I suspect that the financial 1980s would last for two full decades longer. That a single bond trader might be paid $47m a year and feel cheated. That the mortgage bond market invented on the Salomon Brothers trading floor, which seemed like such a good idea at the time, would lead to the most purely financial economic disaster in history.
In the two decades after I left, I waited for the end of Wall Street as I had known it. Yet the big banks at the centre of it just kept on growing, along with the sums of money that they doled out to 26-year-olds to perform tasks of no obvious social utility. At some point, I gave up waiting. There was no scandal or reversal, I assumed, sufficiently great to sink the system.
Then came Meredith Whitney, with news. Whitney was an obscure analyst of financial firms for Oppenheimer & Co who, on 31 October 2007, ceased to be obscure. On that day she predicted that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. By the end of the trading day, a woman of whom no one had ever heard had shaved 8% off the shares of Citigroup and $390bn off the value of the US stock market. Four days later, Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince resigned. Two weeks later, Citigroup slashed its dividend. From that moment, when Meredith Whitney spoke, people listened.
I confess some part of me thought, if only I’d stuck around, this is the sort of catastrophe I might have created. The characters at the centre of Citigroup’s mess were the very same people I’d worked with at Salomon Brothers; a few of them had been in my training class there. At some point I couldn’t contain myself: I called Whitney. This was back in March 2008, just before the failure of Bear Stearns, when the outcome still hung in the balance. I was curious to know where this young woman who was crashing the stock market with her every utterance had come from.
She’d arrived on Wall Street in 1994, landed a job at Oppenheimer & Co and then had the most incredible piece of luck: to be trained by a man who helped her to establish not merely a career but a world-view. His name, she said, was Steve Eisman.
Having never heard of Eisman, I didn’t think anything of this. But in late 2008, when the biggest Wall Street investment banks were under threat from the fallout over sub-prime mortgages – loans made to borrowers who don’t qualify for ordinary mortgages, and so have a higher risk of default – I called Whitney again. By then, there was a long and growing list of pundits who claimed they had predicted the catastrophe, but a far shorter list of people who actually did. Of those, even fewer had the nerve to bet on their vision. I wanted to ask Whitney, as I was asking others, if she knew anyone who had anticipated the sub-prime mortgage cataclysm, thus setting himself up in advance to make a fortune from it.
Whitney rattled off a list with a half-dozen names on it, mainly investors she had personally advised. At the top was Steve Eisman.
Eisman entered finance about the time I exited it. He’d grown up in New York City, graduated with honours from Harvard Law School. In 1991 he was a 30-year-old corporate lawyer. “I hated it,” he says. “My parents worked as brokers at Oppenheimer securities. They managed to finagle me a job. It’s not pretty, but that’s what happened.”
Eisman started in equity analysis, and quickly established himself as one of the few analysts at Oppenheimer whose opinions might stir the markets. Wall Street people came to view him as a genuine character. His short-cropped blond hair looked as if he had cut it himself. The focal point of his soft, expressive, not unkind face was his mouth, mainly because it was usually at least half open, even while he ate. It was as if he feared that he might not be able to express whatever thought had just flitted through his mind quickly enough before the next one came, and so kept the channel perpetually clear. It was the opposite of a poker face.
The growing number of people who worked for Eisman loved him, or were at least amused by him, and appreciated his willingness and ability to part with both his money and his knowledge. Important men who might have expected from Eisman some sign of deference or respect, on the other hand, often came away outraged from encounters with him. One head of a large US brokerage firm listened to Eisman explain in front of several dozen investors at lunch why he, the brokerage firm head, didn’t understand his own business, then watched him leave in the middle of the lunch and never return. (“I had to go to the bathroom,” Eisman says. “I don’t know why I never went back.”) After the lunch, the guy announced he’d never again agree to enter any room with Eisman in it.
By pretty much every account, Eisman was a curious character. And he’d walked on to Wall Street at the very beginning of a curious phase. The creation of the mortgage bond market, a decade earlier, had extended Wall Street into a place it had never before been: the debts of ordinary Americans. And Oppenheimer quickly became one of the leading bankers to the new sub-prime mortgage industry, in no small part because Eisman was one of its leading proponents. “I took a lot of sub-prime companies public,” he says. “And the story they liked to tell was, ‘We’re helping the consumer, because we are taking him out of his high interest rate credit card debt and putting him into lower interest rate mortgage debt.’ And I believed that story.” Then something changed.
Vincent Daniel had grown up in Queens, without any of the perks Steve Eisman took for granted. Yet if you met them you might guess that it was Vinny who had grown up in high style. Eisman was brazen and grandiose and focused on the big kill. Vinny was careful and wary and interested in details. His father had been murdered when he was a small boy and he viewed his fellow man with intense suspicion. It was with the awe of a champion speaking of an even greater champion that Eisman said, “Vinny is dark.”
Vinny’s résumé made its way to Eisman, who was looking for someone to help him parse the increasingly arcane sub-prime mortgage accounting. They’d met twice when Eisman phoned him out of the blue. Vinny assumed he was about to be offered a job, but soon after they started to talk, Eisman received an emergency call on the other line and put Vinny on hold. Vinny sat waiting for 15 minutes, but Eisman never came back on the line.
Two months later, Eisman called him back. When could Vinny start? Eisman never said why he’d hung up, but Vinny soon found his own explanation: when he’d picked up the other line, Eisman had been informed that his first child, a newborn son named Max, had died. His wife Valerie, sick with the flu, had been awakened by a night nurse, who informed her that she, the night nurse, had rolled on top of the baby in her sleep and smothered him.
A decade later, the people closest to Eisman would describe this as an event that changed his relationship to the world around him. He was about to become noticeably more negatively disposed, in ways that, from the point of view of his employer, were financially counterproductive. “It was like he’d smelled something,” Vinny said. “And he needed my help figuring out what it was.”
To sift every pool of sub-prime mortgage loans took Vinny six months, but when he was done he came out of the room and gave Eisman the news. All these sub-prime lending companies were growing so rapidly, and using such opaque accounting, that they could mask the fact that they had no real earnings, just illusory, accounting-driven ones.
Eisman published his report in September 1997, in the middle of what appeared to be one of the greatest economic booms in US history, trashing all of the sub-prime originators. Less than a year later, Russia defaulted and a hedge fund called Long-Term Capital Management went bankrupt. In the subsequent flight to safety, the early sub-prime lenders were denied capital and promptly went bankrupt en masse.
That was the moment it first became clear that Eisman wasn’t just a little cynical. He held in his head a picture of the financial world that was radically different from, and less flattering than, the financial world’s self-portrait. A few years later, he quit his job and went to work for a giant hedge fund called Chilton Investment, but found himself relegated to his old role of analysing companies for the guy who made the investment decisions. He hated it, but in doing it he learned something that prepared him uniquely for the crisis that was about to occur. He learned what was really going on inside the market for consumer loans.
The year was now 2002. There were no public sub-prime lending companies left in America. There was, however, an ancient consumer lending giant called Household Finance Corporation. In early 2002 Eisman got his hands on Household’s new sales document offering home equity loans. A big source of Household’s growth had been the second mortgage. The document took the stream of payments the homeowner would make to Household over 15 years, spread it hypothetically over 30 years, and asked: if you were making the same payments over 30 years that you are in fact making over 15, what would your “effective rate” of interest be? The borrower was told he had an “effective interest rate of 7%” when he was in fact paying something like 12.5%. “They were tricking their customers,” Eisman says.
In his youth, Eisman had been a strident Republican. Now he was on his way to becoming the financial market’s first socialist. “I realised there was an entire industry, called consumer finance, that basically existed to rip people off.”
Denied the chance to manage money by his hedge fund employer, Eisman quit and, in 2004, started his own hedge fund. An outfit called FrontPoint Partners, owned by Morgan Stanley, housed a collection of hedge funds. Eisman attracted people whose views of the world were as shaded as his own. Vinny came right away. Porter Collins, who’d worked with Eisman at Chilton Investment, came along, too. Danny Moses, who had worked as a salesman at Oppenheimer & Co and had memories of Eisman doing and saying all sorts of things that analysts seldom did, came third.
By early 2005, the sub-prime mortgage machine was up and running again. If the first act of sub-prime lending had been freaky, this second act was terrifying. $30bn was a big year for sub-prime lending in the mid-1990s. In 2005 there would be $625bn in sub-prime mortgage loans, $507bn of which found its way into mortgage bonds. Even more shocking was that the terms of the loans were changing in ways that increased the likelihood they would go bad. Back in 1996, 65% of sub-prime loans had been fixed-rate. By 2005, 75% were some form of floating rate, usually fixed for the first two years.
By the time Greg Lippmann, the head sub-prime guy at Deutsche Bank, turned up in the FrontPoint conference room, in February 2006, Steve Eisman knew enough about the bond market to be wary. Lippmann’s aim was to sell Eisman on what he claimed was his own original brilliant idea for betting against – or short selling – the sub-prime mortgage bond market.
Eisman didn’t understand. Lippmann wasn’t even a bond salesman; he was a bond trader: “In my entire life, I never saw a sell-side guy come in and say, ‘Short my market.’” But Lippmann made his case with a long and involved presentation: over the last three years, housing prices had risen far more rapidly than they had over the previous 30; they had not yet fallen but they had ceased to rise; even so, the loans against them were now going sour in their first year at amazing rates.
He showed Eisman this little chart that illustrated an astonishing fact: since 2000, people whose homes had risen in value between 1% and 5% were nearly four times more likely to default on their home loans than people whose homes had risen in value more than 10%. Millions of Americans had no ability to repay their mortgages unless their houses rose dramatically in value, which enabled them to borrow even more. That was the pitch in a nutshell: home prices didn’t even need to fall; they merely needed to stop rising at the unprecedented rates they had been for vast numbers of Americans to default on their home loans.
Lippmann’s presentation was just a fancy way to describe the idea of betting against US home loans: buying credit default swapson the crappiest sub-prime mortgage bonds. The beauty of the credit default swap, or CDS, was that it solved the timing problem. Eisman no longer needed to guess exactly when the sub-prime mortgage market would crash. It also allowed him to make the bet without laying down cash up front, and put him in a position to win many times the sums he could possibly lose. Worst case: insolvent Americans somehow paid off their sub-prime mortgage loans, and you were stuck paying an insurance premium of roughly 2% a year for as long as six years – the longest expected life span of the putatively 30-year loans.
Eisman could imagine very little that would give him so much pleasure as going to bed each night, possibly for the next six years, knowing he was shorting a financial market he’d come to know and despise, and was certain would one day explode.
In the summer of 2006, house prices peaked and began to fall. For the entire year they would fall, nationally, by 2%. By that autumn, Lippmann had made his case to hundreds more investors. Yet only 100 or so dabbled in the new market for credit default swaps on sub-prime mortgage bonds. A smaller number of people still – more than 10, fewer than 20 – made a straightforward bet against the entire multi-trillion-dollar sub-prime mortgage market and, by extension, the global financial system. The catastrophe was foreseeable, yet only a handful noticed.
Each of those who did told you something about the state of the financial system, in the same way that people who survive a plane crash tell you something about the accident. All of them were, almost by definition, odd. John Paulson, who had the most money to play with, was oddly interested in betting against dodgy loans, and oddly persuasive in talking others into doing it with him. Eisman was odd in his conviction that the leveraging of middle-class America was a corrupt and corrupting event. At the annual sub-prime conference that year, Eisman walked around the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas – with its penny slots and cash machines that spat out $100 bills – and felt depressed. It was overrun by thousands of white men now earning their living, one way or another, off sub-prime mortgages.
Later, whenever Eisman set out to explain to others the origins of the financial crisis, he would start with what he learned in Las Vegas. He’d draw a picture of several towers of debt. The first tower was the original sub-prime loans that had been piled together. At the top of this tower was the safest triple-A rated tranche, just below it the double-A tranche, and so on down to the riskiest, triple-B tranche – the bonds Eisman had bet against. The Wall Street firms had taken these triple-B tranches – the worst of the worst – to build yet another tower of bonds: a collateralised debt obligation. Like the credit default swap, the CDO had been invented to redistribute the risk of corporate and government bond defaults, and was now being rejigged to disguise the risk of sub-prime mortgage loans.
It was in Vegas that Eisman finally understood the madness of the machine. He’d been making these side bets with major investment banks on the fate of the triple-B tranche of sub-prime mortgage-backed bonds without fully understanding why those firms were so eager to accept them. Now he got it: the credit default swaps, filtered through the CDOs, were being used to replicate bonds backed by actual home loans. There weren’t enough Americans with shitty credit taking out loans to satisfy investors’ appetite for the end product. Wall Street needed his bets in order to synthesise more of them. “They weren’t satisfied getting lots of unqualified borrowers to borrow money to buy a house they couldn’t afford,” Eisman says. “They were creating them out of whole cloth. One hundred times over! That’s why the losses in the financial system are so much greater than just the sub-prime loans. That’s when I realised they needed us to keep the machine running. I was like, This is allowed?”
It was in Las Vegas that Eisman and his associates’ attitude toward the US bond market hardened into something like its final shape. The question lingering at the back of their minds ceased to be, do these bond market people know something we do not? It was replaced by, do they deserve merely to be fired, or should they be put in jail? Are they delusional, or do they know what they’re doing?
On the surface, these big Wall Street firms appeared robust; below the surface, Eisman was beginning to think, their problems might not be confined to a potential loss of revenue. He’d go to meetings with Wall Street CEOs and ask them the most basic questions: “They didn’t know their own balance sheets.”
In the murky period from early February to June 2007, the sub-prime mortgage market resembled a giant helium balloon, bound to earth by a dozen or so big Wall Street firms. Each firm held its rope; each gradually realised that no matter how strongly they pulled, the balloon would eventually lift them off their feet. One by one, they silently released their grip.
JP Morgan had abandoned the market by late autumn 2006. Deutsche Bank had always held on tenuously. Goldman Sachs was next, and did not merely let go, but turned and made a big bet against the sub-prime market – further accelerating the balloon’s fatal ascent. When its sub-prime hedge funds crashed in June, Bear Stearns was forcibly severed from its line – and the balloon drifted farther from the ground. By the end of 2007, FrontPoint’s bets against sub-prime mortgages had paid off so spectacularly that they had doubled the size of their fund, from a bit over $700m to $1.5bn.
On the morning of 14 March 2008, Eisman was invited at short notice to address a roomful of big investors at Deutsche Bank’s Wall Street HQ. By then his expertise had become a poorly kept secret. He was scheduled to precede the retired chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.
All around him men hunched over their BlackBerrys. They wanted to hear what Eisman had to say, but the stock market was distracting them from the show. At 9.13am, as Eisman was finding his place at the front of the room, Bear Stearns announced that it had taken a loan from JP Morgan. While Eisman was explaining why the financial world was going to blow up, his audience was only half-listening, because the financial world was blowing up. By the time Greenspan arrived to speak, the audience was gone. By the Monday, Bear Stearns was, of course, gone, too, sold to JP Morgan for $2 a share.
In September 2008, I had lunch with my old boss, John Gutfreund. I’d not seen him since I quit Wall Street, but I knew that after he’d been forced to resign from Salomon Brothers, he’d fallen on harder times.
We spent 20 or so minutes catching up. We discovered a mutual friend. We agreed that the Wall Street CEO had no real ability to keep track of the frantic innovation occurring inside his firm (“I didn’t understand all the product lines and they don’t either”). We agreed, further, that the CEO had shockingly little control over his subordinates (“They’re buttering you up and then doing whatever the fuck they want to do”). He thought the cause of the financial crisis was “simple. Greed on both sides – greed of investors and the greed of the bankers.” I thought it was more complicated. Greed on Wall Street was a given. The problem was the system of incentives that channelled the greed.
In this case, pretty much all the important people on both sides had left the table rich. Eisman, and those few figures who took a similar gamble, each made tens of millions of dollars for themselves, of course. But the CEOs of every major Wall Street firm were on the wrong end of the gamble. All of them, without exception, either ran their public corporations into bankruptcy or were saved from bankruptcy by the US government. They all got rich, too. What are the odds that people will make smart decisions about money if they can get rich making dumb decisions? But I didn’t want to argue with my old boss.
“Why did you ask me to lunch?” he asked.
You can’t really tell someone that you asked him to lunch to let him know that you didn’t think of him as evil. Nor can you tell him that you thought you could trace the biggest financial crisis in the history of the world back to a decision he had made. Gutfreund had done violence to the Wall Street social order – and got himself dubbed the King of Wall Street – when, in 1981, he’d turned Salomon Brothers from a private partnership into Wall Street’s first public corporation. He’d ignored the outrage of Salomon’s retired partners. (“I was disgusted by his materialism,” says William Salomon, the son of one of the firm’s founders, who had made Gutfreund CEO only after he’d promised never to sell the firm.)
The moment Salomon Brothers demonstrated the potential gains to be had from turning an investment bank into a public corporation and leveraging its balance sheet with exotic risks, the psychological foundations of Wall Street shifted, from trust to blind faith. He and the other partners not only made a quick killing; they transferred the ultimate financial risk from themselves to their shareholders.
The people in a position to resolve the financial crisis were, of course, the very same people who had failed to foresee it. A few Wall Street CEOs had been fired, but most remained in their jobs and they, of all people, became important characters operating behind the closed doors, trying to figure out what to do next.
By late September 2008, the nation’s highest financial official, US treasury secretary Henry Paulson, persuaded the US Congress that he needed $700bn to buy sub-prime mortgage assets from banks. Once handed the money, he instead essentially began giving away billions of dollars to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and a few others unnaturally selected for survival.
By then it was clear that $700bn was a sum insufficient to grapple with the troubled assets acquired over the previous few years by Wall Street bond traders. That’s when the US Federal Reserve took the shocking and unprecedented step of buying bad sub-prime mortgage bonds directly from the banks. By early 2009 the risks and losses associated with more than $1tn worth of bad investments were transferred from big Wall Street firms to the US taxpayer. The events on Wall Street in 2008 were soon reframed as a simple, old-fashioned financial panic, triggered by the failure of Lehman Brothers.
Combing through the rubble of the avalanche, Gutfreund’s decision to turn the Wall Street partnership into a public corporation looked a lot like the first pebble kicked off the top of the hill. “Yes,” he said. “They – the heads of the other Wall Street firms – all said what an awful thing it was to go public and how could you do such a thing. But when the temptation rose, they all gave in to it.” He agreed, though: the main effect was to transfer the financial risk to the shareholders.
“When things go wrong, it’s their problem,” he said – and obviously not theirs alone. When the Wall Street investment bank screwed up badly enough, its risks became the problem of the US government. “It’s laissez-faire until you get in deep shit,” he said, with a half chuckle. He was out of the game. It was now all someone else’s fault.
He watched me curiously as I scribbled down his words. “What’s this for?” he asked. I told him I thought it might be worth revisiting the world I’d described in Liar’s Poker, now it was finally dying. Maybe bring out a 20th anniversary edition.
“That’s nauseating,” he said.
Hard as it was for him to enjoy my company, it was harder for me not to enjoy his: he was still tough, straight and blunt as a butcher. He’d helped to create a monster, but he still had in him a lot of the old Wall Street, where people didn’t walk out of their firms and cause trouble for their former bosses by writing a book about them. “No,” he said, “I think we can agree about this: your fucking book destroyed my career and it made yours.” With that, the former king of a former Wall Street lifted the plate that held his appetiser and asked, sweetly, “Would you like a devilled egg?”
Until that moment I hadn’t paid much attention to what he’d been eating. Now I saw he’d ordered the best thing in the house, this gorgeous, frothy confection of an earlier age. Who ever dreamed up the devilled egg? Who knew that a simple egg could be made so complicated, and yet so appealing? I reached over and took one. Something for nothing. It never loses its charm.
• This is an edited extract from The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis, published by Allen Lane at £25. To order a copy for £23, with free UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.
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