What's an accounting puzzle like Alibaba (really) worth?
by Jack T. Ciesielski SEPTEMBER 4, 2014
For most of its time in the public view, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has been able to capture the investor zeitgeist, shaping its asset portfolio to accommodate whatever investors think is sexy at the moment. Business-to-business commerce? Check. Online shopping for consumers? Check. Micro-blogging, social media? There’s Weibo for that. Online payment service? Got it covered with Alipay. Mobile Internet products and services? No problem, UC Web fits the bill. Cloud computing, online entertainment, professional soccer team? Check, check and check.
Alibaba is not so much a company as it is essentially an exchange traded fund for exposure to Chinese technology and commerce.
On the cusp of becoming publicly-traded in the United States, a Bloomberg poll of analysts puts the value of the entire firm at $198 billion. If Alibaba’s syndicate of heavyweights – Credit Suisse CS , Deutsche Bank DB -0.41% , Goldman Sachs GS 1.20% , J.P. Morgan JPM 0.45% , Morgan Stanley MS 0.81% , and Citi C 0.29% – pull it off, the company’s valuation would join the ranks of IBM, Toyota TM , Verizon VZ -1.24% , and most fittingly, Facebook FB -0.56% . That kind of valuation brings with it breathtaking multiples: 53.2 times (March) 2014 year end GAAP earnings, 40 times EBITDA, and 23.4 times revenues.
Nobody would expect an Alibaba IPO to be a bargain, but those levels go far beyond pricing the company for perfection – and this is a company that’s not perfect. Alibaba will be trading on the New York Exchange because first choice Hong Kong exchange couldn’t stomach the insider controlover the election of directors. Accounting problems in its media acquisitions have raised questions about effectiveness of Alibaba’s due diligence efforts during its rambunctious, pell-mell acquisition binge. The inside-China ownership/outside-China capital structure creates owners and shareholders with conflicting claims on the firm’s future. And the SEC is still studying Alibaba’s offering documents, pushing the roadshow off for another week.
One curiosity concerning the financial statements is Alibaba’s lack of information for each segment of its business segment information – something that should be critical for those analysts polled by Bloomberg in coming up their valuations. Alibaba’s disparate businesses aren’t all worth the same multiples of relevant yardsticks, and they don’t all grow at the same rate – and it’s impossible to realistically peg one Alibaba business to that of a stand-alone competitor. The firm’s financial statements are prepared on a U.S. accounting basis, requiring that the firm report essential information about the segments used by the chief operating decision maker for reviewing performance and making decisions about resource allocation. In a firm with an asset palette as widely varied as this one, it’s justifiable to expect at least a couple of different segments. After all, how similar is online commerce to social media?
Alibaba’s one-segment rationale, according to the prospectus: the chief operating decision maker is a “strategic committee comprised of members of the Company’s management team… the Company had one single operating and reportable segment, namely the provision of online and mobile commerce and related services. Although the online and mobile commerce and related services consist of different business units of the Company, information provided to the chief operating decision-maker is at the revenue level and the Company does not allocate operating costs or assets across business units, as the chief operating decision-maker does not use such information to allocate resources or evaluate the performance of the business units.”
No company likes to disclose more than required, least of all segment information. Yet taking Alibaba’s explanation for one-dimension reporting at face value still raises troubling issues. The chief operating decision maker/management committee is using only revenue to allocate resources or evaluate performance. Forget about asset and expense control – the only internal discipline is to grow revenues. Yet shareholders ought to expect more from the managers running their company, such as wise allocation of capital. Don’t expect it if managers are focused only on the top line.
Then again, Wall Street won’t be loving Alibaba because of its managers’ asset allocation skills. It’s going to be all about the growth, no matter what the price. And the lack of meaningful information about the different segments may make valuation guesses just so much Ali-babble.
http://fortune.com/2014/09/04/whats-an-accounting-puzzle-like-alibaba-really-worth/
如何评估阿里巴巴的价值？
你如何评估一家科技公司的价值？比如在一个不怎么透明的经济体里运作，一家占统治性地位、快速增长、财源滚滚、无人比肩的科技公司？随着阿里巴巴即将开始进行被期待已久的IPO路演，投资经理人们需要作出判断。Breakingviews提供了六步指南来评估这一中国最大的电商集团。
中国的电商能增长多快？
去年中国80%的在线购物消费在阿里巴巴的网站上发生。因此该公司的增长取决于在整个市场的扩张。征兆是好的。去年中国网民数占总人口半数不到，美国网民则超过了总人口的80%。截至6月份的三个月里，阿里巴巴新增2400万活跃买家，交易总额比2013年同期高出45%，接下来两年实现30%的增长并不难。
阿里巴巴能产生多少收入？
阿里巴巴的商业模式是从交易过程中获取一小部分费用，要么来自广告，要么来自佣金。截至今年3月，其“货币化率”为2.55%。但最近一个季度里，几乎三分之一的买卖行为在手持设备上发生，其货币化率是桌面设备上进行交易时货币化率的一半。假以时日，两者的差距会拉近，接近桌面交易的货币化率——目前约3%。
阿里巴巴能否保持高收益？
网络效应对盈利而言非常重要。阿里巴巴吸引的买家越多，想到其网站摆卖商品的卖家也就越多。同时，该公司轻资产的模式使企业开支较低。截至今年3月阿里巴巴的营运利润率达47%，令人惊叹。
但高收益也招致竞争。阿里巴巴可能被迫要在市场和技术上投入更多，或者直接进入仓储和物流业务。阿里巴巴IPO前的最后一份季度业绩报告显示，在截至6月的三个月里，其产品开发成本较去年同期增长了约70%，销售和市场之初几乎翻了一番。当季营运利润率跌至43%——几乎为两年来最低水平。40%可能是比较实事求是的预测，也仍属于高水平。
阿里巴巴的股票值多少钱？
大多数科技股的市盈率都较高，因为投资者相信未来的潜力要胜过目前的收益率。阿里巴巴的挑战是要在保持利润率的同时实现增长。尽管股市具有主观性，30倍的市盈率估值——和其竞争对手腾讯一样——似乎是合理的起点。
其他方面如何？
阿里巴巴的野心远不止电商。支付宝目前正以小额信贷和货币市场基金挑战银行。尽管阿里巴巴没有支付宝的所有权股份，其接收着支付宝37.5%的税前利润，且支付宝上市时阿里巴巴可获得占前者市值同等比率的回报额。
海外扩张也有价值。在最新财年里，国际销售额占阿里巴巴总收入的十分之一不到。但前阵子阿里巴巴入股新加坡邮政显示该集团正郑重考虑海外业务。此外，今年到目前为止，随着阿里巴巴进军媒体和地图导航业务等，其和关联公司已支出约75亿美元用于收购和投资。
有哪些负面因素？
阿里巴巴在中国风头过劲是个可能的负面因素。如果其被认为过于强大，当局可能会进行压制。一些已经赴美上市的中国企业常利用会计规则漏洞和半合法的公司结构来控制在华运作，这些做法饱遭诟病，阿里巴巴同样也无法幸免。
然后还有公司治理问题。阿里巴巴创始人和董事会主席马云希望公司由包括他在内的27位高管即“合伙人”掌控，外部股东话语权很少。诸如此类的还有谷歌和Facebook，也根据创始人的意志运作。此前马云的表现也不可测，2011年其将支付宝的所有权转让给其控股的另一家中国内资公司。
评估未来经营情况总是很困难，尤其在公司治理可能不稳定的情况下。最简单的选择是假设正负抵消。
现在，假定接下来两年阿里巴巴的交易额能实现30%的年增长率，其总的货币化率达3%。假设其营运利润率稳定保持在40%，税率和以往一样是15%，其净收入到2016年3月将约为52.5亿美元。以30倍计，其市值将为1580亿美元。
要得到更高的数字并不难：年增长率增至40%，营运利润率增至45%，市值上升至2000亿美元以上。分析师们将有他们各自的假设。对投资者来说，问题在于确定这六步指引和12个数字不要有太大的变化。
彼得•塔尔•拉尔森Breakingviews在伦敦的助理编辑，主要负责金融服务和监管方面的报道。在加入路透之前，彼得在金融时报工作了10年。在这期间，曾负责信贷危机期间全球银行业的报道以及主导9.11以及后续事件的报道。彼得毕业于英国布里斯托尔大学和伦敦经济学院。
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