比独角兽俱乐部更牛的：“10倍俱乐部”（上）

编者按：本文编译自 Benchmark 基金合伙人Bill Gurley 2011年文章《All Revenue is Not Created Equal: The Keys to the 10X Revenue Club》，研究了那些能获得10倍收入估值的公司所具有的特质。他创造了“10倍俱乐部”一词，指那些获得收入10倍估值的公司，比所谓的独角兽俱乐部更具有公司业务的指导意义。

译者戴汨，愉悦资本创始合伙人（midai@joycapital.com.cn, 微信midai2008）。愉悦资本成立于2015年，由原君联资本 TMT 团队刘二海、戴汨、李潇联合创办，是一家关注 TMT 的风险投资基金。

文章很长，分为两次翻译。Enjoy：

“ Don’t you know that you are a shooting star,

And all the world will love you just as long,

As long as you are.”

— Paul Rodgers, Shooting Star

“难道你不知道你是一颗流星，

整个世界都会爱你，

像流星一样长”

- 保罗·罗杰斯，流星

With the IPO market now blown wide-open, and the media completely infatuated with frothy trades in the bubbly late stage private market, it is common to see articles that reference both “valuation” and “revenue” and suggest that there is a correlation between the two. Calculating or qualifying potential valuation using the simplistic and crude tool of a revenue multiple (also known as the price/revenue or price/sales ratio) was quite trendy back during the Internet bubble of the late 1990s. Perhaps it is not peculiar that our good friend the price/revenue ratio is back in vogue. But investors and analysts beware; this is a remarkably dangerous technique, because all revenues are not created equal.

随着IPO市场的打开，媒体完全陶醉于泡沫化的后期私募市场中，不难看到同时引用“价值”和“收入”的文章，并表明这两者之间的关联。采用收入倍数这个简单而粗糙的工具来进行估值（也被称为价格/收入或价格/销售额比率）在90年代末的互联网泡沫时期很流行。所以也不奇怪，价格/收入比率又开始流行了。但投资者和分析师要小心：这是一个非常危险的技巧，因为所有的收入都是不一样的。

What drives true equity value? Those of us with a fondness for finance will argue until we are blue in the face that discounted cash flows (DCF) are the true drivers of value for any financial asset, companies included. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to predict with any accuracy what the long-term cash flows are for a given company; especially a company that is young or that might be using an innovative and new business model. Additionally, knowing what long-term cash flows look like requires knowledge of a vast number of disparate future variables. What is the long-term growth rate? What is the long-term operating margin? How long will this company hold off competition? How much will they be required to reinvest? Therefore, from a purely practical view, the DCF is an unruly valuation tool for young companies. This is not because it is a bad theoretical framework; it is because we don’t have accurate inputs. Garbage in, garbage out.

是什么驱动真正的股权价值？我们这些喜欢金融的人会争来争去最后还是回到一个事实：贴现现金流（DCF）是任何金融资产的真正价值驱动，公司也不例外。但问题是，任何一个公司的长期现金流几乎是不可能准确预测的。特别是对一个年轻的公司，或者一个创新的和采用新商业模式的公司。此外，要知道长期的现金流状况需要知道很多未来的变量。什么是长期的增长速度？什么是长期营业利润率？这家公司能抗的住竞争多久？他们再投资需要多少钱？因此，从纯粹的实用角度看，DCF对一个年轻的公司几乎无效。这不是因为它是一个糟糕的理论框架;而是因为我们没有准确的输入。所以，垃圾数据进，垃圾数据出。

Because of the difficulty of getting DCF right, investors commonly use a handful of other shortcuts to determine valuations. “Price earnings ratio” and “enterprise value to EBITDA” are common shortcuts, with their own benefits and limitations. I want to argue that for a variety of reasons, the price/revenue multiple is the crudest valuation tool of them all.

由于DCF方法很难搞对，投资者通常使用一些其他快捷方式来确定估值。 “价格收入比”和“企业价值对EBITDA比率”是常见的快捷方式，他们各有自己的优点和局限性。我想告诉你，出于各种原因，价格/收入倍数是这些工具里面最粗糙的。

The following chart highlights 2012 forward price/revenue ratios for 122 global Internet stocks. The broad range of results is nothing short of staggering. On one end is Overstock, trading at 0.2X analyst’s 2012 revenue estimates. On the other end is Youku.com, the leading Chinese video website (recent IPO LinkedIn is not included in this list). Youku trades at 21.7X analysts average 2012 revenue estimate. The other companies live at many different places along this wide continuum. Now consider that the press and some investors frequently use price/revenue as their primary valuation tool when our data suggests there is a 100X difference in value per sales dollar from Overstock to Youku.com. Talk about room for error! What is that hot new company worth? This graph would suggest that the company’s revenue alone is a very poor guide.

下面的图表列示了全球122只互联网股票的远期价格/收入比。其结果分布范围之广泛令人咋舌。一端是Overstock，估值是2012年分析师营收预期的0.2倍。另一端是Youku.com，中国领先的视频网站（近期新股LinkedIn不包括在此列表中）。优酷网的市值是分析师2012营收预期的21.7倍。其他公司沿着这条连续线分布。现在想想，媒体和一些投资者经常使用价格/收入比作为其主要的估值工具，而我们的数据表明，从Overstock到Youku.com， 每销售1美元价值能相差100倍。这种误差的空间太大了！热门新公司的价值到底应该多少？该图显示，光看收入是不靠谱的。

（点此查看高清原图）

Before we talk about why there is such disparity, it is important to highlight a few more points. As you can see in the above graph, there is a very long tail to the left. Basically, there are many more low-price/revenue multiple companies than high. The following table shows this statistically. Over 72% of the companies have a 2012 price/revenue multiple below 4x. Also, you can see that only 12 of these 122 companies (<10%) have multiples over 7X. There are only 5 above 10X. Also recognize that the majority of these high multiple companies are domiciled outside the U.S. This is important because the press tends to favor the higher multiples, such as 10X revenues, as their “defaults.” The problem is, only a handful of companies deserve to be in the “10X club.”

在我们讨论为什么会有这样的差距之前，有必要强调几点。正如你可以在上面的图中看到的，左边有一个很长的尾巴。基本上可以讲，价格/收入比低的公司要远远多于比率高的公司。下表显示统计数据。超过72％的公司其2012的价格/收入倍数低于4倍。此外，你还可以看到，这些122中只有12家公司（<10％）的公司收入倍数超过7倍。而倍数超过10X的公司只有5家。还不难发现，这些高倍数的企业大多数都在美国之外。这个观察很重要，因为媒体喜欢高收入倍数估值的公司，例如10倍的收入，依此作为他们的“默认设置”。问题是，只有少数几家公司值得在“10倍俱乐部。”

What causes such a wide dispersion of price/revenue multiples? While one might not have the specific numbers required to complete an accurate DCF, we do know which business qualities would have a positive impact on a DCF exercise, all things being equal. When investors see a large number of these traits, they then have an increased confidence that the elements are in place that will lead to a strong DCF value over time. You often hear people refer to companies with strong DCF characteristics as having high “revenue quality.” Companies with characteristics that are inconsistent with a strong DCF model are said to have low “revenue quality.”

是什么原因导致价格/收入倍数如此广泛分布？虽然我们可能没有DCF所需的具体数字，但我们知道，其他事情相同的情况下，哪些业务素质将对DCF产生正向的影响。当投资者看到大量的这些特质，他们的信心就越来越强，只要这些要素在，长期看DCF价值就会很大。你经常听到人们提及那些有很强DCF特质公司，称其具有高“收入质量”。而那些具有不符合一个强大的DCF模型特质的公司，经常被说成低“收入质量”。

Here are some of the key business characteristics that would be used to separate high quality revenue companies from low quality revenue companies, and therefore are the distinguishing traits that warrant high price/revenue multiples.

下面列举的业务特点，是高质量收入的公司有别于低质量收入的公司的主要原因，也是高价格/收入倍数的来源。

1. Sustainable Competitive Advantage (Warren Buffet’s Moat)（持久的竞争优势—巴菲特所谓护城河）

By far, the most critical characteristic that separates high multiple companies from low multiple companies is competitive advantage. This concept, well explained in Porter’s book by the same name, basically asks the question, “How easy is it for someone else to provide the same product or service that you provide?” If your company has “high barriers to entry,” Wall Street will be super excited, as investors will have confidence discounting cash flows many, many years into the future. Coca-Cola has a 5% estimated 2012 growth rate, and a 3.6x price/revenue multiple. RIM has a 12% estimated 2012 growth rate and a 0.77x price/revenue multiple. What gives? Investors expect Coke to be around in pretty much its same form 50 years from now. It is much harder to say that with confidence about RIM. Warren Buffet famously refers to these barriers to entry as an “economic moat,” inferring an image of the body of water that protects access to a castle.

到目前为止，区分高收入倍数公司和低收入倍数公司最关键的特点是竞争优势。这个概念，在波特的书里有很好解释，基本上问一个问题，“别人提供相同的产品或服务有多难？”。如果你的公司有“高进入门槛”，华尔街将是超级兴奋，因为投资者相信公司未来很多年以后都能获得现金流。可口可乐预计2012的增长速度为5%，它的价格/收入倍数为3.6X。 RIM预计2012增长率12％，但是价格/收入倍数才0.77X。为什么？投资者预计可乐从现在起大约50年都可以维持现状的地位。但是对于RIM，这很难说。巴菲有个很有名的比喻，把这些进入壁垒称为一种“经济护城河”，你可以想象一下城堡外防止别人进入而设立的城河。

If high price/revenue multiple companies have wide moats or strong barriers to entry, then the opposite is also true. Companies with little to no competitive advantage, or companies with relatively low barriers to entry, will struggle to maintain above-average price/revenue multiples. If an investor fears that a company’s competitive position (which allows them to create excess cash flow) is tenuous and will deteriorate, then the value of the enterprise may be worth the cash flows only from the next several years.

如果高价格/收入倍数的公司有宽广的护城河和强大的进入壁垒，那么反过来也是如此。公司如果没有竞争优势，或相对较低的进入门槛，保持高于平均水平的价格/收入倍数将很难。如果投资者担心，一个公司的竞争地位（这使得他们能够创造超额现金流）是脆弱的并会恶化，那么企业的价值可能只值未来几年的现金流。

2. The Presence of Network Effects （网络效应的存在）

No discussion of competitive advantages and barriers to entry is complete without a nod to perhaps the strongest economic moat of all, network effects. In a system where the value to the incremental customer is a direct function of the customers already in the system, you have a powerful dynamic that tips towards winner take all. Perhaps the definitive piece on this type of advantage is Brian Arthur’s Increasing Returns and Two Worlds of Business published in HBR back in 1996. This “second world” that Brian refers to is one where the market leader has an unfair advantage that is reinforced by network effects.

网络效应可谓是最强的护城河，忽略了它，任何关于竞争优势和进入壁垒的讨论都是不完整的。如果有这样一个系统，任何一个新用户获得的价值都是系统中已有用户的直接函数，那么你就有可能获得赢者通吃的能力。关于这类优势最好的定义文章是布赖恩·阿瑟1996年发表的：报酬递增与两个世界的商业。布赖恩所指的“第二个世界”就是：那里的市场领导者能通过网络效应强化其不公平的竞争优势。

There are a few important things to remember about network effects. Some network effect systems are stronger than others. What is key is the decay rate of value of the incremental user to the customer value function. Second, networks effects are discussed way more than they exist. Many things people indentify as network effects are merely economies of scale, which are not nearly as powerful. Unfortunately, strong form network effect companies are far and few between. Fortunately, when they do exist, they are typically leading candidates for the 10X+ price/revenue multiple club. Microsoft, Ebay, Skype, Google Adwords, and Facebook (in their prime) all benefited from network effects.

关于网络效应，有一些重要的事情要记住。某些网络效应比另外一些网络效应强。最关键的要素是：增量用户的价值相对于客户价值函数的衰减速度。其次，网络效应讨论的很多，实际存在并没有那么广泛。很多被当成网络效应的事情实际上仅仅是规模经济效应，这和网络效应之强大不可以同日而语。不幸的是，有强大网络效应的公司屈指可数。幸运的是，当它们确实存在的适合，它们通常是是10倍收入俱乐部的优先人选。微软，Ebay，Skype和谷歌的Adwords以及Facebook均从网络效应中受益。

（未完待续）