逆全球化思潮的危险：从俄罗斯寡头看特权阶层的真面目

接着讲一讲比尔布劳德在俄罗斯投资生涯的起伏。通过在苏联解体后的俄罗斯进行经济转型的时期，挖掘那些价格被严重低估的资产。作者获得了巨大的投资收益，成为了投资界的明星。但俄罗斯并不是一个遵循市场经济游戏规则的国家，在政商界有巨大影响力的寡头，会为了自己的权利和影响力，不惜破坏本来是双赢的交易。但是作者比尔布劳德仍然凭借俄罗斯监管机构的力量，挫败了一位寡头要侵夺他投资利润的企图而在华尔街名声鹊起。

不过，尽管比尔布劳德在发现商业机会方面颇具天分，但毕竟没有完整的经历过市场起起伏伏的周期。在九八年亚洲金融危机爆发时，他认为不会波及到俄罗斯这一错误判断，让他付出了惨痛的代价。他的基金价值一夜间跌去了90%。不过这也就在某种某些方面也算是因祸得福。因为投资者此时产生了死马当活马医的心态，不会再去要求赎回，将百分之九十的亏损兑现，而是看看它是否还会再活过来。如果俄罗斯的股市止跌30%到50%的话，比尔布尔德的俄罗斯投资基金恐怕早就被挤兑破产了。所以作者也就顺势躺平，慢慢的等着经济恢复基金的净值。

随着经济恢复逐步回升，九八年经济危机发生之后到二十一世纪初，这一时期，俄罗斯政局发生了更迭，叶利钦在不停的撤换了总理之后，最终确定了普京作为他的接班人，不禁在二十一世纪初上台后的那段时期，国际能源市场处于牛市，俄罗斯经济也展现出了非常快速的增长，加上普京主导打赢了第二次车臣战争，于是坐稳了自己的总统宝座，成了俄罗斯的新沙皇。但是奇怪的是，布劳德投资布劳德的基金价值，并没有跟随俄罗斯复苏的经济而有所起色，而是像死鱼一样躺在地板架上一动不动。

原来在经济在98年经济危机爆发以前，寡头们表现的还算俄罗斯寡头们表现的还算守规矩，公司的经营状况都是比较公开，公司的财务和资产状况都是比较公开透明的。因为这样做可以让西方的投资者，主要是华尔街的银行家们更放心。这样俄罗斯寡头们就可以从华尔街的投资银行轻松的拿到大量的美元贷款。这对他们来说，就像免费的午餐一样。但是，金融危机爆发之后，在寡头们最需要这些西方投资人提供银行贷款救急的时候，惊恐的华尔街却拒绝伸出援助之手，这让俄罗斯寡头们改变了想法。他们认为，公开诚实的经营公司没有任何的意义，开始疯狂的盗窃公司名下的资产，并通过假账进行掩盖。他们如此明目张胆的做这些事情，以至于这些盗窃资产的行为成为了公开的秘密。所以这些公司的股票尽管看上去十分的的便宜，但是人们默认这些公司其实已经被寡头们盗窃得只剩下空壳了，所以价格总也涨不起来。

布劳德要拯救自己的投资的办法，就是尽可能的挖掘数据和证据证明，尽管存在非常猖獗的资产盗窃行为，但他所投资的公司名下仍然保留了大部分的资产。

不过说到这里，这段故事也给了我很大的启发。现在，不管国内和国外都有一股逆全球化的思潮。这些主张逆全球化的人，尽管他们打着各种各样，比如保护国内工人，或者提倡民族主义的漂亮口号，但他们的实际想法也许就像这些俄罗斯寡头一样，将要求公开透明的外国投资者排除排挤出本国市场之后，他们就可以更方便、更肆无忌惮的盗窃本不属于他们的重要资产，将自己变成骑在民众头上的特权阶层。

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Then there are the ups and downs of Bill Browder's investment career in Russia. Unearth grossly undervalued assets during the period of economic transformation in post-Soviet Russia. The author made huge investment gains and became a star in the investment world. But Russia is not a country that plays by the rules of the market economy, and oligarchs with great influence in politics and business will sabotage what would otherwise be a win-win deal for their own power and influence. But the author, Bill Browder, still made a name for himself on Wall Street after Russian regulators thwarted an oligarch's attempt to steal his investment profits.

But while Bill Browder had a flair for spotting business opportunities, he didn't have a complete history of the ups and downs of the market. When the Asian financial crisis erupted in 1998, his misjudgment that it would not affect Russia cost him dearly. His fund lost 90% of its value overnight. But in some ways it was a blessing in disguise. Because investors at this time have the mentality of a dead horse when a living horse doctor, they will not ask for redemption, cashing in 90% of the loss, but to see if it will come back to life. If the Russian stock market had stopped falling 30 to 50 percent, Bilbold's Russian investment fund would have been run out of business. So the authors lay flat, slowly waiting for the economy to recover the fund's net worth.

With the gradual recovery of the economy, from the outbreak of the economic crisis in 1998 to the beginning of the 21st century, Russia's political situation changed during this period. After Yeltsin repeatedly replaced the prime minister, he finally identified Putin as his successor. The international energy market was in a bull market during the period after he came to power in the early 21st century. The Russian economy also showed very rapid growth, and Putin led the victory in the Second Chechen war, thus securing his presidency and becoming the new tsar of Russia. But strangely, the value of Browder's fund, which invests in Browder, did not follow the recovery of Russia's economy, but rather lay motionless on the floor shelf like a dead fish.

It turns out that before the economic crisis broke out in 1998, the oligarchs behaved reasonably well, and the operating conditions of the companies were relatively open, and the financial and asset conditions of the companies were relatively open and transparent. That would make Western investors, mainly Wall Street bankers, more comfortable. This allowed Russian oligarchs to borrow large amounts of dollars easily from Wall Street investment banks. It's like a free lunch for them. But Russia's oligarchs changed their minds after the financial crisis, when a frightened Wall Street refused to help Western investors with bank loans just when they needed them most. Believing that there was no point in running a company openly and honestly, they went on a spree of stealing assets under the company's name and covering them up by falsifying accounts. They do it so blatantly that these asset thefts are an open secret. So although the shares of these companies look very cheap, the assumption is that these companies have been stolen by the oligarchs into empty shells, so the price will never rise.

Browder's way to save his investments was to dig up all the data and evidence he could to show that, despite rampant asset theft, the companies he invested in kept most of their assets in their names.

But having said that, this story also gave me a lot of inspiration. Nowadays, there is an anti-globalization trend of thought both at home and abroad. These anti-globalists, for all their fancy slogans about protecting domestic workers or promoting nationalism, may actually be like these Russian oligarchs, who want to exclude transparent foreign investors from their own markets. They can more easily and brazenly steal important assets that do not belong to them, turning themselves into a privileged class riding on the head of the people.