金融危机令美企业陷入瘫痪
Businesses Paralyzed Amid Crisis2008年11月25日
The financial crisis that has roiled Wall Street is reaching deep into the mainstream economy, throwing a pall over the ability of companies, pension funds and philanthropies to expand and invest.
Despite Friday's 494.13-point rebound in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Dow remains down 43% from last year's record close, deep in a bear market. Many companies are finding it impossible to issue bonds or stock and executives are refusing to take the normal risks needed to drive the economy.
Ketchup company H.J. Heinz has announced plans to conserve cash. Boeing is cutting costs and laying off employees, and reduced Boeing Capital's portfolio so it can better finance deliveries of jets to customers with banking troubles. Even technology giant Cisco Systems, with $28 billion in the bank, is reducing spending on travel, equipment and marketing to conserve cash.
'People are paralyzed in fear. They are conserving resources, afraid to make investments or take risks,' said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at the Yale School of Management. 'It is unparalleled.'
Before Friday's rally, the Dow was off 11% for the week alone. Even after Friday's 6.5% gain to 8046.42, the Dow was down 5.3% for the week, and down in 18 of the past 23 weeks.
The rally followed news that Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy Geithner is to be named Treasury secretary. Investors welcomed the news, because it resolves a major uncertainty. Mr. Geithner is well-liked on Wall Street and viewed as more of an activist than Secretary Henry Paulson in his approach to resolving the financial troubles.
Those problems have weighed heavily on the American economy.
'The market is clearly closed,' said Tim O'Hara, who heads credit underwriting at Credit Suisse Group.
Of dozens of new investment-grade and junk-bond issues that had been scheduled for the weeks after Labor Day, most have been sidetracked. Just one junk-bond issue has made it out since September, a $750 million issue for MGM Mirage. The company paid 15%, twice what it paid for an issue of the same size one year ago. The average yield on a junk bond is more than 20% now, according to Merrill Lynch.
Pepsi Bottling Group in October paid considerably more than it has in the past for a $3.3 billion bond offering. The company has announced plans to cut nearly 1,000 jobs.
If the market remains frozen, the $178 billion of debt coming due next year for weaker-rated companies will be difficult to refinance, said Diane Vazza, chief credit analyst at Standard & Poor's.
Entergy last month announced plans to delay a proposed spinoff of its five nuclear-power plants into the nation's first stand-alone nuclear-generating company, saying 'unprecedented turmoil in financial markets' has clouded prospects for completion of the largely debt-financed transaction.
Casino companies have halted billions of dollars in development projects from Las Vegas to Macau, China's gambling enclave. They are scrambling for cash to avoid defaulting on bank loans.
In recent weeks, Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands, owner of the Venetian casino resorts in Las Vegas and Macau, pumped in nearly half a billion dollars of his own cash to keep the company from breaking a loan covenant. He contributed another half-billion to a stock purchase as part of an effort to raise $2 billion to keep from breaking another covenant and help fund casino operations.
The financial crisis has created debt problems for media titan Sumner Redstone, who controls CBS and Viacom. The decline in value of the two stocks violated terms of bank loans held by Mr. Redstone's family holding company, forcing him to renegotiate $1.6 billion in bank debt. The holding company sold $233 million in CBS and Viacom stock in October, about 10% of Mr. Redstone's holding, but the sale wasn't enough to resolve the problem and the renegotiation continues.
Earlier this month, one of the largest commodity-related transactions of the year -- Bunge's purchase of Corn Products International -- collapsed after the value of the all-stock deal fell to $1.72 billion from $4.2 billion.
Worst-hit is the banking and finance business.
Almost as damaged is the housing sector, where housing starts fell to lows in October. Most of nation's large publicly traded home builders are expected to survive, but analysts expect as many as half of the nation's privately held home builders, 70% of the market, to go bust or close down.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System, the nation's largest public retirement fund by assets, has lost 26% since the start of its fiscal year in July. It recently told schools and state and local governments to expect increases in contributions, starting in 2010 and 2011.
E.S. BROWNING
金融危机令美国企业陷入瘫痪
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卷华尔街的金融危机正在向主流经济纵深蔓延，给企业、退休基金和慈善机构扩大业务和进行投资的能力蒙上了阴影。
尽管道琼斯指数上周五反弹494.13点，但目前仍较去年的最高收盘点位下挫了43%，深陷熊市之中。很多企业都发现无法发行债券或股票，而管理人员也拒绝承担提振经济所需的正常风险。
Getty Images 上周五纽约证交所内的交易员们
番茄酱生产商亨氏已经公布了节省现金的计划。波音也在着手降低成本、裁减员工，并且已经减少了Boeing Capital的投资组合，以便更好地为向那些面临银行业困境的客户交付喷气机提供资金支持。甚至拥有280亿美元银行存款的科技巨头思科系统也在减少出差、设备和市场营销方面的支出来节省现金。
耶鲁大学管理学院的高级副院长杰弗里·索伦菲尔德说，人们陷入了恐惧难以自拔；他们纷纷节省资源，害怕进行投资或是冒风险；这种情况是空前未有的。
上周五反弹之前，道琼斯指数仅当周就下跌了11%。即使是在周五上涨6.5%至8046.42点后，道琼斯指数当周仍累计下跌了5.3%，是过去23周中的第18周下跌。
促使周五股市走高的是有关纽约联邦储备银行行长盖纳将被任命为财政部长的消息。投资者对这一消息表示欢迎，因为这个消息消除了一大不确定因素。盖纳在华尔街广受欢迎，并被视为在解决金融问题上比财政部长鲍尔森手段更加激进。
上面提到的问题已经给美国经济带来了沉重压力。
瑞士信贷集团信贷承销业务负责人奥哈拉说，债券市场显然已经关闭了。
在拟定于9月份劳工节之后几周进行的数十桩新的投资级和垃圾债券发行中，大部分都已经被搁置了。自9月份以来，只有一只垃圾债券得以发行，即美高梅金殿梦幻发行的7.5亿美元债券。该公司提供的收益率为15%，是一年前同等规模债券的两倍。据美林的数据显示，垃圾债券的平均收益率如今超过了20%。
从事饮料瓶装业务的Pepsi Bottling Group 10月份为33亿美元的债券发行支付了远高于以往的收益率。该公司已经宣布计划裁减近1,000名员工。
标准普尔首席信用分析师戴安·瓦扎说，如果市场继续冻结下去，评级较低的企业明年将到期的1,780亿美元债务将很难获得再融资。
Entergy公司上个月宣布将推迟一项把5个核电站分拆成美国首家独立核电企业的计划。该公司说，前所未有的金融动荡已经为这桩交易的前景蒙上了阴影，交易的大部分资金是依靠举债筹集的。
从拉斯维加斯到澳门，博彩公司已经暂停了数十亿美元的发展计划。他们纷纷争取现金以避免在银行贷款上违约。
近几周，拉斯维加斯金沙集团股份有限公司首席执行长艾德森从自己腰包中掏出近5亿美元的现金，以避免贷款违约。他还掏出5亿美元买进股票，作为筹资20亿美元的一部分，以避免公司在另外一份合同上违约，同时支撑赌场的运营。该公司在拉斯维加斯和澳门均有业务。
金融危机也给传媒大亨雷石东带来了债务问题。他控制着哥伦比亚广播公司和维亚康姆。这两家公司股票的下挫违反了雷石东家族控股公司持有的银行贷款条款，迫使他重新协商了16亿美元的银行贷款。这家控股公司10月份卖掉了CBS和维亚康姆共2.33亿美元的股票，约占雷石东持有资产的10%，不过售股并不足以解决问题，眼下重新协商还在继续中。
本月早些时候，本年度涉及大宗商品规模最大的的交易之一──Bunge收购Corn Products International──破裂，因为这桩全股票收购的价值从42亿美元降至了17.2亿美元。
受冲击最严重的是银行及金融企业。
房市的冲击与此不相上下，10月份时新房开工创下新低。美国大部分大型上市房屋建造公司预计将幸存下来，不过分析师预计将有多达一半的未上市房屋建造商（占市场的70%）将破产或是倒闭。
自今年7月份本财年开始以来，美国资产规模最大的公共退休基金加州公务员退休基金已经损失了26%。最近该基金告知学校以及州和地方政府，从2010年和2011年开始可能会提高他们的出资额。
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