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Face value
商界精英
Turning up the gas
焕然一新的天然气行业
Jul 16th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Faisal Al Suwaidi has become a victim of his own success in creating a worldwide market for liquid natural gas
苏瓦伊迪在建造液化天然气全球市场的同时成为了自己成功事业的受害者。

RED flames shimmer behind a thick shroud of smoke at the Ras Laffan gas plant in Qatar. Methane from the bottom of the Persian Gulf is part-combusted and filtered in a spaghetti-like tangle of steel pipes. Further along, the gas is cooled in bulbous storage tanks to minus 160°C, turning it into liquid and reducing it to one-six-hundredth of its original volume, ready to be sent across the oceans aboard a new generation of supercarriers. Local officials boast that the plant will be the largest structure made by man in centuries when it is finished next year. Already it produces a quarter of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG).
在卡塔尔的拉斯拉凡天然气加工厂内，烟雾笼罩下的红色火焰微微发亮。来自波斯湾底部的甲烷气体在未完全燃烧后，经过那些像意大利面缠绕在一起的钢管来进行过滤。之后，气体进入球状储油罐内并冷却至零下160°C。在这里，气体压缩成体积约为同量气态天然气体积的1/600的液态天然气，并准备通过新一代的航空母舰越洋送往世界各地。当地官员夸口到，明年工厂建成后将会是几个世纪内最大的人造建筑。它目前已生产全球近四分之一的液化天然气（LNG）。
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America’s thriving gossip magazines
美国繁荣的八卦杂志

Rags to riches 杂志致富

Jun 18th 2009 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition

One corner of the print-news industry is relatively healthy
新闻印刷业的一隅相对繁荣

FOR seven of the past eight weeks the front cover of Us Weekly magazine has featured salacious stories about Jon and Kate Gosselin. The Gosselins, who have eight children including sextuplets, are the stars of an obscure American reality-TV programme that briefly became the most watched show on cable. Sensing a surge of interest, other celebrity magazines have piled in with reports of marital disharmony. Even in a recession, tittle-tattle sells.

过去的八周有七周,《美国周刊》封面以Jon和Kate Gosselin的粗俗故事为特色专题。Gosselin一家，有包括6胞胎在内的8个孩子，成了美国现实-TV节目的明星，这个不出名的节目短时间也在有线电视上备受瞩目。其他名人杂志发觉公众兴趣激增，便在杂志中插入关于不和谐婚姻的报道。即使经济衰退，八卦还是有的卖。
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Corporate hedging gets harder
公司对冲愈难

The perils of prudence
慎亦生祸

Jun 18th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The credit crunch has made it much more difficult and expensive for firms to hedge their risks

信用紧缩使得公司对冲风险变得更为不易且成本更高。

WARREN BUFFETT, one of the world’s most famous investors, once called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”. Central bankers worry that those sold “over the counter”, meaning outside exchanges, threaten the stability of the whole financial system. Yet firms that rely on derivatives to limit their exposure to swings in commodity prices, interest rates or exchange rates cannot get enough of them—literally.

世界上最著名的投资家之一，WARREN BUFFETT（沃伦·巴菲特）曾经把衍生品叫“金融大规模杀伤性武器”。 央行官员担心这些衍生品的“柜台销售”， 意指他们是在所外交易，会威胁整个金融系统的稳定。 然而，有的公司靠衍生品来减低大宗商品的价格， 利率， 或汇率大幅波动的影响，这些公司对这些衍生品是如饥似渴却又求之不得。   

Several firms using derivatives in an attempt to manage such risks have suffered huge losses of late, on paper at any rate. Among the hardest hit have been airlines, many of which paid to protect themselves from higher fuel prices last year when the oil price peaked at $147 a barrel. Because oil now costs much less, many have had to write down the value of those contracts, even if they are not due to be settled for years. The losers included Cathay Pacific Airways, which made paper losses of close to $1 billion, Ryanair, Air France-KLM and Southwest.

几家公司想用衍生品来对付上述风险， 近来蒙受巨大损失。 各个公司账面的损失各有不同。损失最惨重的当属航空公司了，很多航空企业在去年原油价格升至每桶147美元的时候买入了衍生品以期对冲未来可能进一步升高的油价。 但是因为现在油价大跌，尽管这些合同还要好几年才会到期，很多公司也不得不因为这些浮亏而记提账面损失。亏失的公司有 Cathay Pacific Airways (国泰航空)， 它账面损失近十亿； 还有Ryanair （瑞安航空），Air France-KLM （法国航空- KLM） 和 Southwest （西南）.
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Carmaking in France

Mover and shaker 风雨飘摇的法国汽车业

Apr 2nd 2009
From The Economist print edition

Christian Streiff makes another exit
Christian Streiff亦遭辞退。

IF GENERAL MOTORS’ Rick Wagoner was fired for not being confrontational enough, the other car boss to lose his job last weekend, Christian Streiff, was almost certainly ousted from PSA Peugeot Citroen for precisely the opposite reason.

如果说通用前CEO瓦格纳被解雇的原因是对抗危机能力不足，那么上周另一家汽车公司——标致雪铁龙公司（PSA Peugeot Citroen）——CEO Christian Streiff被炒几乎肯定就与此相反了。
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[2009.4.8] Business this week 本周财经

 

Business this week
本周财经
Apr 8th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Pundits continued to ponder the communiqué issued by the members of the G20 at the end of their summit in London. The agreement’s main points include a promise of more money for the IMF, taking its funding to $750 billion; an increase in countries’ access to Special Drawing Rights, the IMF’s synthetic currency; a promise to crack down on tax havens; and the establishment of a Financial Stability Board. The G20 members also committed themselves to supporting $250 billion-worth of new global-trade guarantees and gave assurances they would put a freeze on new protectionist measures.

权威人士继续G20成员国在伦敦峰会结束时发布的“会议公报”进行分析。会议公报主要内容包括：二十国集团承诺为IMF（国际货币基金组织）增资，使其资金总额增加至7500亿美元；增加各国对IMF货币的特别提款权；承诺对“避税天堂”采取制裁行动；建立金融稳定委员会。G20成员将提供2500亿美元作为新一轮全球贸易的保证，并承不设置任何新的投资或贸易壁垒。
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