Companies’ Investment Plans: From Diggers to Data Centres

企业投资计划：从挖掘机到数据中心

Computers, research and software will be the big-ticket items in 2016

计算机、科研、软件将是2016年的大额支出项目

There have been three great waves of corporate investment in the past two decades. First came the dotcom splurge of 1997-2001, when cash was poured into building mobile-phone networks and the internet’s backbone. Then there was the emerging-market frenzy of 2003-10. Western firms threw about $2 trillion into factories and other facilities in places like China and India. In 2005-13 there was a craze for commodities, partly driven by insatiable Chinese demand. Global energy and metals firms spent $6 trillion digging in the Australian outback and drilling for oil in North Dakota and deep beneath Brazil’s coastal waters.

过去20年里，企业投资掀起过三次大潮。先是1997年至2001年的互联网泡沫时期，大量资金涌入移动电话网及互联网骨干网的建设中。然后是2003年至2010年的新兴市场狂热期。西方企业向中国和印度等地的工厂及其他设施大量砸钱，投资约两万亿美元。2005年至2013年则掀起了大宗商品热潮，部分源于中国庞大需求的推动。全球能源及金属企业投入六万亿美元分别在澳大利亚内陆地区开采资源，在美国北达科他州及巴西近海的海底钻探石油。

The dotcom boom turned to bust, emerging markets are now in poor shape and commodity prices have slumped in the past year (costing some firms’ bosses their jobs – see previous article). So where are companies looking to invest now? A new study by Hugo Scott-Gall, of Goldman Sachs, a bank, crunches the numbers for capital investment at more than 2,500 firms worldwide, forecasting how things will look in 2017 compared with 2014. It finds a startling divergence across industries.

互联网泡沫最终破裂，新兴市场如今状况不佳，大宗商品价格则在过去一年一落千丈（已致使部分公司老板下台）。那么，企业现在都往何处投资？由高盛银行的雨果·斯科特-高尔（Hugo Scott-Gall）做的一项新研究分析了全球2500多家企业的资本投资数字，对2017年的情况（相比2014年）做出预测。研究发现，各行业呈现惊人的差别。

Energy, mining and chemicals firms are expected to slash their capital-investment budgets by 20-50%. Property firms are cutting back too, in part reflecting the end of China’s building boom. This has a knock-on effect on those capital-goods firms that supply equipment to these industries. For example, Caterpillar, which makes diggers used by mining and construction firms, expects its capital investment in 2016 to be half the level of 2012.

据估计，能源、矿业、化工企业预计将削减20%至50%的资本投资预算。房地产企业也在缩减投资，部分反映了中国的建筑热潮已经终结。向这些行业供应设备的资本品企业也受到连锁影响。比如，采矿及建筑用挖掘机的生产商卡特彼勒（Caterpillar）在2016年的资本投资额预计仅为2012年的一半。

In contrast, internet, software and other tech firms are on a high, with their budgets expected to expand by a quarter or more. Though some tech firms have gone asset-light, renting their processing power and data storage in the online “cloud”, others – including cloud-providers themselves – are splurging on hardware. In 2016 the combined capital spending of Google and Apple will be $24 billion, almost equal to Exxon’s $28 billion budget.

相比之下，互联网、软件及其他科技公司投资热情高涨，预算估计将扩大四分之一或更多。虽然部分科技公司已转向轻资产模式，向在线“云”租用数据处理及存储能力，但其他科技公司则在硬件设备上大肆投资，包括云供应商本身。2016年，谷歌和苹果的资本支出加起来将达到240亿美元，几乎相当于埃克森美孚280亿美元的预算。

Measured in dollars, the overall picture is of a 15% fall in corporate capital spending by 2017. Allowing for the greenback’s big rise since 2014, the fall will be just 5% or so in local-currency terms. And the figures exclude research-and-development (R&D) spending. That is rising quickly. America’s national accounts, for example, show an economy-wide decline in investment in physical plant being offset by a rise in R&D and software spending.

以美元计算，截至2017年，企业资本支出估计将总体下跌15%。如果剔除2014年以来美元大幅升值的因素，以当地货币计算，资本支出跌幅将仅为5%左右。而且这些数字未包含目前正迅速上升的研发支出。例如，美国国民核算数据显示，研发和软件上的投资增长抵消了整体经济实体工厂投资的下滑。

However you slice the numbers, growth in capital investment is unusually concentrated. Of the industries that Goldman studied, 22 are forecast to have shrinking budgets in dollar terms and 12 are expected to grow. The top 20 spenders on R&D – firms such as Samsung, Roche, Novartis and Microsoft – account for 25% of worldwide R&D spending by listed firms, according to Bloomberg, an information provider. The corporate world seems mostly destined to stagnation, with only a few hotspots of investment and growth.

无论怎样解析这些数字，资本投资的增长都异常集中。高盛研究的行业中，有22个预计会缩减投资预算（以美元计算），有12个行业则有望增加投资。据资讯提供商彭博的数据，包括三星、罗氏、诺华、微软在内，研发预算最高的20家企业占了全球上市公司研发支出的25%。企业界似乎大多注定陷入停滞，只有少数几个投资及增长热点。

So investors might hope that an elite of investment-intensive, technology-based firms will conquer new markets and increase profits faster than all others. That is certainly what Silicon Valley’s boosters think will happen. They cheer each time tech firms unveil some new area of expansion – smart watches, driverless cars, virtual-reality goggles, delivery drones.

所以，投资者也许希望有一批以科技为本的投资密集型精英企业能征服新市场，比其他所有公司都更快地提高利润。硅谷的支持者深信这绝对会实现。每当科技企业拓展至新领域，推出诸如智能手表、无人驾驶汽车、虚拟现实眼镜、快递无人机等产品时，他们都会欢呼雀跃。

Yet history suggests that whenever there is a near-unanimous view on what to invest in, disaster follows as firms in those industries lose their spending discipline. The shares of Western firms exposed to energy and emerging markets have lagged the S&P 500 index by over 50% in the past two years. In 2016 it should become clearer whether the present funnelling of investment into tech-based industries reflects a step change in the way the economy works, or is just a symptom of a stagnant climate in which pockets of opportunity are hyped beyond their true potential.

但历史经验表明，每当人们普遍看好某个投资领域时，那些行业的企业往往会不再遵守投资纪律，导致灾难性收场。过去两年，受能源业及新兴市场影响的西方企业的股价一直落后于标普500指数50%还多。目前大量投资涌向科技产业的现象究竟是反映了经济运行方式的一大跃变，还是经济停滞的又一症状——机遇的潜力被大肆吹嘘而名不副实？答案在2016年应该会变得更加清晰。

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