麦凯布在中国的经营之道

　　Kevin McCabe is so excited about a new type of coffee he is selling in China that he hands me a packet to take home to try. The only problem is that I do not have an espresso machine. “Take one with you,” he says, grabbing a shiny new model from his company’s Leeds office lobby.

　　凯文.麦凯布(Kevin McCabe)对自己在中国销售的一款新品咖啡非常兴奋，他让我带一包回家品尝。唯一的问题是，我没有咖啡机。他从自己公司在利兹(Leeds)的办公室大堂拿了一台崭新的咖啡机说道：“你带回去。”

　　I explain the Financial Times’ strict rules on gifts and the machine is returned. But the episode goes some way to illustrating¹ the Sheffield-born entrepreneur’s success around the world: charm, persistence² and an impulsive³ drive to exploit the next opportunity.

　　我向他解释了英国《金融时报》关于礼物的严格规定，谢绝了咖啡机。但这件事在某种程度上说明了这位出生于谢菲尔德的企业家为何能在世界各地取得成功：富有魅力、锲而不舍以及迫不及待地想要利用下一个机遇。

　　Mr McCabe, 68, was one of the first British property developers in China. He travels there frequently and enthuses about his upmarket Espuma coffee house chain developed with the Novell family from Barcelona.

　　现年68岁的麦凯布是最早进入中国市场的英国房地产开发商之一。他经常前往中国，也乐于讲述他与巴塞罗那的Novell家族联手开发的高档Espuma咖啡连锁店。

　　“Do you know how many cups of coffee the Chinese drink on average?” he asks, eyes lighting⁴ up. “Five a year. There are a billion of them, imagine how much you could sell!”

　　“你知道中国人平均喝多少杯咖啡吗？”他问道，两眼发亮，“一年5杯。中国有十亿人口，想想你能卖多少咖啡吧！”

　　He admits there is competition from Starbucks and other multinationals⁵ but is undaunted. The three Espuma bars are more like restaurants and pitched upmarket with premium⁶ prices.

　　他承认，Espuma也面临星巴克(Starbucks)以及其他跨国公司的竞争，但他毫不气馁。3家Espuma咖啡馆更像是餐厅，定位于高档市场，价格非常高。

　　At a subsequent meeting at his office in Manchester — he has them dotted across the UK — he says he developed his business “by instinct”. “If I have an Achilles heel it’s probably always wanting to have a go at what’s put in front of me. Did I ever plan for the group to be as varied⁷ and as large as it is? No, not really. Things happen.”

　　后来我们又在他位于曼彻斯特的办公室中——他在英国各地设立了许多办公室——见了面，他说自己“出于本能”发展业务。“如果我有致命弱点的话，那可能就是总想尝试眼前的机遇。我计划过让公司多样化和做到现在这么大规模吗？没有。但事情就这么发生了。”

　　His company, Scarborough Group International, encompasses⁸ property interests in continental⁹ Europe, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and India and owns football clubs including Sheffield United, his home city club, and Ferencvaros i of Hungary.

　　他的思嘉伯集团(Scarborough Group International)在欧洲大陆、加拿大、澳大利亚、香港和印度等地涉足房地产，并拥有谢菲尔德联队(Sheffield United)和匈牙利的费伦茨瓦罗斯(Ferencvárosi)等足球俱乐部。

　　United — known as “the Blades” after Sheffield’s steel industry — played a crucial part in the international reach of Mr McCabe’s business.

　　谢菲尔德联队在麦凯布拓展国际业务方面扮演着关键角色。该队因谢菲尔德钢铁业出名而被称为“钢刀”。

　　In 2002 a juice company called Desun from Xian in China made enquiries about sponsoring United’s shirts — the company did not retail¹⁰ in the UK but English football was shown on television in China. Negotiations¹¹ had stalled. “I said I’d go and sort it out myself,” explains Mr McCabe.

　　2002年，中国西安一家名叫鼎盛的果汁公司有意向谢菲尔德联队赞助球衣——该公司在英国没有零售业务，但中国电视会播放英国足球比赛。当时谈判没有进展。麦凯布解释称：“我说我要亲自去解决。”

　　Expecting a drab industrial city, he was astonished by the pace of development there and in Beijing. He clinched¹² the shirt deal and set up an office for his Scarborough property business in Shenzhen, a southern city, and another in Hong Kong.

　　他本以为西安是一座乏味无趣的工业城市，结果却被西安和北京的快速发展惊得目瞪口呆。他敲定了赞助合同，并在深圳设立办公室从事思嘉伯集团的房地产业务，同时还在香港设立了一个办公室。

　　It lost a “bob or three” he says, before finding a suitable local partner in Top Spring, a developer that has worked on 21 projects across China including Hidden Valley, a complex of villas¹³ in Shenzhen.

　　麦凯布说，该公司先是亏了一些钱，后来才找到一家合适的当地合作伙伴——莱蒙(Top Spring)。莱蒙是一家开发商，在中国各地开发了21个项目，包括深圳的水榭山(Hidden Valley)别墅项目。

　　“You need partners who really have contacts at government level, can put teams together,” he says.

　　他说：“你需要真正拥有政府层面的人脉、能够把团队组建起来的合作伙伴。”

　　Sheffield is twinned with the Chinese city of Chengdu and Scarborough Group owns the Chengdu Blades football club. Scarborough also has a joint¹⁴ venture with the state-owned Avic group, which operates more than 50 shops in China for Spanish retailer¹⁵ Cortefiel.

　　谢菲尔德与中国成都是友好城市，思嘉伯集团拥有成都谢菲联足球俱乐部（上图为成都谢菲联足球俱乐部的新闻发布会，左起第三人是凯文.麦凯布）。思嘉伯集团还与国有的中国航空工业集团公司(AVIC)成立了一家合资企业，为西班牙零售商Cortefiel在中国运营着50多家店。

　　According to Mr McCabe, being treated as the token “white man” helped open doors in China. “You spend a long time in meetings just grinning while others talk.”

　　麦凯布说，“白人”这个身份标签有助于在中国打开门路。“你会花很多时间在会议上，在别人谈话时只需要咧着嘴笑。”

　　Networking is essential to operating in China and it could be several long meetings before any business is done. But he says it is best to avoid Maotai, the fiery¹⁶ grain liquor that is a staple¹⁷ of such events — one of his staff makes sure his glass is topped up with green tea instead: “I ain’t drinking that rubbish.”

　　在中国做生意关系网至关重要，而且你可能得参加多次冗长的会议才能做成任何一桩生意。但他说，最好别碰茅台——这种烈性谷物酒是宴会的主角——一名下属会确保他的杯子里倒满绿茶：“我不会喝那种垃圾。”

　　So far, he has stuck to mainland China’s secondary cities rather than Beijing and Shanghai. Projects include a new suburban¹⁸ centre in Changzhou covering 5.6 sq km. It has a five-star hotel, large shopping centre, arts and cultural centre, youth recreation centre along with offices and apartment blocks. In Chengdu the group has built a new office district with 55,000 sq m of offices and 47,000 sq m of retail space.

　　他迄今坚持在中国内地二线城市、而非北京和上海经营。项目包括在常州郊区占地5.6平方公里的新中心。它有一座5星级酒店、大型购物中心、艺术和文化中心、年轻人休闲中心以及写字楼和公寓。在成都，该集团建设了一个包含5.5万平方米写字楼空间和4.7万米零售区的新商务区。

　　Mr McCabe’s partners also include Metro¹⁹, a listed Singapore developer. More recently he teamed up with Hualing Group, which is involved in controversial mining projects in the far northern province of Xinjiang, where human rights groups say the Muslim Uighur minority is persecuted²⁰ and there have been violent clashes with police. George Osborne, the former UK chancellor²¹, was criticised for going to Urumqi, the region’s capital, last year. Mr McCabe says he has seen no evidence of abuses. The city, he says, is affluent²².

　　麦凯布的合作伙伴还包括新加坡一家上市的开发商Metro。更近一些时候，他与华凌集团(Hualing Group)建立合作，后者在新疆开发了具有争议性的采矿项目。人权组织说，新疆维吾尔族穆斯林遭受迫害，并与警方发生多起暴力冲突。英国前财政大臣乔治.奥斯本(George Osborne)去年曾因前往乌鲁木齐而遭受抨击。麦凯布表示，他没有发现任何人权滥用的证据。他说，乌鲁木齐非常富足。

　　Hualing is now investing in housing in the north of England with Scarborough, as is Top Spring. “The pendulum²³ has swung,” says Mr McCabe, with Chinese companies looking to diversify²⁴ into UK investments.

　　华凌目前正与思嘉伯集团联合在英格兰北部投资开发住宅项目，与莱蒙一样。麦凯布表示：“钟摆摆动起来了。”有许多中国企业正寻求在英国投资。

　　This year Scarborough also formed a consortium with state-owned China National Electric Engineering for the EURO230m upgrade and extension of the Loznica gas-fired power station in Serbia.

　　今年思嘉伯集团还与中国电力工程有限公司(China National Electric Engineering)组建财团，共同承担西伯利亚Loznica天然气发电厂的2.3亿欧元升级扩建项目。

　　It is a long way from Mr McCabe’s start in a property company in Teesside in north-east England, where he was a director by the age of 25. But, thinking that he could do better himself, in 1976 he borrowed ￡10,000 from the Bank of Scotland and began his own business refurbishing and selling on properties in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

　　麦凯布是从英格兰东北部提赛德(Teesside)一家房地产公司起步的——他在25岁的时候就是该公司的董事。但他认为自己单干会更有出息，于是在1976年向苏格兰银行(Bank of Scotland)借款1万英镑，在阿伯丁和爱丁堡创办了改造和销售房地产的企业。

　　In 1980 he founded the Scarborough Group, naming it after the Yorkshire resort in which he lives. The group mainly worked for Bank of Scotland and the two businesses rose together, with Mr McCabe advising, or even taking over, property portfolios²⁵ the bank had lent against when the group got into trouble.

　　1980年，他创立了思嘉伯集团，并以自己居住的约克郡度假胜地命名。那时该集团主要为苏格兰银行服务，这两家企业共同成长，苏格兰银行曾在思嘉伯集团陷入困境时为其提供贷款，而麦凯布为贷款抵押房产提供咨询服务甚至直接收购这些房产。

　　The relationship became strained during the financial crisis in 2008 when Halifax Bank of Scotland, as it had then become, had to be rescued from collapse²⁶ by a merger²⁷ with Lloyds Bank.

　　在2008年金融危机期间，苏格兰银行——当时已成为苏格兰哈利法克斯银行(Halifax Bank of Scotland)——不得不与劳埃德银行(Lloyds Bank)合并来免于破产，双方关系变得紧张起来。

　　Mr McCabe had sold some of Scarborough’s assets to Valad Property Group of Australia for ￡865m in 2007, picking up about ￡150m net profit.

　　2007年，麦凯布以8.65亿英镑的价格将思嘉伯集团部分资产出售给了澳大利亚的Valad地产集团，获得了大约1.5亿英镑的净利。

　　But it still had to sell its London properties to pay off the bank. Mr McCabe would not say how much he owed except the bill was “more than Paul Pogba” the midfielder Manchester United has recently bought for ￡89m.

　　但它仍不得不卖掉伦敦的地产来偿还苏格兰哈利法克斯银行的债务。麦凯布不会说他欠了多少钱，只是说账单“超过了曼联最近8900万英镑购买的中锋保罗.博格巴(Paul Pogba)的身价”。

　　He has now sold 50 per cent of Sheffield United to Prince Abdullah al-Saud of Saudi Arabia. But he gets to most games, and such is his loathing²⁸ of local rivals Sheffield Wednesday that he orders special diaries with the word removed from every week: “They have Tuesday A and Tuesday B. I hate Wednesdays.”

　　他现在已经将谢菲尔德联队50%的股份出售给了沙特阿拉伯的阿卜杜拉.阿勒沙特王子(Prince Abdullah al-Saud)。但他仍去观看大部分比赛，而且非常讨厌当地的竞争对手谢菲尔德星期三足球俱乐部(Sheffield Wednesday)，还因此定制了去掉星期三的日记本：“他们有星期二A和星期二B。我讨厌星期三。”

　　His two sons now work in the business. Simon handles property while Scott looks after the other interests. But he remains²⁹ chairman and “chief pot and bottle washer”.

　　他的两个儿子如今负责公司业务。西蒙(Simon)负责房地产业务，而斯科特(Scott)负责其他业务。但他依然是公司的董事长和“管家”。

　　In accounts for the year to February 29 2016, the Scarborough Group made a pre-tax profit of ￡625,000 on turnover³⁰ of ￡59.5m. In the same period last year it posted a pre-tax loss of ￡1.4m on turnover of ￡24.8m. He declines to put a value on the company, which he says may list in the next few years — but independent estimates begin at ￡90m.

　　在截止2016年2月29日的一年里，思嘉伯集团实现收入5950万英镑，税前利润62.5万英镑。上一年它实现收入2480万英镑，税前亏损140万英镑。麦凯布拒绝对公司估价——他说公司可能在今后几年上市——但独立的评估是至少9000万英镑。

　　Mr McCabe believes Chinese investors³¹ will continue to come to the UK even after it leaves the EU.

　　麦凯布相信，即便英国退出欧盟，中国投资者仍会继续来英国投资。

　　“One has to say the best country in Europe is the UK. We may have some problems but?.?.?.?I can only think of two strong nations in Europe, that’s ourselves and Germany.”

　　“人们不得不说，欧洲最好的国家是英国。我们可能有一些问题，但……我只能想到欧洲有两个强国，那就是我们国家和德国。”

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