GRE阅读练习：全球收购兼并浪潮来临

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On July 4th the share price of Worldpay, a British payments processor, leapt by 28% after the company said it had received preliminary approaches from JPMorgan Chase, America's biggest bank, and Vantiv, an American payments firm.

7月4日，英国一家支付运营公司WorldPay，在声明已从美国最 大的银行摩根大通和一家支付公司Vantiv获得了初步的方案后，其股票价格猛涨了28%。

The next day Worldpay said it had accepted a cash-and-shares bid from Vantiv, worth 7.7bn pounds ($10bn) , giving its shareholders 41% of the combined group.

第二天，WorldPay公司表示已经接受了Vantiv公司的现金和股票收购，价值为7.7bn 英镑(100亿美元)，给予其股东联合团队价值的41%。

JPMorgan Chase, sniffily explaining that it had considered a bid after an “invitation” from Worldpay, which is a client, declined to proceed.

摩根大通，不屑一顾地解释道他们考虑投标是因为他们的客户------Worldpay公司的“邀请”，现已经拒绝继续了。

Under Britain's takeover code that refusal rules out a counter bid for six months.

根据英国的收购法规，摩根大通的拒绝限制了六个月的还价。

The shares slipped back by nearly 9%.

WorldPay公司的股票下跌了近9%。

Vantiv and Worldpay are “merchant acquirers” : companies that have contracts with sellers of goods and services, and licences from credit- and debit-card companies, to accept and process card payments.

Vantiv和WorldPay都是“商户”：与提供产品和服务的卖方有着合同的公司，有着信用和借记卡许可证的公司，接受和处理信用卡支付。

They also provide insurance—for example, refunding disappointed holidaymakers when an airline goes bust.

他们也提供保险-----比如一家航空公司破产了，他们要赔偿失望的度假者。

Until a few years ago, explains Ali Farid Khwaja of Autonomous, an investment-research firm, acquirers in both America and Europe had to have banking licences.

直到几年前，自治的Ali Farid Khwaja解释道，一家投资研究公司，要求在美国和欧洲的收购者都必须拥有营业执照。

As a consequence, banks still feature in lists of leading acquirers.

因此，银行仍在领先的收购方名单上。

According to the Nilson Report, a newsletter, they accounted for three of America's top seven last year: JPMorgan Chase ranked first, with Vantiv second.

根据一个时事通讯《尼尔森报告》，他们占据了美国去年前七名中的三名。摩根大通排名第 一，Vantiv紧随其后。

Both Vantiv and Worldpay, indeed, emerged from banks.

事实上，Vantiv 和 Worldpay都来自银行。

Vantiv was spun off in 2009 by Fifth Third, an Ohio-based lender which still owns 17.9%.

Vantiv在2009年被总部在俄亥俄州的五三银行拆分后，仍然占据17.9%的股份。

The European Commission obliged the Royal Bank of Scotland to sell Worldpay in 2010, as a condition of RBS's bail-out by the British state after the financial crisis.

欧盟委员会(European Commission)要求苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)在2010年出售Worldpay，作为苏格兰皇家银行在金融危机后对英国政府的救助条件。

Two private-equity firms bought it for 2bn pounds.

两家私募股权公司买了20亿英镑。

It was floated at a value of 4.8bn pounds in 2015.

2015年浮动的价值达到48亿英镑。

Mr Khwaja says that by buying Worldpay, Vantiv will reduce its reliance on bricks-and-mortar merchants, which are losing out from a shift of retailing to online competitors such as Amazon.

Khwaja称通过购买Worldpay，Vantiv将减少对实体商家的依赖，这使得从零售商转向亚马逊等在线竞争对手。

Less than 10% of its revenue comes from processing e-commerce payments.

不到10%的收入来自于运营电子商务支付。

Worldpay, by contrast, makes more than one-third of its revenue from a fast-growing, global e-commerce business.

相比之下，WorldPay超过1/3的收入是来自于一个快速增长的全球电子商务业务。

It is also the market leader in Britain, claiming a share of 42%, and has an American business of its own (the country's eighth-biggest, one-sixth of the size of Vantiv's, says the Nilson Report).

它也是英国的市场领导者，取得了42%的市场份额，且具有自己的美国企业(根据尼尔森报告，是全国第八大，Vantiv规模的六分之一大小)。

The deal marks a further step towards the industry's consolidation.

这一项交易意味着更进一步的行业整合。

Last year, for example, Global Payments, the sixth-biggest American acquirer, bought Heartland, a smaller rival, for $4.3bn in cash and shares.

就拿去年的一个例子来说吧，美国第六大收购平台——“全球支付”，收购了一家规模相对较小的“中心地带”产业(该公司为“全球支付”的竞争对手)，折合现金股票43亿美元。

TSYS bought TransFirst for $2.4bn. Vantiv snaffled Moneris USA, the American arm of a Canadian payments-processor, for $425m.

TSYS信息发布系统的机构出资24亿美元收购了TransFirst安全支付产业;美国支付处理服务商Vantiv宣布以4.25亿美金收购加拿大收单机构Moneris为美国子公司。

In Europe, Mr Khwaja notes, national markets tend to be ruled by local players, despite the EU's supposedly single market.

赫瓦贾先生指出，就欧洲目前的形势来看，尽管欧盟大致陷于单一的市场状态，然而各欧盟成员国市场往往还是由本国经济人员在背后掌控和把握。

Cross-border consolidation has far to go.

针对欧洲的状态来看，跨境、国公司兼并还有很长的路要走。

But in a business of thin margins, scale is starting to count.

但是在当今各行业利润微薄的情况下，并购浪潮逐渐扩大。

Worldline, descended from the acquiring subsidiaries of three French banks, has spread into the Benelux countries and Germany.

Worldline集团来自三家法国银行子公司的合并，而且Worldline公司的兼并浪潮已经蔓延到了比荷卢及德国等国家。

On July 3rd Nets, a Nordic payments company, said it had been approached about a takeover.

7月3日，一家北欧支付公司通过网络媒体表示近期已经就公司的收购事宜进行了接洽。

It's an acquisitive business.

当今全球的收购兼并浪潮就是一次次贪婪的交易。

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