GRE阅读练习：欧洲的激进主义后来居上

>>GRE阅读训练：GRE阅读练习：欧洲的激进主义后来居上

>>GRE考试精品课程指导

“Sclerotic companies abound in Europe,” says Christer Gardell, co-founder and managing partner of Cevian Capital, an activist hedge fund based in Sweden.

总部设在瑞典的激进维权投资基金(Cevian Capital)的联合创始人兼管理合伙人嘉戴尔(Christer Gardell)说：“公司的僵化在欧洲随处可见。”

That is an uncommonly pugnacious statement for a firm that operates behind the scenes and uses public pressure as a last resort.

对于一个在幕后经营并以公共的压力为最后手段的公司来说，这是一个异常好战的声明。

Unlike its louder American peers, such as Bill Ackman's Pershing Square, Paul Singer's Elliott Management or Dan Loeb's Third Point, Cevian has never written a pointed open letter to a chief executive or waged a proxy battle (although Carl Icahn, an activist who has been known to call bosses “morons”, is one of its investors).

不像比尔·阿克曼的潘兴广场，保罗·辛格尔的艾略特管理公司以及丹尼尔·洛布的第三点管理公司那些大名鼎鼎的美国同行们一样，Cevian从未向首席执行官写过一封明确的公开信或发起代理战(尽管卡尔·伊坎，一位以称老板为“蠢货”而出名的活动家，是其投资者之一)。

Its calm approach seems to suit corporate Europe.

其冷静方法似乎适合欧洲企业。

Cevian is the region's largest activist fund, and one of the world's biggest, with over $15.4bn in assets.

Cevian是该地区最 大的维权基金，也是世界上最 大的维权基金之一，拥有超过154亿美元的资产。

It was founded by Mr Gardell and Lars Forberg in Stockholm in 2002; both still run it.

它由嘉戴尔和拉尔斯·福伯格两位于2002年在斯德哥尔摩创立的;两位现在仍掌管着它。

Its “constructive” activism, focusing on only a dozen companies at a time, goes back to the founders' time as chief executive and chief investment officer of Custos, a listed investment firm, in the mid-1990s.

它的“建设性”行动主义，即一次仅仅集中于关注十几家公司，追溯到20世纪90年代中期担任上市投资公司Custos的首席执行官兼首席投资官的创始人时期。

Although European corporate governance is often compared unfavourably with America's, Mr Gardell says it has many advantages.

尽管欧洲公司的治理往往比不过美国的公司，但嘉戴尔说它具有很多优势。

American management largely controls the process for nominating new board members, so an activist fund may need to wage a loud campaign just to get a seat at the table.

美国管理层主要控制提名新董事会成员的过程，因此维权基金仅仅获得会议的一席之位都可能需要发动大力宣传才行。

In the countries where Cevian operates, its typical ownership stake of 5-20% is enough to easily, or even automatically, get a board seat.

在Cevian运营所在的这些国家中，典型的5-20%股权足以容易地，甚至自动获得董事会席位。

That said, it operates mainly in the Nordic countries, Britain, Germany and Switzerland, regarding governance in the wilds of southern Europe as too unpredictable.

即便如此，它主要在像北欧国家以及英国，德国和瑞士运营，因为在南欧偏远地区的治理具有不可预测性。

Its signature move is splitting up or spinning off parts of companies, a tactic for which Mr Gardell earned the moniker of “butcher” from the Swedish press in the mid-2000s.

它的招牌动作是将公司的各个部分分裂或脱离，嘉戴尔因这种策略在二十一世纪中期从瑞典媒体获得了“刽子手”的绰号。

Cevian believes that many conglomerate structures are too sprawling, and that simplifying them can be better both for managers (who will have an easier time running more focused companies) and for shareholders (who will have an easier time valuing them) .

Cevian认为，许多大型企业集团结构过于庞大，对于管理者(谁将有空闲时间运营更多集中公司)和股东(谁将有空闲时间评估他们)来说，简化它们会更好。

Perhaps the best example is the separation in 2012 of Cookson Group, a British industrial firm, into Alent, a chemicals company, and Vesuvius, a ceramics firm, that Cevian helped to engineer.

也许最  好的例子是2012年，在Cevian帮助策划下，一家英国工业公司英国库克森集团(Cookson Group)分化为一家化工公司Alent和一家陶瓷公司Vesuvius。

The split more than doubled the combined value of shareholders' investment.

这次分割不止使股东投资总额翻了一番。

Cevian has also pushed for spin-offs at Volvo Group, a Swedish truckmaker, and Bilfinger, a German industrial-services firm, among many others.

Cevian还推动了瑞典卡车生产商Volvo集团，以及德国工业服务Bilfinger公司等多家企业的股权分离从而成立子公司。

Such proposals often attract stiff opposition at first, as with its current recommendations for ABB, a Swiss-Swedish engineering firm, and ThyssenKrupp, a German steel giant.

这样的建议通常在刚开始时会受到强烈的反对，就像瑞士瑞典工程公司ABB和德国钢铁巨头蒂森克虏伯集团(ThyssenKrupp)目前的建议一样。

And Cevian has had failures.

但是Cevian也有过失败。

Bilfinger is one of the few examples of a truly struggling Cevian portfolio firm.

像比尔芬格这样的能与Cevian这样的投资组合公司相抗衡的大公司是的少数例子之一。

But overall, performance is strong.

但是总体而言，Cevian的业绩是强劲的。

Cevian returned 19.4% in 2016 alone. European activist funds returned 14.1% in aggregate, and American ones 12.8%, according to eVestment, a data provider.

根据数据提供商eVestment显示的数据表明：仅在2016年，Cevian回报率是19.4%，而欧洲维权基金总体回报率为14.1%，美国的为12.8%。

Institutional investors, who often shunned or ignored activists a decade ago, now take the initiative to contact Cevian.

十年前经常回避或忽视活动家的机构投资者现在主动联系Cevian。

Other activists are also stirring: more European firms are being targeted.

其他活动家也很激动：更多的欧洲公司成为目标。

Mr Gardell is sceptical that boisterous American funds will be able to make much headway into Europe, but he welcomes more competition.

嘉戴尔预测，活跃的美国基金能够在欧洲打开市场，但他也鼓励更多的竞争。

His fund announced its newest target—one that is close to home—on May 31st: Ericsson, a floundering Swedish telecoms firm.

5月31日，他的基金宣布了其最新的目标 — 一家触及痛处的公司—挣扎中的瑞典电信公司爱立信。

上面的阅读大家都读完了吗，了解更多GRE考试内容可以登录坦途网GRE考试频道，这里有更多模拟题和真题来供你参考，还有很多考试经验分享哦！