为什么PE公司越来越看中语言服务公司

TIME:2021-09-03 | WRITER:admin

Renato Beninatoo，在全球化内容和技术战略领域有30多年的工作经验。他的客户遍布欧美亚三大洲，服务的对象是语言服务行业中领军企业的管理层。他在销售、营销、运营等方面的专长帮助他的客户在短期内实现了业绩的大幅增长。

同时，Renato在国际上一些主要的翻译协会中担任主席或董事会成员，活跃于非营利的行业组织和活动中，满怀激情地投入于语言服务行业的管理和技术创新中。

Renato在2016年底的播客上做了一期节目， 主题是“为什么很多PE公司看中LSP”? 现将谈话的英文原文和机器翻译后的中文内容提供出来，给大家提供一个观察和思考这一现象的一个资深行业人士的视角。

Globally Speaking

Podcast 017

Why Are Private Equity Firms Buying LSPs?

R I’m Renato Beninatto.

R；我是Renato Beninatto。

M And I’m Michael Stevens, and today we’re looking at something that just was announced recently that’s a pretty big deal in our industry, Renato, why don’t you give people a summary of that?

M：我是迈克尔·史蒂文生，今天我们正在看一些刚刚宣布的东西，这在我们的行业中是一个很大的事情，为什么不给人们一个总结呢？

R The big news is that Lionbridge, the only publicly traded company, well, the major publicly traded company in the United States in the language translation business, was acquired by HIG Capital, a private equity firm, another private equity coming into the language business.

R：大的消息是，唯一上市公司Lionbridge，美国在语言翻译业务中的主要上市公司，被HIG Capital（私人股本公司）收购，另一家私人股本进入该语言商业。

M And before you go too much into it, Renato, for me who has been in the industry about 10 years, I’ve only known Lionbridge as a publicly traded company. This was a surprise. You’ve known them a little bit longer, was it a surprise to you as well?

M: 在你进入太多之前，雷纳托，对于已经在业界大约10年的我来说，我只知道Lionbridge是一家上市公司。这是一个惊喜。你已经认识了他们更长时间，对你来说也是一个惊喜吗？

R Well no, I think it was inevitable at some point because Lionbridge was carrying the load of all the regulations of the SEC in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the Sarbanes Oxley compliance requirements, and they had a huge overhead that was affecting their margins. So, Lionbridge is this half billion-dollar company with relatively low capitalization of $350 million only and, actually, this is the ballpark value of the deal, I think they are paying $5.75 per share, which puts the deal at something like $350 - $360 million in market capitalization. That is the value of the company for those who are not experts in this space; market capitalization is you just multiply the value of the shares by the number of shares that are available.

R：不，我认为在某些时候是不可避免的，因为Lionbridge负责美国证券交易委员会在美国证券交易委员会的所有规定，萨班斯奥克斯利法案的合规性要求，并且它们的巨大开销正在影响他们的利润。所以，Lionbridge是这个五亿美元的公司，只有3.5亿美元的资本额相对较少，实际上这是交易的球场价值，我认为他们每股支付5.75美元，这笔交易的价格是3.5-3.6亿美元市值。那就是那个不是这个领域的专家的公司的价值。市值是您只是将股票的价值乘以可用股数。

M So, today, we’re going to take a look at a few different perspectives on this deal. We have some comments from Paula Shannon, herself, the CSO and SVP at Lionbridge. We have some perspective from competition; we have perspective from other private equity firms, and then, of course, just the view of where this leaves our industry and what it means.

M: 那么今天我们来看看这个交易的几个不同的观点。我们有一些观点来自Paula Shannon，她自己，Lionbridge的CSO和高级副总裁的意见。我们有一些竞争的观点;我们有其他私募股权投资公司的观点，那么当然，这只是我们这个行业留下什么看法呢？

R Yeah, it’s the talk of the moment. Everybody has, right now, we have very little information, and there is a lot of speculation, but in a conversation that we had with Paula, well, why don’t we let Paula say it with her own words.

R: 是啊，这是当下的讲话。每个人现在都有很少的信息，而且有很多的猜测，但是在与Paula谈话中，我们为什么不让Paula用自己的话说呢。

P At the highest level, really, for clients and our employees, this change should have no impact on the services that we take in pride in providing our customers or on the investments that we make. Essentially, the only change is that we have a new capital partner and that we will no longer be a publicly traded company. We will continue to deliver on the high-quality services that Lionbridge is known for, and we expect that this will close in the next few months if that specific information is contained in the press release.

P：在最高层次上，对于客户和我们的员工来说，这种变化对我们为客户提供的服务或我们所做的投资感到自豪的服务不会有任何影响。基本上，唯一的变化是我们有一个新的资本伙伴，我们将不再是一个上市公司。我们将继续提供Lionbridge所拥有的高质量服务，我们预计未来几个月内，如果新闻稿中包含了具体信息，这些质疑将会关闭。

M So, it sounds like to me that the big difference between where Lionbridge is now and where they will be in the future is they will no longer be a public company. Okay.

M：所以，对我来说，看起来Lionbridge现在和将来在哪里的巨大区别呢就是不再是上市公司了。好的。

R Yes, so what she is telling us is that Lionbridge is going private and, you know, Dell did this recently, and there are several companies that they get the private equity money; they have the opportunity to restructure and improve their efficiencies internally without the scrutiny of having to report on a quarterly basis to the shareholders. And you know that the whole stock exchange market infrastructure is designed to protect the minority shareholder, and I think that Rory Cowan shared the video with all the employees to announce this, and one of the things that he mentioned is that one of the challenges that they had was that they had to please too many people.

R：是的，所以她告诉我们的是，Lionbridge是私人化了，你知道戴尔最近这样做，有几家公司获得私募股权;他们有机会在内部进行重组和提高效率，而不必每季度向股东报告。而且你知道整个证券交易所的市场基础设施是为了保护小股东而设计的，我认为Rory Cowan和所有的员工分享这个视频来宣布这一点，他提到的一个问题是，他们是不得不取悦太多的人。

M Too many people. He said that the three constituencies he must balance—customers, employees and investors—and that for the next three to five years for the company, this is really the best way to be most effective for the future.

M:要取悦的人太多了他说，他必须平衡三个 - 客户，员工和投资者，而在公司未来三到五年的时间里，这真的是未来最有效的最佳方式。

R Yes. And what also is very interesting is that they will have a chance to improve their numbers. So, if you compare other publicly traded companies, like RWS in the UK and Keywords in Dublin, these are companies that we can compare values. And you see that Lionbridge’s numbers are relatively low. They have about a 7% EBITDA, that’s the profit margin. Their sales growth year on year was about 14 or 15%, and when you look at companies like RWS, RWS has a 26% EBITDA and Keywords has a 15% EBITDA. And these companies grew—RWS grew 28%, and Keywords grew 55% year over year. So, I think that HIG saw a great opportunity because looking at the comparables, there is room for growth and room for improvement for Lionbridge.

R: 是的。而且还有趣的是他们有机会提高他们的数量。因此，如果您比较其他上市公司，如英国的RWS和都柏林的Keywords，那么我们可以比较价值的公司。而且你看到Lionbridge的人数相对较少。他们有约7％的EBITDA，这是利润率。他们的销售额同比增长约为14％或15％，当您看到像RWS这样的公司时，RWS拥有26％的EBITDA，“Keywords”的息税折旧摊销前利润率为15％。而这些公司则增长了 - RWS同比增长了28％，而Keywords则比去年同期增长了55％。所以，我认为HIG看到了一个很好的机会，因为看到可比较的，Lionbridge有增长空间和改进空间。

M And it seems like they paid a fair price; it wasn’t a deal, but they didn’t even overpay. It wasn’t a surprisingly high number. From what I read, Reuters said that Lionbridge went public in 2009 and their share price at that time was $10 a share. So, for it to be just $5.75 a share that they paid, you can see it seems like fair for how Lionbridge has performed on the public market.

M：似乎他们付出了公平的代价;这不是一个交易，但他们甚至没有超额支付。这不是一个惊人的数字。路透社透露，路透社说2009年Lionbridge上市，当时的股价是每股10美元。所以，由于它们支付的每股只有5.75美元，您可以看到Lionbridge在公开市场上的表现，交易似乎是公平的。

R Yes. And I think that it was time. And this is good. I don’t know. We received a quote from Smith Yule, the CEO of Welocalize who was also recently changed hands to another private equity fund. I think you have it in front of you?

R：是是。我认为是时候了这很好。我不知道。我们收到了行政长官史密斯·尤尔的报价，他也是最近换成另一家私募股权基金。我想你有在你面前吗？

M Yes, Smith is very familiar with the private equity market, and quoting Smith Yule, he says “an essential aspect of a healthy and growing industry is a strong investor component. Innovation requires investment, and I’m happy to see HIG invest in Lionbridge. With many industry leaders, WeLocalize, Moravia, and Lionbridge, to name a few, now backed by leading private equity firms, I expect to see innovation driven to new levels in order to meet customers’ rapidly evolving needs. The translation industry is not only about words anymore. It’s about content transformation in an increasing variety of ways.”

M：是的，史密斯非常熟悉私募股权市场，并引用Smith Yule的话说，“健康和发展壮大的行业的一个重要方面是强大的投资者组成部分。创新需要投资，我很高兴看到HIG投资Lionbridge。有许多行业领导者，WeLocalize，摩拉维亚和Lionbridge等等，现在受到领先的私募股权投资公司的支持，我希望将创新推向新的水平，以满足客户快速变化的需求。翻译行业不仅仅是关于文字的翻译。它是以越来越多的方式进行内容转换。”

R So you see there…content transformation, Paula Shannon talking about digitization and globalization…

R：你看到那里...内容转换，Paula Shannon谈到数字化和全球化...

M Yeah, and Paula shared with us, we were saying what did they really want to get through in the news here, and let’s listen to what she says about that.

M：宝拉与我们分享，我们在这里的消息里说他们真的想要通过什么，让我们听听她说的话。

P It was very important for us to share the news and explain to our clients and customers and employees why we were so pleased to have found a strong and committed partner in HIG and that we feel that the new financial structure will give us added flexibility really to help us accelerate and increase our investment in industry-leading solutions that benefit our clients and our translators and employees, and HIG sees tremendous value in Lionbridge’s offerings; in fact, that was one of the most exciting things for us, was as they saw the breadth and strength of our client ecosystem, they really believe wholeheartedly in the two defining trends of the decade—digitization and globalization.

P：这对于我们分享新闻非常重要，并向我们的客户和客户及员工解释为什么我们很高兴在HIG中找到了一个强大和忠实的合作伙伴，我们认为新的财务结构将给予我们更多的灵活性帮助我们加快和增加对行业领先解决方案的投资，从而使我们的客户和我们的翻译和员工受益，HIG在Lionbridge的产品中看到巨大的价值;事实上，这是我们最激动人心的事情之一，正如他们看到客户生态系统的广度和实力一样，他们真诚地相信十年数字化和全球化的两个确定趋势。

R Yes. So, we reached out to customers, and part of the due diligence deal that a private equity firm does before buying a company is they talk to the key customers, and they want to know, what is their relationship, what is their plan for the future, and how the relationship was in the past, and how they expect to maintain it moving forward.

R：所以，我们接触到客户，而私人股本公司在购买公司之前做出的尽职调查的一部分是与主要客户交谈，他们想知道他们的关系是什么，他们的计划是什么未来，以及过去的关系如何，以及他们期待如何保持向前发展。

So, from what I hear, from my sources, the feedback from the clients was essentially neutral. Most of the key players, and Lionbridge clients tend to be very big players in different segments that they provide services in. It’s essentially “we want a stable vendor, we want a strong supplier, and as long as Lionbridge continues to deliver what we expect, we will continue working with them.” So, there is no major impact from the client perspective.

所以，从我听说，从我的消息来源，客户的反馈基本上是中立的。大多数主要参与者和Lionbridge客户往往是不同领域的非常大的参与者。它本质上是“我们想要一个稳定的供应商，我们想要一个强大的供应商，只要Lionbridge继续提供我们期望的，我们将继续与他们合作。“所以，从客户的角度来看，没有什么重大的影响。

We also talked, I think that you talked, we all have friends in the industry, employees and people who work at different levels in this company. How are the employees taking it?

我们也谈过，我想你说过，我们都有业内朋友，在这个公司工作不同层次的员工和人。员工怎么想？

M Yes. So the perspective I’ve gotten from employees, and I know you’ve gotten a few quotes as well, there has been a lot of change with the reorg they had earlier this year at Lionbridge. So, there was preparation for this. I think now that there has been this large change, and it’s going to take a little while for impact. The people have expressed a level of satisfaction of, “well, we know what the big result of the reorg and everything else is, now let’s just wait and see, and see if we can really achieve our goals better.” How about you, what did you hear as you spoke with people?

M：所以从员工的角度来看，我也知道你也有几个报价，而且今年早些时候在Lionbridge的争论也发生了很大的变化。所以，这是准备。我认为现在有了这么大的变化，而且会有一点影响。人们已经表达了一种满意度：“我们知道重组和其他一切的重大结果，现在让我们拭目以待，看看我们能否更好地实现我们的目标。”你呢，你跟人说话时听到什么？

R Yes. Wait and see, that’s the keyword. There is no fear. Everybody knows what is going on in this space, and they talk to their friends at Welocalize, at Moravia or other private equity companies, and the general feeling is that nothing is going to happen to the employee base in the immediate future. So, in the short-term, things should be the same, and there is no… it’s not like a merger of two big companies where people are afraid there is going to be some kind of optimization and consolidation, and some people are going to get fired.

R：等等看，这是关键字。没有恐惧。每个人都知道在这个领域发生了什么，他们和他们的朋友在Welocalize，摩拉维亚或其他私募股权公司谈话，一般的感觉是，在短期，员工不会发生什么大的变化。所以在短期内，事情应该是一样的，没有...这不是两大公司的合并，人们害怕会有某种优化和整合，有些人会被开除。

M And Paula even mentioned that. She said that the merger agreement didn’t call for an elimination of any positions or specific head count, and they’re actually expecting the consistency of the senior management, including Rory Cowan, the CEO, to remain. So, everybody now knows who’s paying the bills, and it’s a wait and see as far as the business part, the delivery part…

M：Paula甚至提到。她表示，并购协议并不要求消除任何职位或具体的领导岗位，而是实际上期望高管人员的一致性，包括首席执行官Rory Cowan仍然存在。所以，大家现在知道谁支付账单，这是一种等待，业务部分，交货部分...

R Yes, and one of the things that, in my experience, working with private equity is that private equity companies don’t buy operations… they don’t have management teams; they buy management teams; they buy the operation of the company. They don’t buy, this is not a failing company that needs a turnaround, needs a change of management, needs a revolution, and the private equity is coming just to put back…

R：根据我的经验，与私募股权投资的事情之一就是私募股权公司不买运作，他们没有管理团队;他们购买管理团队;他们买了公司的经营。他们不买，这不是一个失败的公司，需要转机，需要改变管理，需要革命，而私人股本只是为了放弃...

M Divest or whatever it could be, yeah.

M：是的，可以是Divest或者是可以做的吗？

R Exactly. This company is well run and well managed, where there is room for improvement, and I assume they want to grow the business. Actually, one of the things that I would speculate, and it’s pure speculation, is that this is a big private equity firm—they have $20 billion in investment funds, and they are in, I don’t know, almost 20 different sectors. They have companies in aerospace, automotive, technology, media, manufacturing, energy, education, different sectors that they invest in, hundreds of companies.

R：确实，这家公司运行良好，管理良好，在那里有改进的余地，我认为他们希望发展业务。其实，我所推测的事情之一就是纯粹的猜测，就是这是一家大型私募股权公司，他们有200亿美元的投资基金，而我们不知道近20个不同的行业。他们在航空航天，汽车，技术，媒体，制造，能源，教育，他们投资的不同部门，数百家公司。

So, I wouldn’t be surprised, and we talked about this in a previous podcast, if they are going to bid for the acquisitions of Translations.com or TransPerfect, something that is coming up in the next few months, I wouldn’t be surprised, pure speculation, but we would have, there, the real, not a company that is valued at $1 billion, we would have a company that has $1 billion in revenue in the translation industry, finally.

所以，我不会感到惊讶，我们在之前的播客中谈到了这一点，如果他们要竞标收购Translations.com或TransPerfect，这是在接下来的几个月里出现的，我不会令人惊讶的是，纯粹的猜测，但是，真正的，而不是一家价值10亿美元的公司，我们将有一家在翻译行业拥有10亿美元收入的公司。

M Yes, that would be really, really interesting. I would put my money on there will definitely be some quick acquisition that they will be looking to add to their services. I mean, you look at the clientele that Lionbridge serves, and that’s a very impressive list, from companies like Microsoft, to newer companies like Airbnb that are all mentioned in their public documents. In the due diligence, they were probably talking to some of these key customers to say “what is it you need, how can we serve you better?” And they are going to be on the market pretty quickly to make something happen in that area to show that they are still in a position of strength.

M：真的，真的很有意思。我会把我的钱放在那里肯定会有一些快速的收购，他们将寻求增加他们的服务。我的意思是，你看看Lionbridge所服务的客户，这是一个非常令人印象深刻的名单，从微软这样的公司，到像新的公司，如所有在公共文件中都提到的。在尽职调查中，他们可能正在与其中一些关键客户交谈，说“您需要什么，我们如何更好地为您服务？”他们将在市场上很快地在这一领域发生一些事情表明他们仍然处于实力的位置。

R Yes. The other constituency that has this acquisition on the radar, and where there is a lot of concern, is probably in their vendor base, the LSPs, freelance translators and suppliers that generate this revenue. Again, I would say that they at least immediately shouldn’t be concerned because it’s the same situation as is happening with the employees. It’s business as usual; it’s a change in the ownership of the company, it’s not a change in the management of the strategy.

R：在雷达上进行这项收购的另一个选区，以及令人担忧的地方，可能在其供应商的基础上，产生这种收入的LSP，自由译员和供应商。再说一次，他们至少会立即不要担心，因为与员工的情况是一样的。照常做生意这是公司所有权的变化，而不是战略管理的变化。

M Yes. I liked one other point that Paula Shannon made for us as well when she was talking about private equity is becoming a regular in our industry, and she said it’s not just in the localization industry but across business at large that there are more private equity firms right now in the United States than there are stocks on the NASDAQ.

M：我也喜欢Paula Shannon在谈论私募股权时为我们做的另一个观点，正在成为我们行业的常客，她表示不仅在本地化行业，而且在整个业务范围内，还有更多的私募股权公司现在在美国比纳斯达克上市的股票。

R Private equity-owned companies.

R：私人股权公司。

M Privately equity-owned companies, correct. And then in our conversation, one of the perspectives we got from this news was from John Haas at Clarion Capital Partners. He actually spoke at the last LocWorld in Montreal related to private equity and the impact on localization, and he said—and I quote him here—“the announced acquisition of Lionbridge by HIG Capital demonstrates that private equity continues to remain interested in the language services industry, and sees great potential in globalization trends.” So, if you’re an owner of a localization company, that’s pretty good news, I would say.

M；私有股权所有的公司是正确的。然后在我们的谈话中，我们从这个消息中得到的观点来自Clarion Capital Partners的John Haas。他实际上在蒙特利尔的最后一个LocWorld谈到了私募股权和对本地化的影响，他说 - 我引用他 - “HIG Capital宣布收购Lionbridge表明，私募股权继续对语言服务感兴趣行业，并看到全球化趋势的巨大潜力。“所以，如果你是一个本地化公司的所有者，这是一个很好的消息，我会说。

R Yes. For the LSPs, that means the eyes of the money world are in our industry. And this is one of the things that we’ve mentioned in previous conversations in our podcasts—localization and translation is a business that is a growth business; it hasn’t stopped growing, even during the crisis, and it’s also impervious to crisis. It’s one of those businesses that sometimes it even grows more during a crisis because there is more communication that is needed; there is more demand for services, and so on.

R：对于LSP，这意味着金钱世界的眼睛在我们的行业。这是我们之前在播客中谈话中提到的事情之一 - 本地化和翻译是一个业务发展的业务;即使在危机期间，它还没有停止增长，也是危机的威胁。这是其中一个企业，有时甚至在危机期间更多地增长，因为需要更多的沟通;有更多的服务需求等等。

So, if you look at individual markets, I know I’ve been talking to my friends in Brazil who are complaining about the crisis, political, economic, institutional crisis that is happening there, and that business is going down, but then you talk to the people in India, and they can’t find enough translators to do all the work that they need over there. So, from an industry perspective, the industry as a whole is growing, even though we might have pockets of geographies and sectors and language pairs and so on that go through a certain period of crisis. But, as a general trend, it’s always a good industry to be in; it’s a growth industry.

所以，如果你看个别市场，我知道我一直在和我在巴西的朋友说话，他们正在抱怨那里正在发生的危机，政治，经济和体制危机，而且业务正在下降，对印度的人们来说，他们找不到足够的翻译来完成他们所需要的所有工作。所以从行业的角度来看，整个行业的发展也在增长，尽管我们可能会有一些地域，部门和语言对等等，经历了一段危机。但是，作为一个总体趋势，它始终是一个很好的行业。这是一个发展的行业。

M It’s a growth industry. It’s still somewhat under the radar, and a move like this brings about a lot of optimism from people. Now, you told me about a quote that you used to tell one language service provider in the past that I really liked about what they do when they wake up in the morning.

M：这是增长行业。它仍然有点在雷达之下，像这样的举动带来了很多人的乐观。现在，你告诉过我曾经告诉过一个语言服务提供商的报价，我真的很喜欢早上醒来时他们做什么。

R Oh yes! Somebody was saying “where do I put my attention; where should my focus be?” And I said “every time, when you wake up in the morning, you should think about three things. What can I do today to grow my business; what can I do today to buy another business; and what can I do today to sell my business?” So, these are three things that you have to have in mind constantly; you need to be prepared.

R：呃是的有人在说“我在哪里注意;我的焦点应该在哪里？“我说，”每次早上醒来，你都应该考虑三件事情。今天我可以做些什么来发展我的业务？我今天可以做些什么来购买另一个业务？今天我可以做些什么来出售我的生意？“所以，这些都是你必须牢记的三件事情，你需要做好准备。

So, in an environment like this, where there are lots of buyers interested in coming in, and one of the things that a private equity firm told me once is that there is a lot of private equity interested in the translation and localization business now because not many people have found out about this business. So, you have the early investors on. Very soon there’s going to be a deluge of other companies trying to buy it.

所以，在这样一个环境中，有很多买家有兴趣进来，私人股本公司曾经告诉过我的一个事情是，现在有很多私人股权对翻译和本地化业务感兴趣，因为没有很多人发现这个业务。所以，你有早期的投资者。很快就会有大量的其他公司试图购买它。

If you went to the last couple of Localization Worlds, there are panels that are discussing mergers and acquisitions, and you have two, three, four private equity firms participating in these sessions and panels. So, the outside world is looking at us. So, it’s not the cottage industry or the commoditization industry that so many people talk about; this is the industry where big money is coming to.

如果你去过最后几个本地化世界，那么有一些讨论兼并和收购的小组，你有两个，三个，四个私人股本公司参加这些会议和小组讨论。所以，外面的世界正在看着我们。那么这不是很多人谈论的小屋行业或商品化行业呢？这是大钱来的行业。

M Absolutely, and that’s good news for all of us.

M：绝对是对我们所有人来说都是好消息。

R So, if you have any questions about this and any comments, make sure to make them reach us; this is important news, and I hope you enjoy our podcast and you continue sharing and subscribing to it. It’s important to us. Give us a few stars on items if you have a chance.

R：如果您对此有任何疑问和任何意见，请确保让他们达到我们; 这是重要的消息，我希望你喜欢我们的播客，你继续分享和订阅。 对我们来说很重要 如果有机会，给我们几个星星的物品。

M And share it with a friend if you like it—thanks guys!

M：如果你喜欢，可以和朋友分享一下，谢谢你们！

R Have a great whatever, morning, evening, afternoon, whatever part of the day you ‘re listening to this podcast. Bye!

R：无论如何，早上，傍晚，下午，无论你在听什么播放的那一天的任何一天。再见！

END

结束

本文经Renato Beninatoo先生授权，转载于他本人在领英上发布的内容。