这本新书告诉你：通用电气是这样走向崩溃的
2008年9月，金融危机全面爆发。银行倒闭，市场崩溃，政府手忙脚乱地出台政策防止美国金融体系全面崩溃。接连受到重创的投资者紧皱眉头，担心别的大型企业也可能轰然倒地。很少有人担心著名工业企业通用电气，但通用电气旗下有个庞大的金融部门：通用金融。
然而危机终于降临，通用电气自大萧条以来首次大幅削减股息，为了维持经营向美国财政部求援，也彻底伤害了投资者心目中曾经坚不可摧的声誉。通用电气与金融服务业务的深度关联桩桩件件公诸于世，对通用电气来说将成为永远的负面因素。
这是通用电气刚刚进入历史上关键时刻的故事。
以下是新书《熄灯：骄傲、妄想和通用电气的没落》（Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric）节选，于7月21日出版。
2008年9月11日晚上，比佛利山温和晴朗。这样的晚上，在洛杉矶摇曳的棕榈树林中，很少有人能想到会遇上杰夫·伊梅尔特。
远在美国另一边海岸，华尔街最聪明的人们正在曼哈顿深谷里与金融危机搏斗，危机导致经济发展停滞，一些全世界最强大的金融公司也因此倒闭。
严格来说，通用电气并不是银行，但旗下金融机构的规模能让美国大多数银行相形见绌。由于通用电气在工业领域占据核心地位，一直对市场传递正面信息，再加上声誉良好，危机不断加深时并未受到关注。
但表面的平静很快就宣告结束。
几天前，伊梅尔特打电话给美国财政部部长汉克·保尔森称，通用电气向投资者出售商业票据时遇到一些问题。（如前所述，票据是企业用来满足经营现金需求的短期债务。）商业票据是通用电气的生命线。通用电气曾经利用优秀的AAA信用评级低成本发行数百亿美元的商业票据，保证通用金融平稳运转。如果通用电气无法顺利发行票据，就无法履行庞大的债务。也就是说，通用电气将资不抵债。
保尔森后来在回忆录《濒临绝境》（On the Brink）中写道，接到电话很震惊。他跟伊梅尔特之前认识。保尔森还在高盛当银行家和高管时，两人打过交道。尽管毕业时间隔了十年，两人都在达特茅斯大学打过橄榄球，而且都读过哈佛商学院。保尔森出了名的严肃，而伊梅尔特似乎总喜欢开玩笑。
这次联系的时机不一般。就在几天前，美国政府接管了抵押贷款巨头房利美和房地美，情况还会变得更糟。对通用电气来说，风暴就在眼前。
而此时，身处比佛利山的伊梅尔特正前往比佛利露台酒店，一家叫“Trattoria Amici”的餐厅。他并不是去见政府官员、银行家或顾问，想办法帮通用电气度过金融灾难。见面的是大导演史蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格、环球影业总裁罗恩·迈耶和梦工厂首席执行官斯泰西·斯奈德。
与会公司向演艺圈媒体保证，聚会纯为社交，不谈交易。
伊梅尔特和前任一样喜欢参与媒体业务。工业巨头通用电气收购了美国全国广播公司，后来又收购环球影业，终于登上了好莱坞红毯，也走进洛克菲勒中心大堂，不禁让人回想起大企业财团能拥有也确实拥有各种业务的时代。
通用电气收购环球影业后，伊梅尔特经常在业务经理参加的大型高管会议上展示大片预告片。业务经理来自各个部门，但并不是每个人都爱看电影公司的大片。
一场会议的问答环节中，一位员工问伊梅尔特身为媒体大亨的感受。伊梅尔特发出标志性的大笑，给出的回复也一如既往尖刻。
“我不是媒体大亨，我是媒体大亨的老板。”他对人们说。
即使在金融危机最严重的时候，伊梅尔特也曾经对人们开玩笑说，“好消息是CNBC在我们旗下”，那段时间新闻滚动播出，CNBC的收视率也直线上升。
此刻的纽约，监管者和各大银行负责人正经历让人难以想象的周末，人们24小时连轴转避免银行系统爆发灾难。周一上午，美林被出售，雷曼兄弟宣布破产。
虽然伊梅尔特人在比佛利山庄，危机期间他也在密切关注通用电气的风险暴露情况，考虑如何度过危机。他曾经向监管机构提出通用电气在商业票据市场面临的困难，但并未通知投资者或公众。事实上，通用电气公开传达的信号恰好相反，一直坚称没有问题。未来几周，通用电气还是不断保证一切正常，但承诺与现实之间的巨大差距不会持续太久。
事实上，2002年太平洋投资管理公司的比尔·格罗斯曾发出的警告正走向紧要关头。他曾表示，通用电气过度依赖商业票据非常危险，因为该公司并未制定应急计划支持业务需求，而很多金融服务基金都有相关计划，或者说强制如此。
信任和信心是金融的基础。人们把钱存入银行，因为非常有信心需要的时候能取出。如果信心出现动摇，人们就会取出钱，不使用银行的服务。如果突然之间普遍出现挤兑，银行就会破产。通用电气当然不希望吓到交易对手，否则可能提升借贷成本，甚至完全冻结市场。
9月14日星期天，通用电气的投资者关系部发信重申公司财务状况健康，并坚称商业票据计划持续“稳健”，信中称“我们没有筹集外部资本，也没有必要”。
但就在第二天晚上，伊梅尔特出现在保尔森的办公室，再次对通用电气潜在的问题发出警报。他告诉财政部部长，商业票据业务正在恶化，通用电气很难出售久期长过隔夜的债券。
周一晚上，纽约联邦储备委员会总裁蒂姆·盖特纳按计划晚上7点召开了会议，议题很简单：“通用电气问题”。
金融危机改变了全世界对商业票据的看法。尽管长期以来，人们一直认为发行商业票据比较简单，非常值得信赖，资金流动性强，但危机引发了人们的担心，也导致商业票据市场大部分业务停滞。如果经济当中有一块完全依靠商业票据运转，就会演变成大问题。
商业票据的崩溃有点类似汽油危机。修建公路和高速公路的前提是天然气供应永远持续。因此，如果所有加油站都空了，到最后汽车运输系统将停止运转。所以如果天然气停止供应，反应是可以预见的：人们恐慌，价格上涨，一些人开始囤积，大多数人无能为力。
商业票据并不是新概念。内战结束后，马库斯·戈德曼和杰弗里·萨克斯就靠着商业票据在华尔街起步。作为融资工具，商业票据能帮企业迅速借贷，防止出现代价高昂的现金短缺，如果有额外现金还可以获得回报，因此商业票据满足了稳定企业现金持有量的需要。
纽约大学斯特恩商学院的两位金融学教授在研究中发现，2007年年初，美国商业票据余额约为2万亿美元。就在几个月后，也就是7月底，贝尔斯登两家对冲基金因为次级抵押贷款出现巨额亏损而破产，其他基金也纷纷重新评估持有的类似抵押贷款并将其减记。相关举措引发了一连串恐慌和货币贬值。一些基金暂停客户赎回，因为无法迅速评估资产价值。
由于投资者对商业票据突然谨慎，抵押贷款危机波及了其他企业，其中很大一部分使用抵押贷款作为抵押。在此背景下，一年后雷曼兄弟在一个周末内破产，再次给市场造成冲击。当潮水退去，持有雷曼之前出售的商业票据的投资者发现已经赔得精光。
雷曼破产最明显的影响，就是一只拥有650亿美元资产的货币市场基金遭受重大损失，净资产价值跌破1美元，也让基金这个曾经可靠的投资渠道信心动摇。人们拼命地赎回份额。直到9月19日美国政府下场救市，表示将为类似基金的投资提供保险，银行全面大挤兑才停止。
救市能解决挤兑问题，响起的警钟却无法平息。如果商业票据的大卖家能一夜之间破产，投资者对风险的评估也会彻底改变。货币市场基金开始调降持有商业票据的份额，由于供应保持不变，需求下降。进入市场发行票据越发困难和昂贵。对于像通用电气一样大量使用商业票据的企业来说，问题迫在眉睫。
9月20日星期六上午，杰夫·伊梅尔特和基思·谢林前往通用电气位于费尔菲尔德的总部，会见了两位来自曼哈顿的银行家。高盛的高级顾问大卫·所罗门和约翰·温伯格希望讨论眼下的危机，以及通用电气可能采取的防御措施。随着会议持续进行，很明显伊梅尔特心中有其他顾虑。
高盛会不会倒闭？这对通用电气意味着什么？令人震惊的雷曼兄弟破产案刚过五天，伊梅尔特担心一旦高盛破产会摧毁市场上残存的信心。在一些人看来，如果高盛级别的投行倒闭，通用电气几乎不可能在危机中置身事外。两位银行家坚定地向伊梅尔特保证，高盛不会出问题。
五天后的9月25日，通用电气再次向投资者保证，艰难环境下公司表现良好，但也明显开始出现承受压力的迹象。
针对即将结束的三季度，通用电气下调了业绩预测，以反映“金融服务市场遭遇前所未有的疲软和不可预测性”，而且预计短期内业绩不会改善。通用电气再次表示将努力维持AAA债务评级，伊梅尔特经常公开表示对该评级很骄傲，通用电气还表示当年剩下时间不需要再发行长期债务。
不过有点不吉利的是，通用电气表示要暂停股票回购计划留住现金，9月还花了2.78亿美元回购，而此举背景是公司经营融资越来越困难。通用电气针对该消息提交的监管文件没有什么内容，只是称公司将降低商业票据水平。与此同时继续向公众传递乐观的信息。
通用电气关于降低商业票据规模的新闻稿中称，“尽管需求仍然强劲”，相关举措仍在进行。伊梅尔特和谢林都表示，鉴于当前面临的不确定性，保留更多现金尤其是在通用金融留存现金不仅是谨慎之举，也能“推动实现未来18个月的并购计划。”
天都快塌下来了，通用电气还在考虑并购，很难不令人起疑。
通用电气向市场传达的信息是，与同行相比公司表现良好，也采取了知名的AAA评级公司应有的防范措施。有人问起面向市场增发筹集股本时，伊梅尔特表示不可能。
“重申一遍，我们的融资情况、公司实力和资产负债表实力非常安全。”伊梅尔特对投资者说。“我们对商业模式很有信心，而且已经做好了应对的准备。”
但只靠说并没有什么作用。市场需要通用电气真正让人放心的信号。
通用电气花了大量时间和金钱，让公众相信其在美国人生活中的重要性和核心作用。华尔街却毫不关心，只担心为通用电气带来一半利润的金融服务巨头通用金融。
市场针对商业票据的谨慎态度给通用电气造成了大问题。市场上惊恐的投资者都不愿长时间持有票据，卖出的久期更短。结果是，通用电气不得不更频繁地出售票据，即便未偿还票据总额大幅下降，发行量还是激增。
杰夫·伊梅尔特告诉汉克·保尔森通用电气很难出售久期长过隔夜的票据时，就是这个意思。
根据《纽约时报》发表的电话记录，2008年10月1日星期三下午，伊梅尔特与蒂姆·盖特纳通了电话。谈话持续长达一小时，参与通话的还有通用电气的法律总顾问布拉克特·B·丹尼斯顿三世等人。
跟多数公司一样，通用电气也能够通过银行信贷获得一些现金，即以确定利率提取一定数额的现金。对很多公司来说，银行信贷额可以用来防止现金短缺。
但身处金融危机之中，投资者都在紧张地担心下一个多米诺骨牌倒下，银行的信贷额度并不保险。2007年夏天，美国国家金融服务公司动用115亿美元的信贷额度时，显然是绝望的迹象。随着市场质疑声此起彼伏，通用电气的银行额度实际上毫无用处。想利用银行信贷相当于向天空发射照明弹，几乎肯定会让投资者、客户和交易对手担心其陷入困境一哄而散。一旦出现这种情况，公司可能陷入死亡漩涡。即使公司财务健康，也会因为失控的恐慌而崩溃。
尽管如此，很多人还是认为通用电气并不是雷曼兄弟。通用电气不会倒闭或者宣布破产。仅看通用电气军事业务的规模，政府就不太可能允许其倒闭。通用电气的核心业务，包括医疗、喷气发动机、动力涡轮机和媒体等等仍然稳健，而且都与美国和世界的未来密切相关。通用电气旗下是持有真实资产的实际业务，有真正的客户，而且能赚取现金。
但当时的通用电气确实遇到了麻烦，需要帮助。
本文节选自《熄灯：傲慢、妄想和通用电气的没落》，作者托马斯·格里塔和泰德·曼。经霍顿·米夫林哈考特集团许可使用。版权所有。（财富中文网）
译者：Feb
2008年9月，金融危机全面爆发。银行倒闭，市场崩溃，政府手忙脚乱地出台政策防止美国金融体系全面崩溃。接连受到重创的投资者紧皱眉头，担心别的大型企业也可能轰然倒地。很少有人担心著名工业企业通用电气，但通用电气旗下有个庞大的金融部门：通用金融。
然而危机终于降临，通用电气自大萧条以来首次大幅削减股息，为了维持经营向美国财政部求援，也彻底伤害了投资者心目中曾经坚不可摧的声誉。通用电气与金融服务业务的深度关联桩桩件件公诸于世，对通用电气来说将成为永远的负面因素。
这是通用电气刚刚进入历史上关键时刻的故事。
以下是新书《熄灯：骄傲、妄想和通用电气的没落》（Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric）节选，于7月21日出版。
2008年9月11日晚上，比佛利山温和晴朗。这样的晚上，在洛杉矶摇曳的棕榈树林中，很少有人能想到会遇上杰夫·伊梅尔特。
远在美国另一边海岸，华尔街最聪明的人们正在曼哈顿深谷里与金融危机搏斗，危机导致经济发展停滞，一些全世界最强大的金融公司也因此倒闭。
严格来说，通用电气并不是银行，但旗下金融机构的规模能让美国大多数银行相形见绌。由于通用电气在工业领域占据核心地位，一直对市场传递正面信息，再加上声誉良好，危机不断加深时并未受到关注。
但表面的平静很快就宣告结束。
几天前，伊梅尔特打电话给美国财政部部长汉克·保尔森称，通用电气向投资者出售商业票据时遇到一些问题。（如前所述，票据是企业用来满足经营现金需求的短期债务。）商业票据是通用电气的生命线。通用电气曾经利用优秀的AAA信用评级低成本发行数百亿美元的商业票据，保证通用金融平稳运转。如果通用电气无法顺利发行票据，就无法履行庞大的债务。也就是说，通用电气将资不抵债。
保尔森后来在回忆录《濒临绝境》（On the Brink）中写道，接到电话很震惊。他跟伊梅尔特之前认识。保尔森还在高盛当银行家和高管时，两人打过交道。尽管毕业时间隔了十年，两人都在达特茅斯大学打过橄榄球，而且都读过哈佛商学院。保尔森出了名的严肃，而伊梅尔特似乎总喜欢开玩笑。
这次联系的时机不一般。就在几天前，美国政府接管了抵押贷款巨头房利美和房地美，情况还会变得更糟。对通用电气来说，风暴就在眼前。
而此时，身处比佛利山的伊梅尔特正前往比佛利露台酒店，一家叫“Trattoria Amici”的餐厅。他并不是去见政府官员、银行家或顾问，想办法帮通用电气度过金融灾难。见面的是大导演史蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格、环球影业总裁罗恩·迈耶和梦工厂首席执行官斯泰西·斯奈德。
与会公司向演艺圈媒体保证，聚会纯为社交，不谈交易。
伊梅尔特和前任一样喜欢参与媒体业务。工业巨头通用电气收购了美国全国广播公司，后来又收购环球影业，终于登上了好莱坞红毯，也走进洛克菲勒中心大堂，不禁让人回想起大企业财团能拥有也确实拥有各种业务的时代。
通用电气收购环球影业后，伊梅尔特经常在业务经理参加的大型高管会议上展示大片预告片。业务经理来自各个部门，但并不是每个人都爱看电影公司的大片。
一场会议的问答环节中，一位员工问伊梅尔特身为媒体大亨的感受。伊梅尔特发出标志性的大笑，给出的回复也一如既往尖刻。
“我不是媒体大亨，我是媒体大亨的老板。”他对人们说。
即使在金融危机最严重的时候，伊梅尔特也曾经对人们开玩笑说，“好消息是CNBC在我们旗下”，那段时间新闻滚动播出，CNBC的收视率也直线上升。
此刻的纽约，监管者和各大银行负责人正经历让人难以想象的周末，人们24小时连轴转避免银行系统爆发灾难。周一上午，美林被出售，雷曼兄弟宣布破产。
虽然伊梅尔特人在比佛利山庄，危机期间他也在密切关注通用电气的风险暴露情况，考虑如何度过危机。他曾经向监管机构提出通用电气在商业票据市场面临的困难，但并未通知投资者或公众。事实上，通用电气公开传达的信号恰好相反，一直坚称没有问题。未来几周，通用电气还是不断保证一切正常，但承诺与现实之间的巨大差距不会持续太久。
事实上，2002年太平洋投资管理公司的比尔·格罗斯曾发出的警告正走向紧要关头。他曾表示，通用电气过度依赖商业票据非常危险，因为该公司并未制定应急计划支持业务需求，而很多金融服务基金都有相关计划，或者说强制如此。
信任和信心是金融的基础。人们把钱存入银行，因为非常有信心需要的时候能取出。如果信心出现动摇，人们就会取出钱，不使用银行的服务。如果突然之间普遍出现挤兑，银行就会破产。通用电气当然不希望吓到交易对手，否则可能提升借贷成本，甚至完全冻结市场。
9月14日星期天，通用电气的投资者关系部发信重申公司财务状况健康，并坚称商业票据计划持续“稳健”，信中称“我们没有筹集外部资本，也没有必要”。
但就在第二天晚上，伊梅尔特出现在保尔森的办公室，再次对通用电气潜在的问题发出警报。他告诉财政部部长，商业票据业务正在恶化，通用电气很难出售久期长过隔夜的债券。
周一晚上，纽约联邦储备委员会总裁蒂姆·盖特纳按计划晚上7点召开了会议，议题很简单：“通用电气问题”。
金融危机改变了全世界对商业票据的看法。尽管长期以来，人们一直认为发行商业票据比较简单，非常值得信赖，资金流动性强，但危机引发了人们的担心，也导致商业票据市场大部分业务停滞。如果经济当中有一块完全依靠商业票据运转，就会演变成大问题。
商业票据的崩溃有点类似汽油危机。修建公路和高速公路的前提是天然气供应永远持续。因此，如果所有加油站都空了，到最后汽车运输系统将停止运转。所以如果天然气停止供应，反应是可以预见的：人们恐慌，价格上涨，一些人开始囤积，大多数人无能为力。
商业票据并不是新概念。内战结束后，马库斯·戈德曼和杰弗里·萨克斯就靠着商业票据在华尔街起步。作为融资工具，商业票据能帮企业迅速借贷，防止出现代价高昂的现金短缺，如果有额外现金还可以获得回报，因此商业票据满足了稳定企业现金持有量的需要。
纽约大学斯特恩商学院的两位金融学教授在研究中发现，2007年年初，美国商业票据余额约为2万亿美元。就在几个月后，也就是7月底，贝尔斯登两家对冲基金因为次级抵押贷款出现巨额亏损而破产，其他基金也纷纷重新评估持有的类似抵押贷款并将其减记。相关举措引发了一连串恐慌和货币贬值。一些基金暂停客户赎回，因为无法迅速评估资产价值。
由于投资者对商业票据突然谨慎，抵押贷款危机波及了其他企业，其中很大一部分使用抵押贷款作为抵押。在此背景下，一年后雷曼兄弟在一个周末内破产，再次给市场造成冲击。当潮水退去，持有雷曼之前出售的商业票据的投资者发现已经赔得精光。
雷曼破产最明显的影响，就是一只拥有650亿美元资产的货币市场基金遭受重大损失，净资产价值跌破1美元，也让基金这个曾经可靠的投资渠道信心动摇。人们拼命地赎回份额。直到9月19日美国政府下场救市，表示将为类似基金的投资提供保险，银行全面大挤兑才停止。
救市能解决挤兑问题，响起的警钟却无法平息。如果商业票据的大卖家能一夜之间破产，投资者对风险的评估也会彻底改变。货币市场基金开始调降持有商业票据的份额，由于供应保持不变，需求下降。进入市场发行票据越发困难和昂贵。对于像通用电气一样大量使用商业票据的企业来说，问题迫在眉睫。
9月20日星期六上午，杰夫·伊梅尔特和基思·谢林前往通用电气位于费尔菲尔德的总部，会见了两位来自曼哈顿的银行家。高盛的高级顾问大卫·所罗门和约翰·温伯格希望讨论眼下的危机，以及通用电气可能采取的防御措施。随着会议持续进行，很明显伊梅尔特心中有其他顾虑。
高盛会不会倒闭？这对通用电气意味着什么？令人震惊的雷曼兄弟破产案刚过五天，伊梅尔特担心一旦高盛破产会摧毁市场上残存的信心。在一些人看来，如果高盛级别的投行倒闭，通用电气几乎不可能在危机中置身事外。两位银行家坚定地向伊梅尔特保证，高盛不会出问题。
五天后的9月25日，通用电气再次向投资者保证，艰难环境下公司表现良好，但也明显开始出现承受压力的迹象。
针对即将结束的三季度，通用电气下调了业绩预测，以反映“金融服务市场遭遇前所未有的疲软和不可预测性”，而且预计短期内业绩不会改善。通用电气再次表示将努力维持AAA债务评级，伊梅尔特经常公开表示对该评级很骄傲，通用电气还表示当年剩下时间不需要再发行长期债务。
不过有点不吉利的是，通用电气表示要暂停股票回购计划留住现金，9月还花了2.78亿美元回购，而此举背景是公司经营融资越来越困难。通用电气针对该消息提交的监管文件没有什么内容，只是称公司将降低商业票据水平。与此同时继续向公众传递乐观的信息。
通用电气关于降低商业票据规模的新闻稿中称，“尽管需求仍然强劲”，相关举措仍在进行。伊梅尔特和谢林都表示，鉴于当前面临的不确定性，保留更多现金尤其是在通用金融留存现金不仅是谨慎之举，也能“推动实现未来18个月的并购计划。”
天都快塌下来了，通用电气还在考虑并购，很难不令人起疑。
通用电气向市场传达的信息是，与同行相比公司表现良好，也采取了知名的AAA评级公司应有的防范措施。有人问起面向市场增发筹集股本时，伊梅尔特表示不可能。
“重申一遍，我们的融资情况、公司实力和资产负债表实力非常安全。”伊梅尔特对投资者说。“我们对商业模式很有信心，而且已经做好了应对的准备。”
但只靠说并没有什么作用。市场需要通用电气真正让人放心的信号。
通用电气花了大量时间和金钱，让公众相信其在美国人生活中的重要性和核心作用。华尔街却毫不关心，只担心为通用电气带来一半利润的金融服务巨头通用金融。
市场针对商业票据的谨慎态度给通用电气造成了大问题。市场上惊恐的投资者都不愿长时间持有票据，卖出的久期更短。结果是，通用电气不得不更频繁地出售票据，即便未偿还票据总额大幅下降，发行量还是激增。
杰夫·伊梅尔特告诉汉克·保尔森通用电气很难出售久期长过隔夜的票据时，就是这个意思。
根据《纽约时报》发表的电话记录，2008年10月1日星期三下午，伊梅尔特与蒂姆·盖特纳通了电话。谈话持续长达一小时，参与通话的还有通用电气的法律总顾问布拉克特·B·丹尼斯顿三世等人。
跟多数公司一样，通用电气也能够通过银行信贷获得一些现金，即以确定利率提取一定数额的现金。对很多公司来说，银行信贷额可以用来防止现金短缺。
但身处金融危机之中，投资者都在紧张地担心下一个多米诺骨牌倒下，银行的信贷额度并不保险。2007年夏天，美国国家金融服务公司动用115亿美元的信贷额度时，显然是绝望的迹象。随着市场质疑声此起彼伏，通用电气的银行额度实际上毫无用处。想利用银行信贷相当于向天空发射照明弹，几乎肯定会让投资者、客户和交易对手担心其陷入困境一哄而散。一旦出现这种情况，公司可能陷入死亡漩涡。即使公司财务健康，也会因为失控的恐慌而崩溃。
尽管如此，很多人还是认为通用电气并不是雷曼兄弟。通用电气不会倒闭或者宣布破产。仅看通用电气军事业务的规模，政府就不太可能允许其倒闭。通用电气的核心业务，包括医疗、喷气发动机、动力涡轮机和媒体等等仍然稳健，而且都与美国和世界的未来密切相关。通用电气旗下是持有真实资产的实际业务，有真正的客户，而且能赚取现金。
但当时的通用电气确实遇到了麻烦，需要帮助。
本文节选自《熄灯：傲慢、妄想和通用电气的没落》，作者托马斯·格里塔和泰德·曼。经霍顿·米夫林哈考特集团许可使用。版权所有。（财富中文网）
译者：Feb
By September 2008, the financial crisis was in full bloom. Banks were failing, markets were reeling, and the government scrambled to prevent a total collapse of the U.S. financial system. Battered investors winced at the expectation that another corporate behemoth might suddenly fall. Few were looking in the direction of General Electric, a world-famous industrial company sitting on a massive finance division: GE Capital.
When it was all over, GE had slashed its dividend for the first time since the Great Depression, gone hat in hand to the Treasury for help staying afloat, and permanently injured its once impregnable reputation among investors. GE’s entangled reliance on its financial services business was painfully exposed, a burden that would never quite go away for the industrial conglomerate.
This is the story of the early days of that pivotal moment in the company’s history.
Below is an excerpt from our new book, Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric, available July 21.
***
Beverly Hills was mild and clear on the evening of Sept. 11, 2008. The last person you expected to see among the swaying palms of Los Angeles on that particular night was Jeff Immelt.
On the other side of the country, huddled in the deep canyons of downtown Manhattan, the most powerful minds on Wall Street were wrestling with a financial contagion that had choked the economy and would topple some of the world’s mightiest financial companies.
General Electric wasn’t technically a bank, but its finance organization dwarfed most banks in the country. Because of its industrial core and positive messaging to the market about its condition, not to mention its reputation, the company wasn’t on anybody’s radar as the crisis deepened.
But that ended quickly.
A few days earlier, Immelt had made a call to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to tell him that GE was having some problems selling its commercial paper to investors. (As noted earlier, the paper is short-term debt that companies use to meet the cash needs of their operations.) Commercial paper was GE’s lifeblood. It used its stellar triple-A credit rating to get cheap access to tens of billions of dollars in commercial paper to keep GE Capital running smoothly. If GE couldn’t access that market, it couldn’t meet its massive obligations. It would be technically insolvent.
Paulson was alarmed by the call, he later wrote in his memoir On the Brink. He and Immelt had a history together. They did business when Paulson was a banker and executive at Goldman Sachs. Both had played football at Dartmouth, although they had graduated a decade apart, and both attended Harvard Business School. Paulson was known to be dead serious, while Immelt always seemed to have time for a joke.
These were not ordinary times. Just days earlier, the U.S. government had seized control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and things were about to get a lot worse. For GE, the storm was in sight.
In Beverly Hills, Immelt was heading to the Hotel Beverly Terrace and a restaurant called Trattoria Amici. He wasn’t meeting government officials, bankers, or advisers to help get GE through the financial apocalypse. Rather, he was meeting with Steven Spielberg, along with Universal Studios president Ron Meyer and DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider.
It was purely social, the companies assured the show business press, not a deal meeting.
Immelt, like his predecessor, enjoyed being involved in the media business. Owning NBC, and eventually Universal as well, had brought the industrial giant onto the red carpets of Hollywood and into the halls of Rockefeller Center, recalling the days of giant corporate conglomerates that could, and did, own anything.
After GE bought Universal Studios, Immelt used to show off previews of blockbuster movies coming out of the division at the large executive leadership meetings of internal managers. The workers in the crowd, who were from all divisions, weren’t always impressed with the highlighted big-budget output of the movie studio.
During a Q&A session in one meeting, an employee asked Immelt how it felt to be a media mogul. The boss gave a characteristic full laugh and snarky response.
“I’m not a media mogul, I’m the media mogul’s boss,” he told the group.
Even in the depths of the financial crisis, Immelt had joked to people that “the good news is that we own CNBC,” which saw skyrocketing ratings during the never-ending news cycle.
Meanwhile, back in New York, regulators and the heads of the major banks were facing an inconceivable weekend of round-the-clock work to avoid catastrophe in the banking system. By Monday morning, Merrill Lynch was sold and Lehman Brothers had declared bankruptcy.
He might have been in Beverly Hills, but Immelt was closely following GE’s exposure and navigation during the crisis. He had flagged the difficulties that GE was having in the commercial paper market to regulators, but he hadn’t communicated those concerns to investors or the public. In fact, GE was explicitly communicating the opposite by insisting that it wasn’t having problems. The coming weeks would bring recurring assurances from GE that everything was fine, but the wide gap between those assurances and reality couldn’t remain open for very long.
In fact, precisely what Pimco’s Bill Gross had warned about in 2002 was now coming to a head. He had said that GE’s dependence on commercial paper was dangerous because the company wasn’t fully backing up its needs with a contingency plan, as many financial services funds did, or were required to do.
Trust and confidence are everything in finance. People put their money in a bank only because they are very confident that they can get it back if needed. If their confidence wavers, they’ll pull their money out and stop using the bank. When that happens all at once, the bank fails. For its part, GE certainly didn’t want its counterparties to get spooked; that could increase the cost of borrowing or even freeze the market altogether.
On Sept. 14, a Sunday, GE’s investor relations department issued a letter reiterating that the company was in healthy condition and maintaining that its commercial paper programs continued to be “robust” and that “we are not raising external capital and have no need to.”
But the very next day, Immelt showed up at Paulson’s office in the evening to again sound the alarm about potential problems at GE. He told the Treasury secretary that the commercial paper operation was getting worse and that GE was having a hard time selling debt that lasted longer than overnight.
That Monday night, New York Federal Reserve president Tim Geithner had a meeting on his schedule for 7:00 p.m. with a simple title: “GE Issues.”
The financial crisis changed the world’s view of commercial paper. Although it had long been considered easy to access, fully trustworthy, and a liquid source of funding, the crisis raised doubts and caused much of the commercial paper market to disappear. This is a real problem when an entire portion of the economy is depending on it to function.
The collapse of commercial paper was similar to a gasoline crisis. Roads and highways were built with the assumption that gas will always be available. So if all the gas stations go empty, the entire automobile transportation system eventually stops working. And when the gas stops flowing, the reaction is predictable: People panic, prices rise, and some start hoarding, but there’s little that most people can do.
Commercial paper was not a new concept. It was how Marcus Goldman and Jeffrey Sachs got their start on Wall Street after the Civil War. As a tool that allowed companies to quickly borrow or lend, preventing costly cash shortages and bringing them a return when there was extra cash, commercial paper met a need to stabilize the cash holdings of businesses.
In their research, two finance professors from New York University’s Stern School of Business found that there was about $2 trillion in commercial paper outstanding in the United States at the beginning of 2007. The first disruption began just months later, in late July, when two Bear Stearns hedge funds went bankrupt because of massive losses on subprime mortgages, causing other funds to reassess their own holdings in similar mortgages and mark them down. The moves triggered a cascade of fear and devaluations. Some funds halted client withdrawals because they couldn’t value assets fast enough.
The mortgage contagion infected other businesses as investors suddenly became cautious about using commercial paper, a large portion of which used mortgages as collateral. This set the stage for another shock to the market a year later when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt over a weekend. Investors holding commercial paper sold by Lehman found themselves without a chair when the music stopped.
The most notable impact of Lehman’s failure was the major losses taken by a money-market fund, the Reserve Primary Fund, with $65 billion in assets, when its shares fell below $1, breaking yet another source of a once-dependable investment. People rushed to salvage anything they could by trying to get their money back; it was a full-edged run on the bank that stopped on Sept. 19 only because the U.S. government jumped into the fray and said that it would insure investments in such funds.
This fixed the problem—but you can’t unring a bell. If major sellers of commercial paper could go bankrupt overnight, that changed every investor’s assessment of the risks involved. When money-market funds began deemphasizing commercial paper in their holdings, demand dropped as supply remained unchanged. It became harder and more expensive to access the market. For a massive user of commercial paper like General Electric, this was suddenly an existential problem.
On the morning of Sept. 20, a Saturday, Jeff Immelt and Keith Sherin traveled to GE’s Fairfield headquarters to meet with two bankers coming up from Manhattan. David Solomon and John Weinberg, top advisers from Goldman Sachs, arrived expecting a meeting about the crisis at hand and a discussion of potential defensive moves for GE. As the meeting got under way, it was clear that Immelt had other concerns.
Was Goldman Sachs going out of business and what would that mean for GE? Five days after Lehman’s shocking bankruptcy, Immelt was worried that a Goldman collapse would destroy all remaining confidence in the markets. For some, if a bank like Goldman went down, there was little chance that GE could stay above the fray. The bankers left Immelt with a strong assurance that Goldman wasn’t going anywhere.
Five days later, on Sept. 25, GE again tried to reassure investors that it was performing well in a tough environment, but it was also clearly starting to show signs of stress.
GE lowered its financial projections for the soon-to-end third quarter to reflect “the unprecedented weakness and unpredictability in the financial services markets,” which it didn’t expect to improve anytime soon. GE again backed its commitment to its triple-A debt rating, an often-stated source of pride for Immelt, and said that it wouldn’t need to raise additional long-term debt for the rest of the year.
But GE also ominously showed that it was moving to retain cash by suspending its stock buyback program, on which it had spent $278 million in September—even as it faced an increasingly difficult time funding its operations. GE’s required regulatory filing on the news was dry, saying that the company would reduce its commercial paper levels. But its messaging to the public was more upbeat.
In referring to the commercial paper reduction, GE’s press release said that it was making the moves “although demand remains strong” for its debt. Both Immelt and Sherin made the point that retaining more cash, especially in GE Capital, was not only prudent, given the ongoing uncertainty, but would also make it much easier to “participate in M&A [mergers and acquisitions] that we plan on doing over the next 18 months.”
It was dubious at best that GE might be considering buying companies while the sky was falling.
The marketing message was that GE was performing well compared to its peers, and that it was taking the precautions that would be expected of a highly regarded triple-A-rated company. When asked, Immelt ruled out raising equity capital by selling shares to the market.
“Again, we feel very secure about how the funding looks and the strength of the company and the strength of the balance sheet,” Immelt told investors. “We really believe in our business model and feel secure that we’re well positioned here.”
But the spin wasn’t working. The market needed a real sign of confidence in GE.
The company spent a lot of time and money on convincing the general public of its importance and central role in American life. Wall Street was indifferent to that and worried only about GE Capital, the financial services leviathan that produced half of GE’s profits.
The continued caution around commercial paper was causing real problems for GE. In the market, spooked investors didn’t want to hold the paper for too long, so it was being sold for shorter durations. As a result, companies had to sell paper more often, causing the number of issuances to skyrocket even as the amount of total outstanding paper plummeted.
This was what Jeff Immelt meant when he told Hank Paulson that GE was having a hard time selling paper for any duration longer than overnight.
The afternoon of Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008, Immelt talked on the phone with Tim Geithner, according to phone records published by the New York Times. Also on the hourlong talk was GE’s general counsel Brackett B. Denniston III, among others.
Like most companies, GE had access to some cash through bank credit lines, an arrangement that allowed it to draw up to a certain amount at a determined rate. For many companies, bank credit lines serve as insurance against a cash crunch.
But in the financial crisis, when nervous investors feared any sign of the next domino to fall, these bank lines weren’t always a lifeline. When Countrywide Financial tapped its credit lines for $11.5 billion in the summer of 2007, it was a clear sign of desperation. With the questions swirling around the market, GE’s bank lines were now effectively useless. Drawing on them would be the equivalent of shooting a flare into the sky and would almost certainly send investors, customers, and counterparties running away for fear that GE was in trouble. That could start a death spiral for the company. Even a healthy company can be destroyed by a runaway panic.
All this being said, in the minds of many, GE wasn’t Lehman Brothers. It wasn’t going to fail or have to declare bankruptcy. The extent of its military business alone made it unlikely that the government would allow GE to implode. The core businesses were considered strong—health care, jet engines, power turbines, and media—and they were all seen as solid bets for the future of America and the world. GE had real businesses owning real assets with real customers, and it was producing cash.
But GE was in fact in trouble. And it needed some help.
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Excerpted from LIGHTS OUT: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann. Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
