美国国家公共电台 NPR--Planet Money's 'The Indicator': How Musk bought Twitter with other people's money

Planet Money's 'The Indicator': How Musk¹ bought Twitter with other people's money

Transcript²

Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, but almost a third of it was in bank loans. He used a leveraged⁴ buyout strategy, which means Twitter, not Musk, is on the hook to pay back the loans.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

Elon Musk may be the richest person in the world, but he only used some of his cash to buy Twitter for 44 billion bucks⁵. A third of it was borrowed from banks. As Wailin Wong and Darian Woods of our daily economic podcast explain, it's actually Twitter, not Musk, who's on the hook for those loans.

WAILIN WONG, BYLINE⁶: When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, he used a kind of deal that was really popular in the 1980s - the leveraged buyout. This is typically where an investment firm acquires a company using borrowed money, other people's money. That borrowed money is the leverage³. What makes a leveraged buyout unique is who ends up on the hook for the borrowed money. Now, the money typically comes from banks, but it's not the investment firm that borrows the money; it's the company getting acquired.

DARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: I mean, this is such a mind-bender. Like, the company is taking on debt so that itself can get bought. And you might wonder why a company would agree to a leveraged buyout. Well, sometimes, it's an exit strategy, you know, for the company's owners or the company's shareholders⁷. And in Twitter's case, Elon was offering a price well above where the company's shares were trading at the time. Carl Tack⁸ is a former lawyer and investment banker. He's now an adjunct professor of finance at the College of William & Mary.

CARL TACK: The end result is that that loan is a loan not to Elon Musk; it's a loan to Twitter.

WONG: So there are lots of ways the Twitter deal didn't resemble a typical leveraged buyout. Take, for example, who's doing the acquiring. There's no investment firm involved, just Elon. He and some co-investors⁹ put up their own money for most of the 44 billion. The remaining amount, 13 billion, was borrowed from a group of banks. That's the money Twitter is now on the hook for. And Carl says the company's yearly interest payments could go up by almost a billion dollars. Twitter is going to need a lot of cash to make those payments.

TACK: I'm not privy¹⁰ to the business plan that he showed the banks, but I'm sure they convinced themselves that there was enough cash flow here to at least pay interest on this debt for a while. And they were willing to make a bet that Elon Musk was going to, you know, substantially improve the profitability and increase the value of this business. I don't know how they feel about it today, but that was a bet they were willing to take at the time.

WOODS: There was another bet that the banks made when they provided the $13 billion in financing, and that's that they'll be able to offload the debt. And that's another part of leveraged buyouts. The investment banks that make the loans don't want to keep the loans on their books. They want to sell it to other investors.

WONG: So to sum up, here was the plan going into the takeover. Elon turns Twitter into a moneymaking machine. The banks that provided the financing sell those loans to other investors. And everyone sails into the sunset on their luxury yachts. But this Plan A is looking kind of shaky right now. This past month, we've seen fleeing advertisers and mass layoffs¹¹. Carl says the layoffs aren't just the fat trimming we typically see in those buyouts, but it's actually cutting into vital organs.

WOODS: Despite this ongoing¹² mayhem at Twitter, Carl says the company probably has a few years before it runs into any real trouble paying back the $13 billion. And if that happens, Twitter could try to refinance its debt.

WONG: Elon has already talked about bankruptcy¹³. If that were to happen, the banks could go after Twitter's assets, not Elon's, because, remember, he's not the one who borrowed the money. Twitter did. He could, however, lose the 20-some billion dollars of his own money that he put into the deal.

WOODS: Darian Woods.

WONG: Wailin Wong, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANCHORSONG'S "CEREMONY")

1 musk   

n.麝香, 能发出麝香的各种各样的植物，香猫

参考例句：

• Musk is used for perfume and stimulant.麝香可以用作香料和兴奋剂。
• She scented her clothes with musk.她用麝香使衣服充满了香味。

2 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

3 leverage   

n.力量，影响；杠杆作用，杠杆的力量

参考例句：

• We'll have to use leverage to move this huge rock.我们不得不借助杠杆之力来移动这块巨石。
• He failed in the project because he could gain no leverage. 因为他没有影响力，他的计划失败了。

4 leveraged   

促使…改变( leverage的过去式和过去分词 )； [美国英语]杠杆式投机，（使）举债经营，（使）利用贷款进行投机

参考例句：

• Chrysler has traditionally been a highly leveraged company. 克莱斯勒一向是一家周转十分灵活的公司。
• Leveraged recaps have become popular for a number of reasons. 杠杆资本重组的大行其道有好几个原因。

5 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

7 shareholders   

n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
• the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任

8 tack   

n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝

参考例句：

• He is hammering a tack into the wall to hang a picture.他正往墙上钉一枚平头钉用来挂画。
• We are going to tack the map on the wall.我们打算把这张地图钉在墙上。

9 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

10 privy   

adj.私用的；隐密的

参考例句：

• Only three people,including a policeman,will be privy to the facts.只会允许3个人，其中包括一名警察，了解这些内情。
• Very few of them were privy to the details of the conspiracy.他们中很少有人知道这一阴谋的详情。

11 layoffs   

临时解雇( layoff的名词复数 )； 停工，停止活动

参考例句：

• Textile companies announced 2000 fresh layoffs last week. 各纺织公司上周宣布再次裁员两千人。
• Stock prices broke when the firm suddenly announced layoffs. 当公司突然宣布裁员时，股票价格便大跌

12 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

13 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。