《红色通缉》：布劳德与俄罗斯寡头的第一次交锋一触即发

接着讲《红色通缉》作者比尔布劳德在俄罗斯的投资和与寡头斗法的经历。比尔布劳德在俄罗斯投资是从低价收购俄罗斯政府向民众免费赠与的私有化代金券开始的。当时的西方投资人和投资机构对这种形式的证券完全没有认识，不知道该如何定价，不敢参与。而领到这些代金券的普通俄罗斯民众也不知道拿它来干什么。一些底层民众非常乐意，以极其低廉的价格将这些代表着国有企业股份的代金券转手，换一瓶伏特加来喝。使得收购这些代金券具备了极大的投资价值。这一点被作者比尔布劳德敏锐的发现了，并获得相当大的成功投资。于是他决定继续扩大自己在俄罗斯的投资计划。但他发现，如果背靠大公司来做这件事情，自己只能分得极小的利润，完全是为他人做嫁衣。于是决定自己建立投资基金。但是虽然有过几次成功的战立，但他毕竟是个小角色。在经过了一番挫折之后，终于有一位中东背景的富豪充当他的伯乐，启动了他的俄罗斯投资事业。

而这时他也在伦敦结识了一位犹太女孩，并且组成了第一个家庭，可以说事业家庭双双互上正轨，唯一不确定的就是俄罗斯的政局。但随着叶利钦在一九九六年的总统大选第二轮投票中击败了久加洛夫，共产党重新执政的可能性被排除了。俄罗斯的私有化会继续进行下去。布劳德带着他新成立的投资基金，开始了开始寻找证券市场上的猎物。

作者的布劳德得到第一个有意思的消息是一家大型的石油天然气公司，它的股票价格只有同类公司的十分之一。根据之前在波兰以及投资代金券的经验，如此巨大的差价，让作者感受到了其中包含着巨大的机会。当然，与普通散户不同，许多散户也喜欢专买垃圾股，认为低价股一定是被低估的。但实际上在证券市场中，大多数垃圾股价格低自有其原因。作为掌管着上亿美元资产的基金，肯定也不能像普通散户一样，看见低价垃圾股就往里面冲。于是布劳德开始调查这家俄罗斯石油天然气公司。这家石油天然气公司的老板是典型的俄罗斯寡头，除了经营产业之外，还兼任俄罗斯联邦的副总理。关于这家公司的情况，从公开信息上很难看出什么问题。该公司股票唯一的差别就是这些股票被称为普通股，按照规定他们没有投票权，但这对投资基金来说不是问题。那么会不会是这家公司掌握的油田的数量或者产油的品质落后于他的同行呢？但这方面的资料从通过询问公司和在俄罗斯查询资料都无法得出答案。作为一个初来乍到俄罗斯的投资者，布劳德还不知道如何从俄罗斯本地获取这些敏感而有价值的信息。

不过，幸运的是，布劳德在斯坦福的一位老同学帮了他的忙，他向他提供了一批研究地质和石油专业的学报过刊。而在这些杂志当中，作者找到了关于俄罗斯这家石油公司详细的报告。从这些研究数据可以看出，这家石油公司的拥有的油田的储量和品质与另一家在俄罗斯排名前列的石油公司不相上下。而后者的股票当中，是前者的近十倍。取得了扎实了数据基础之后，作者布劳德认定比这是一次巨大的投资机会。于是大量的购入了这家公司股票，而这笔投资在之后果然回报丰厚，股价上涨了好几倍。

但是这一次布劳德的投资并没有像前几次那样一帆风顺。正当他为自己再一次的抓住机会而庆幸的时候，一个消息传来，控制这家石油公司的老板，也就是之前提到那个寡头做出决定要增发股票，而且明文规定禁止布劳德的基金购买这些增发股票。那么这就意味着布劳德的基金之前购买的那些股票价值被稀释，价格将会下跌，基金将会受到损失。而那位寡头这样做的原因，按照布劳德的分析，并不是出于商业利益，尽管股价上涨给寡头带来的利润远远超过布劳德的基金所获得的。因为他掌握着更大量的股票。增发股票稀释股权，并不能给他带来更多的利益。他这样做，纯粹就是因为布拉德是一个毫不相干的外国人。他不想这样一个毫不相干的外国人，从他这里分走哪怕是一点残羹冷治而不知感激。

这也是俄罗斯民族不同于西方商业民族的民族性，他们对公平没有什么想法，他们只崇尚权力和强者。这也让作者第一次感受到了尽管俄罗斯的私有化转型充满了各种机会，但俄罗斯人并不愿意遵守规则，他们更崇尚的是权力和强者，但初出茅庐的布拉德这次不决决定不会俯首称臣，而是和这位寡头硬扛到底，这也成为了他与俄罗斯寡头的第一次交锋。

---

Next, the author of "Red Wanted" Bill Browder's experience of investing in Russia and fighting oligarchs. Bill Browder started investing in Russia by buying cheap privatization vouchers that the Russian government gave away for free. At that time, Western investors and investment institutions had no understanding of this form of securities, did not know how to price, and did not dare to participate. And ordinary Russians who received the vouchers had no idea what to do with them. Some of the lower classes are more than happy to swap these vouchers, which represent shares in state-owned companies, for a bottle of vodka at a fraction of the price. Making the purchase of these vouchers a great investment value. This point has been astutely discovered by author Bill Browder, and has been funded with considerable success. So he decided to continue to expand his investment plans in Russia. However, he found that if he relied on a large company to do this, he could only share a small profit, and it was entirely for others to make wedding clothes. So he decided to set up his own investment fund. But despite several successful campaigns, he was still a minor player. After some setbacks, he finally got a wealthy man with a Middle Eastern background to act as his beau and start his Russian investment career.

At this time, he also met a Jewish girl in London, and formed the first family, it can be said that both career and family are on the right track, the only uncertainty is the Russian political situation. But when Yeltsin defeated Dyugalov in the second round of the 1996 presidential election, the possibility of a Communist return to power was ruled out. Privatisation in Russia will continue. Browder, with his newly formed investment fund, began to hunt for prey in the stock market.

The first interesting piece of news Browder got was that of a large oil and gas company whose stock price was one-tenth that of its peers. Based on previous experience in Poland and investing in vouchers, the author felt that such a large spread contained a huge opportunity. Of course, unlike ordinary retail investors, many retail investors also like to buy junk stocks, believing that penny stocks must be undervalued. But in fact, in the stock market, most junk stocks have their own reasons for low prices. As a fund with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets, it certainly can't rush into low-priced junk stocks like ordinary retail investors. Browder began investigating the Russian oil and gas company. The head of the oil and gas company is a typical Russian oligarch who, in addition to running his own business, is also deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation. There is little to suggest from public information about the company. The only difference in the company's shares is that they are called common shares and they have no voting rights, but that's not a problem for investment funds. Could it be that the company lags behind its peers in the number of fields it controls or the quality of the oil it produces? However, this information can not be answered by asking the company and searching the information in Russia. As a new investor in Russia, Browder did not know how to obtain such sensitive and valuable information locally.

Fortunately, however, Browder was helped by an old classmate at Stanford, who provided him with a batch of back journals on geology and petroleum. In these magazines, the authors found detailed reports about the Russian oil company. From these research data, it can be seen that the reserves and quality of the oil fields owned by this oil company are comparable to that of another leading oil company in Russia. Among the latter, there are nearly ten times as many. With a solid data base, Browder decided that this was a huge investment opportunity. So he bought a lot of shares in the company, and the investment paid off well, and the stock price rose several times.

But Browder's investment has not been as smooth this time as the previous ones. Just as he was congratulating himself for once again seizing the opportunity, news came that the owner of the oil company, the oligarch mentioned earlier, had decided to issue additional shares, and Browder's fund was prohibited from buying those additional shares. That would mean the value of the shares Browder's fund had bought would be diluted, the price would fall, and the fund would lose money. The oligarch's reasons for doing so, according to Browder's analysis, were not business interests, even though the rising stock price gave the oligarch far more profit than Browder's fund received. Because he owns a bigger chunk of the stock. Issuing additional shares to dilute the equity does not bring him more benefits. He did so simply because Brad was an unrelated foreigner. He did not want such an unconcerned foreigner to take even a small piece of the pie from him without being grateful.

This is also the national character of the Russian nation, which is different from the Western commercial nations, they have no idea of fairness, they only admire power and the strong. This also makes the author feel for the first time that although Russia's privatization transformation is full of various opportunities, Russians are not willing to abide by the rules, they are more advocating power and strong, but the newly immature Brad does not decide to bow down, but to carry the oligarch to the end, which also becomes his first confrontation with the Russian oligarch.