Ant Financial, the digital payments affiliate of China’s Alibaba, has raised its bid for MoneyGram by 36 per cent to $1.2bn a month after Euronet Worldwide gate-crashed its original $880m offer.
在Euronet Worldwide不请自来地加入竞购一个月后，中国阿里巴巴集团(Alibaba)关联企业、数字支付公司蚂蚁金服(Ant Financial)将其对速汇金(MoneyGram)的出价提高了36%，从最初的8.8亿美元提升至12亿美元。
The battle for Texas-based MoneyGram characterises many of the challenges facing Chinese mergers and acquisitions. Rival bidder Euronet and US politicians alike flagged the political risks of selling to a Chinese entity, while Ant pre-emptively raised $3bn overseas to avoid being snagged by China’s capital controls.围绕总部位于美国德克萨斯州的速汇金展开的这场收购大战，凸显出中国在并购方面面临的许多挑战。竞购对手Euronet和美国政界人士都强调了将速汇金出售给中国实体的政治风险。同时，蚂蚁金服预防性地在中国境外筹集了30亿美元，以避免受到中国资本管制的掣肘。Alibaba, founded by former English teacher and now multi-billionaire Jack Ma, is among China’s most acquisitive companies as it seeks to take its vast domestic business global.
马云(Jack Ma)创立的阿里巴巴，是中国收购最积极的企业之一。该集团试图将其庞大的国内业务推向全球。马云曾是一名英语教师，目前已身家数十亿。MoneyGram is Ant’s first bid in the US, although it has accrued a string of stakes in mobile payment companies in India, Thailand and South Korea over the past year. Alipay, initially set up to service Alibaba’s ecommerce operations — much as eBay spawned the need for PayPal in the US — dominates China’s huge mobile payments market.速汇金是蚂蚁金服在美国展开的首次收购，尽管该公司过去一年已入股了一连串的印度、泰国和韩国移动支付公司。蚂蚁金服旗下的支付宝(Alipay)主导着中国庞大的移动支付市场。支付宝的设立初衷是为了服务于阿里巴巴的电子商务业务，这与eBay在美国催生了设立PayPal的需要很类似。Owning MoneyGram would allow the fast-growing Chinese group to connect with an international network of 2.4bn accounts.将速汇金收入囊中将令这家快速增长的中国集团得以对接一个拥有24亿账户的国际网络。Euronet sought to kill the deal, making a higher bid and arguing that an acquisition by a fellow US company would involve fewer regulatory issues than one by a Chinese company. Flagging up what it saw as a big execution risk, it included a hefty break fee.Euronet试图阻止这笔交易，它开出了更高的价码，并声称与由中国企业来收购相比，由美国本土企业来收购遭遇的监管问题将会更少。Euronet还开出了高额的“分手费”，以强调它眼中巨大的执行风险。US lawmakers urged the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US to conduct a “full and thorough” review of the deal.多名美国议员敦促美国外国投资委员会(Committee on Foreign Investment)“全面而彻底地”审核这笔交易。However, Ant has come back fighting. Its new bid prices MoneyGram shares at $18 each, up from an initial offer of $13.25, the companies said in a joint statement. Euronet had offered $15.20 a share. Shares in MoneyGram shares closed at $16.51 on Thursday.不过，蚂蚁金服已展开了反击。它和速汇金在一份联合声明中表示，蚂蚁金服新开出的价格将速汇金的股价定为每股18美元，比最初的出价每股13.25美元要高。Euronet的出价为每股15.20美元。上周四，速汇金的股票收于每股16.51美元。