歐元區(qū)跨國公司的現(xiàn)金管理和集團(tuán)內(nèi)的折扣【外文翻譯】

1、本科畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)）外 文 翻 譯原文：multinational cash management and conglomerate discounts in the euro zone introductionwe discuss in this paper the consequences of the changing financial market circumstances for multinational companies. in particular we will concentrate on the consequences for cash management wi

2、thin multinational euro zone firms.cash management is a topic that is addressed mainly by practitioners and by scholars who study cash management practices or conduct financial modelling, but it can also be approached from a theoretical perspective. in this respect two distinct approaches can be dis

3、tinguished. firstly, cash management can be considered as a stand-alone topic within the management of short-term assets and the question is addressed how much cash is needed in comparison to other liquid assets. it is the main approach in textbooks on short-term financial management (e.g. hill and

4、sartoris, 1995; maness and zietlow, 1998). secondly, cash management theories can start with the perfect markets assumptions of modigliani and miller (modigliani and miller, 1958; miller and modigliani, 1961). the theory then suggests that companies need no cash at all unless market imperfections ur

5、ge companies to hold it (van horne, 2002). transaction costs involved in frequently attracting additional debt and/or equity -e.g. if cash funds are needed to pay suppliers or employees- are high. therefore it may be worthwhile to hold cash funds, even if these funds do not generate any return. also

6、 bankruptcy costs come to the fore as a reason for cash holdings. if creditors are not paid in time, they may force the company into bankruptcy and the shareholders and managers try to avoid the concomitant costs.in this paper we follow the latter approach. the developments within the euro zone have

7、 reduced market imperfections and we evaluate how these have affected cash management in multinationals. we add the context of a multinational, a firm that has operating subsidiaries in at least four countries, because major developments in the financial markets of the euro zone have their impact ac

8、ross countries and do not only affect local companies. moreover, multinationals are more complex than single country companies and it is usual to find a corporate headquarter and local subsidiaries. managers of local subsidiaries can be considered to be the agents of the board members at the multina

9、tional headquarter, while the board members in their turn are agents of the shareholders. in particular the agency relationships between local and headquarter managers is important here because the control of cash is a determinant in exercising power. managers of local subsidiaries might like to kee

10、p as much cash as possible within their realm. according to jensen (1986), free cash (flows) may introduce agency costs. moreover, the investment in cash, bank accounts and short term paper does not give high returns. for these reasons the value of the multinational may decline if unnecessary amount

11、s of cash are left at the local level. in that case the internal financial market within the multinational is inadequate and the company may show a conglomerate discount when compared to a comparable set of stand-alone companies.centralization and disintermediationtypically, the cash management syst

12、em of a multinational in the euro zone has traditionally been structured in a simple way. in every country where the company had substantial operating facilities, the treasury of the affiliate often largely did its own cash management (soenen and aggarwal, 1989; tse and westerman, 1997). this was a

13、rational approach because of the imperfections in the european capital markets. after liberalization, deregulation and the introduction of a single currency, these market imperfections have diminished quite significantly along with the costs of centralizing the finance function.centralizationcentral

14、ization offers various advantages (kenyon et. al., 1992; brown, 1997; miles,1997). firstly, concentrating financing gives economies of scale and negotiating power. secondly, because cash balances, cash flows and risk exposures are decreased, financing costs are reduced further. thirdly, leading and

15、lagging of intracompany cash flows can more easily be traced and controlled. fourthly, an overall reduction of treasury personnel throughout the firm may be possible. fifthly, the services of banks in transferring cash may be reduced and the concomitant costs can be reduced. moreover, the benefits o

16、f internal financing may be more easily reaped, as the concentration of financial know-how helps to improve investment decision making.there are, however, also various disadvantages. local managers may lose the motivation to control cash flows adequately. when the cash management and finance functio

17、ns are in the hands of headquarters, the co-ordination between the financial disciplines and the local knowledge may more easily be frustrated. moreover, a centralized cash system requires a highly formalized cash balance control system, thus raising regulative, administrative and information costs.

18、 finally, internalizing and reorganizing the cash balances may disturb relationships of subsidiaries with local banks.the disadvantages of centralized european cash management, however, decline (van alphen, 1998). moreover, netting and pooling of cash positions gain attractiveness and a trend toward

19、s centralized treasuries is already apparent (peters, 1999). in fact even non-european multinationals have reorganized their european treasury operations along pan-european lines. for example, the goodyear tyre and rubber company formally incorporated a european treasury centre in luxembourg. that t

20、reasury now provides access to capital markets, establishes and maintains bank relationships, manages currency exchange risk, develops intercompany transaction strategies, negotiates credit terms with banks, evaluates cash utilization and establishes guidelines for sbu cash management, among others

21、(brown, 1997, p.36). we expect that deregulation and liberalization as well as the introduction of the euro may have helped to tip the balance in favour of centralization and may still be continuing to do so.disintermediationthe form a cash management system takes is not only determined by internal

22、characteristics. it also involves external relationships, in particular with banks and it is not surprising that european firms consider their relationship with a bank almost as important as banks prices and service quality (tse and westerman, 1997).the external relationships evolve with centralizat

23、ion over time. first the banking system is used to collect receivables and to pay accounts. the relationship with the house banks is asymmetrical: the house bank provides a wide array of products that firms can use. then the tendency may evolve to centralize cash management and the multinational wil

24、l aim at processing efficiently the various financial transactions of the operational units. this may lead to a substantial decrease in the number of bank accounts, since little used accounts will be closed. the finance department of a multinational will be starting to act as a purchasing unit and t

25、he relationships with banks will be loosened as shopping with other banks grows and financial knowledge at headquarters is enlarged.still later, the cash function within the multinational may develop into a corporate finance function that acts in balancing conflicting objectives like minimizing tax

26、and interest payments, reducing interest risks and providing liquidity. banks with international networks, know-how and information systems skills may then shift to providing services instead of products to such departments. in fact, some large financial institutions have picked up the recent trends

27、, by expanding their services to more countries and by investments in sophisticated information systems to be used in the operation of european cash management systems. finally, the corporate finance function of a multinational may act as an in house bank (hagemann, 1991). such an in-house bank prov

28、ides intra company products and services by itself, issues short-term financial instruments like commercial paper, competes with other banks for the business of third-party customers and has thus become an equal partner for licensed banks. it will be clear that the aforementioned centralization tren

29、d goes to the detriment of the intermediary function of banks.headquarters control and conglomerate discountsthe joint trends of centralizing the cash function and of disintermediation will have their impact on the power of the multinationals headquarter. centralization will, generally, take place a

30、t headquarters, and may positively influence the power of headquarters with respect to cash management. as the headquarters lack of power in financing and investing was a major reason for corporate discounts, the centralization of cash management may reduce these discounts. headquarters power may fu

31、rther increase with disintermediation. firstly because fewer banks are involved and the bank that remains most relevant for the multinational will have its main ties with headquarters. secondly, if the cash management function develops into a corporate finance function also external financing will b

32、e channelled through headquarters and then -again- the financial power of headquarters will increase. for these reasons, we expect that the liberalization, deregulation and introduction of a single currency will improve the internal financing function and that conglomerate discounts will decrease. h

33、owever, not all multinationals will be able to centralize the cash function directly (gruiters and bergen, 1998) and the centralization of european cash management still differs between companies (tse and westerman, 1997). moreover, not all multinationals will be able or willing to develop the cash

34、management function into a corporate finance function. finally, even if a corporate finance function is managed centrally at the corporate headquarter, it is not necessarily the case that also decisions on fixed assets will -or should- be centralized. conglomerate discounts based on a lack of power

35、of headquarters with respect to internal financing and investments will thus not vanish within all multinationals. nevertheless, it is likely that the developments in the financial markets assist in reducing conglomerate discounts for some multinationals in the euro zone.conclusionsliberalization an

36、d deregulation of financial markets as well as the introduction of the single currency in europe will reduce transaction and bankruptcy costs for multinationals. this gives rise to two trends in europe. firstly, internal transfers of cash and the management of residual cash positions will become che

37、aper and easier. therefore, the centralization of cash management activities gains attractiveness. this may even result into a full-fledged corporate finance function at headquarters. secondly, the centralization will affect the relationship of multinationals with banks. it is likely that the number

38、 of bank relations will be reduced, as more money is managed internally within multinationals and that one major bank will provide most of the cash management services to the treasuries at multinationals headquarters.these trends will have an impact on the internal financing function of multinationa

39、ls and if cash management is centralized, conglomerate discounts may diminish. multinationals in the euro zone may benefit further if they also operate in countries that will join the european union or the euro zone in the future. because multinationals have different backgrounds and different reaso

40、ns for empowering subsidiaries, the corporate discounts will not vanish completely.until now, academics have largely focused on cash management models and on cash management surveys. our paper is different as we link the cash management function to mainstream theory of corporate finance. first we su

41、ggest that institutional changes within the euro zone have reduced market imperfections. then we show that the reduction of these imperfections could trigger centralization and disintermediation. finally, we suggest that centralization followed by disintermediation may improve the internal financing

42、 function within multinationals. this may eventually diminish conglomerate discounts and improve the value of the multinational.it is outside of the scope of this paper to answer the empirical question whether the centralization of cash management is beneficial to multinationals. nevertheless, furth

43、er empirical research might be interesting. in particular, it would be interesting to learn whether multinationals that centralize their cash management function do indeed outperform in terms of value the comparable multinationals that did not. our analysis not only suggests that centralization crea

44、tes value, but that the concomitant disintermediation adds value too. researchers could therefore, also try to measure the amount of disintermediation and study its impact on conglomerate discounts. of course, such research may create multicollinearity problems because disintermediation will be rela

45、ted to centralization. moreover, econometric simultaneity problems may arise: disintermediation is considered to create value, but at the same time higher valued companies may be better able to avoid banking products. despite of these problems, we hope that our qualitative approach may not only trig

46、ger related theoretical but also empirical research.source: henk von eije and wim westerman,2002. “multinational cash management and conglomerate discounts in the euro zone”. international business review. august. pp.453-464.譯文：歐元區(qū)跨國公司的現(xiàn)金管理和集團(tuán)內(nèi)的折扣簡介本文我們討論了不斷變化的金融市場的情況，給跨國公司現(xiàn)金管理所帶來的后果。尤其是，我們將集中關(guān)注給歐元區(qū)

47、內(nèi)的跨國企業(yè)的現(xiàn)金管理帶來的后果?，F(xiàn)金管理是一個現(xiàn)金管理實(shí)務(wù)人員和進(jìn)行金融建模的學(xué)者的主要話題，但它也可以從理論的觀點(diǎn)來處理的。在這方面，可以劃分成兩種截然不同的方法。首先，現(xiàn)金管理可以被看作是在一個主題獨(dú)立的范圍內(nèi)的短期資產(chǎn)管理，及解決的問題是需要多少現(xiàn)金以滿足流動資產(chǎn)的管理。它是短期的財務(wù)管理教科書的主要途徑（如山和沙多里斯，1995年;馬內(nèi)斯和則特洛，1998）。其次，現(xiàn)金管理理論可以開始于莫迪利亞尼和米勒的完美市場（莫迪利亞尼和米勒，1958;米勒和莫迪利亞尼，1961）的假設(shè)。該理論則認(rèn)為，企業(yè)不需要持有現(xiàn)金，除非由于市場不完善而督促公司持有它（凡霍恩，2002）。交易成本，常常被卷

48、入額外的債務(wù)和股權(quán)。例如，企業(yè)需要現(xiàn)金支付給供應(yīng)商或高級員工。因此它可能是值得的持有現(xiàn)金的資金，即使這些資金不會產(chǎn)生任何回報。同時破產(chǎn)成本來作為現(xiàn)金持有量的原因脫穎而出。因?yàn)槿绻麄鶆?wù)人不能及時支付債務(wù)，債權(quán)人可能會迫使公司破產(chǎn)，股東和經(jīng)理也應(yīng)盡量避免隨之而來的訴訟費(fèi)。在本文中，我們按照后一種方法。在歐元區(qū)內(nèi)的事態(tài)發(fā)展降低了市場的不完善，以及我們?nèi)绾卧u估這些都影響了跨國公司現(xiàn)金管理。我們添加了一個跨國的背景，如果一家公司已經(jīng)發(fā)展到至少在四個國家設(shè)有子公司，因?yàn)樵跉W元區(qū)金融市場的重大發(fā)展會對各個國家的子公司造成影響，而不僅只是影響本地的公司。此外，跨國公司的復(fù)雜程度超過單一國家的公司，這一點(diǎn)我們可

49、以從公司總部和當(dāng)?shù)氐淖庸局g看出來。當(dāng)?shù)刈庸镜慕?jīng)理人可以被認(rèn)為是在跨國公司總部的董事會成員的代理人，而在輪到自己所在企業(yè)的董事會成員則都是股東的代理人。子公司的管理人員和總部管理人員之間的代理關(guān)系是很重要的，因?yàn)檫@里的現(xiàn)金控制是行使權(quán)力的決定因素。地方子公司經(jīng)理可能希望保留盡可能多的現(xiàn)金在其管理范圍內(nèi)。根據(jù)詹森（1986），自由現(xiàn)金流可能帶來的代理成本。此外，在現(xiàn)金，銀行帳戶和短期證券方面的投資并沒有得到高回報。基于這些原因，如果不必要卻又有大量現(xiàn)金被留在地方子公司，那么該跨國公司的價值可能會下降。在這種情況下，在跨國公司的內(nèi)部金融市場不充分，在與一家獨(dú)立的公司相比時，該公司可能會顯示一個

50、“企業(yè)集團(tuán)折扣”的現(xiàn)象。集中與金融脫媒通常情況下，在歐元區(qū)跨國公司的現(xiàn)金管理系統(tǒng)歷來以簡單的結(jié)構(gòu)。在每一個國家里有大量的公司經(jīng)營設(shè)施，對下屬子公司的國庫往往在很大程度上盡了自己的現(xiàn)金管理（索能和阿格沃爾，1989；提斯和韋斯特曼，1997）。這是一個合理的做法，因?yàn)槟菚r歐洲資本市場有不完善之處。經(jīng)過自由化，放松管制和單一貨幣的介紹，隨著財務(wù)職能的集中帶來費(fèi)用的下降，這些市場缺陷是值得注目的。集中現(xiàn)金集中帶來的各種優(yōu)勢（凱尼恩等人，1992年；布朗，1997年；邁爾斯，1997年）。首先，集中資金給公司帶來規(guī)模經(jīng)濟(jì)和談判能力。其次，由于現(xiàn)金余額管理，現(xiàn)金流和風(fēng)險均有所下降，融資成本進(jìn)一步下降。第

51、三，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)和公司內(nèi)部現(xiàn)金流量滯后更容易被跟蹤和控制。第四，財政部工作人員在整個公司的整體數(shù)量有減少的可能。第五，在轉(zhuǎn)移現(xiàn)金過程中的銀行服務(wù)可能會減少，隨之而來的成本可以降低。此外，內(nèi)部融資的好處可能會更容易獲取，隨著財務(wù)集中的專業(yè)知識的發(fā)展，更有助于提高投資決策。當(dāng)然，現(xiàn)金集中管理也存在缺陷。子公司的經(jīng)理在充分控制現(xiàn)金流量方面可能會失去動力。當(dāng)現(xiàn)金管理和財政的職能都集中在總部手中，財務(wù)科目和地方性的知識的協(xié)調(diào)容易挫敗。再者，現(xiàn)金集中制度需要高度形式化的現(xiàn)金余額控制系統(tǒng)，這些需要大的調(diào)整、行政管理成本和信息成本。最后，內(nèi)化和重組的現(xiàn)金結(jié)余可能擾亂當(dāng)?shù)劂y行與子公司的關(guān)系。不管怎樣，歐洲現(xiàn)金集中管理的

52、缺陷正在下降（凡阿爾芬，1998）。而且，結(jié)算中心和“現(xiàn)金池”散發(fā)著巨大魅力，現(xiàn)金集中管理已經(jīng)成為發(fā)展的趨勢（彼得斯，1999）。事實(shí)上，即使在非歐洲的跨國公司也在重組他們的財務(wù)部，沿襲歐洲線的發(fā)展模式。例如，固特異輪胎和橡膠公司正式注冊成立一家在盧森堡的歐洲資金管理中心。該公司通過這一歐洲資金管理中心進(jìn)入歐洲資本市場，建立和維護(hù)銀行關(guān)系，管理匯率風(fēng)險，開發(fā)公司間的交易策略，談判與銀行的信貸條件，評估現(xiàn)金利用率，建立了事業(yè)部現(xiàn)金管理準(zhǔn)則等。（布朗，1997年，36頁）。我們希望放松管制和自由化以及歐元的引入可能有助于集中化，并且可能繼續(xù)這樣做。金融脫媒現(xiàn)金管理系統(tǒng)的形成不僅僅取決于企業(yè)的內(nèi)部特征。它還涉及到外部的人際關(guān)系，特別是銀行和歐洲企業(yè)考慮與這家銀行提供的的幾乎一樣的價格和服務(wù)質(zhì)量（tse和韋斯特曼，1997年）的銀行的關(guān)系。外部關(guān)系隨著時間的推移演變集中。首先，銀行系統(tǒng)是用來收集應(yīng)收款和支付帳戶。與“家銀行”的關(guān)系是不對稱的：銀行給企業(yè)提供大量的可使用的產(chǎn)品。然后由于這種演變的趨勢，使集中現(xiàn)金管理和跨國公司會把目光轉(zhuǎn)向能有效地處理各種金融交易業(yè)務(wù)得單位。這可能導(dǎo)致銀行賬戶的數(shù)量大幅減少，因?yàn)樯偈褂玫膸?/p>