从各季度#博枫基建股东信# 中摘抄一些时效性不高的文字。使用有道机器翻译。$Brookfield基础设施(BIP)$
IMPACT OF BRITAIN’S EXIT FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION
【英国退出欧盟的影响】
Since we last wrote to you, the most significant (and unexpected) event to take place was the United Kingdom’s referendum vote to leave the European Union. While most markets have quickly rebounded from the initial shock, a number of questions remain unanswered and we anticipate a period of uncertainty over the next few years while the UK and the EU sort out their relationship.
自从我们上次给你写信以来，发生的最重大(也是最意想不到的)事件是英国公投决定退出欧盟。尽管多数市场已从最初的冲击中迅速反弹，但仍有许多问题没有得到回答。我们预计，在英国和欧盟理清彼此关系的过程中，未来几年将出现一段不确定时期。
As long-term value investors, we have experience in managing and prospering during periods of economic uncertainty. Our belief is that the UK will continue to be an appealing country in which to invest given its excellent rule of law, a culture that respects capital, a favourable tax and regulatory regime for foreign companies, and its central location globally. Consequently, we will monitor the investment landscape for mispriced opportunities should investors pull away from the market temporarily as these situations can often be used as good entry points to earn greater returns on our capital than one might have otherwise earned in a normal environment.
作为长期价值投资者，我们有在经济不确定时期应对和兴旺的经验。我们相信，鉴于英国优秀的法治、尊重资本的文化、对外国公司有利的税收和监管制度，以及全球中心地位，英国将继续成为一个有吸引力的投资国家。因此，如果投资者暂时撤出市场，我们将监测投资形势，寻找定价错误的机会，因为这些情况通常可以被用作较好的切入点，从我们的资本中赚取比在正常环境中可能获得的更高回报。
In the meantime, we are confident that our current UK business will navigate well through these near-term uncertainties, given the highly regulated and contractual nature of our operations. From a currency perspective, we hedged the entire value of our sterling denominated investments ahead of the Brexit vote through a combination of FFO and balance sheet hedges. The FFO hedges are matched to estimated cash flows from the businesses over the next two years. Our balance sheet hedges were designed to protect our investment values by effectively locking-in the “present value” of the future cash flow streams that our businesses are expected to generate over the long-term at the hedged rates.
与此同时，鉴于我们业务的高度监管和合同性质，我们有信心我们目前的英国业务将顺利度过这些近期的不确定性。从货币角度来看，我们在英国退欧公投前通过经营现金流和资产负债表对冲了我们以英镑计价的投资的全部价值。经营现金流的对冲与未来两年业务的估计现金流相匹配。我们的资产负债表对冲旨在通过有效锁定未来长期现金流的“现值”来保护我们的投资价值。
【INVESTOR DAY 投资者关系日】
We held our annual Investor Day in New York at the end of September and we thank everyone who was able to join us in person or on our webcast. Our presentation is available on our website for those investors who were unable to participate. We covered a lot of material but we thought it would be helpful and timely to review our main theme – Brookfield Infrastructure is an attractive investment for all business cycles.
我们于9月底在纽约举行了一年一度的投资者日，我们感谢所有能够亲自或通过网络直播参加我们活动的人。在我们的网站上可以看到我们的演示，为那些无法参与的投资者提供。我们涵盖了很多材料，但我们认为回顾一下我们的主题将是有帮助的和及时的——$Brookfield基础设施(BIP)$ 是所有商业周期有吸引力的投资。
Our strategy since we launched this company back in 2008 was to build, through disciplined capital allocation, a business that would own and operate irreplaceable infrastructure networks. Our aim is to own assets that generate low risk sustainable cash flows, similar to a utility franchise, but at the same time generate attractive growth that will provide inflation protection and capital appreciation. We often compare ourselves to a utility because we share several characteristics with utilities, namely cash flows that are predictable and have low volatility.
自2008年成立这家公司以来，我们的战略就是通过严格的资本调度，打造一家拥有和运营不可替代的基础设施网络的企业。我们的目标是拥有能够产生低风险、可持续现金流的资产，类似于公用事业特许经营，但同时产生有吸引力的增长，将提供通胀保护和资本增值。我们经常将自己与公用事业公司进行比较，因为我们与公用事业公司有一些共同的特征，即现金流是可预测的，具有低波动性。
Our ability to generate high quality earnings is underpinned by four principal factors. First, our networks produce stable and predictable earnings, as over 90% of the various cash flow streams are regulated and contracted in nature. Second, our businesses produce very attractive margins due to their capital intensive nature and predominantly fixed-cost structures. Third, we have low levels of maintenance capital requirements, as a number of our systems are newly constructed and experience little wear and tear. Furthermore, many of the regulatory frameworks in which we operate allow us to recover maintenance costs. The final factor is that our regulated and contracted frameworks lead to limited merchant exposure, as the tariffs we earn are effectively locked-in.
我们产生高质量收益的能力由四个主要因素支撑。
首先，我们的网络产生稳定和可预测的收益，因为超过90%的各种现金流在本质上是受监管和受合同保护的。
其次，由于我们的业务具有资本密集的性质和以固定成本为主的结构，因此利润率非常有吸引力。
第三，我们的维护资本要求较低，因为我们的一些系统是新建造的，磨损较少。此外，我们运作的许多监管框架允许我们收回维护成本。
最后一个因素是，我们的监管和合同框架导致了有限的市场价格敞口，因为我们获得的价格实际上是锁定的。
In addition to the fundamentally sound revenue frameworks of our businesses, we have one of the most diversified businesses in our sector. The best protection against unforeseen political, regulatory or counterparty issues is limiting exposure to any region, sector or customer.
除了基本健全的业务收入框架外，我们还拥有行业内最多元化的业务之一。避免不可预见的政治、监管或交易对手问题的最佳保护措施，是限制对任何地区、行业或客户的敞口。
While our goal is to emulate the security and stability of a utility, the compelling attribute of our business model is our success in generating consistent, year-over-year per unit cash flow growth that is difficult to do in a traditional utility business model.
虽然我们的目标是模仿公用事业的安全性和稳定性，但我们商业模式的引人注目的属性是我们成功地产生持续的、年比年的每股现金流增长，这在传统公用事业商业模式中是很难做到的。
Our track record of per unit distribution growth for investors these past nine years is on average 12% per annum. We have been able to accomplish this because we have the ability to generate visible organic growth of approximately 6-9% each year, funded predominantly from cash flows generated and retained in the business. In addition to organic growth, capital we have deployed over the years into new investments has been very accretive for our unitholders.
过去9年，我们为投资者提供的股息增长率平均为每年12%。我们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为我们有能力产生每年约6-9%的可见的有机增长，资金主要来自产生和留存在业务中的现金流。除了有机增长之外，我们多年来部署在新投资上的资金也为我们的股东带来了非常大的收益。
One of the great advantages of the assets that we currently own is that we are able to capture inflation indexation that is contractual either through the regulatory frameworks in which we operate or through long-term bilateral customer agreements. Today, more than 70% of our EBITDA is indexed to inflation, which means that, year in, year out, we generally enjoy 3-4% annual growth in our results from these contracts alone.
我们目前拥有的资产的一个巨大优势是，我们能够通过我们运营的监管框架或通过长期的双边客户协议，在合同上获得通货膨胀指数挂钩。如今，我们超过70%的息税折旧摊销前利润与通货膨胀挂钩，这意味着，年复一年，仅这些合同就能让我们的业绩每年增长3-4%。
Another key contributor to our organic growth is the capital we invest into our existing businesses to accommodate customer demand. From a capital allocation perspective, we believe this is one of the best ways to utilize our capital as it often generates the best risk-adjusted returns. Reinvesting into our existing businesses means that not only do we have significant cost advantage over other competitors, we also know these businesses well and can therefore better assess the likelihood that these expenditures will generate expected returns.
我们有机增长的另一个关键因素是我们对现有业务的投资，以满足客户的需求。从资本配置的角度来看，我们认为这是利用我们资本的最佳方式之一，因为它通常会产生最佳的风险调整后回报。再投资于我们现有的业务意味着我们不仅比其他竞争对手有显著的成本优势，我们也很了解这些业务，因此可以更好地评估这些支出产生预期回报的可能性。
Lastly our ability to source new investments provides our unitholders with the opportunity to participate in a business with outsized growth. In the past eight years we have invested close to $6.5 billion of equity capital in high quality businesses that have contributed impressive growth over the years. Our global reach today is strong. In addition to the whole Brookfield franchise, we operate with a dedicated group of 160 corporate professionals in 15 offices around the world helping us deploy capital and expand our investable universe. This allows us to invest in a number of key markets where we see good value and can earn the best risk-adjusted returns and continue to build out a well-diversified portfolio.
最后，我们寻找新投资的能力为我们的股东提供了参与一个具有超大增长的业务的机会。在过去的8年里，我们在高质量的业务上投资了近65亿美元的股权资本，这些业务多年来贡献了惊人的增长。今天，我们的全球影响力很强。除了整个博枫集团的业务资源，我们在全球15个办事处拥有160名专业人员，帮助我们部署资本，扩大我们的可投资领域。这使我们能够投资于一些我们认为有良好价值的关键市场，并能获得最佳的风险调整后回报，并继续构建一个多元化的投资组合。
While our investment thesis of “security plus growth” isn’t new, we felt it was important to remind our unitholders and potential investors of our full cycle investment attributes as rate hikes could be on the horizon in the U.S. In a rising rate environment, businesses with internally generated growth and capital discipline should be highly sought after by yield-oriented investors.
虽然我们“安全+增长”的投资理念并不新鲜，但我们认为有必要提醒我们的股东和潜在投资者我们的全周期投资属性，因为美国利率可能即将上调。在利率上升的环境中，具有内生增长和资本纪律的企业应该受到收益率导向型投资者的高度追捧。
【STRATEGIC INITIATIVES 战略行动】
Over the last several years, the number one question posed by existing or prospective unitholders has related to how Brookfield Infrastructure is able to source investment opportunities in this period of low interest rates, high liquidity and high valuations. Our optimism about being able to source attractive investments is due to the fact that, in our experience, somewhere in the many markets we operate in, there is a company or government that is capital constrained due to uncertainties related to political, market or company specific factors. For instance, a year ago, the main driver of uncertainty was the direction of commodity prices and interest rates. Today, the most common contributing factor to uncertainty are political events. Brookfield Infrastructure’s strategy is to take a long-term perspective on the regions where the business has an established presence, and to invest further during periods of market weakness. In that regard, we seek to deploy capital in countries that have a long-standing reputation for adherence to the rule of law, respect for capital and display potential for growth and development in the future. While we can’t profess to know what may occur in the short-term, our belief is that the countries we invest in have strong underlying fundamentals in the longer term.
在过去几年里，现有或潜在股东提出的首要问题与$Brookfield基础设施(BIP)$ 在低利率、高流动性和高估值时期寻找投资机会有关。
我们对能够获得有吸引力的投资感到乐观，因为根据我们的经验，在我们开展业务的许多市场中，总有一家公司或政府由于与政治、市场或公司特定因素相关的不确定性而受到资金限制。例如，一年前，不确定性的主要驱动因素是大宗商品价格和利率的走向。如今，造成不确定性的最常见因素是政治事件。
BIP的战略是对业务已经建立的地区采取长期的眼光，并在市场疲软时期进一步投资。在这方面，我们寻求在那些长期享有遵守法治、尊重资本和显示出未来增长和发展潜力的国家部署资本。虽然我们不能声称知道短期内会发生什么，但我们相信，从长期来看，我们投资的国家有着强劲的潜在基本面。
Recently, we have taken a long-term view on Brazil by acquiring a number of high quality assets. In 2016, the focus was on executing transactions while the country was in a severe recession and lost its investment grade status. We witnessed an environment where there was an increased supply of assets coming to market, particularly very high quality assets that would not have become available under normal market conditions. In addition, competition was limited. As a result, we are fortunate that we will shortly deploy over $1 billion in the gas and electricity utility sectors by investing in Nova Transportadora do Sudeste S.A. (“NTS”) and building out over 4,000 km of electricity transmission lines over the next five years.
最近，我们通过收购一些高质量资产，对巴西表达了长远看多的观点。2016年，当该国陷入严重衰退并失去投资级地位时，我们的重点是执行交易。我们见证了这样一个环境: 进入市场的资产供应增加，特别是在正常市场条件下无法获得的非常高质量的资产。此外，竞争是有限的。因此，我们很幸运，我们将很快在天然气和电力公用事业部门部署超过10亿美元，通过投资Nova Transportadora do Sudeste S.A.(“NTS”)，并在未来五年内建设超过4000公里的输电线路。
It is possible that a similar situation may be developing in Mexico. Due to the protectionist sentiment garnering considerable momentum in the U.S., the level of uncertainty and anxiety related to Mexico’s future economic performance has not been worse in over 20 years. The peso has dropped to its lowest level since 1994 and the country’s foreign direct investment is likely to slow down as capital sits on the sidelines. We believe that concerns over the country may overshoot and as a result, our business development efforts have increased to capitalize on opportunities that may arise.
墨西哥也可能出现类似的情况。由于保护主义情绪在美国获得了相当大的势头，墨西哥未来经济表现的不确定性和焦虑程度在20多年来从未如此糟糕。比索已跌至1994年以来的最低水平，随着资本的观望，该国的外国直接投资可能会放缓。我们认为，对该国的担忧可能会过度，因此，我们加大了业务发展努力，以抓住可能出现的机会。
【Corporate Carve-outs 企业拆分的收购机会】
Our team spent a considerable amount of time, over the last 24 months, identifying mispriced public companies to execute public to private transactions. While there is still the occasional take-private opportunity due to a mismatch between public and private valuations, our main focus at the moment is targeted towards corporate carve-outs. These types of opportunities tend to occur when an acceleration of capital spend by industrial companies substantially exceeds the availability of public market equity capital. As a result, industrials and other owners of infrastructure assets look to sell non-core assets to fund their capital programs.
在过去的24个月里，我们的团队花了相当多的时间，找出定价错误的上市公司，以执行私有化退市的交易。尽管由于公开市场和私人市场估值的不匹配，仍存在偶尔的私有化机会，但我们目前的主要关注重点是企业分拆。当工业公司的资本支出的加速大大超过公共市场的融资容量时，这类机会往往就会出现。因此，工业企业和其他基础设施资产所有者希望出售非核心资产，为其资本计划提供资金。
This corporate carve-out trend plays well to our deep expertise in surfacing and executing large-scale, multi-faceted transactions. We have historically been very successful in securing attractive, large, core infrastructure businesses from industrial companies. Examples include our acquisition of our Brazilian railroad from Vale, our North American container terminals from Mitsui OSK Lines and more recently, the gas transmission assets from Petrobras. This year our focus is on monitoring corporate carve-out opportunities in the North American energy and Indian telecommunications sectors.
这种企业分拆趋势很好地发挥了我们在处理和执行大规模、多方面交易方面的深厚专业知识。在从工业企业获得有吸引力的大型核心基础设施业务方面，我们历来非常成功。例如，我们从淡水河谷(Vale)收购了巴西铁路，从三井OSK Lines收购了北美集装箱码头，以及最近从巴西国家石油公司(Petrobras)收购了天然气输送管道资产。今年我们的重点是监测北美能源和印度电信行业的企业剥离机会。
In India, the government has made strides in making the operating and legal environments more investor friendly and the expected GDP growth rate over the foreseeable future is far in excess of many developed countries, making it an attractive market to invest in for the long-term. Last year, we purchased our first infrastructure business in India, acquiring a network of toll roads that span the country, deploying just under $100 million. While modest in size, this transaction was a unique entry point into the country and one that allows us to establish ourselves as a local operator.
在印度，政府在使经营和法律环境对投资者更加友好方面取得了进展，在可预见的未来，预期的国内生产总值增长率远远超过许多发达国家，使其成为一个具有长期投资吸引力的市场。去年，我们收购了在印度的第一家基础设施公司，收购了一个横跨印度的收费公路网络，投入不到1亿美元。虽然规模不大，但这笔交易是进入该国的一个独特切入点，使我们能够成为当地运营商。
Leveraging our new operating presence, we recently announced the acquisition of communications towers in India in a classic carve-out transaction. We will soon be investing upwards of $200 million to acquire a portfolio of 40,000 telecommunication towers from Reliance Telecom, representing ~10% of the country’s towers. The telecom sector in India may create further exciting carve-out opportunities as virtually all the large integrated mobile network operators are looking to raise significant liquidity in order to invest in the deployment of their 3G and 4G networks. This is a high-quality business that is very similar to our existing tower business in France and generates secure and sustainable cash flows that will benefit from sizeable growth in the industry. We are very excited about the prospect of quickly establishing a leading tower business in India. Several other opportunities are being evaluated that could add meaningful scale to our global towers portfolio in the coming year.
利用我们新的运营业务，我们最近宣布收购印度的通信铁塔，这是一项经典的分拆交易。我们将很快投资超过2亿美元，从信实电信收购4万个通信塔，占全国通信塔的10%。印度电信业可能会创造更多令人兴奋的分拆机会，因为几乎所有大型综合移动网络运营商都在寻求筹集大量流动性，以便投资部署其3G和4G网络。这是一个高质量的业务，非常类似于我们在法国现有的电信塔业务，并产生安全和可持续的现金流，将受益于该行业的大幅增长。我们对在印度迅速建立领先的塔业务的前景感到非常兴奋。我们正在评估其他几个机会，这些机会可能在未来一年为我们的全球铁塔投资组合增加有意义的规模。