誰才是正確的？是那位爆料伯尼·麥道夫超級龐氏騙局的偵探，還是通用電氣的權(quán)威董事會和德高望重的首席執(zhí)行官？不過，通用電氣的這支高管團(tuán)隊在拯救和重塑這家深陷困境的企業(yè)方面取得了重大進(jìn)展，并因此而備受華爾街的贊譽。

哈里·馬克波洛斯是一位曾經(jīng)將麥道夫拉下馬的調(diào)查會計師，他于8月16日發(fā)布了一篇爆炸性報告《通用電氣：比安然公司更大的騙局》，稱通用電氣實施了380億美元的會計造假。他指責(zé)這家曾經(jīng)涉獵工業(yè)和金融的巨型企業(yè)故意不儲備充足的準(zhǔn)備金來應(yīng)對其長期護(hù)理保險業(yè)務(wù)巨大的短期和未來虧損，并因為沒有對其Baker Hughes通用電氣能源部門的巨額減記記賬而違反了美國會計準(zhǔn)則。在馬克波洛斯看來，通用電氣已經(jīng)成為一家僵尸企業(yè)。他稱，安然和世通公司在其史詩級騙局曝光4個月之后便轟然倒塌，因此通用電氣的倒塌速度也不會慢到哪去。他在CNBC上表示：“通用電氣的破產(chǎn)是遲早的事?！?/p>

馬克波洛斯并非只是針對前任首席官杰弗里·伊梅爾特統(tǒng)領(lǐng)的通用電氣，他還指責(zé)通用電氣的現(xiàn)任高管團(tuán)隊不僅不了解其晦澀難懂的財務(wù)報表，而且情況更加糟糕。在雅虎財經(jīng)的采訪中，他表示，“通用電氣的財務(wù)報表基本上沒法閱讀”，而且“我懷疑”首席執(zhí)行官拉里·卡爾普是否也能看得懂。當(dāng)被問及首席執(zhí)行官和首席財務(wù)官是否存在遮掩行徑時，他回答說：“我認(rèn)為是的?！蹦敲礊槭裁瘩R克波洛斯不允許通用電氣在上市之前對其發(fā)現(xiàn)的內(nèi)容進(jìn)行審核呢？馬克波洛斯對雅虎財經(jīng)的采訪記者說，“誰會愿意與造假犯交流，難道還要給他們掩蓋這一切的機會？”

馬克波洛斯對當(dāng)前高管層的指責(zé)引發(fā)了軒然大波，因為通用電氣最近剛剛?cè)蚊艘晃坏赂咄氐氖紫瘓?zhí)行官，而且組建了一個幾乎全新、非常有威望的董事會。包括美國前首席會計在內(nèi)的這些董事剛好在報告中提到的造假和權(quán)力濫用領(lǐng)域有著深厚的專長。通用電氣的股票交易情況顯示，盡管報告引發(fā)了投資者的新一輪擔(dān)憂，但華爾街對于馬克波洛斯所描述的災(zāi)難性結(jié)果卻是無動于衷。通用電氣股價于報告發(fā)布后下跌了11.3%，但隨后于上周五強勢反彈，將降幅收窄至溫和的2.7%。在報告發(fā)布之后，卡爾普豪擲220萬美元購買公司股份的舉措顯然給了投資者一顆定心丸。

這出對決可謂是美國企業(yè)史上最精彩的頭等大事。調(diào)查者宣稱，這個看似異常稱職的團(tuán)隊并不了解公司所采用的會計方法，而且也沒有意識到公司基本上處于破產(chǎn)邊緣——甚至可能在捏造賬目，但通用電氣稱攻擊者對數(shù)字的解讀有誤，其目的是為了通過做空其股票來套取收益。這個問題異常重要，因為其他陷入困境的公司也可能遭遇同樣的問題。精明能干的新首席執(zhí)行官外加堪稱內(nèi)行的董事會，竟然會如此不了解這個復(fù)雜、晦澀的業(yè)務(wù)，以至于他們把一家實際上處于破產(chǎn)邊緣的企業(yè)當(dāng)成了一個東山再起的寶貝，這種情況可能發(fā)生嗎？

通用電氣內(nèi)部人士的看法

通過與通用電氣內(nèi)部人士的對話得知，他們認(rèn)為馬克波洛斯密謀使用虛假但非常吸引眼球的罪名來拉低股價，然后借此大發(fā)橫財。馬克波洛斯自己也承認(rèn)正在與一家未披露的對沖基金合作，而且也會從這家基金公司做空通用電氣股票的收益中分一杯羹。這個時機選的真是再合適不過了：通用電氣剛剛宣布其首席財務(wù)官即將離任，理財經(jīng)理們則懷疑接下來是否會有負(fù)面消息流出。內(nèi)部人士堅持認(rèn)為，馬克波洛斯利用了長期護(hù)理保險會計方法難以定性的性質(zhì)。這是一個異常復(fù)雜的領(lǐng)域，基于繁雜的壽命假設(shè)和貼現(xiàn)率，其分析會讓所有人都感到頭疼不已。他們懷疑，這只神秘的基金通過在短暫的恐慌期拋售其短線持倉的股票，而為自己和馬克波洛斯賺一筆快錢。

與美國企業(yè)的任何團(tuán)隊一樣，通用電氣的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)層似乎并不是那么好騙的主。10月1日出任首席執(zhí)行官的卡爾普幫助另一家工業(yè)巨頭丹納赫集團(tuán)獲得了巨大的成功，在2001年至2014年期間讓該公司的股價增幅超過了4倍。在很多臨危受命的情況下，突然空降的超級明星首席執(zhí)行官并沒有什么機會從內(nèi)部認(rèn)真評估公司存在的問題，然后被一系列驚喜弄得措手不及。但卡爾普此前在通用電氣擔(dān)任了6個月的董事，因此他能夠近距離了解公司所有的業(yè)務(wù)，進(jìn)而可以明確斷定通用電氣最大的問題已經(jīng)不復(fù)存在。

通用電氣的未來看起來一片大好，受此吸引，一個幾乎全新的董事會進(jìn)入了人們的視野，而且這些董事都深諳運營和金融。2017年年初，通用電氣擁有16名董事，13名離開了，在精簡后的10名董事中，有6名都是前任或現(xiàn)任首席執(zhí)行官，包括卡爾普、雅高集團(tuán)首席執(zhí)行官塞巴斯蒂安·巴贊，以及美國航空和咨詢服務(wù)公司高知特的前任首席執(zhí)行官湯姆·霍頓和弗朗西斯科·迪索扎。另外兩位董事在保險行業(yè)有著豐富的經(jīng)驗。詹姆士·提希目前執(zhí)掌Loewes（商業(yè)載體CNA的母公司），而保拉·羅斯普特·雷諾爾德是安可保險的前任負(fù)責(zé)人?；纛D和另一名董事凱瑟琳·雷斯嘉科也曾經(jīng)擔(dān)任過很長時間的首席財務(wù)官：霍頓曾經(jīng)供職于美國航空和AT&T，雷斯嘉科曾經(jīng)供職于惠普。通用電氣的主要投資者特里安公司的負(fù)責(zé)人艾德·加登在該基金資產(chǎn)組合公司中有著不小的名氣，因為他是一位親力親為的董事。正是在特里安公司以代理權(quán)爭奪戰(zhàn)作為威脅之后，通用電氣才加快了董事會的改革步伐。

通用電氣審計委員會負(fù)責(zé)人是萊斯利·瑟德曼，她是美國財務(wù)會計準(zhǔn)則委員會的前任主席，而該委員會是美國報告準(zhǔn)則的制定方。彬彬有禮的瑟德曼在揭露隱患方面可謂是毫不留情，有人曾經(jīng)對我說：“她把釘子當(dāng)早餐。”通用電氣的董事會選擇瑟德曼的目的就是讓其重拳出擊，而她也給予了強有力的回應(yīng)。她在CNBC上說：“馬克波洛斯的報告充斥著主觀意見，以及大量的煽動性、不準(zhǔn)確聲明。我并不確定作者是否真了解該領(lǐng)域的會計方法。難道是因為缺乏相關(guān)資質(zhì)或者存在其他什么動機？”她將有關(guān)造假的指責(zé)當(dāng)作對其個人的冒犯：“我可以全權(quán)過問公司的會計、賬目和記錄，我支持公司的財務(wù)報告。造假指控是毫無根據(jù)的?！?/p>

在瑟德曼看來，這場游戲就是為了散布捏造的不法謠言，從而迅速地大賺一筆。她總結(jié)道：“今天發(fā)布的報告樹立了一個非常危險的案例，一些人只要憑口說說，然后就可以從股價的下跌中套取金錢收益。這種做法是錯誤的?！?/p>

盡管如此，有鑒于馬克波洛斯此前披露會計造假的戰(zhàn)績，通用電氣必須嚴(yán)肅應(yīng)對。馬克波洛斯的團(tuán)隊花了7個半月的時間制作了這份168頁的報告，其內(nèi)容異常詳細(xì)和具體。除非通用電氣加以澄清，否則投資者將對以下四大領(lǐng)域產(chǎn)生質(zhì)疑。

報告中提到的未披露損失實在是超乎想象

報告稱，通用電氣需要立即向其長期護(hù)理準(zhǔn)備金中額外注入185億美元的現(xiàn)金，以便為服務(wù)其投保人的養(yǎng)老院等類似機構(gòu)支付賬單。報告稱，這是因為公司儲存的準(zhǔn)備金還遠(yuǎn)不夠用于支付新的理賠，這些理賠額已經(jīng)大大高于保費。此外，根據(jù)變化后會計準(zhǔn)則的強制規(guī)定，通用電氣在2021年第一季度之前將不得不進(jìn)行105億美元的非現(xiàn)金減記。這一指控實際上是在說其未來的債務(wù)額度遠(yuǎn)超其資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表所列的數(shù)字。除了長期護(hù)理保險領(lǐng)域290億美元的缺口之外，馬克波洛斯堅持認(rèn)為，通用電氣對其控股油氣業(yè)務(wù)Baker Hughes 91億美元的投資存在水分。這也讓其所謂的“會計造假”總額達(dá)到了380億美元。

這可是一個巨大的數(shù)目，相當(dāng)于通用電氣預(yù)發(fā)布市值的40%。但馬克波洛斯堅持認(rèn)為，這只不過是“冰山一角”罷了。

理賠額已遠(yuǎn)超保費

在00年代中期，通用電氣曾經(jīng)對已出售其原始保險責(zé)任的8家承保商的28萬名長期護(hù)理接受者進(jìn)行了再保險，并因此承擔(dān)了這些保單的所有風(fēng)險。這一領(lǐng)域涵蓋的服務(wù)包括養(yǎng)老院住院、生活輔助設(shè)施和家庭看護(hù)。它是保險業(yè)務(wù)中最難以預(yù)測的部分，而且對很多承保險企來說都是一個很虧的買賣。因為人們的壽命大大高于數(shù)十年前他們簽約時精算師所預(yù)計的壽命，而且還因為醫(yī)療成本已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了大幅上漲，因此所繳保費以及投資收益通常遠(yuǎn)不夠支付這些生命終期服務(wù)。

馬克波洛斯稱，通用電氣的表現(xiàn)比其競爭對手差很多，原因有兩點：第一，公司不僅遠(yuǎn)未儲備足夠的準(zhǔn)備金來支付未來理賠所需資金，而且還將保費用于開展股票回購和派息；第二，相比保誠集團(tuán)或Unum公司，其保單的風(fēng)險和成本都更高。2013年，通用電氣最大的保險部門收到了1.92億美元的保費，支付了1.6億美元的理賠，盈余3200萬美元。但隨后保費開始下降，理賠則開始飆升，正因為如此，通用電氣去年的保費為1.13億美元，支付了5.94億美元，赤字達(dá)到了4.82億美元。其理賠/保費的賠付率達(dá)到了5.2比1，這意味著公司每收1美元保費就得賠5美元。作為對比，保誠和Unum的保費則超過了開支。

馬克波洛斯認(rèn)為，在通用電氣有義務(wù)支付的未來理賠中，通用電氣可支付的數(shù)量僅占總理賠數(shù)量的約13%。他稱，理賠數(shù)量呈現(xiàn)出“幾何式”的增長，因此，相比較通用電氣填補未來準(zhǔn)備金窟窿所需的資金，如今280億美元的直接缺口只不過是其中的一小部分罷了。

通用電氣將所需準(zhǔn)備金用于股票回購、派息和高管薪酬

從2012年到2018年，通用電氣的凈收入達(dá)到了149億美元，然而卻在回購和派息方面花費了1060億美元。在這8年期間，通用電氣支付5名職級最高高管的薪酬費用為6.37億美元，占凈收入的比例達(dá)到了驚人的4.2%。馬克波洛斯堅持認(rèn)為，公司簡單地將保費看作是可用于犒勞股東或支付高管薪酬的“收入”，但其中的大部分資金都應(yīng)該作為準(zhǔn)備金。

為什么馬克波洛斯稱通用電氣行將就木？

馬克波洛斯稱，如果通用電氣將這280億美元算作暗虧，其股東的股本將縮水至微不足道的62億美元。由于通用電氣的負(fù)債總額達(dá)到了1060億美元，其債務(wù)/股權(quán)比將躍升至17比1。這點不起眼的股本作墊將讓通用電氣違反銀行和債券持有者的貸款協(xié)議，而讓這些出借方將敦促通用電氣破產(chǎn)，并通過逼迫通用電氣銷售資產(chǎn)來回籠部分資金。

然而，這種災(zāi)難性畫面并沒有讓投資者異常驚慌，至少眼下還沒有。通用電氣最好的應(yīng)對措施應(yīng)是用高度透明的事實來反駁。其明星云集的董事會信誓旦旦地稱事實站在公司這一邊。這家極度神秘的公司之所以成為了攻擊對象，其自身在一定程度上也是難辭其咎，因為對于這項分析師需要大量數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)行評估的神秘業(yè)務(wù)，通用電氣公布的數(shù)據(jù)實在是太少了。

對決開始了，投資者到底會支持哪一方呢？（財富中文網(wǎng)）

譯者：馮豐

審校：夏林

Who’s right, the sleuth who exposed Bernie Madoff’s gigantic Ponzi scheme, or GE’s prestigious board and highly-regarded CEO, a team lauded on Wall Street for making great progress in rescuing and reforming the battered conglomerate?

In his flame-throwing report released on August 16, titled “General Electric, A Bigger Fraud Than Enron,” Harry Markopolos––the forensic accountant who nailed Madoff––accuses GE of engaging in $38 billion in accounting fraud. He’s charging that the one-time industrial and financial colossus willfully failed to take adequate reserves to cover gigantic current and future losses in its long-term care insurance business, and violated U.S. accounting rules by failing to book a big write down on its Baker Hughes GE energy unit. For Markopolos, GE is a dead enterprise walking. He cites that legendary frauds Enron and WorldCom collapsed just four months after their misdeeds were exposed, and says that GE could implode just as fast. “GE is a bankruptcy waiting to happen,” he declared on CNBC.

Markopolos isn’t just targeting the previous regime of former CEO Jeffery Immelt. He’s alleging that GE’s current C-suite doesn’t understand its opaque financial statements--and worse. In an interview on Yahoo Finance, he stated that “GE’s financial statements are almost unreadable,” and that “I doubt” that CEO Larry Culp can read them. Asked if the CEO and CFO are engaged in a cover-up, he responded, “I believe so.” Why didn’t Markopolos allow GE to review his findings before going public? “Who wants to talk to the fraudsters so that they can engage in a cover-up?” Markopolos told the Yahoo Finance interviewers.

Markopolos’ assault on today’s leadership is extraordinary, because GE has recently named a highly-respected CEO, and a mostly new, extremely prestigous board. The directors, who include America’s former chief accountant, boast strong expertise in just the areas where the report finds fraud and abuse. The trading in GE stock indicates that while the report has raised new worries among investors, Wall Street isn’t close to buying the Markopolos disaster scenario. After dropping 11.3% the day of the release, shares rebounded strongly on last Friday, shaving the decline to a modest 2.7%. Culp’s purchase of $2.2 million in GE’s shares immediately following the report’s release clearly provided comfort for investors.

The duel is one of the most fascinating, and significant events, in corporate America. The investigator alleges that what appears to be a highly qualified team doesn’t comprehend its own accounting, and fails to recognize that it’s virtually insolvent––and may even be cooking the books––while GE claims that its attacker has the numbers all wrong, and is motivated by financial gain reaped from sinking its stock. The question is a crucial one that could apply to other troubled companies. Is it really possible that a crack new CEO and board, armed with all the right credentials, can fail to understand a complex, opaque business to the point where what they think is a resurgent enterprise is really on the brink of failure?

Inside GE

According to my conversations with GE insiders, they believe Markopolos––who acknowledges working with an undisclosed hedge fund that’s giving him a share of their gains from shorting GE stock––plotted to use false but headline-grabbing charges drive down the shares and make a killing for himself. The moment was propitious: GE just announced that its CFO is leaving, raising questions among money managers of bad news to come. The insiders maintain that Markopolos capitalized on the hard-to-fathom nature of long-term care insurance accounting, a fiendishly complicated area built on complicated mortality assumptions and discount rates that make anyone’s head hurt to analyze. They suspect that the secretive fund cleaned up by dumping its shorts during the brief panic, making an easy buck themselves and for Markopolos.

The GE leadership would seem about as hard to con as any team in corporate America. Culp, named CEO on October 1, had scored a spectacular success at the helm of another industrial conglomerate, Danaher, multiplying its share price over five-fold from 2001 to 2014. In many rescue situations, a superstar CEO parachutes in at short notice without having the opportunity to carefully assess the company’s problems from the inside, and then gets overwhelmed by serial surprises. But Culp took the job after serving as a director for six months, so he was able to examine all of its operations at close range, so he clearly believed that GE’s worst problems were behind it.

GE’s future also looked promising enough to attract a mostly new board deep in operating and financial talent. In early 2017, GE had 16 directors; thirteen have departed, and among the slimmed-down group of ten are six former or current CEOs, including Culp, Accor chief Sebastien Bazin, and the ex-CEOs of American Airlines and Cognizant, Tom Horton and Francisco D’Souza. The two others have extensive experience in insurance. James Tisch runs Loewes, owner of commercial carrier CNA, and Paula Rosput Reynolds, former head of Safeco. Horton and another director, Catherine Lesjak, also held big time CFO positions: Horton at both American and AT&T, and Lesjak at Hewlett Packard. Ed Garden, a principal with at Trian, a major GE investor, is renowned as a hands-on director at the fund’s portfolio companies. It was Trian that threatened a proxy battle hastening the transformation of the board.

The audit committee head is Leslie Seidman, former chief of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the organization that establishes U.S. reporting standards. Seidman blends a pleasant manner with an approach to unearthing pitfalls so tough that as one person told me, “she eats nails for breakfast.” The board chose Seidman to deliver a big punch, and she hit back hard. “The report is full of opinions,” she said on CNBC. “It’s full of inflammatory and inaccurate statements. I’m not sure the author really understands accounting in this area. Is it because of incompetence or some other motivation?” She took the allegations of fraud as a personal affront: “I have full access to the people and books and records and I stand behind the financial reporting of this company. There is no basis for an allegation of fraud.”

For Seidman, the game is spreading tall tales of malfeasance to grab a quick windfall. “This report today set a very dangerous precedent,” she concluded. “where somebody can just say things, and benefit monetarily from the decline in the stock. That is wrong.”

Nevertheless, Markopolos must be taken seriously because of his previous record exposing accounting fraud. His team took seven-and-a-half months to produce the 168 page report, and it is extremely detailed and specific. Here are four areas that could raise big concerns for investors unless GE addresses them.

The alleged undisclosed losses are really, really big

The report charges that GE needs to immediately pump $18.5 billion in new cash into its long-term care reserves to make payments to nursing homes and the like that serve its policy holders. That’s because, the report claims, it has failed to put aside nearly enough in reserves to fund new claims, which massively exceed premiums. In addition, GE will be forced to take a $10.5 billion, non-cash writedown mandated by a change in accounting standards by the first quarter of 2021. That charge in effect acknowledges that its future obligations are a lot bigger than the numbers on its balance sheet. Besides that $29 billion shortfall on the long-term care side, Markopolos maintains that GE is overstating its investment in its majority owned oil and gas unit Baker Hughes by $9.1 billion. That brings the total in what he calls “accounting fraud” to $38 billion.

That’s a brobdingnagian figure, equivalent to 40% of GE’s pre-release market cap. And Markopolos insists it’s just “the tip of the iceberg.”

Claims are swamping premiums

In the mid-2000s, GE arranged to “re-insure” 280,000 long-term care recipients for eight carriers that had sold the original coverage, taking on the full risk for those policies. The sector encompasses services such as residence in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, and home care. It’s one of the most unpredictable parts of the insurance business, and it’s proven a big loser for many carriers. Because folks are living far longer than the actuaries estimated decades ago when they signed up, and because medical costs haves soared, the premiums collected and invested frequently don’t come close to covering those end-of-life services.

According to Markopolos, GE performed much worse than its competitors for two reasons. First, it didn't put nearly enough money aside to remotely fund future claims, instead spending the premiums on share buybacks and dividends, and second, its policies were much riskier, and costlier, than those of a Prudential or Unum. In 2013, GE’s biggest insurance unit collected $192 million in premiums and paid out $160 million in claims, for a surplus of $32 million. But premiums are declining while claims soar, so that last year GE took in $113 million in premiums, and paid out $594 million, for a deficit of $482 million. Its “l(fā)oss ratio” of claims to premiums is thus 5.2 to 1, meaning it spends $5 for every dollar it collects. By contrast, at both Pru and Unum, premiums exceed expenses.

Markopolos asserts that GE has paid only around 13% of the total claims it will be obligated to cover in the future. The claims, he says, are rising “exponentially” so that today’s immediate $28 billion shortfall represents only a fraction of what GE would need to add to future reserves.

GE squandered money needed for reserves on buybacks, dividends and c-suite pay

From 2012 to 2018, GE generated $14.9 billion in net income, yet it paid out $106 billion in buybacks and dividends. Over those eight years, GE paid $637 million, a staggering 4.2% of net income, to its five highest-ranking executives. Markopolos maintains that it simply treated premiums as “income” available for compensating shareholders or paying the top brass when much of that money was needed for reserves.

Why Markopolos says GE is headed for bankruptcy

Markopolos claims that if and when GE takes the $28 billion in hidden losses, its shareholders equity will shrink to a minuscule $6.2 billion. Since GE is carrying $106 billion in total debt, its debt-to-equity ratio will jump to 17 to 1. That tiny equity cushion could violate GE’s loan agreements with banks and bondholders, enabling them to drive GE into bankruptcy and recoup part of their money by forcing the conglomerate to liquidate by sell assets.

Once again, this is the disaster movie that isn’t scaring investors much––at least so far. GE’s best defense is a highly transparent, get-all-the-facts out rebuttal. Its star-studded board swears it has the facts on its side. This overly-secretive company in some ways invited the attack by revealing so little about an arcane business where analysts need lots of data to assess.

The duel has begun—and now it’s up to investors to decide who they’re backing.