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坏账泥潭中 印度寻欢之王变成欠债大王

来源:可可英语 编辑:shaun   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet

NEW DELHI — Three months before he left India with $1.4 billion in unpaid bills hanging over his head, the man who called himself the King of Good Times gave a party for himself.

新德里——这个自称是“寻欢之王”(King of Good Times)的男人离开了印度,名下挂着14亿美元未付的账单;在动身的三个月之前,他给自己举办了一个派对。

Vijay Mallya, a beer-and-airline magnate who publishes a swimsuit calendar and cavorts with celebrities, invited the pop singer Enrique Iglesias, the Bollywood star Sonu Nigam and some top Indian business figures to his villa in the coastal Indian state of Goa to celebrate his 60th birthday.

维贾伊·马尔雅(Vijay Mallya)是啤酒和航空业大亨,一本泳装日历的出版人,常与名人寻欢作乐。他邀请流行歌手恩里克·伊格莱西亚斯(Enrique Iglesias)、宝莱坞明星索努·尼加(Sonu Nigam)以及一些印度商界名流前往他在果阿邦海岸的别墅,一起庆祝他的60岁生日。

“My biggest assets are my friends,” he told the revelers, according to a local media report, “and they are all here tonight.”

“我最大的资产就是我的朋友,”据当地媒体报道,他告诉狂欢者说,“他们今晚都在这里。”

The party — for Mr. Mallya and for the rest of corporate India — is now over. Banks in India and elsewhere are pressing Mr. Mallya to get their money back. Authorities accuse him of money laundering, bribing bank officials, defaulting on loans and other misdeeds.

派对现在已经结束。无论是对马尔雅,还是其他印度企业,都是如此。印度以及其他地方的银行要求马尔雅归还欠它们的款项。当局指控他洗钱、贿赂银行官员、拖欠贷款,还有其他一些不当行为。

Last weekend Indian authorities canceled Mr. Mallya’s passport, nearly a week after a court in Mumbai issued a warrant for his arrest. On Thursday, India’s Foreign Ministry said it would ask Britain — where authorities believe he is staying — to deport him.

孟买法庭签发了对他的逮捕令,将近一周之后,印度当局于上周末取消了他的护照。本周四,印度外交部表示将要求英国——当局认为他目前待在那里——将他遣返。

Mr. Mallya is now widely pilloried by the news media and by some politicians in India as one of the worst examples from a corporate borrowing binge that has mired the country in bad debt. Economists and government officials say heavy corporate debt and bad bank loans are holding back growth and harming Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious economic agenda.

如今,新闻媒体和印度的一些政界人士普遍指责马尔雅是公司借贷狂潮最臭名昭著的典型之一。正是这股狂潮导致印度陷入了坏账的泥潭。经济专家和政府官员称,高额的公司债务和银行不良贷款正在抑制增长,破坏印度总理纳伦德拉·莫迪(Narendra Modi)野心勃勃的经济议程。

“We hide the sickness and ultimately it’s the poor who suffer,” said K. C. Chakrabarty, a former deputy governor of India’s central bank. “We are addressing Vijay Mallya. He’s not the problem. He’s the symptom of the problem.”

“我们掩盖弊端,最终是穷人受苦,”前印度央行副行长K·C·沙克拉巴迪(K. C. Chakrabarty)说。“我们正在解决维贾伊·马尔雅的问题。但他本身并不是问题的所在。他只是问题的症状。”

Mr. Mallya, who left India last month, disputes accusations by Indian lawmakers and lenders that he fled the country to avoid bad debts. “I am an international businessman,” he said on Twitter. “I travel to and from India frequently. I did not flee from India and neither am I an absconder. Rubbish.”

上月离开印度的马尔雅不同意印度议员和债权人称他逃离印度是为了躲避坏账的指控。“我是一个跨国商人,”他在Twitter上说。“我频繁进出印度。我没有逃离印度,也不是潜逃者。一派胡言。”

Even in a time when China, Europe and other places grapple with bad debt, the depths of India’s once-hidden problems are notable. Pressed by the central bank in September to come clean about their debt woes, India’s banks are reporting billions of dollars’ worth of loans that most likely will not be repaid.

尽管中国、欧洲和其他一些地方都在努力应对坏账问题,但印度一度被掩盖的深层次问题仍是值得注意的。去年9月,印度央行敦促该国银行清理各自的债务问题。眼下,印度银行通报的极有可能无法收回的贷款价值数以十亿计美元。

Credit Suisse estimated that bad loans in the final months of last year totaled nearly $128 billion, making up more than 11 percent of outstanding loans, and said India’s banking system had still more “unrecognized stress.”

瑞信(Credit Suisse)估计,去年最后几个月的坏账总额接近1280亿美元,占未偿还贷款的11%以上。瑞信称印度的银行体系还面临着更多“尚未被外界发现的压力”。

The pain has rippled outside the country. Standard Chartered, a British bank, said in February that its India unit lost nearly $1 billion last year. The bank says it is selling problem loans.

印度债务问题的影响已经蔓延到了国外。英国渣打银行(Standard Chartered)曾在2月表示,其在印度的分公司去年亏损近10亿美元。该银行称正在出售问题贷款。

Diageo, the British spirits maker, has also been hit, after guaranteeing a $135 million loan last year from Standard Chartered to a company affiliated with Mr. Mallya. Diageo says it is pursuing the matter.

英国烈酒生产商帝亚吉欧(Diageo)也受到了影响。去年,渣打银行向一家隶属于马尔雅的公司提供了1.35亿美元贷款,帝亚吉欧为其提供了担保。该公司称正在追查此事。

The sour loans are raising questions about whether India’s financial system could deal with the sort of debt crisis that hit the United States and Europe in 2008. “We’re coming so late into the too-big-to-fail issue,” said Susan Thomas, assistant professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research in Mumbai and a member of the country’s bankruptcy law reform committee.

不良贷款令外界对印度的金融制度心生疑虑,担心它无法应对美国和欧洲在2008年遭遇的那种债务危机。“我们遇到‘大到不能倒’这个问题的时间太晚了,”孟买英迪拉·甘地发展研究院(Indira Gandhi Institute for Development Research)助理教授、印度破产法改革委员会成员苏珊·托马斯(Susan Thomas)说。

As in China, which is dealing with its own corporate debt hangover, India’s troubles stem from its efforts to spur growth after the 2008 global financial crisis. Regulators loosened fiscal and monetary policies and allowed many industries to restructure loans rather than let them go sour. It also allowed a moratorium on interest payments. Lenders responded, and over the next four years bank lending to nonfinancial companies roughly doubled.

和正在解决公司债务遗留问题的中国一样,印度的问题源自其在2008年全球金融危机爆发后,为刺激增长而采取的一系列措施。监管机构放宽了财政和货币政策,允许很多行业重组债务,而不是让它们变成坏账。印度还允许延期支付利息。债权人做出了回应。在接下来的四年里,银行发放给非金融公司的贷款大致增加了一倍。

But people inside and outside the country increasingly worried about rising defaults and banks’ ability to meet new global financial stability requirements. In September, Raghuram Rajan, India’s top central banker, ordered lenders to provide a full accounting.

但是,印度国内外人士越来越担心拖欠债务的情况会增多,银行无力满足全球金融稳定的新要求。去年9月,印度央行行长拉古拉姆·拉詹(Raghuram Rajan)要求放款机构提供完整账务。

Mr. Mallya — who in India is often compared to Richard Branson, the British entrepreneur — is one of India’s most famous names. His company, the United Breweries Group, makes Kingfisher beer and sells everything from alcohol to chemicals and fertilizer. He has a personal stake in India’s only Formula One team. He is a regular presence on the party circuit, and made headlines 10 years ago when he held a lavish birthday party at which the singer Lionel Richie was the star performer.

马尔雅在印度很出名,经常与英国企业家理查德·布兰森(Richard Branson)相提并论。他的公司联合酿造集团(United Breweries Group)生产翠鸟牌啤酒(Kingfisher),并销售酒精饮料、化学品和肥料等各种产品。他个人在印度唯一的一级方程式赛车队持有股份。他是派对圈的常客,10年前举办的一场奢华生日请到歌手莱昂内尔·里奇(Lionel Richie)献唱,登上了报纸头条。

“I work hard and I play hard, too,” he once said. “There is nothing wrong with that.”

“我努力工作,也放肆玩乐,”他曾经这样说,“这没什么错。”

When the post-2008 lending binge hit, Mr. Mallya saw a chance to help one of his newer businesses: airlines. His Kingfisher Airlines was initially modeled on the low-cost American carrier JetBlue, with an all-economy configuration that included seat-back TVs, unheard of on Indian domestic flights.

2008年后的贷款狂潮开始,马尔雅发现它可以帮助自己的新生意:航空公司。他的翠鸟航空(Kingfisher Airlines)最初是效仿美国廉价航空公司捷蓝(JetBlue),采用全经济舱配置,配有当时印度国内航班上从未有过的座椅后背电视。

Mr. Mallya quickly added a lavish business class to Kingfisher. Roomy seats came with champagne glasses filled with cider, since India forbids alcohol on domestic flights. The airline was a pet project of Mr. Mallya’s; he examined the in-flight napkins and interviewed some of the prospective flight attendants himself.

马尔雅很快给翠鸟航空增加了一款奢华的商务舱。机上座位宽敞,供应用香槟酒杯盛放的苹果汁——因为印度禁止国内航班供应酒精饮料。马尔雅特别青睐这个项目,亲自检查机上餐巾,并面试部分乘务员。

But Kingfisher Airlines suffered from an inefficient mix of planes and tough competition, which increased when it started flying internationally. Capitalizing on the looser lending practices, the airline persuaded its lenders to restructure its debt. Two years later, in 2012, Kingfisher stopped flying in the face of high fuel prices and a global slowdown.

但是由于机型组合效率低,开飞国际航线后竞争更加激烈,翠鸟航空陷入困境。它利用更宽松的贷款政策,说服放款机构重组它的债务。两年后,2012年,面对高昂的燃油价格和全球经济衰退,翠鸟航空停飞。

Kingfisher owed at least $1.4 billion in loans, much of it to state-controlled banks, as well as back pay to former employees and other bills. Because Mr. Mallya and his United Breweries Holdings backed some of the loans, creditors began pressing them for repayment. The dispute began to wind its way through the courts. Banks tried to seize Mr. Mallya’s assets, including his estate in Goa.

翠鸟至少欠下14亿美元贷款——大多是借自国有控股银行——另外还有前雇员的欠薪和其他未付账单。由于部分贷款的担保人是马尔雅以及他的联合酿造控股公司(United Breweries Holdings),所以债权人开始催促他们偿还。诉讼开始在各个法院展开。银行试图冻结马尔雅的资产,包括他在果阿邦的地产。

Late last year authorities raided Mr. Mallya’s homes and offices in Mumbai, Bangalore and Goa. As his lavish lifestyle came under scrutiny, he began to say less publicly. “Once a media witch hunt starts it escalates into a raging fire where truth and facts are burnt to ashes,” he said in March on Twitter.

去年年底,印度当局突然搜查马尔雅在孟买、班加罗尔和果阿邦的家和办公室。随着奢华的生活方式遭到监视,他开始减少公开发言。“媒体迫害一旦开始,就会逐步升级为熊熊烈火,把真相烧为灰烬,”今年3月,他在Twitter上说。

By early March, banks had asked India’s highest court to seize Mr. Mallya’s passport. By then he had already left, setting off criticism. “How did he run away from the country?” asked Rahul Gandhi, vice president of India’s main opposition party, the Congress party. “How did you allow him to escape?”

到3月初,已经有多家银行要求印度最高法院冻结马尔雅的护照。那时他已离开印度,从而引发批评。“他是怎么逃出国的?”印度主要反对党国民大会党(Congress party)副主席拉胡尔·甘地(Rahul Gandhi)问道,“你们怎么能允许他逃跑?”

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in Parliament that the country’s banks were seeking to recover “every penny” from Mr. Mallya.

财政部长阿伦·贾伊特利(Arun Jaitley)在国会上说,印度多家银行正努力从马尔雅那里拿回“每一分钱”。

Indian officials have continued to warn about the impact of debt on the economy.

印度的官员们继续警告债务对经济的影响。

“Debt is very much like a dynamite,” said Mr. Rajan, the central banker, in December. “It is an instrument which is very useful in right places and explosive in others.”

“债务很像炸药,”印度央行行长拉詹去年12月说,“用对了是利器,用错了就会造成破坏。”

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rubbish ['rʌbiʃ]

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n. 垃圾,废物,废话
v. 贬损

 
bankruptcy ['bæŋkrəptsi]

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n. 破产

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competition [kɔmpi'tiʃən]

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n. 比赛,竞争,竞赛

 
setting ['setiŋ]

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n. 安装,放置,周围,环境,(为诗等谱写的)乐曲

 
credit ['kredit]

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n. 信用,荣誉,贷款,学分,赞扬,赊欠,贷方

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initially [i'niʃəli]

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adv. 最初,开头

 
prime [praim]

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adj. 最初的,首要的,最好的,典型的
n.

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dealing ['di:liŋ]

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n. 经营方法,行为态度
(复数)dealin

 
outstanding [aut'stændiŋ]

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adj. 突出的,显著的,未支付的

 
corporate ['kɔ:pərit]

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