Blackstone Inc (BX) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Blackstone Fourth Quarter Year-End 2017 Investor Call. My name is Derrick, and I'll be your operator for today. (Operator Instructions) At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Weston Tucker, Head of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

各位女士、先生，大家好，歡迎參加黑石集團2017年第四季年終投資者電話會議。我叫德里克，今天由我來為您接聽電話。（操作員指示）現在，我將把會議交給投資者關係主管韋斯頓·塔克先生。請繼續。

Great. Thanks, Derrick, and good morning and welcome to Blackstone's Fourth Quarter Conference Call. Joining today's call are Steve Schwarzman, Chairman and CEO; Tony James, President and Chief Operating Officer; Michael Chae, our Chief Financial Officer; and Joan Solotar, Head of Private Wealth Solutions and External Relations.

偉大的。謝謝德里克，早安，歡迎參加黑石集團第四季電話會議。今天參加電話會議的有：董事長兼首席執行官史蒂夫·施瓦茨曼；總裁兼首席營運官托尼·詹姆斯；首席財務官邁克爾·蔡；以及私人財富解決方案和對外關係主管瓊·索洛塔爾。

Earlier this morning, we issued a press release and slide presentation, which are available on the shareholders page of our website. We expect to file our 2017 10-K report later this month.

今天早些時候，我們發布了新聞稿和幻燈片演示文稿，這些內容可以在我們網站的股東頁面上找到。我們預計將於本月稍後提交 2017 年 10-K 報告。

I'd like to remind you that today's call may include forward-looking statements, which are uncertain and outside of the firm's control and may differ from actual results materially. We do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, please see the Risk Factors section of our most recent 10-K. We will also refer to non-GAAP measures on this call, and you'll find reconciliations in the press release.

我想提醒各位，今天的電話會議可能包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述具有不確定性，且超出公司控制範圍，可能與實際結果有重大差異。我們不承擔更新這些聲明的義務。有關可能影響績效的一些風險的討論，請參閱我們最新的 10-K 文件中的「風險因素」部分。本次電話會議中我們也會提及非GAAP指標，您可以在新聞稿中找到相關調節表。

Also note that nothing on this call constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any interest in the Blackstone fund. This audiocast is copyrighted material of Blackstone and may not be duplicated without consent.

另請注意，本次電話會議中的任何內容均不構成出售黑石基金任何權益的要約或購買要約的招攬。本音頻節目為黑石集團的版權所有，未經許可不得複製。

So a quick recap of our results. We reported GAAP net income of $763 million for the fourth quarter and $3.4 billion for the full year. Economic net income or ENI per share was $0.71 for the quarter and $2.81 for the full year, and that full year amount was up 41% due to strong growth in both performance fees and fee-related earnings. Distributable earnings per common share were $1 for the quarter and $3.17 for the full year, both up sharply. We declared a distribution of $0.85 to be paid to holders of record as of February 12 and that brings us to $2.70 paid out with respect to 2017.

現在快速回顧一下我們的結果。我們公佈的第四季GAAP淨利為7.63億美元，全年GAAP淨利為34億美元。本季經濟淨收入（ENI）每股為 0.71 美元，全年為 2.81 美元，全年增長 41%，這主要得益於業績費和費用相關收益的強勁增長。本季每股可分配收益為 1 美元，全年為 3.17 美元，均大幅成長。我們宣布向截至 2 月 12 日登記在冊的持有人派發 0.85 美元的股息，這樣一來，2017 年的派息總額就達到了 2.70 美元。

And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

接下來，我將把電話交給史蒂夫。

Thanks, Weston, and good morning and thank you for joining on your call. Blackstone reported a superb set of results for the fourth quarter, capping a record-breaking 2017.

謝謝韋斯頓，早安，謝謝你參加電話會議。黑石集團公佈了第四季度出色的業績，為創紀錄的 2017 年畫上了圓滿的句號。

Full year economic net income rose over 40%, as Weston mentioned. Distributable earnings rose over 80% to $3.9 billion, resulting in our best ever year of aggregate cash distributions to shareholders, which we believe exceeds the capital returned by any other public money manager to its shareholders.

正如韋斯頓所提到的，全年經濟淨收入成長超過 40%。可分配收益成長超過 80%，達到 39 億美元，創下我們有史以來向股東分配現金總額最高的一年，我們相信這超過了任何其他上市資金管理公司向其股東返還的資本。

Our capital metrics in 2017 were simply off the charts. We took in $108 billion of capital inflows. We returned over $55 billion to our limited partners through realizations, and we deployed over $50 billion around the world as we continue to extend our global platforms into new strategies, creating many new investment opportunities.

2017年，我們的資本指標簡直超出了預期。我們獲得了1080億美元的資本流入。我們透過變現向有限合夥人返還了超過 550 億美元，並且我們在全球範圍內部署了超過 500 億美元，我們將繼續把我們的全球平台擴展到新的策略中，創造許多新的投資機會。

In each of these areas, capital inflows, realizations and capital deployed, Blackstone set quarterly and full year records, both for the firm and for the alternative sector as a whole. We ended the year with total assets under management of $434 billion, up 18% year-over-year.

在資本流入、資產變現和資本部署這三個方面，黑石集團均創下了季度和全年紀錄，無論是對公司本身還是對整個另類投資行業都是如此。年底時，我們管理的資產總額為 4,340 億美元，年增 18%。

The scale of our operations today is really extraordinary and something I could never have imagined when I started this business with my partner, Pete Peterson, 32 years ago. Today, Blackstone is the largest manager globally and a reference institution in the high returning alternative sector. We've established the most powerful brand among limited partner investors and have earned their trust over decades by delivering great performance with very limited actual losses of capital.

我們今天的業務規模確實非同尋常，這是我 32 年前和我的合夥人皮特彼得森一起創辦這家公司時根本無法想像的。如今，黑石集團是全球最大的資產管理公司，也是高回報另類投資領域的標竿機構。我們在有限合夥人投資者中建立了最強大的品牌形象，並透過數十年來卓越的業績和極少的實際資本損失贏得了他們的信任。

As a result, our LPs are giving us more of their money to manage for both existing and new products as we expand our capabilities further along the alternative spectrum. Having built a dominant global franchise in the highest returning categories, such as corporate private equity and opportunistic real estate, this is the logical next stage of the firm's development. These new areas include: More stabilized real estate, such as core+; longer-dated private equity; infrastructure; high-grade credit and other areas. We can leverage our existing global teams and create new products to create a broader menu of solutions for Limited Partners.

因此，隨著我們在另類投資領域進一步拓展能力，我們的有限合夥人將更多資金交給我們管理，用於現有產品和新產品。公司在企業私募股權和機會型房地產等高回報類別中建立了全球主導地位，這是公司發展的合乎邏輯的下一個階段。這些新領域包括：較穩定的房地產，例如核心+；期限​​較長的私募股權；基礎設施；高等級信貸和其他領域。我們可以利用現有的全球團隊，創造新產品，為有限合夥人提供更廣泛的解決方案。

The marketplace for some of these products can be much larger than where we focused historically, and the size of investments we could make here is also much larger. In addition, LPs often allocate more capital to these areas. And this is why despite the nearly fivefold growth in Blackstone's AUM since our IPO 10 years ago, I remain quite optimistic about the firm's prospects. We have more promising, large-scale, new initiatives underway today than ever before in our history.

這些產品的市場規模可能比我們過去關注的要大得多，我們在這裡可以進行的投資規模也大得多。此外，有限合夥人通常會向這些領域分配更多資金。正因如此，儘管自 10 年前黑石集團上市以來，其資產管理規模已經成長了近五倍，但我仍然對公司的前景相當樂觀。如今，我們正在進行的前景廣闊、規模宏大的新項目比歷史上任何時期都多。

For example, as Tony mentioned, a few weeks ago, we launched Blackstone Insurance Solutions under the leadership of Chris Blunt, the former President of New York Lifes Investments Group. There is an estimated $23 trillion -- that's with a T -- of insurance assets globally, a vast largely untapped market for us and for just about anybody else except strictly high-grade sellers of product. Chris will lead the effort to provide a range of bespoke investment solutions from high-grade private credit to traditional alternatives, including the option for full outsourced management of insurers investment portfolios.

例如，正如托尼所提到的，幾週前，我們在紐約人壽投資集團前總裁克里斯布朗特的領導下推出了黑石保險解決方案。全球保險資產估計高達 23 兆美元（沒錯，是 23 兆美元），對於我們以及除高端產品銷售商之外的幾乎所有人來說，這都是一個巨大的、尚未開發的市場。Chris 將領導團隊提供一系列客製化的投資解決方案，從高等級的私人信貸到傳統的另類投資，包括保險公司投資組合的全面外包管理選項。

We are exceptionally well positioned to address this market, and I believe we can build a business well in excess of $100 billion of AUM over time. We're off to a great start with the $23 billion portfolio and investment management agreement with Fidelity & Guaranty Life, a portfolio company in our Tactical Opportunities area as well as our Harrington partnership with AXIS.

我們在開拓這個市場方面擁有得天獨厚的優勢，我相信隨著時間的推移，我們可以建立一個資產管理規模超過 1000 億美元的業務。我們與 Fidelity & Guaranty Life（我們戰術機會領域的投資組合公司）達成了 230 億美元的投資組合和投資管理協議，以及我們與 AXIS 的 Harrington 合作關係，都取得了良好的開端。

In addition to insurance, our infrastructure initiative is moving forward. We're still a few months away from our first close and it's too early to provide an estimate for that yet. But as you know, we have up to $20 billion commitment from a sovereign investor, which will flow into AUM as matching capital is raised. We ultimately expect this platform to be the largest of its kind in the world.

除了保險業務，我們的基礎設施建設計劃也在穩步推進。距離我們完成第一筆交易還有幾個月的時間，現在給出預估還為時過早。但如您所知，我們已獲得一位主權投資者高達 200 億美元的投資承諾，隨著配對資金的籌集，這些資金將流入資產管理規模。我們最終期望這個平台成為全球同類平台中規模最大的。

In our real estate core+ area, we launched our European strategy a few months ago, which mirrors our U.S. strategy. We also won the mandate to manage Logicor, the European warehouse business recently sold by our BREP funds. As you may recall, we built this platform through over 50 acquisitions in 17 countries, culminating in the largest private real estate sale in European history. This sale was a tremendous result for our investors, but the story doesn't end there. Given our favorable view of logistics globally, our familiarity with these assets and the strength of our team in Europe, the buyer subsequently asked us to manage Logicor for them on a long-term basis. These successes bring our global core+ strategy to over $27 billion.

在我們的房地產核心+領域，我們幾個月前推出了歐洲戰略，該戰略與我們的美國戰略相呼應。我們也獲得了管理 Logicor 的授權，Logicor 是歐洲倉儲業務，最近由我們的 BREP 基金出售。您可能還記得，我們​​透過在 17 個國家進行 50 多次收購，建立了這個平台，最終完成了歐洲歷史上最大的私人房地產交易。這次出售對我們的投資者來說是一次巨大的成功，但故事並沒有就此結束。鑑於我們對全球物流的樂觀態度、對這些資產的熟悉程度以及我們在歐洲的團隊實力，買方隨後要求我們長期為他們管理 Logicor。這些成功使我們的全球核心+策略規模超過 270 億美元。

When we launched this business a few years ago, I shared my vision it would eventually reach $100 billion. I got a little bit of resistance to that from people around the firm. But I think we're well on our way and I think we're going to do it.

幾年前我們創立這家公司時，我曾分享我的願景，那就是它最終會達到 1000 億美元。我這樣做時，公司裡有些人不太認同。但我認為我們進展順利，而且我認為我們一定會成功。

In addition to new strategies, we're layering on additional distribution capabilities to access more investor channels, including broader outreach to the wirehouses, private banks and independent brokers, among others. We're developing new products specifically for those channels.

除了新的策略外，我們還增加了額外的分銷能力，以接觸更多的投資者管道，包括更廣泛地接觸大型券商、私人銀行和獨立經紀商等。我們正在專門為這些通路開發新產品。

For example, our nontraded REIT, BREIT, had an outstanding debut year, raising $2 billion since its launch last January. In our hedge fund area, our individual investors solutions platform now manages over $8 billion. And in credit, we just launched our first integral fund, which can be offered continuously to a broad universe of investors. The integral fund structure allows us to translate some of the key benefits of less liquid, often privately negotiated alternative credit into vehicles that are more accessible for individuals. At Blackstone, our entrepreneurial culture means we're always inventing new things in the interest of our Limited Partners. It's a core competency of the firm.

例如，我們的非上市房地產投資信託基金 BREIT 在首個年度就取得了優異的成績，自去年 1 月推出以來已籌集了 20 億美元。在我們的對沖基金領域，我們的個人投資者解決方案平台目前管理著超過 80 億美元的資產。在信貸領域，我們剛剛推出了首支綜合基金，該基金可以持續向廣大投資者發售。整體基金結構使我們能夠將流動性較差、通常私下協商的另類信貸的一些關鍵優勢轉化為個人更容易獲得的投資工具。在黑石集團，我們的創業文化意味著我們始終為了有限合夥人的利益而不斷創新。這就是公司的核心競爭力。

Even as the firm has grown, we've remained totally focused on delivering attractive investment performance in everything we do. It's the key to success in the future. We never lose sight of why LPs put their trust in us.

即使公司不斷發展壯大，我們始終專注於在所有工作中實現具有吸引力的投資績效。這是未來成功的關鍵。我們始終銘記LP們為何信任我們。

We're often asked if size will be the enemy of returns. But as we continue to demonstrate, scale is not a disadvantage in our business. Last year, we delivered strong returns across the board, including our real estate opportunity funds, which appreciated 19.4% versus 5% for the public REIT Index. I'm going to give you that one again because all these presentations are always a blizzard of numbers. But imagine appreciating in real estate 19.4% versus 5% for the public REIT index. So we're like 1,400 basis points over the standard measures in something like real estate. It's pretty amazing.

我們經常被問到，尺寸是否會影響退貨率。但正如我們不斷證明的那樣，規模在我們的業務中並非劣勢。去年，我們各項投資都取得了強勁的回報，包括我們的房地產機會基金，其收益率為 19.4%，而同期公開 REIT 指數的收益率為 5%。我再給你講一遍，因為所有這些簡報總是充斥著大量的數字。但想像一下，房地產升值幅度為 19.4%，而公開 REIT 指數的升值幅度僅為 5%。所以，我們在房地產等領域比標準指標高出約 1400 個基點。真是太神奇了。

And our corporate private equity funds appreciated 17.6%. Our underlying portfolio of companies, as Tony mentioned, are performing well against a healthy backdrop of strong economic growth and improving confidence. And I remain quite optimistic about the forward outlook.

我們的企業私募股權基金增值了 17.6%。正如托尼所提到的那樣，在強勁的經濟成長和不斷增強的信心的良好背景下，我們旗下公司的投資組合表現良好。我對未來的前景依然相當樂觀。

As I stated on this call last year, some of the major changes that have been underway in the United States, such as tax reform, as well as the efforts to remove or reduce regulatory barriers, were designed to accelerate GDP growth and extend the business cycle. We're certainly seeing that today, and I believe that will stay the case for some time. These changes are also improving the relative attractiveness of the U.S. market, which I believe will drive greater foreign investment, something that's a little overlooked, I think, in most of the commentary on the tax reform measure. We will also see the repatriation of significant amounts of cash held overseas by U.S. companies, much of which will be reinvested and used in other mechanisms, as Tony said.

正如我去年在這次電話會議上所說，美國正在進行的一些重大變革，例如稅務改革，以及消除或減少監管障礙的努力，其目的都是為了加速GDP成長和延長商業週期。我們今天確實看到了這一點，而且我相信這種情況還會持續一段時間。這些變化也提高了美國市場的相對吸引力，我相信這將推動更多外國投資，而這一點在大多數關於稅改措施的評論中都被忽略了。我們還將看到美國公司將持有的大量海外現金匯回國內，其中大部分將進行再投資並用於其他用途，正如托尼所說。

All of this should serve to further benefit the U.S. economy and potentially extend the equity rally, which has really been unbelievably powerful, about 6% just in the first month, which I don't think can be annualized. Better growth will also benefit our portfolio of companies and fund returns, which are principally driven by the cash flow growth of our assets.

所有這些都應該有助於進一步提振美國經濟，並有可能延長股市上漲行情。股市上漲勢頭強勁，光是第一個月就上漲了約 6%，我認為這無法年化。更好的成長也將有利於我們的投資組合公司和基金回報，這主要取決於我們資產的現金流成長。

Although robust markets pose challenges for investing, particularly for U.S. opportunistic deals, we're actually able to do more deals than ever because of our broader product mix. Today, we can find and invest in value basically anywhere in the world. Michael will discuss our deployment in more detail. Over the past few years, for example, the entire firm has tilted towards Europe, which comprise nearly 40% of our investments last year, and that looks backward looking like it was a very wise thing to have done.

儘管強勁的市場為投資帶來了挑戰，尤其是對美國的機會型交易而言，但由於我們更廣泛的產品組合，我們實際上能夠完成的交易比以往任何時候都多。如今，我們幾乎可以在世界任何地方發現並投資有價值的項目。麥可將更詳細地討論我們的部署方案。例如，在過去的幾年裡，整個公司都向歐洲傾斜，去年歐洲投資占我們投資的近 40%，現在看來，這確實是一件非常明智的事情。

We started this shift several years ago before the recovery gained momentum and people were still questioning whether the European Union would continue to exist. While we've largely moved past those concerns, Europe is still early in its recovery and some remaining dislocation still remains in certain regions.

幾年前，在經濟復甦勢頭尚未強勁、人們仍在質疑歐盟是否會繼續存在的時候，我們就開始了這種轉變。雖然我們已經基本上克服了這些擔憂，但歐洲仍處於復甦初期，某些地區仍然存在一些混亂。

Overall, I feel great about where we're deploying capital and our ability to navigate the current environment. I think Tony mentioned in our private equity area that we just signed an agreement to purchase the Thomson Reuters business, which is a $20 billion scale investment. That I think is the largest private equity investment since the global financial crisis.

總的來說，我對我們的資本部署方向以及我們應對當前環境的能力感到非常滿意。我想托尼在我們私募股權領域提到過，我們剛剛簽署了一項收購湯森路透業務的協議，這是一項 200 億美元的投資。我認為這是自全球金融危機以來規模最大的私募股權投資。

In conclusion, the firm is operating at an incredibly high level. We continue to deliver attractive returns to investors, which is our mission. And we're doing it across more funds, more asset classes and more regions.

總之，該公司營運水準非常高。我們將繼續為投資者帶來可觀的回報，這是我們的使命。而且我們正在將這種做法推廣到更多基金、更多資產類別和更多地區。

We're staying disciplined in finding interesting ways to deploy capital, creating the basis for favorable future realizations. All this leads to Blackstone being a significant cash generator, which as our shareholders, you benefit from. Since our IPO, if you've reinvested our distributions into Blackstone stock, you'd have a cumulative return of over 120% in the last 10 years. It could be better. It could be a lot, lot worse, 120% over 10 years. Our 2017 dividend of $2.70 per share equates to a 7.4% yield on our current stock price, which is one of the highest of any large company in the world, particularly among those that are A+ rated.

我們始終堅持尋找有趣的資本部署方式，為未來取得良好收益奠定基礎。這一切都使得黑石集團成為一個重要的現金創造者，而身為我們的股東，你們將從中受益。自我們上市以來，如果您將我們的分紅再投資於黑石集團的股票，那麼在過去的 10 年裡，您的累積回報率將超過 120%。還可以做得更好。情況可能會更糟，10 年內可能惡化 120%。我們 2017 年每股派息 2.70 美元，以當前股價計算，收益率為 7.4%，這在世界大型公司中屬於最高水平之一，尤其是在 A+ 評級的公司中。

As the largest shareholder, I personally can find this to be compelling, and I think Blackstone and our shareholders alike have a lot to look forward to. I've never been more excited about the future. And in that regard, I agree with Tony completely. We've got so many exciting things going on here, so many remarkable people at the firm, such good investment processes and such a unique ability to anticipate where the world's going and create new products. It's really lots of fun to come to work every day.

作為最大股東，我個人認為這很有吸引力，而且我認為黑石集團和我們的股東都對未來充滿期待。我從未像現在這樣對未來充滿期待。在這方面，我完全同意托尼的觀點。我們這裡有很多令人興奮的事情正在發生，公司裡有很多傑出的人才，投資流程非常出色，而且我們擁有預測世界發展方向和創造新產品的獨特能力。每天來上班真的很有趣。

And now I'd like to turn things over to Michael Chae, who hopefully is having as much fun as I am.

現在我想把麥克風交給麥可‧蔡，希望他跟我一樣玩得開心。

You can tell I'm having lots of fun, Steve. Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone.

史蒂夫，看得出來我玩得很開心。謝謝你，史蒂夫，大家早安。

Our fourth quarter results represented a great finish to an exceptional year. Revenue, economic net income, distributable earnings and fee-related earnings all grew strongly in the quarter, including a near doubling of DE to $1.24 billion, 1 of our 2 best DE quarters ever. Full year results were even more impressive. Revenue rose 35% to $6.8 billion, driven by 67% growth in performance fees and investment income, while economic net income increased 41% to $3.4 billion.

我們第四季的業績為這卓越的一年畫上了圓滿的句點。本季營收、經濟淨收入、可分配收益和費用相關收益均強勁成長，其中 DE 幾乎翻了一番，達到 12.4 億美元，這是我們有史以來 DE 業績最好的兩個季度之一。全年業績更令人矚目。營收成長 35% 至 68 億美元，主要得益於業績費和投資收入成長 67%；經濟淨收入成長 41% 至 34 億美元。

Fee-related earnings rose 21% to over $1.2 billion for the full year or $1.03 per share, trending favorably to the high end of the path we outlined on last quarter's call. Management fee revenue rose 12% and FRE margin expanded by 310 basis points to 44.6%, our highest ever for a calendar year.

全年費用相關收益成長 21%，超過 12 億美元，即每股 1.03 美元，朝著我們在上個季度電話會議上概述的路徑的高端方向發展。管理費收入成長了 12%，FRE 利潤率成長了 310 個基點，達到 44.6%，創歷史新高。

Distributable earnings increased 83% to $3.9 billion, also a record, with 2 of our 3 best quarters falling during the year, both of which produced $1 or more per share of DE. As you know, our business model is powered by simple, virtuous circle: Inflows, deployment, value creation and harvesting.

可分配收益成長 83% 至 39 億美元，也創下歷史新高，其中我們業績最好的 3 個季度中有 2 個出現在年內，這兩個季度每股收益都達到 1 美元或以上。如您所知，我們的商業模式由一個簡單的良性循環驅動：資金流入、部署、價值創造和收益獲取。

Over the past 4 years, the metrics reflecting these cornerstones of activity have been remarkably robust. $328 billion of inflows, $133 billion of deployments, $85 billion of appreciation and $183 billion of realizations. This has enabled us to deliver nearly $13 billion in distributable earnings over that time period, or an average of $3.2 billion and $2.66 per unit annually. And we simultaneously grew AUM by $168 billion in this period or by 2/3 and doubled our dry powder.

在過去 4 年裡，反映這些活動基石的指標一直非常穩健。3280億美元的資金流入，1330億美元的資金部署，850億美元的增值和1830億美元的資金實現。這使得我們在此期間實現了近 130 億美元的可分配收益，平均每年 32 億美元，每單位 2.66 美元。同時，我們的資產管理規模在此期間增加了 1,680 億美元，相當於成長了三分之二，可支配資金也翻了一番。

While 2017 was just the most recent period in this trajectory, it was our most productive yet across every one of those value drivers. I'll now dig into each of these a bit more. Starting with inflows.

雖然 2017 年只是這一發展軌跡中的最新階段，但它是我們在所有這些價值驅動因素方面取得最高產量的一年。接下來我將更深入地探討這些問題。從流入量開始。

Gross inflows were $62 billion in the quarter and $108 billion for the year, including the acquisition of Harvest, which added $11 billion. Excluding M&A, inflows of $97 billion still represented our best ever year despite not having either of the flagship global breadth or BCP funds in the market. Our previous record year of 2015 included both of those funds, which accounted for over 1/3 of that year's inflows. This illustrates an important and powerful trend at the firm that we move well beyond the capacity limitations and episodic fund raising cycles of the traditional drawdown funds. There are 4 key drivers to this development.

本季總流入資金為 620 億美元，全年總流入資金為 1,080 億美元，其中包括收購 Harvest，該收購增加了 110 億美元。即使不計併購，970億美元的資金流入仍然是我們有史以來最好的一年，儘管市場上既沒有旗艦全球廣度基金，也沒有BCP基金。我們先前的創紀錄年份 2015 年包含了這兩支基金，它們佔當年資金流入的三分之一以上。這說明公司正在出現一個重要且強大的趨勢，那就是我們遠遠超越了傳統提取基金的容量限制和階段性籌資週期。推動這項發展的關鍵因素有 4 個。

First, we continue to move farther along the risk return spectrum, as Steve discussed, often through longer duration or permanent capital vehicles. Core+ real estate and core private equity, together raised $13 billion last year, and now together, account for $32 billion in AUM.

首先，正如史蒂夫所討論的那樣，我們繼續沿著風險回報譜係向前邁進，通常是透過期限更長或永久性資本工具。核心+房地產和核心私募股權去年共籌集了130億美元，現在合計資產管理規模達320億美元。

Second, expanding the regional footprint of existing strategies. In 2017, we raised over $16 billion of regional strategies, $6 billion for our second Asia real estate fund, which will soon hit its $7 billion cap; $1.6 billion for our first Asia private equity fund, which we expect to hit its $2 billion cap; the extension of core+ into Europe; and the final close of our fifth European opportunistic real estate fund, which reached nearly $9 billion.

第二，擴大現有策略的區域覆蓋範圍。2017 年，我們為區域戰略募集了超過 160 億美元的資金，為我們的第二支亞洲房地產基金募集了 60 億美元，該基金即將達到 70 億美元的上限；為我們的第一支亞洲私募股權基金募集了 16 億美元，我們預計將達到 20 億美元的上限；將我們接近第五款房地產基金將接近第 90 億美元的核心基金。

Third, our newer strategies continue to scale with large successor funds as well as new adjacencies. Tac Opps and Strategic Partners, for example, together raised $8 billion last year, bringing them to a combined $43 billion of AUM.

第三，我們的新策略不斷擴大規模，擁有龐大的後續基金以及新的鄰近領域。例如，Tac Opps 和 Strategic Partners 去年共籌集了 80 億美元，使它們的資產管理規模總計達到 430 億美元。

Fourth, and very importantly, the emerging high-growth distribution channels of retail and insurance, which Steve discussed. Retail comprised $12 billion in inflows in 2017, more than 70% of which came from products customized exclusively for this channel. In insurance, our investment management agreement with [FG] covering over $22 billion of AUM provides us a formidable anchor position from which to build out this effort. This AUM is sticky, long-duration capital with a recurring management fee stream. Over time, a growing proportion will be invested in Blackstone funds.

第四，也是非常重要的一點，是新興的高成長分銷管道——零售和保險，史蒂夫對此進行了討論。2017 年零售通路流入資金達 120 億美元，其中超過 70% 來自專為該通路量身訂製的產品。在保險領域，我們與 [FG] 達成的投資管理協議涵蓋超過 220 億美元的資產管理規模，為我們提供了強大的基礎，可以以此為基礎開展這項工作。這部分資產管理規模屬於黏性強、期限長的資本，並有持續的管理費收入。隨著時間的推移，越來越多的資金將投資於黑石基金。

The prospects to significantly grow this business as an Evergreen source of capital for the firm are compelling and it's just one part of a broader, multidimensional insurance strategy. Most insurance companies have very small allocations to alternatives today, and we're confident we can create solutions to lift the returns with our combination of products and scale.

這項業務作為公司持續的資本來源，其發展前景十分可觀，而這只是公司更廣泛的多維保險策略的一部分。目前大多數保險公司對另類投資的配置比例都很低，我們有信心透過我們的產品組合和規模優勢，創造解決方案來提高回報。

Next, deployment. We invested over $50 billion for the full year, including $20 billion in each of our private equity and real estate segments and $10 billion in our credit segment, which was a record for each of those segments. And we have over $12 billion of investments signed but not yet closed, so we entered 2018 with a considerable momentum. How are we doing it? This large number is in fact spread across a broad spectrum of strategies and risk return profiles. So within private equity's $20 billion segment deployments, we had $9 billion in 2017 of higher octane corporate private equity investments focused on situations where there's compelling opportunity for operational intervention and value creation, most recently illustrated, as Steve alluded to, by our agreement this week to acquire Thomson Reuters' financial and risk business. $1.5 billion were in long-duration, high-quality core private equity investments; $5 billion in Tac Opps' flexible mandate to uncover attractive risk-adjusted returns in the eclectic places they hide all around the world; and $5 billion in SP's leading secondaries business, which span buyouts, growth equity, real estate and infrastructure.

接下來是部署。我們全年投資超過 500 億美元，其中私募股權和房地產業務各投資 200 億美元，信貸業務投資 100 億美元，這兩個業務板塊的投資額均創歷史新高。我們有超過 120 億美元的投資項目已經簽署但尚未完成，因此我們帶著相當大的發展勢頭進入了 2018 年。我們是如何做到的？事實上，如此龐大的數量涵蓋了廣泛的策略和風險回報特徵。因此，在私募股權 200 億美元的投資領域中，我們在 2017 年投入了 90 億美元用於高回報的企業私募股權投資，重點關注那些具有令人信服的營運幹預和價值創造機會的情況，正如史蒂夫所提到的，我們本週達成的收購湯森路透金融和風險業務的協議就是最好的例證。其中 15 億美元用於長期、高品質的核心私募股權投資；50 億美元用於 Tac Opps 的靈活投資，旨在發掘世界各地隱藏的、具有吸引力的風險調整後收益；50 億美元用於 SP 領先的二級市場業務，該業務涵蓋收購、成長型股權、房地產和基礎設施。

Similarly, within real estate's $20 billion of segment deployments, $6 billion of opportunistic, over $9 billion in our Evergreen core+ platform, $1.4 billion in BREIT and nearly $3 billion in real estate debt. Blackstone's growth and diversification allow us to do 3 things at once: Provide more complete solutions to our clients' needs across their portfolio, to leverage and extend existing organizational capabilities into new ones and to provide incremental opportunities that wouldn't have been available to us otherwise as opposed to displacing investments by BREP and BCP.

同樣，在房地產領域 200 億美元的細分市場部署中，有 60 億美元用於機會型投資，超過 90 億美元用於我們的 Evergreen core+ 平台，14 億美元用於 BREIT，近 30 億美元用於房地產債務。黑石集團的成長和多元化使我們能夠同時做到三件事：為客戶在其投資組合中的需求提供更完整的解決方案；利用和擴展現有的組織能力到新的領域；以及提供我們原本無法獲得的增量機會，而不是透過 BREP 和 BCP 來取代投資。

Indeed, while the firm's deployment of $51 billion in 2017 was nearly double our 2014 pace by comparison, BREP and BCP together invested a consistent $15 billion in both of those years, actually. And our -- but however, our investment pace and a burgeoning range of other strategies more than tripled from $11 billion in 2014 to $35 billion in 2017. All of this is quite positive in terms of building a diverse store value to drive future attributions.

事實上，雖然該公司在 2017 年的投資額為 510 億美元，幾乎是 2014 年投資額的兩倍，但 BREP 和 BCP 在那兩年合計投資額為 150 億美元。然而，我們的投資速度以及其他一系列策略的蓬勃發展，從 2014 年的 110 億美元成長到 2017 年的 350 億美元，成長了兩倍多。從建立多元化的店鋪價值以推動未來歸因的角度來看，所有這些都是相當積極的。

Moving to investment performance, the measure of the ongoing value creation in the capital we have deployed. Across the firm, the funds delivered outstanding performance in 2017. The real estate opportunity funds appreciated 5.2% in the quarter and 19% for the full year while the corporate private equity funds appreciated 6.8% and 18%, respectively.

接下來談談投資業績，即衡量我們已投入資本的持續價值創造。2017 年，公司旗下各基金都取得了優異的績效。房地產機會基金本季上漲 5.2%，全年上漲 19%；而企業私募股權基金分別上漲 6.8% 和 18%。

For the year, Tac Opps appreciated 15%; Strategic Partners, 23%; core+ real estate, 12%; BREDS drawdown, 15%; BREIT, 10%; BAAM, 8%; and GSO, 11% and 8% in the performing credit and stress clusters, respectively. BREP, corporate PE and SP each posted their best returns since 2014; BAAM, since 2013; and Tac Opps, since inception in 2012.

今年，Tac Opps 增值 15%；Strategic Partners 增值 23%；核心+房地產增值 12%；BREDS 回撤增值 15%；BREIT 增值 10%；BAAM 增值 8%；GSO 在正常信貸和壓力測試集群中分別增值 11% 和 8%。BREP、企業私募股權基金和SP都取得了自2014年以來的最佳回報；BAAM取得了自2013年以來的最佳回報；Tac Opps取得了自2012年成立以來的最佳回報。

Strong performance across the funds powered $585 million of net performance fees in the quarter and $2.2 billion for the year. As a result, the performance fee receivable on the balance sheet was stable in the year, with that $2.2 billion in net performance fee accrual nearly matching the $2.3 billion in net performance fee distributions. Said another way, the unrealized value we created in 2017 fully replenished the firm's store value even as we paid out more cash than ever before.

各基金的強勁表現使該季淨業績費達到 5.85 億美元，全年淨業績費達到 22 億美元。因此，資產負債表上的業績報酬應收款在當年保持穩定，22億美元的淨業績報酬應計額幾乎與23億美元的淨業績報酬分配額相符。換句話說，儘管我們支付的現金比以往任何時候都多，但我們在 2017 年創造的未實現價值完全補充了公司的儲值。

Finally, on realizations, which were $19 billion in the fourth quarter and $55 billion for the full year. The breadth of our sales activity was immense, with 240 discrete realization events in 2017 across the firm and around the world. These included the largest private sale in the firm's history, Logicor, plus multiple other private sales. We also completed 37 equity transactions totaling $12.5 billion in the public markets, including the continued sell down of our stake in our highly successful investment in Hilton. And we executed $50 billion of portfolio company refinancings during the year. The firm's ability to achieve monetizations through so many different means is a key driver of value delivery for our shareholders.

最後，在實現方面，第四季為 190 億美元，全年為 550 億美元。我們的銷售活動範圍非常廣泛，2017 年公司在世界各地共完成了 240 項獨立的銷售活動。其中包括該公司歷史上規模最大的私人出售交易 Logicor，以及其他多筆私人出售交易。我們也在公開市場完成了 37 筆股權交易，總額達 125 億美元，其中包括繼續減持我們在希爾頓酒店集團的股份，這項投資非常成功。年內，我們完成了 500 億美元的投資組合公司再融資。公司能夠透過多種不同方式獲利，是為股東創造價值的關鍵驅動因素。

I'll now wrap up by touching on 2 discrete topics of note. First, with respect to our direct lending efforts. As previously announced, we will conclude our subadviser relationship with Franklin Square in the second quarter affecting $20 billion of AUM, with a net impact to FRE in the year of approximately $50 million. We view this decision as compelling from a financial and strategic point of view.

最後，我將簡要地談談兩個值得注意的話題。首先，關於我們的直接貸款工作。正如先前宣布的那樣，我們將在第二季度結束與富蘭克林廣場的次級顧問關係，這將影響 200 億美元的資產管理規模，對富蘭克林廣場的年度淨影響約為 5000 萬美元。從財務和策略角度來看，我們認為這項決定是意義重大的。

The $583 million of pretax transactional payments we will receive will significantly exceed earnings forgone as we ramp our new platform over time. And we are confident that we'll replace and ultimately overtake the prior level of revenues and earnings. We will do so by having sole ownership and control over our platform, allowing us to fully leverage 3 powerful assets of Blackstone and GSO. First, our leading direct lending franchise and origination platform. Second, our extraordinary institutional LP base, which we will now be able to tap into for this strategy. And third, as both Steve and I touched on earlier, our rapidly growing internal retail distribution capabilities in our Private Wealth Solutions area, the same capabilities that we leveraged this year with BREIT to capture an estimated 45% share of the nontraded REIT market, which draws from similar channels as the BDC market.

隨著我們新平台的逐步完善，我們將收到的 5.83 億美元稅前交易款項將遠遠超過我們因此而放棄的收益。我們有信心取代並最終超越先前的收入和盈利水平。我們將透過擁有對我們平台的完全所有權和控制權來實現這一目標，從而充分利用黑石集團和GSO的3項強大資產。首先，我們領先的直接貸款特許經營和貸款發起平台。其次，我們擁有非常龐大的機構有限合夥人基礎，現在我們可以利用這個基礎來實現這個策略。第三，正如史蒂夫和我之前提到的，我們在私人財富解決方案領域內部零售分銷能力正在迅速增長，我們今年也利用了同樣的能力，與 BREIT 一起獲得了約 45% 的非上市 REIT 市場份額，該市場與 BDC 市場一樣，都來自類似的渠道。

We expect the separation date and initial receipt of proceeds to occur in the second quarter. We anticipate that a substantial institutional capital base will be put in place and activated in parallel and that subsequently will enter the BDC channel later this year. As to the use of transaction proceeds, we'll provide specifics on the second quarter.

我們預計分離日期和首次收到收益款項將在第二季發生。我們預計，將建立並同步啟動相當規模的機構資本基礎，並在今年稍後進入 BDC 管道。至於交易所得款項的用途，我們將在第二季提供具體細節。

Finally, on the impact of tax reform. At a high level, the new law won't result in any fundamental change to our business model in terms of how we make investments, finance our deals or our competitive position in the market. At the portfolio level, we expect a net positive benefit overall. In private equity, the direct impact varies by company, some benefit materially. For a broad group, it is basically neutral. And almost none appear to be materially adversely impacted. In real estate, our holdings are generally unaffected directly at the asset level by the legislation. And in credit, we expect our borrowers to be impacted in a similar fashion to our corporate holdings. With regard to credit markets more generally, tax reform should in theory moderately increase the cost of debt relative to equity, but we don't expect it to fundamentally change demand for credit or ability to deploy capital.

最後，談談稅制改革的影響。從宏觀層面來看，新法律不會從根本上改變我們的商業模式，包括我們如何進行投資、如何為交易融資以及我們在市場上的競爭地位。從投資組合層面來看，我們預期整體上將獲得淨收益。在私募股權領域，直接影響因公司而異，有些公司會獲得實質收益。對於廣大群體而言，它基本上是中性的。幾乎沒有人受到實質的不利影響。在房地產領域，該立法通常不會直接影響我們持有的資產。在信貸方面，我們預期借款人受到的影響將與我們的公司持股受到的影響類似。就信貸市場而言，從理論上講，稅收改革應該會適度增加債務相對於股權的成本，但我們預計它不會從根本上改變信貸需求或資本部署能力。

Perhaps even more impactful are the potential second order effects on economic growth and business activity that could arise from this legislation, as Steve discussed, from which our companies are well positioned to benefit, we believe.

正如史蒂夫所討論的那樣，這項立法可能對經濟成長和商業活動產生更大的二階影響，我們相信，我們的公司將從中受益。

As it relates to our structure. The resolution of tax reform gives us a clearer picture of the cost of converting to a C corp. That cost must be weighed against judgments about the magnitude and sustainability of potential market benefits. These judgments are not an exact science, and we will continue to evaluate the issue, taking into account any new information and developments.

就我們的組織結構而言。稅制改革的決議讓我們更清楚地了解了轉為C型公司所需的成本。必須將此成本與潛在市場收益的規模和可持續性進行權衡。這些判斷並非精確科學，我們將繼續評估該問題，並考慮任何新的資訊和進展。

So in closing, while 2017 is a tough act to follow, we enter 2018 with exceptional momentum. We have never been better positioned as a firm. Our brand, culture, track record and capacity to innovate have never been stronger. And we are in the early days of attacking newer channels for products of enormous potential scale. These are indeed exciting times for the firm.

最後，雖然 2017 年的成績難以超越，但我們帶著強勁的勢頭進入了 2018 年。我們公司從未像現在這樣處於如此有利的地位。我們的品牌、文化、業績和創新能力從未如此強大。我們目前還處於開拓具有巨大潛在規模產品的新通路的早期階段。對公司而言，這的確是一個令人興奮的時刻。

With that, we thank you for joining the call and would like to open it up now for questions.

感謝各位參加本次電話會議，現在我們來接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from the line of Michael Cyprys, Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自摩根士丹利的邁克爾·西普里斯。

I just thought maybe we'd start off on tax reform. It sounds like you're evaluating sort of the puts and takes there. So just curious how you see the impact, just say your 2017 earnings, if you were a C corp, what sort of tax leakage would there be? Just if you could help flush that out -- how to quantify that, what the tax rate would look like. And then just broadly, how you're thinking about the puts and takes around potential for multiple expansion, if you were, or a broader investor base, shall I say, if you were to move into a C corp?

我只是覺得或許我們可以先從稅制改革開始。聽起來你好像在評估那裡的買賣機會。所以我很好奇您如何看待這種影響，比如說您2017年的收入，如果您是一家C型公司，會有哪些稅務漏洞？如果您能幫忙弄清楚這一點就太好了——如何量化，稅率會是多少。那麼，從更廣泛的角度來看，如果您要轉型為 C 型公司，或者面向更廣泛的投資者群體，您會如何看待圍繞市盈率擴張的潛在利弊呢？

Sure, Mike, it's Michael. And you put out a nice report on this yesterday. Look, I think stepping back, as you know, this involves a cost benefit analysis, all in the context of what's best for our shareholders over the long term and on a sustainable basis. And the tricky thing about that cost benefit analysis is, as you know, the cost is known and quantifiable now and the benefits are not precisely quantifiable before the fact. So on the cost side, specifically to your question, Mike, with tax reform and tax rates now settled, we can do that math. The leakage on a DE per common unit basis is in the teens on a percentage basis. That varies based on the mix of character of income in a given year, as you know. But that's the area. And look, on the benefit side, as we've discussed, we're going through judgments and assessments of a lot of different factors. And as you said, it's all in the context of what the multiple expansion would be required to generate the sort of long-term benefit to justify this decision. So we're thinking through that carefully. We think more time and information will benefit our judgments on this, and we don't view this as a race.

當然，麥克，我是麥可。你昨天就此事發布了一份很好的報告。你看，我認為退一步講，正如你所知，這涉及到成本效益分析，一切都要從長遠和可持續發展的角度出發，考慮什麼對我們的股東最有利。成本效益分析的棘手之處在於，如你所知，成本現在可以確定和量化，而收益在事前是無法精確量化的。所以，就成本方面而言，具體回答你的問題，麥克，既然稅制改革和稅率已經確定，我們可以進行計算了。以普通單元計算，洩漏率在十幾個百分點。如你所知，這取決於特定年份收入的組成和性質。但那就是那個區域。而且，從益處的角度來看，正如我們所討論的，我們正在對許多不同的因素進行判斷和評估。正如你所說，這一切都取決於需要多大的倍數擴張才能產生足以證明這個決定合理的長期收益。所以我們正在仔細考慮這個問題。我們認為更多的時間和資訊將有助於我們對此做出判斷，我們並不認為這是一場競賽。

And just as a follow-up, if I could, with the transaction you announced yesterday, the largest deal since, I believe, Hilton. Just curious how you're seeing some of the opportunities there around data. Just broadly, you're seeing out there in the marketplace opportunities to use data technology automation to companies' industries ripe for change and disruption. And as you look across your company today, do you feel you have all the capabilities and toolkits to accomplish that? Where do you think you need to expand your expertise, if anywhere?

另外，如果可以的話，我想就您昨天宣布的交易補充一點，我相信這是自希爾頓酒店以來最大的一筆交易。我很好奇您是如何看待數據領域中的一些機會的。總的來說，市場上存在著利用數據技術自動化來幫助企業應對亟待變革和顛覆的行業的機會。縱觀當今公司，您是否覺得公司具備實現這一目標所需的所有能力和工具？你認為你需要拓展哪些方面的專業技能？

Yes, okay. So Mike, it's Tony. Yes, we're big believers in data. In fact, as we speak, our entire private equity group is in -- everyone, from down -- from Joe Baratta down to the most junior guys is in Palo Alto attending something called Singularity University and getting steeped in new technologies, technology disruption, use of data and so on and so forth. We've also built an internal data group, which is now participating with all of our different groups in bringing big data applications to the investment process and mining our own -- starting to mine our own portfolio of companies for data that has value both in terms of our own investments and potentially, third party market value. We're big believers in data, and that's certainly a driver behind the Thomson Reuters business. The most valuable part of that business, by far, is the data part. The terminals are the legacy business for which people think of them. But that's not where the future of that company is. Having said all that, I think this is a journey that we're just beginning. And while we've got a team, it'll take more investment in the team, it'll take somewhat of a cultural change, it'll take education around our people. It affects all of our businesses, not just the investment side of the businesses, but how we do things internally in processes. For example, we're starting to use AI to screen job applicants, some things like that. So we want to be the leading firm in our industry in the use and application of technology and data.

好的。麥克，我是托尼。是的，我們非常相信數據。事實上，就在我們說話的此刻，我們整個私募股權團隊——從上到下——從喬·巴拉塔到最初級的員工，都在帕洛阿爾托參加一個叫做奇點大學的課程，沉浸在新技術、技術顛覆、數據使用等等之中。我們還建立了一個內部數據團隊，該團隊現在與我們所有不同的團隊一起參與將大數據應用引入投資流程，並挖掘我們自己的數據——開始挖掘我們自己的投資組合公司的數據，這些數據既對我們自己的投資有價值，也可能對第三方市場價值有價值。我們非常相信數據，這無疑是湯森路透業務發展的驅動力。就目前來看，該業務中最有價值的部分是數據部分。終端機是人們通常所認為的傳統業務。但那並不是這家公司的未來所在。說了這麼多，我認為這只是我們旅程的開始。雖然我們已經有了團隊，但還需要對團隊進行更多投資，需要一些文化變革，需要教育我們的員工。它影響我們所有的業務，不僅是投資方面，也包括我們內部的運作流程。例如，我們開始使用人工智慧來篩選求職者，諸如此類。因此，我們希望成為業內技術和數據使用與應用領域的領導者。

Your next question will be from the line of Ken Worthington, JPMorgan.

你的下一個問題將來自摩根大通的 Ken Worthington。

First with tax reform done, the Congressional priority seem to be turning to infrastructure. Maybe talk about how a major infrastructure package from Congress would impact your aspirations in infrastructure. And what I'm really hoping to hear is how you can help me connect the dots between what Congress can accomplish in legislation and how that helps you find opportunities to invest and generate excess returns.

稅制改革完成後，國會的首要任務似乎轉向基礎建設。或許可以談談國會的一項重大基礎建設方案將如何影響你在基礎建設領域的願景。我真正想聽的是，您如何幫助我理解國會在立法方面的成就，以及這些成就如何幫助您找到投資機會並獲得超額收益。

Yes, sure. This is Steve, I'll take that. U.S. is estimated to be roughly $2 trillion minimum short in terms of what's optimum to have in (inaudible). And I think in the State of the Union, the President mentioned that he had a proposed package of $1.5 trillion. For people like ourselves in our fund, we've geared it to the private sector because it's very pledgee, historically, trying to do things with the public sector. Now 2 pieces of what the President mentioned, the first was timing. The U.S. is slowest, I can't say it's the slowest country in the world because I don't -- haven't surveyed every country, but it's completely an outlier in the developed world. It takes typically 10 years or more to get things approved. In Canada and Germany, for example, it's 2 years. So we're 5x less effective, which increases the cost of everything that gets done, discourages people from undertaking projects and basically limits the asset class, and (inaudible). And of course, not all things the government do could be bought by the private sector because a lot of them don't have cash flow. But to the extent that they do, this provides additional opportunities to put money out in scale. And that would be a -- could only be, I believe -- my General Counsel may be jumping up and down, but can only be a good thing, in principle, to have more opportunities of different types. And the question is how much money will go into this. So the proposal, I think, is a mixed proposal of federal government money, state and local and private/public partnerships. And that gets up to that $1.5 trillion number. We're in the private partners -- focused public/private partnership, and that would be sort of a cherry on a sundae for us. We sort of have the sundae in terms of what we think we're going to be doing in the private sector. But it's only upside, if you will, from more things to finance. But particularly, if they can agree on just the efficacy of doing infrastructure, try not to make it the least competitive country in the developed world. Give us a shot. And that's got to be very good for this overall asset class.

當然可以。這是史蒂夫，我收下他了。據估計，美國在（聽不清楚）方面至少缺口約 2 兆美元。我認為在國情咨文中，總統提到他提出了一項1.5兆美元的經濟刺激方案。對於像我們這樣的基金來說，我們已經將投資方向轉向私營部門，因為從歷史上看，與公共部門合作總是非常困難的。現在來說說總統提到的兩點，第​​一點是時機。美國速度最慢，我不能說它是世界上最慢的國家，因為我沒有調查過每個國家，但它在已開發國家中完全是個例外。通常情況下，審批流程需要10年或更長。例如，在加拿大和德國，這個期限是 2 年。因此，我們的效率降低了 5 倍，這增加了所有工作的成本，阻礙了人們開展項目，並基本上限制了資產類別，而且（聽不清楚）。當然，政府所做的很多事情都無法被私部門購買，因為很多政府部門沒有現金流。但如果他們真的這麼做，這將提供更多大規模投資的機會。而那將是一件——而且我認為只能是一件——我的總法律顧問可能會為此跳上跳下，但原則上來說，擁有更多不同類型的機會絕對是一件好事。問題是，這將投入多少資金。所以，我認為這項提案是一項混合提案，包括聯邦政府資金、州和地方政府資金以及公私合作資金。這樣就達到了1.5兆美元的數字。我們屬於私人合作夥伴——專注於公私合作，這對我們來說就像是錦上添花。就我們認為自己將在私營部門進行的工作而言，我們就像一個冰淇淋聖代。但從某種意義上說，這只有好處，因為有更多的事情需要投資。但尤其重要的是，如果他們能夠就基礎建設的有效性達成一致，就不要讓該國成為已開發國家中競爭力最弱的國家。給我們一次機會。這對整個資產類別來說肯定是非常有利的。

Ken, I'm going to chime in, just look at it from the perspective of the fund, not so much the country. We don't need any improved legislation or regulatory system to invest this fund really well. There's tons of existing assets out there. One of the defining characteristics of some of these infrastructure assets, many of which are in protected industries or regulated industries, by definition, a structure of a true infrastructure business gives it a quasi-monopoly. And many of those companies are actually rewarded based on what they have invested after all their costs are covered. So there's no incentive at all for those companies to be run better and sharper and crisper and that's just not the environment that they exist in. So we think that there's tons of targets out there where we can bring our value creation capabilities, which are honed in highly competitive private sector industries and apply it to this industry and create tons of value, even in the existing regulatory scheme. What Steve talked about would be fantastic. I'm all for it. And I think we're getting both -- and when we talked -- both Republicans and Democrats, no one wins with this ridiculously slow system we have. But I think there's tons to do even without it.

肯，我插一句，應該從基金的角度來看這個問題，而不是從國家的角度來看。我們不需要任何改進的法律或監管體係就能很好地投資這筆資金。市面上有許多現成的資產。這些基礎設施資產中有許多屬於受保護產業或受監管產業，它們的一個顯著特徵是，真正的基礎設施業務的結構使其具有準壟斷性。許多公司實際獲得的獎勵是根據扣除所有成本後的投資金額計算的。因此，這些公司完全沒有動力去改善營運，使其更有效率、精益求精，而它們所處的環境也並非如此。因此，我們認為有許多目標可以讓我們運用在競爭激烈的私部門產業中磨練出的價值創造能力，將其應用於這個產業，即使在現有的監管體系下也能創造巨大的價值。史蒂夫談到的內容真是太棒了。我完全贊成。我認為我們現在兩邊都看到了——而且當我們交談時——無論是共和黨人還是民主黨人，在這種極其緩慢的體制下，沒有人是贏家。但我認為即使沒有它，也有很多事情可以做。

And just for a follow-up. In terms of real estate investments. So I think $11 billion invested this quarter, big number, largely in BPP and some Europe, from what I saw. Can you talk about the outlook for the investment in the flagship sort of U.S. BREP area and maybe estimate the value of the pipeline announced, but not yet closed for BREP 8? I don't know if you could give that kind of detail, but I thought I'd try.

還有一個後續問題。就房地產投資而言。所以我認為本季投資金額達到了 110 億美元，這是一個很大的數字，據我所見，主要投資於 BPP 和一些歐洲市場。您能否談談美國旗艦級 BREP 區域的投資前景，並估算一下已宣布但尚未完成的 BREP 8 項目的價值？我不知道你是否能提供那麼詳細的信息，但我還是想試試。

Well, I'll let Michael think about the specific number of the pipeline. But look, it's -- since the great financial crisis, values have certainly recovered. And we're a value buyer. I would say that we've shifted our focus from one-off individual assets, more towards under managed companies, and some things like that, undervalued companies. We just announced a big deal in Canada, as you saw. So we're finding things to do, but they'll be lumpy and large-scale where we maximize some of our advantages, vis-à-vis, other buyers. So the pipeline is smaller. But still, we've got some interesting things in it.

嗯，我會讓麥可考慮一下管道的具體數量。但你看，自金融危機以來，市場價值確實已經恢復了。我們是注重性價比的買家。我想說，我們已經將焦點從一次性的個別資產轉移到了管理不善的公司，以及一些被低估的公司。正如你所看到的，我們剛剛在加拿大宣布了一項重大交易。所以我們正在尋找可以做的事情，但這些事情規模較大，而且會比較分散，以便我們可以最大限度地發揮自身優勢，與其他買家競爭。所以管道規模更小。不過，裡面還是有一些有趣的東西。

Yes, in terms of the committed, not yet deployed number, Ken. For real estate, I cited over $12 billion. Real estate is about half of that.

是的，就已承諾但尚未部署的數量而言，肯。房地產方面，我列舉了超過 120 億美元。房地產大約佔其中的一半。

Your next question will be from the line of Bill Katz, Citigroup.

你的下一個問題將來自花旗集團的比爾·卡茨。

Just can you and Steve, perhaps, talk a little bit more about the opportunity in insurance. I think you mentioned you think this could get to be $100 billion business for yourself. Talk about maybe the slope to getting there and then sort of how you see the economics from that? Is it just an asset location opportunity like some of your peers are doing? Or is it an opportunity also to manage some capital and how much of a revenue pickup could you get from that?

您和史蒂夫能否再多談談保險業的機會？我想你之前說過，你認為這可以發展成一項價值 1000 億美元的生意。或許可以談談達到目標的難度，以及你如何看待其中的經濟影響？這僅僅是像你們一些同行所做的那樣，尋找資產選址的機會嗎？或者，這也是一個管理部分資本的機會，以及你能從中獲得多少收入成長？

I think the answer is both. It's really interesting. When you have an asset class in difficulty, it's because of a combination of low interest rates almost across the world as well as a very restrictive regulatory environment that discourages higher return products even if they're safe. That's what happens sometimes in a regulatory world. And we think there's an opportunity for us to help manufacture products. We probably -- we are the largest generator of fees in the financial world. We generated last year, I think, somewhere around $160 billion, $170 billion of financings on our different products internally. We have a unique range of things that we do, from real estate and creation of a lot of debt on that real estate, private equity in our credit products. And all of these can be, we believe, adapted or customized to create product to satisfy the needs of increased return with safety for this asset class. And to the extent that we can do that, which we think we can, why wouldn't you want to do enormous amount of business with us if it increases your return and you're in the insurance area and you think it's safe because it is. And so we look at this as a very, very large potential set because there's almost no insurance company that isn't, to some degree or another, suffering from the low yields and the regulatory reserve requirements that makes life really difficult for them. So it's really an issue of manufacturing on our end rather, I think, than marketing per se.

我認為答案是兩者兼具。真有意思。當某個資產類別陷入困境時，通常是由於世界各地普遍存在的低利率以及非常嚴格的監管環境共同作用的結果，即使某些產品很安全，也會受到監管環境的限制，從而抑制高回報產品的出現。這就是監管領域有時會發生的事情。我們認為我們有機會參與產品製造。我們可能是－我們是金融界最大的費用創造者。我認為，去年我們內部透過各種產品獲得了大約 1600 億美元到 1700 億美元的融資。我們從事的業務範圍很廣，包括房地產和基於房地產的大量債務，以及我們信貸產品中的私募股權投資。我們相信，所有這些都可以進行調整或定制，以創造出能夠滿足此類資產在安全的同時提高回報需求的產品。而且，如果我們能夠做到這一點（我們認為我們能夠做到），如果與我們開展大量業務可以增加您的回報，而您又身處保險領域，並且您認為這很安全，因為確實如此，那麼您為什麼不與我們開展大量業務呢？因此，我們認為這是一個非常非常大的潛在市場，因為幾乎沒有一家保險公司不在某種程度上受到低收益率和監管準備金要求的困擾，這使得它們的經營非常困難。所以我認為這其實是我們生產環節的問題，而不是行銷本身的問題。

Let me give a little more color on that. I think there are -- there's kind of 3 things we bring to the party. Number one, of course, we bring our existing products to the party. And they're all, as Steve mentioned, under allocated to alternatives in general. And part of that is cultural, part of that is historical and part of that is kind of regulatory capital. But -- so first thing we'll do is be able to offer them higher returns at lower risks through our core products. And of course, those will have the usual fees and carry that we usually charge. The second thing is they're all short of private, credit-worthy assets. So investment-grade, private assets. Why private? Because private debt, for the same credit risk creates -- yields a significant yield premium, and that yield premium is very important to them. For the most part, insurance companies do not have their own origination. We have origination. That is what GSO does. It's what our real estate debt business does and so on. And in fact, in our equity businesses, we're creating the very kind of paper that they want. But instead of having a place and a set of investors to give it to, we're selling it into the market. So we're already creating billions and billions of paper that they're short and we're long. So it doesn't take a genius to put those 2 things together. Thirdly, we're able to -- we have some -- we worked on this with some of our existing insurance clients. We have several proprietary structures that other people have not done that embed our products and structures, which give much better regulatory and rating capital treatment for our kinds of products. No one else is doing this. Frankly, no one else has the mix and the breadth of products to do it. And so we bring this new technology to the insurance companies that allow them to put a lot more of their balance sheet into our products than they otherwise could without hitting their ratings and capital. So I think we have a very, very powerful product mix, and I think this could be huge over the years.

讓我再詳細解釋一下。我認為我們為聚會帶來了三樣東西。首先，當然是我們會帶來現有的產品。正如史蒂夫所提到的那樣，所有這些資源在替代能源方面的投入總體上都不足。其中一部分是文化因素，一部分是歷史因素，還有一部分是監理資本。但是——所以我們首先要做的就是透過我們的核心產品，為他們提供風險更低、回報更高的投資機會。當然，這些商品也會收取我們通常收取的手續費和運費。第二點是，他們都缺乏私人的、有信譽的資產。所以是投資等級的私人資產。為什麼選擇私有？因為私人債務在相同的信用風險下會產生顯著的收益率溢價，而這種收益率溢價對他們來說非常重要。大多數情況下，保險公司沒有自己的發行管道。我們有起源。這就是GSO的作用。這就是我們房地產債務業務的運作方式等等。事實上，在我們的股權業務中，我們正在創造他們想要的那種債券。但我們沒有合適的場地和投資者來出售它，而是把它賣到了市場上。所以我們已經生產了數十億億張紙，而他們短缺，我們短缺。所以，把這兩件事連結起來並不需要什麼天才。第三，我們能夠——我們有一些——我們已經和一些現有的保險客戶合作完成了這項工作。我們擁有其他公司沒有的幾項專有結構，這些結構嵌入了我們的產品和結構中，從而為我們的這類產品提供了更好的監管和評級資本待遇。其他人都沒有這樣做。坦白說，沒有其他公司擁有如此豐富的產品組合和廣泛的產品線來做到這一點。因此，我們將這項新技術引入保險公司，使他們能夠在不影響評級和資本的情況下，將更多資產負債表資金投入我們的產品。所以我認為我們擁有非常非常強大的產品組合，我認為這在未來幾年可能會產生巨大的影響。

Okay. That's exceptionally helpful. And then just a follow-up. Steve, on some of the traditional asset management report before you, there's been some discussion of migration back -- out of alternatives back into more traditional product. But yet, when I see your results and some of your peers who reported it, it's sort of hard to sort of see that on a real-time basis. Are you sensing any type of cap in terms of where the LPs are? I know with your recent lunch with investors, you had mentioned that some of these caps are being raised to accommodate franchise like yourself to have a global perspective. But are we any at a point where this is as good as it gets? Or do you think that there's still room to grow on the institutional side to grow the business?

好的。這真是太有幫助了。然後還有一個後續問題。史蒂夫，在你面前的一些傳統資產管理報告中，已經有一些關於從另類投資轉向更傳統產品的討論。但是，當我看到你的結果以及你的一些同行報告的結果時，卻很難即時地看到這一點。你覺得LP的價格走勢是否有某種上限？我知道您最近與投資者共進午餐時提到，為了讓像您這樣的特許經營企業擁有全球視野，一些上限正在提高。但我們是否已經達到最佳狀態了？或者您認為在機構方面仍有發展空間來促進業務成長？

Yes. It's a good question. I don't see those caps. And what's happening is, it was interesting, I was with somebody who runs a very large, own the largest funds in the world, and he was at Davos. And he was saying, "Geez, you're, by, far our largest GP. But this is just so amazing. Operating with you, we just keep expanding. And you're sort of in a class of your own." And so we're not seeing that kind of friction at this point. You have to remember, we're in so many different businesses. And each business line we're in, we just don't invest in one thing. A fund will normally have -- if it's a private equity fund, it'll have 50 different investments, something like that, with a lot of diversification. Same with a real estate fund. Same with a credit fund. It's -- so the market is quite knowledgeable and sophisticated that there's lots of diversification in terms of risk. It's not the same as different types of sort of money managers in that sense. So I think we're feeling pretty comfortable. And in fact, we have a steady stream of dialogues where people are contacting us, who are LPs, who want to make major increases in their size as part of what term of art, I guess, strategic partnerships. And these are very large, chunky kinds of things that lock in relationships where it's not necessarily just, "Hi, I've got a fund, please buy my fund." And so in that sense, I would say it's sort of going the opposite of what your concern is.

是的。這是個好問題。我沒看到那些蓋子。有趣的是，我當時和一位管理全球最大基金的高階主管在一起，他當時正在達沃斯。他當時說：“哎呀，你是我們迄今為止最大的全科醫生。”但這真是太神奇了。與你們合作，我們才能不斷發展壯大。你簡直獨樹一格。 」 因此，目前我們還沒有看到那種摩擦。你要記住，我們涉足的行業非常廣泛。而且，我們涉足的每個業務領域，都不會只投資在某一方面。一個基金通常會有——如果是私募股權基金，它會有 50 種不同的投資，諸如此類，具有很高的多元化程度。房地產基金也是如此。信貸基金也是如此。因此，市場相當成熟，風險也充分分散了。從這個意義上講，它與不同類型的資金管理人並不相同。所以我覺得我們現在感覺蠻舒服的。事實上，我們不斷收到來自有限合夥人（LP）的聯繫，他們希望透過所謂的策略合作，大幅擴大自身規模。這些都是規模龐大、影響深遠的事物，它們鞏固了彼此之間的關係，而不僅僅是「你好，我有一個基金，請購買我的基金」。因此，從這個意義上講，我認為這與你所擔心的恰恰相反。

Hey, Bill, there's plenty industry surveys that survey LP intentions, and they all show LP's putting more alternatives, and the faster growing segment of alternatives is private equity.

嘿，比爾，有很多行業調查研究了有限合夥人的意向，結果都顯示有限合夥人正在更多地投資另類投資，而另類投資中增長最快的部分是私募股權。

Got you. And can I just slip one more question. I apologize, I know you said 2, (inaudible) to that. Mike, I -- Michael, you had mentioned that you're sort of starting the cost benefit analysis, and I certainly appreciate the what you know versus what you don't know. So from our perspective, obviously there's a lot of time to figure this out, we know the specifics now of the tax reform. What milestones should we be thinking about that get you to figure out which way go, whether it's to convert or stay at PTP? Is that just how the stock behaves? Is it potential inclusion in the index, dual structure of the company? So trying to understand like where from here we should we be thinking about in terms of key points of decision-making?

抓到你了。我可以再問一個問題嗎？對不起，我知道你對那個說了2，（聽不清楚）麥克，我－邁克爾，你曾提到你正在著手進行成本效益分析，我當然很欣賞你對已知事項和未知事項的分析。所以從我們的角度來看，顯然我們有很多時間來解決這個問題，我們現在已經了解了稅制改革的具體細節。我們應該考慮哪些里程碑，才能幫助您確定前進的方向，是轉型還是留在 PTP？股票的走勢是這樣嗎？該公司是否有可能被納入指數？其結構是雙重的嗎？所以，我們想了解的是，從現在開始，我們應該在關鍵決策點上考慮哪些面向？

Yes, Bill, I wouldn't think of it in terms of concrete milestones. There's a variety of factors, and we're going to assess them over time.

是的，比爾，我不會從具體的里程碑角度來考慮這個問題。影響因素有很多，我們會隨著時間的推移對它們進行評估。

And Bill, there's no rush -- there's a little bit -- the market's kind of having a rush to judgment here. This is a decision we make once and it's forever. So as Michael said, we're not in any rush to make it.

比爾，別急——其實有點——市場現在有點急於下結論。這是一個我們只需做一次，而且終身有效的決定。正如邁克爾所說，我們並不急於完成它。

The next question will be from the line of Craig Siegenthaler, Crédit Suisse.

下一個問題將來自瑞士信貸的 Craig Siegenthaler。

Just wanted to come back to the insurance business. Can you talk about your ability to use FGL as an acquisition vehicle for smaller insurance companies in closed blocks? And then also, what is the appetite to replicate this strategy in Europe, where leverage ratios can go even higher? And then like the final part of the question is, really, what are the incremental margins on this business as you grow revenue and really kind of scale it?

我只是想重回保險業。您能否談談您利用FGL作為封閉式收購中小型保險公司的工具的能力？此外，在歐洲複製這項策略的意願如何？要知道，歐洲的槓桿率可能更高。最後，問題的最後一個部分是，隨著營收的成長和業務規模的擴大，這項業務的增量利潤率究竟是多少？

Okay. So first of all, we are in the business of continuing to acquire insurance companies and close box -- blocks, not necessarily through FGL, although it could happen there. But we have several insurance vehicles, number one. Number two, yes, Europe and Asia are both definitely on our radar screen. And number three, this is one of those businesses where I actually think it's kind of a lower-fee business, but a higher-margin business, like so many of our other businesses, where once you get over the startup costs, it's a very high incremental margin. I'm not going to quantify that for now.

好的。首先，我們的業務是繼續收購保險公司和封閉保險業務板塊，不一定是透過FGL，儘管也有可能透過FGL。但我們有多種保險管道，這​​是第一點。第二，是的，歐洲和亞洲都絕對在我們的關注範圍內。第三，我認為這類業務屬於費用較低但利潤較高的業務，就像我們的許多其他業務一樣，一旦克服了啟動成本，就能獲得非常高的增量利潤。我暫時不打算對此進行量化。

Your next question will be from the line of Alex Blostein, Goldman Sachs.

你的下一個問題將來自高盛的 Alex Blostein。

A question for you guys around the private equity deal structures and really dovetailing on the Thomson Reuters deal announced a couple of days ago. So as we look out -- obviously, a very significant deal, the largest since -- in several years. Do you guys expect the size of private equity yields to increase in the coming years relative to what we've seen? What are you seeing in terms of leverage and the availability of leverage? And I guess, more importantly, should we think about more partnership type of deals like we saw with this one that would really enable to write larger-sized transactions?

我想問各位一個關於私募股權交易結構的問題，特別是與幾天前宣布的湯森路透交易的契合之處。所以，我們展望一下——顯然，這是一筆非常重要的交易，也是近幾年來最大的交易。你們認為未來幾年私募股權殖利率的規模會比目前看到的更大嗎？您認為槓桿作用和槓桿可用性的情況如何？更重要的是，我們是否應該考慮更多像這次這樣的合作型交易，以便真正能夠進行更大規模的交易？

Sure. So one of the advantages of having a large, global, multisector fund is we can go where the opportunities are. And historically, you've probably seen, we'll do some sort of startup investing, whether in different areas of the world or different industries, drilling oil wells or whatever, all the way to the biggest buyouts, and we'll do it across regions and we'll do it across sectors. And that ability to go where the opportunities are is really important for our being able to sustain high returns. And an important element of that is being able to do deals that are very, very large because, sometimes, that's where we find the best opportunity. In general, American business has gotten more efficient. So all of, as I've talked before, even in this call, all of the value that we bring pretty much to our investors is value we create operationally. So we're looking for things where we can go in and make a significant difference to the management of the company. In this case, Thomson family believed that we could add a lot of value and that they wanted to participate in that value with us, which is why they stayed in for almost half of the equity. And so I think that's a win-win. I do think you'll see some other larger transactions. The debt markets are very liquid, very, very robust. Interest rates are low. And in fact, in Thomson Reuters, we probably could have gotten more debt than we did, but we always like to have prudent capital structures, it's not about maximizing leverage. So yes, I think there'll be some other big deals, but I don't think it'll be a wave of them because each -- we're looking for deals not that we can just buy, but where we have to create a lot of value, and that's not always the case, obviously. And then, yes, the industry has changed. LPs have become increasingly interested in side-by-side and co-investments. And they've become increasingly capable of making the decision with you almost, as a partner or a cosponsor, from the get-go. So that is definitely here to stay, in my opinion.

當然。因此，擁有一個大型的、全球性的、跨行業的基金的優勢之一就是我們可以去哪裡有機會就去哪裡。從歷史上看，您可能已經看到，我們會進行各種形式的創業投資，無論是在世界各地還是不同的行業，從鑽探石油井到最大的收購，我們都會跨地區、跨行業進行投資。而這種抓住機會的能力對於我們能否持續獲得高回報至關重要。而其中一個重要因素是能夠達成非常非常大的交易，因為有時候，我們才能在這樣的交易中找到最好的機會。整體而言，美國企業的效率提高了。所以，正如我之前所說，甚至在這次電話會議中，我們為投資者帶來的所有價值，幾乎都是我們透過營運創造的價值。所以我們正在尋找能夠讓我們介入並對公司管理產生重大影響的事情。在這種情況下，湯姆森家族認為我們可以創造很多價值，他們也想和我們分享這些價值，所以他們保留了近一半的股權。所以我認為這是雙贏。我認為你還會看到一些其他的大額交易。債務市場流動性非常強，非常非常穩健。利率很低。事實上，在湯森路透，我們或許可以獲得更多的債務，但我們始終喜歡保持審慎的資本結構，而不是追求槓桿最大化。所以，是的，我認為還會有一些其他的大交易，但我不認為會是一波大交易，因為每一筆交易——我們尋找的不是那種可以直接買下的交易，而是那種需要創造很多價值的交易，而顯然，這種情況並不總是如此。是的，產業也發生了變化。有限合夥人對並肩投資和共同投資越來越感興趣。而且，他們越來越有能力從一開始就與你一起做出決定，就像合作夥伴或共同發起人一樣。所以，在我看來，這肯定會一直存在下去。

Got it. And then just a quick follow-up for Michael. I think back to the tax rate conversation. I think you said something in the teens in terms of the earnings leakage. I think you said it on the DE. Just want to confirm if that's roughly the same under ENI. And should we think about the kind of 20% -- low 20%? Is it kind of reasonable corporate tax rate if you guys were to convert it to C corp given the 2017 mix?

知道了。最後，再給麥可一個簡短的後續問題。我想起了之前關於稅率的討論。我想你之前提到過十幾起關於收益流失的問題。我想你是在DE上說的。只是想確認一下，在 ENI 系統下是否也大致相同。我們是否應該考慮一下 20% 左右——或者說低 20% 的情況？如果你們將公司類型改為C型公司，考慮到2017年的經濟結構，這個企業稅率是否還算合理？

Well, it is in the teens for ENI as well, and it depends, just as it does on DE, on the mix of the character of income in a given year.

嗯，ENI 的收益率也是十幾，而且和 DE 一樣，這取決於特定年份收入的組成。

Your next question will come from the line of Glenn Schorr, Evercore.

你的下一個問題將來自 Evercore 的 Glenn Schorr。

Just one question on rates. And in the past, I and others have asked the interest rate question and got the right answer of, hey, if it's coming, brought on by global growth, that's a good thing. In the past, real estate actually did better. And I think that all still holds. But my question today, a year later, 2 years later on, 2 75 on a 10-year and rising, watching REIT markets, the public REIT markets significantly underperform your private real estate strategies, I'm curious if there's any revisions to the answer on do higher interest rates matter? Are you seeing any changes in demand for any of your products as rates rise?

關於利率，我還有一個問題。過去，我和其他人也曾提出利率問題，並得到了正確的答案：如果利率上升是由全球經濟成長帶來的，那是一件好事。過去，房地產市場的表現其實更好。我認為這些觀點仍然成立。但今天，一年後，兩年後，10 年期利率達到 275% 且持續上漲，我觀察 REIT 市場，發現公開 REIT 市場的表現明顯遜於您的私人房地產策略，我想知道對於「利率上升是否重要」這個問題，答案是否有任何修正？隨著利率上升，你們的產品需求是否有改變？

So it's Tony. No, I think the answer still holds. We feel very good about where we are in the cycle. And yes, while rates go up, the Fed -- I mean, look, they left reg rates flat this meeting. They're very, very careful about raising rates, and they're doing in response to economic growth. A lot of people would say the U.S. economy is doing extremely well. When we look at through the eyes of our portfolio of companies or our real estate portfolio investments, things are going great. So I would say that the Fed is being extremely cautious. And as a result, I feel very good about the economic backdrop creating more value than the higher interest rates would erode. The other thing you should realize is cap rates are a function not only of treasuries, but also of the spread over treasuries. And while base rates are extremely low, spreads have been pretty full here. And so as base rates go up, and we talked about this in the past, too, I think spreads have plenty of room to come in a little bit to keep overall cap rates from spiking. So bottom line, same answer we've given. And I think it's playing out. And you're seeing it. You're seeing higher rates and, yes, you're seeing great fundamentals and you're seeing great value creation all that notwithstanding. And then, by the way, when we sell assets, you're seeing great realizations.

原來是托尼。不，我認為答案依然成立。我們對目前所處的周期階段感到非常滿意。是的，雖然利率上升了，但美聯儲——我的意思是，你看，他們在這次會議上維持了常規利潤不變。他們在提高利率方面非常非常謹慎，而且他們這樣做是為了應對經濟成長。很多人都認為美國經濟發展得非常好。從我們旗下公司或房地產投資組合的角度來看，一切都很順利。所以我認為聯準會的做法極為謹慎。因此，我對當前的經濟狀況感到非常樂觀，它創造的價值將超過高利率可能造成的損失。你也應該意識到，資本化率不僅取決於國債，還取決於國債與債券之間的利差。雖然基準利率極低，但這裡的利差卻相當大。因此，隨著基準利率上升（我們過去也討論過這個問題），我認為利差還有很大的上升空間，可以稍微抑制整體資本化率飆升。所以總而言之，答案和我們之前給的一樣。我認為事情正在朝著好的方向發展。你現在就看到了。儘管利率上升，但基本面依然良好，價值創造也十分顯著。順便說一句，當我們出售資產時，你會看到豐厚的回報。

Next question will be from the line of Devin Ryan, JMP Securities.

下一個問題將來自 JMP Securities 的 Devin Ryan。

Maybe one here just on the retail opportunity. You continue to highlight the expansion of the footprint into new channels. And clearly, that's going to drive growth. But when you think about, from a product perspective, where you are relative to maybe where you can be, how should we think about product development in retail over the next several years? And what additional types of products are you looking at there?

或許這裡就有一個零售機會。您繼續強調業務拓展到新管道的情況。顯然，這將推動成長。但從產品角度來看，當我們思考自己所處的位置以及未來可能達到的位置時，我們該如何看待未來幾年零售業的產品開發？您還在關注哪些其他類型的產品？

Sure. So I think, as I've mentioned in the past, the growth is really going to come from 3 areas. So one is continuing to build out channels, number of new distributors, and that's continuing and I'd say we're still pretty early stage there; second is penetrating the channel more deeply; and then third is new products. And even in new products, we're pretty, pretty early stage. So I think you're going to continue to see new product. We're going to be launching something in the channels. That's a floating rate credit product. I know Michael had talked about what's happening with Franklin Square. Ultimately, I think that could be significant. But very importantly, as we go into a channel with our performance, our ability to onboard and service in a really differentiating way, in many ways, we are the revitalizing catalyst to an entire sector. And that's what you saw with the private REIT. So it's a little bit of a mistake to just look at what's there and then what percentage. I mean, I think in many ways, given what we can do in a scale way that others can't and even in terms of weaving product together, we really end up being the catalyst to the growing size. And so, we are seeing more demand for floating rate products, and I think you'll continue to see more launches from us.

當然。所以我認為，正如我之前提到的，成長將真正來自三個方面。所以，第一點是繼續拓展管道，增加新的分銷商數量，這項工作仍在繼續，我認為我們仍處於早期階段；第二點是更深入地滲透渠道；第三點是新產品。即使是新產品，我們也還處於非常非常早期的階段。所以我認為你還會看到更多新產品。我們將在各個通路推出一些新產品。那是一種浮動利率信貸產品。我知道麥可談過富蘭克林廣場正在發生的事情。最終，我認為這可能意義重大。但非常重要的是，當我們進入一個管道，憑藉我們的業績、我們以真正差異化的方式進行入駐和服務的能力時，在很多方面，我們都是整個行業的複興催化劑。這就是你在私人房地產投資信託基金（REIT）中看到的情況。所以，光是關注數量和百分比是有點錯誤的。我的意思是，我認為在很多方面，考慮到我們能夠以其他人無法企及的規模去做事，甚至在產品整合方面，我們最終確實成為了規模增長的催化劑。因此，我們看到對浮動利率產品的需求不斷增長，我認為你們將會看到我們推出更多這類產品。

And Devin, a couple of other tweaks on that. This -- the products in this market tend to be longer duration or permanent capital products, a lot of them. So it facilitates our shift of our mix to more permanent capital products. And then I would just say, some of these products can be very large in scale. And so I think the potential for some of these broadly offered retail products is huge.

還有，Devin，還需要做一些其他的調整。這個市場上的產品往往是期限較長或永久性資本產品，而且數量很多。因此，這有助於我們將投資組合轉向更多永久性資本產品。然後我想說的是，其中一些產品的規模可能非常大。因此，我認為這些廣泛銷售的零售產品的潛力是巨大的。

Got it. Okay, that's great color. Maybe just a follow-up and another kind of bigger picture question. We're obviously all just trying to map out how assets are going to grow at the firm overtime here, and that's a challenge. But as you mentioned several times, it's an entrepreneurial culture, and I think sometimes the level of innovation at Blackstone is underestimated. And so I'm not really expecting specifics here, but when you look out over the next several years and you think about what the firm is working on today, should we be thinking about kind of that incremental or innovative growth, if you will, coming from adjacent products? Or are there things that are being worked on right now that maybe could represent a new leg like infrastructure?

知道了。好的，這個顏色真棒。或許可以追問一下，從更宏觀的角度來看這個問題。顯然，我們都在努力規劃公司資產將如何隨時間成長，這是一個挑戰。但正如你多次提到的，這是一種創業文化，我認為黑石集團的創新水平有時會被低估。因此，我並不期待具體的細節，但是，展望未來幾年，想想公司目前正在做的事情，我們是否應該考慮從相鄰產品中獲得那種漸進式或創新性的成長呢？或者，目前正在進行的一些工作，例如基礎設施建設，是否可能代表新的發展方向？

Yes. So both is the answer. And there are certainly adjacent products, but infrastructure is a new leg, insurance is a new leg. We've talked about the whole earlier-stage growth equity kinds of sector, I'm not going to get too specific on that, that's a new leg. So 3 major new legs. Truthfully, some of what John's talked about, I'm not sure whether it's a new leg or an adjacency, but it's certainly a different approach. What Harvest shows is there are some long-only possibilities, I don't want to go be a normal mutual fund, but niche, long-only businesses, I think you'd have to put in the -- as a new leg. So Harvest would be a new leg. So I think we have -- as I said in the press call, as I sit here, I look forward 5 years, with existing initiatives, where we already either got products or got people hired and focused on this. I see more growth in the next 5 years than I've ever seen in 15 years of this firm.

是的。所以答案是兩者兼具。當然還有相關的產品，但基礎設施是一個新領域，保險也是一個新領域。我們已經討論過早期成長型股權投資領域，我不會對此做太多具體說明，那是另一個話題了。所以新增了三大主要分支。說實話，約翰談到的一些內容，我不太確定是新的腿還是鄰近的，但肯定是一種不同的方法。Harvest 表明存在一些只做多頭的投資機會，我不想成為普通的共同基金，而是專注於小眾的、只做多頭的企業，我認為你必須把——作為一個新的分支。所以 Harvest 將會是一個新的階段。所以我認為我們已經——正如我在新聞發布會上所說，我坐在這裡，展望未來 5 年，在現有的舉措下，我們已經推出了產品，或者已經招募了人員並專注於此。我認為未來五年公司的發展速度將超過我過去十五年在這家公司所看到的。

Your next question will come from the line of Patrick Davitt, Autonomous Research.

你的下一個問題將來自帕特里克·戴維特（Patrick Davitt），Autonomous Research。

Just a quick one on that last floating-rate point, Joan. Is this a product that we should view as our competitor to a lot of the traditional active products out there? Or is it more like a floating rate-plus-type strategy with different return characteristics?

瓊，關於最後一個浮動利率問題，我再簡單問一下。這款產品是否可以被視為與市面上許多傳統運動產品競爭的產品？或者它更像是具有不同收益特徵的浮動利率加型策略？

Yes. So it's enhanced floating rate, it's an integral structure monthly liquidity-type product. So it does have a higher return than some of the competing offerings out there currently.

是的。所以它是增強型浮動利率，是整體結構月度流動性產品。因此，它的回報率確實比目前市面上的一些同類產品更高。

Great. And then my follow-up is on tax reform -- yes.

偉大的。接下來我要談的是稅制改革——是的。

So, Patrick, sorry, let me just say. We have a view here that investors are generally pay way too much of a premium in terms of lost return for liquidity that they never actually need. You don't need to have 75% of your portfolio you could sell tomorrow. So we're -- our whole strategy has been to sort of build on the -- an arbitrage and offer our investors the enhanced returns that come by taking not more risk necessarily, because we think a lot of our products are less risk, actually. And certainly, when putting in a portfolio, less portfolio risk but less liquidity. And one of the things about today's world is it's overvalued, but it's particularly overvalued on the most liquid stuff. And so there's a gap you can drive a truck through for us.

派崔克，抱歉，我只想說一句。我們認為，投資者通常為他們根本不需要的流動性支付過高的溢價，而這會導致收益損失。你不需要持有75%的可以明天賣掉的投資組合。所以，我們的整個策略就是利用套利機會，為投資者提供更高的回報，而這並非意味著承擔更多風險，因為我們認為我們的許多產品實際上風險更低。當然，在建構投資組合時，投資組合風險越低，流動性也越差。當今世界的一個特徵是資產估值過高，尤其是流動性最強的資產估值過高。所以這裡有個缺口，你們可以開車送我們過去。

Awesome. And then a quick one on tax reform. Has the increased kind of cash flow from your U.S. privates followed through to any positive markets yet? Or is that something we can still expect?

驚人的。然後簡單談談稅制改革。來自美國私人企業的現金流增加是否已經對市場產生了正面影響？或者說，我們仍然可以期待這種情況發生？

Patrick, it's Michael. What I say is -- for example, the 6.8% appreciation in the core private equity portfolio in the fourth quarter, that was mostly driven by fundamentals on a company-by-company basis, not by tax impact. And I think we've been very careful about wanting to factor in tangible, directly observable impacts on a company-by-company basis from this. And with time, the companies of themselves will see what the real-world impact is on their businesses, on their market values and we'll take that into account.

派崔克，我是麥可。我的意思是——例如，第四季度核心私募股權投資組合 6.8% 的增值，主要是由各公司的基本面驅動的，而不是由稅收影響驅動的。我認為我們一直非常謹慎地考慮將此事對每家公司造成的切實、可直接觀察到的影響考慮在內。隨著時間的推移，各公司本身將看到這對他們的業務、市場價值的實際影響，我們會將這一點考慮在內。

The next question will be from the line of Mike Carrier, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

下一個問題來自美國銀行美林證券的麥克·卡里爾。

Just one question, it's on fund-raising. Each quarter, you guys tend to surprise the upside, and it sounds like the growth opportunities in front of the firm are substantial. Some of your peers benefited from sizing up their opportunities, whether it's AUM or FRE, and realize each firm is different. You guys tend to be more consistent in the level of fund-raising. But is there a way to size that opportunity up over the next, like, 1 to 3 years, whether it's in AUM or FRE, given that many of the growth areas are coming from these innovative new areas that may be harder to predict versus the flagships in the past?

只有一個問題，是關於募款的。你們每季都能帶來驚喜，業績表現優異，看來公司未來的成長機會相當可觀。有些同業透過評估自身的機會（無論是資產管理規模還是財務報告規模）而受益，並意識到每家公司的情況都不同。你們的籌款水準往往更加穩定。但是，鑑於許多成長領域都來自這些創新領域，而這些領域可能比過去的旗艦領域更難預測，那麼在未來 1 到 3 年內，無論是以資產管理規模 (AUM) 還是財務報告支出 (FRE) 來衡量這種機會，是否有一種方法呢？

Well, I'll let Michael think about how to answer that while I bull(expletive) for a minute. But we don't like to give projections, as you know, and certainly, 3-year projections. So we like to sort of under-promise and over-deliver. I think you'll be happy, but you have to trust us on that.

好吧，我先讓麥可想想怎麼回答這個問題，我先去胡扯一會兒。但正如您所知，我們不喜歡給出預測，尤其是三年期的預測。所以我們喜歡少承諾，多兌現。我想你會很高興的，但你必須相信我們。

Yes, and I'll also bail out a little on the answer. But I do believe that the growth we see, the character of the growth is a good thing on both FRE and overall AUM front. And Mike, look -- go back 15 years, even through the great financial crisis, we've never had a year where AUM didn't grow, ever. And look at the secular growth of our long -- any long period of time, there are ebbs and flows, but it's -- we don't see any diminution of that secular growth there.

是的，我也要稍微迴避一下答案。但我相信，我們所看到的成長，以及這種成長的本質，無論從 FRE 還是整體 AUM 的角度來看，都是一件好事。麥克，你看——回顧過去 15 年，即使在金融危機期間，我們的資產管理規模也從未停止成長。縱觀我們長期的長期成長——任何長期的成長都會有起伏，但是——我們沒有看到這種長期成長有任何減弱的跡象。

And Mike, I want to -- quite seriously, we don't -- when we think about strategy and growth, we don't have to make trade-offs between FRE-oriented growth and AUM generally. We think we can sort of have it all across the whole multiple strategy of products.

麥克，我想說——說真的，我們不需要——當我們考慮策略和成長時，我們不必在以 FRE 為導向的成長和 AUM 總體上做出權衡。我們認為我們可以在產品多元化策略中實現這一切。

I think the answer is that for the last 5, 6 or 7 years, I forget, which we've compounded AUM at 17%, at the same time giving back enormous amounts of money. So one might think that's pretty good.

我認為答案是，在過去的 5、6 或 7 年裡（我忘了具體是哪一年），我們的資產管理規模以 17% 的複合增長率增長，同時我們也返還了巨額資金。所以有人可能會覺得相當不錯。

Okay. You got 3 answers there, Mike.

好的。麥克，你得到了三個答案。

Or more.

甚至更多。

Your next question come from the line of Gerald O'Hara, Jefferies.

你的下一個問題來自傑拉爾德·奧哈拉和傑弗里斯家族。

And just one question from myself as well. I'm just hoping we might be able to get an update on the Invitation Homes initiative. I know it's been probably been a little while since we've heard on it. But you've got, obviously, housing markets have been strong over the past couple of years, clearly, since you started it or started buying up homes. And just kind of curious as to where we might be in that cycle.

我也有一個問題。我只是希望我們能得到「邀請之家」計畫的最新進展。我知道可能已經有一段時間沒有聽到相關消息了。但很顯然，過去幾年房地產市場一直很強勁，自從你開始買房子以來就是如此。我只是有點好奇，我們現在可能處於這個週期的哪個階段。

Well, so we have to be a little careful here. It's a public company, and so I'll let them speak for themselves. But we think the residential area still has plenty of growth ahead of it.

所以，我們在這裡要稍微謹慎一點。這是一家上市公司，所以我會讓他們自己發言。但我們認為住宅區未來仍有很大的發展空間。

And next question will come from the line of Brian Bedell, Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題將來自德意志銀行的布萊恩·貝德爾。

Maybe just to zero back in on the insurance opportunity. Of that size of the market that you've initially quoted, Steve, what do you see as the addressable market for your effort? And it sounds like this could actually hit that $100 billion marker faster than in the core+ effort, maybe just your thoughts on that. And also, from a product perspective, obviously, a lot of this is yield oriented. But to what degree do you see core+ real estate being a component of the investment effort for insurance companies as well as BAAM?

或許只是想重新聚焦保險業的機會。史蒂夫，在你最初提到的市場規模中，你認為你的努力能夠觸及到多大的目標市場？聽起來這個項目實際上可能會比核心+項目更快達到 1000 億美元的目標，您對此有什麼看法？而且，從產品角度來看，顯然很多事情都是以產量為導向的。但您認為核心+房地產在多大程度上會成為保險公司以及BAAM投資工作的一部分？

Yes, it's always dangerous asking a question like that. Everybody at my conference room here is wondering what am I going to say. I think, just to start, it will logically build much faster than the core+ business, because in the core+ business, you actually have to buy individual properties or a group of properties. And each one of those deals is sort of -- it's an art form, and that's what we do. And if we can outperform a REIT Index, people seem to like REIT, so I don't quite get it. But in any case, if you outperform them 1,400 basis points, maybe we do have a better mousetrap, right, that deserves a much higher sort of multiple. But leave that aside, those are individual purchases, whereas in this insurance area, we can be generating potentially sort of assets on a much larger basis. We could take over portfolios where somebody has $25 billion, $30 billion, $60 billion. And so the chunkiness in the insurance area, assuming we position ourselves correctly and can add the kind of value that we hope to be able to do, should lead to much more rapid growth logically in that area. So when Tony says something like he's more excited than he's ever been, which -- and I'd say the same thing, the reason why we say things like that is we actually believe them. And so that's just one area where if you -- I always like thinking about upsides as well as sort of more moderate types of things. This is an area that's got a huge upside if it develops right and we can do a great job and we're meeting a need with an industry that's got $23 trillion. I mean, how -- if you just balance that and say what can you be, you can provide the answer as well as we can. But it should be, potentially, really scale. You'll never know how any new business develops. We've had a pretty remarkable record, I think, of going into new areas and having them really flourish because we don't do that many, because there aren't that many really fascinating things to do. And so we've identified this one and we're going to ride it as a sort of aggressively in a good way that we can by producing good product for people who really need it. And they need it in this industry. And there's no CEO almost that I've met in the whole industry that doesn't agree with that, that they need more return.

是的，問這樣的問題總是很危險的。我會議室裡的每個人都在想我要說什麼。我認為，就目前而言，它的發展速度必然比核心+業務快得多，因為在核心+業務中，你實際上必須購買單一房產或一組房產。每筆交易都是一種藝術，而這正是我們所做的事情。如果我們能夠跑贏 REIT 指數，人們似乎喜歡 REIT，所以我不太明白。但無論如何，如果你的表現比他們高出 1400 個基點，也許我們確實有一個更好的捕鼠器，對吧，它值得更高的倍數。但撇開這些不談，這些都是個人購買行為，而保險領域則有可能在更大的範圍內創造資產。我們可以接管某人擁有的250億美元、300億美元、600億美元的投資組合。因此，保險領域的龐大規模，假設我們定位正確，並且能夠創造我們希望創造的價值，那麼從邏輯上講，應該會導致該領域增長得更快。所以當東尼說他比以往任何時候都更興奮時——我也會這麼說——我們之所以會這樣說，是因為我們真的相信自己說的話。所以這只是其中一個面向——我總是喜歡考慮積極的一面，以及一些更溫和的方面。這是一個發展前景巨大的領域，如果發展得當，我們可以做得非常出色，並且我們正在滿足一個價值 23 兆美元的行業的需求。我的意思是，如果你能權衡利弊，想想你能成為什麼樣的人，你就能像我們一樣給出答案。但它的規模應該會非常可觀。你永遠無法預知任何新創事業的發展走向。我認為，我們在進入新領域並使其蓬勃發展方面取得了相當了不起的成就，因為我們涉足的新領域並不多，因為真正引人入勝的事情並不多。因此，我們已經找到了這個機會，我們將以積極有效的方式抓住它，為真正需要它的人生產優質產品。而他們在這個行業裡確實需要它。而且，我在整個行業中遇到的幾乎所有CEO都同意這一點，他們都認為他們需要更高的回報。

And there's no business we can get into because we can go get a lot of AUM, that's not the point here. The point here is, a, can we bring a solution, a unique solution to investors with a need that other -- that is not being filled and that other people can't fill? Number one. And number two, can we fill it with really high-performing product? We don't want to do a lot of mediocre -- we don't want to do any mediocre product just because we get the AUM. That's not the business we're in. We're in the business of delivering superior returns adjusted for risk that other people can't do and can't match. I think there's big opportunity here. But in general, the equity-oriented kind of products we do, whether that's from private equity down to some of the sort of core+, through all the way into the BAAM stuff, those -- all those equity earnings things, it's probably not more than 5% to 10% of the asset pool at max, it's way below that today. It's a fraction of that today, but that's probably the max. And then the rest of it is credit-oriented stuff and private credit, public credit. All of that is -- a lot of that is a target for us. Although, I don't ever see us trying to be great at what Blackrock and PIMCO and so on do in terms of managing treasuries and high-grade bonds for a few basis points. That's not our business.

而且我們無法透過獲得大量資產管理規模 (AUM) 來進入任何行業，這並不是重點。關鍵在於，我們能否為投資人提供一個獨特的解決方案，滿足他們目前無法滿足、其他人也無法滿足的需求？第一。第二，我們能否用真正高性能的產品來填滿它？我們不想做很多平庸的產品——我們不想僅僅因為獲得了資產管理規模就去做任何平庸的產品。這不是我們從事的行業。我們致力於提供其他人無法做到也無法匹敵的、經風險調整後的卓越回報。我認為這裡蘊藏著巨大的機會。但總的來說，我們所做的以股權為導向的產品，無論是從私募股權到一些核心+類產品，再到BAAM之類的產品，所有這些股權收益產品，最多也只佔資產池的5%到10%，而現在遠低於這個比例。如今這只是當時的零頭，但這可能已經是極限了。其餘部分都是與信貸相關的內容，包括私人信貸和公共信貸。所有這些都是我們的目標——其中很多都是我們的目標。不過，我並不認為我們會像貝萊德、PIMCO 等公司那樣，為了幾個基點的利潤而努力成為國債和高等級債券管理領域的佼佼者。那不關我們的事。

That's great color. And maybe just one more comment. I mean, I agree with you on the liquidity premium, the -- your valuation of liquid assets versus illiquid assets. It obviously makes a lot of sense for 401(k) plans to have larger allocations to liquid assets. Have you had any traction whatsoever with regulators in convincing them that? Or is it that still kind of -- more of a dream?

顏色真好看。或許還可以再補充一點。我的意思是，我同意你關於流動性溢價的觀點，也就是你對流動資產與非流動資產的估價。顯然，401(k) 計畫增加對流動資產的配置比例是非常有意義的。你在說服監管機構方面取得任何進展了嗎？或者說，那仍然更像是夢？

So this is going to happen, and that's going to happen -- it's not going to happen tomorrow, but it's going to happen because it's has to happen. We've got an aging demographic in this country, where the average savings of someone between 40 and 50 is $14,500. We have static income, and they cannot to put enough away, enough savings, with health care cost and education cost and other things going up to retire comfortably if they don't earn more on their savings than the 2% to 3% return that 401(k]s average today, 2% to 3%. Now you put alternatives in there, like pension plans do, and you can average 6% to 7%. It's massively different when that compounds over 40 years and someone retires. This must happen because there's no other way for society to afford the aging demographic that is our future. So it will happen. And I assure you, we're going to be working on it, and we're already having some discussions. But things move slowly. On the other hand, the target is huge.

所以這件事會發生，那件事也會發生——雖然不會明天發生，但它一定會發生，因為它必須發生。我們國家的人口正在老化，40 至 50 歲的平均儲蓄為 14,500 美元。我們的收入是固定的，而且由於醫療保健成本、教育成本和其他費用不斷上漲，如果他們的儲蓄收益沒有超過 401(k) 計劃目前平均 2% 到 3% 的回報率，他們就無法存下足夠的錢，也就無法舒適地退休。現在你可以加入其他投資方式，例如退休金計劃，平均收益率可以達到 6% 到 7%。如果這種情況持續40年，而且有人退休，那就大不相同了。這件事必須發生，因為社會沒有其他方法來應對我們未來的人口老化問題。所以這件事一定會發生。我向你保證，我們正在著手處理此事，而且我們已經在進行一些討論了。但事情進展緩慢。另一方面，目標非常龐大。

Stay tuned.

敬請關注。

We have time for one final question, and that will come from the line of Robert Lee, KBW.

我們還有時間回答最後一個問題，這個問題將來自 KBW 的 Robert Lee。

I guess I'm just kind of curious about the -- maybe a little bit about the competitive universe. I mean, clearly, you guys or -- and some of your peers, but particularly you guys, are global leaders in your business. And it seems like many of the leading companies are clearly U.S.-based and -- if we think of private investing. But good businesses attract competition. Any kind of sense -- I mean, obviously, you've got SoftBank with their Vision Fund in this specific market. I'm just kind of -- any sense, whether it's out of China or elsewhere, that you're seeing -- I don't know, I'll call it local champions or others who are kind of trying to come up the curve, and not that they can compete with you, but they can certainly make life more challenging if trying to find investments at good prices and whatnot. So just trying to get a sense if you're seeing anything like that and if that's kind of having an impact on kind of the investment opportunity in certain markets.

我猜我只是對──或許是對競爭領域有點好奇而已。我的意思是，很顯然，你們——或者說你們的一些同行，特別是你們，都是各自行業的全球領導者。而且，許多領先的公司似乎都明顯總部位於美國，如果我們考慮私人投資的話。但優秀的企業總會吸引競爭。任何意義上——我的意思是，很顯然，軟銀在這個特定市場擁有願景基金。我只是覺得——無論這種感覺來自中國還是其他地方，你看到的——我不知道，我會稱之為本地冠軍或其他正在努力崛起的人，並不是說他們能與你競爭，但如果你想以優惠的價格找到投資等等，他們肯定會讓你的生活更具挑戰性。所以，我只是想了解您是否也觀察到了類似的情況，以及這是否會對某些市場的投資機會產生影響。

I think we've always encountered that. Markets are global, markets are local. And they've always been good local competition in Europe and there's particularly good local competition in China for a lot of reasons, entrepreneurial, culture, enormous saving base, lack of visible laws, so relationships are exceptionally important in that culture. On the other hand, in terms of global types of competitors, we don't find that to be the case. And there are a lot of reasons for that, and I don't expect that to happen. One final thing, before Tony gives you his views, is that a SoftBank is an unusual thing. First of all, Masa is a really unusual guy. And he's bold, he's sleepless, he's aggressive and he's picked an area in which to invest which, for the most part, doesn't have cash flow. So to the extent that he can raise money to make investments in companies that hopefully will do well, but there is not a guarantee with that, the amount of money that can be deployed in a whole industry that really suffers from lack of cash flow, very rapid investment, and in fact, negative cash flows to get to breakeven, that's a highly specialized set of characteristics. And what he's done quite brilliantly, actually, is going out to be the defining institution in that asset class, and the world has given him capital to do that. And his ability to put capital at work in an industry that, for the most part, doesn't have cash flow. So he can't finance any way other than raising more and more and more and more equity. But any blockage to public markets, access to public markets, will create enormous needs for finance. And Masa is in that space and he's been very clever, and he's made some very good choices historically and had good returns. That to me is -- it's an outlier. And he is an outlier in terms of sort of his, not to beat the phrase, vision. And he's -- that's why he's got a Vision Fund, and he's prepared to play and people are prepared to finance. Outside of something like that, I don't think we'll see anybody who's really got the aspiration that we have. The rest of the players tend to be very aggressive and integrative and like to do that stuff. Most other investors more or less just stay in their geographic areas.

我想我們一直都遇到過這種情況。市場既是全球性的，也是在地化的。在歐洲，本地競爭一直都很激烈；而在中國，由於創業精神、文化、龐大的儲蓄基礎、缺乏明確的法律等諸多原因，本地競爭尤其激烈，因此人際關係在這種文化中顯得尤為重要。另一方面，就全球競爭對手的類型而言，我們並沒有發現這種情況。這其中有很多原因，我不認為這種情況會發生。在東尼向你闡述他的觀點之前，最後一點需要說明的是，軟銀是一家不尋常的公司。首先，Masa 真的是個很不尋常的人。他膽識過人，徹夜難眠，積極進取，並且選擇了一個大部分時間都沒有現金流的投資領域。因此，他能夠籌集資金投資於那些有望成功的公司，但這並不能保證成功。在一個現金流嚴重不足、投資速度非常快，甚至需要負現金流才能實現損益平衡的行業中，能夠投入的資金量非常有限，這是一個高度專業化的特徵。事實上，他做得非常出色的一點是，他正在努力成為該資產類別中的領導機構，而世界也給了他實現這一目標的資金。以及他有能力將資本投入這個大部分沒有現金流的行業。所以他除了籌集越來越多的股權之外，沒有其他融資方式。但任何阻礙公共市場准入的因素，都會造成龐大的融資需求。而馬薩就處於這個位置，他非常聰明，從歷史來看，他做出了一些非常好的選擇，並獲得了良好的回報。在我看來，這是一個異常值。就他的，恕我直言，他的遠見卓識，他是個特立獨行的人。正因如此，他設立了願景基金，他準備參與其中，人們也準備提供資金。除了類似這樣的事情之外，我認為我們不會再看到任何像我們一樣擁有如此抱負的人了。其餘球員往往非常具有攻擊性和融合性，喜歡做這些事情。其他大多數投資者基本上都只關注自己所在的地區。

Let me take a different whack at that question. I would say, if anything, the competition is less than it used to be. Why do I say that? First of all, it used to be a much -- all these industries, private equity, mezzanine, capital, real estate, opportunistic, used to have dozens and dozens of players that were close to each other in size. The difference between a $250 million fund and a $350 million fund at one point used to be significant. That -- that's concentrated heavily. And so there are a lot fewer players. In addition, all the investment banks and the banks are out of the business. The hedge funds that used to come in do private equity, they're not able to do that because they need liquidity. So I would say, if anything, the competitive scene has consolidated. We have fewer really strong competitors than anyone else. One of the reasons for -- than we used to have. One of the reasons for that is, there are scale advantages to our business. So when we -- this is isn't like public markets where the bigger you get, the more the transaction cost and the loss of nimbleness cost you excess returns. In our world, the bigger you get and the deeper you have in the way of operation skills, the more information you have, the ability to do things others can't do because of knowledge, presence in a geography, brand, things like that, all those matter. So scale helps. So as you get more scale, you get more advantages, you get more ability to deliver consistently higher returns. And that, of course, forces consolidation. And then, finally, LPs that once took the attitude of I'm going to have tons and tons of managers, this is a high touch business and the administrative costs are eating them up. And though LPs, which tend to be public institutions for the most part, have the budgets to keep up with all of these small managers. And so they want to concentrate their providers. So the other forcing of concentration is on the LP side. The cumulative effect of those 3 forces are, I think, consolidating in some ways -- I'm not saying less competitive because it's very competitive, but fewer competitors.

讓我換個角度來回答這個問題。我認為，現在的競爭程度比以前低了。我為什麼這麼說？首先，過去所有這些行業，私募股權、夾層融資、資本、房地產、機會主義，都有數十家規模相近的參與者。曾經，2.5億美元基金和3.5億美元基金的差距非常大。那——那濃度很高。因此，玩家數量大大減少。此外，所有投資銀行和普通銀行都退出了這個行業。過去那些進入市場的對沖基金主要從事私募股權投資，但現在他們做不到了，因為他們需要流動性。所以我覺得，競技領域反而更趨於整合了。我們真正的強勁競爭對手比其他國家都少。其中一個原因是——比我們以前擁有的還要多。其中一個原因是，我們的業務具有規模優勢。所以，這不像是公開市場，規模越大，交易成本就越高，彈性的喪失也會導致超額報酬。在我們的世界裡，你的規模越大，你的營運技能越深厚，你掌握的資訊就越多，你就能做別人做不到的事情，因為你擁有知識、地理優勢、品牌等等，所有這些都很重要。所以規模經濟效應很重要。隨著規模的擴大，優勢也會增加，更有能力持續獲得更高的回報。當然，這會迫使企業進行整合。最後，那些曾經抱著「我要僱用很多很多經理」這種態度的LP，認為這是一個需要高度人性化的行業，而行政成本正在吞噬他們。而且，LP（有限合夥人）大多是公共機構，它們有足夠的預算來維持所有這些小型管理人。所以他們想集中供應商。因此，另一個集中註意力的因素在LP側。我認為，這三種力量的累積效應在某些方面正在趨於穩定——我並不是說競爭不那麼激烈了，因為競爭仍然非常激烈，而是說競爭者減少了。

And at this time, we have no further questions in queue. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Weston Tucker for any closing remarks.

目前，我們沒有其他問題需要提問。我謹將會議交還給韋斯頓·塔克先生，請他作總結發言。

Great. Thanks, everybody, for joining us today. And please reach out with any questions.

偉大的。謝謝大家今天收看我們的節目。如有任何疑問，請隨時與我們聯繫。

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. We thank you for your participation, you may now disconnect. Have a great day.

女士們、先生們，今天的會議到此結束。感謝您的參與，您現在可以斷開連接了。祝你有美好的一天。