Lex专栏：中国食品丑闻与股价
Lex_China’s food sector

     China’s 1.3bn people eat a lot of food. That should be a platform on which to build a thriving food and beverage industry. The sector, however, is often undermined by scandal and vicious rumours that quickly go viral thanks to China’s hyperactive netizens, sending share prices tanking. China’s dairy sector is particularly volatile for investors.

     中国有13亿人口，因而食品需求量很大，在这样的基础上，理应发展出一个兴旺发达的食品和饮料行业。然而，由于中国网民有点过于活跃，中国食品行业往往是丑闻频出、谣言飞传，导致食品行业股价受挫。对于投资者来说，中国乳制品行业的股价波动就特别突出。
 
     Chinese people consume six litres of dairy milk annually – a quarter of the level in Japan, reckons Euromonitor. Since the melamine milk scandal of 2008 shares in Mengniu, the nation’s biggest dairy group, have returned investors 150 per cent against the one-fifth gain for the Hang Seng. The company has a lot of fans: nearly all Hong Kong analysts hold a buy rating on the stock and its shares trade at 17 times forward earnings, almost twice as much as the broader index. Perhaps there is confidence that Mengniu’s efforts to address safety concerns will finally work out. This week it said that it would spend Rmb3.5bn over the next three years investing in large-scale dairies to gain better control over milk supplies and adopt more modern milking methods.

    欧睿国际(Euromonitor)表示，中国人均每年消费6升牛奶，是日本的四分之一。自从2008年三聚氰胺事件以来，中国最大的乳制品集团蒙牛(Mengniu)的投资回报率已经达到150%，而同期恒生指数(Hang Seng)的投资回报率只有20%。蒙牛颇受追捧：几乎香港所有的分析师都给予该公司股票买入评级，其股票的预期市盈率达到17倍，几乎是大盘指数的两倍。或许这是因为人们相信蒙牛解决食品安全问题的努力最终会奏效。本周蒙牛表示，将在未来三年斥资35亿元人民币发展大型奶场，以便更好地控制奶源，并采用更为现代的挤奶方式。
 
    The risk for investors is guarding against the next scandal. Shares in Mengniu were merely dented in May when rumours, which the company denied, circulated that its milk supplies had been diluted with cow urine. Yet a random inspection by safety regulators in December, which found a carcinogenic toxin in Mengniu’s milk, wiped a third off its share price within days. Other food groups have suffered similar setbacks. The restaurant chain Ajisenhas lost investors 62 per cent over the past year over continued reports of health quality incidents.

    投资者面临的风险就是，要警惕下一场食品丑闻。5月份有传闻说蒙牛的牛奶中被添加了牛尿，该公司予以否认，但蒙牛的股价并没有遭受重创。但去年12月份蒙牛被抽查出牛奶中含有致癌物时，其股价在几天之内就下跌了三分之一。其他食品集团也有过类似遭遇。由于不断有卫生质量事件见诸报端，连锁餐厅味千拉面(Ajisen)过去一年的股价缩水62%。
 
    For Mengniu, the recent quality concerns may not be fully priced in until after interim results in August. Numbers alone do not account for its stock performance; there are Chinese characteristics to bear in mind.

    对于蒙牛来说，8月份中期业绩公布之前，最近的质量事件可能还不会完全反映到股价上。仅仅数字还不能说明其股票表现，我们还需要考虑中国特色。
 
    译者:王慧玲