甲骨文让拉里·埃里森晋身全球第三大富豪

这家软件巨头的连胜势头能否持续？

Can the software giant’s winning streak last?

商业软件公司甲骨文的联合创始人兼董事长拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）现年78岁，但依然精力充沛。在6月12日最近一次甲骨文的季度财报电话会议上，这位古稀老人就人工智能（AI）和最新的云计算技术侃侃而谈。他大有理由雀跃兴奋。据追踪全球富豪身家的《福布斯》杂志报道，过去一年，随着甲骨文股价飙升，埃里森的财富暴涨至超过1500亿美元。如今，他已超越亚马逊创始人贝索斯，成为全球第三大富豪。

AT 78 LARRY ELLISON, co-founder and chairman of Oracle, is still brimming with energy. During the business-software firm’s latest quarterly earnings call on June 12th the septuagenarian rhapsodised about artificial intelligence (AI) and the latest cloud-computing technology. He has good reason to be in high spirits. Over the past year Mr Ellison’s wealth has rocketed to more than $150bn, according to Forbes, a magazine that tracks such things, on the back of Oracle’s soaring share price. Mr Ellison has now edged past Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, as the world’s third-richest man.

与埃里森一样，甲骨文可能同被视为美国科技界的“活化石”。这家公司成立于1977年，最初开发数据库软件，后来扩展到财务、销售和供应链管理等业务功能方面的应用。但作为云计算领域的后来者，甲骨文在其核心企业产品上的市场份额近年被积极拓展商业软件产品的亚马逊、谷歌和微软这三家云计算巨头大肆抢夺。根据研究公司高德纳（Gartner）的数据，甲骨文在仍是其主打业务的数据库软件市场的份额从2012年的43%跌到了2022年的19%。

Like Mr Ellison, Oracle might be regarded as a dinosaur of American tech. It began life in 1977 as a database-software business, later expanding into applications for business functions such as finance, sales and supply-chain management. As a latecomer to the cloud, however, Oracle has in recent years ceded market share in its core enterprise products to Amazon, Google and Microsoft, three cloud giants that have aggressively expanded their business-software offerings. Oracle’s slice of the database-software market, which remains its bread and butter, fell from 43% in 2012 to 19% in 2022, according to Gartner, a research firm.

但现在，甲骨文似乎开始扭转颓势。为追赶对手，甲骨文一直大力投资云计算。过去12个月的资本支出达87亿美元，占销售额的17%，而两年前该比例仅为5%。去年，该公司以280亿美元的价格收购了基于云计算的电子病历公司Cerner。这番努力令甲骨文的云产品销售大增，最新一季度同比增长33%，在计入Cerner后增长55%。其销售增速远高于亚马逊、谷歌和微软的云计算部门。甲骨文还棋高一着，抢到了托管TikTok（千百万年轻人爱不释手的中资短视频应用）美国业务的云服务合同。

Now the business seems to be turning a corner. To catch up with rivals, Oracle has been investing heavily in cloud computing. Capital expenditures in the past 12 months added up to $8.7bn, or 17% of sales, up from just 5% two years ago. Last year it acquired Cerner, a cloud-based health-records business, for $28bn. The upshot has been significant growth in sales of its cloud-based products, which were up by 33% year on year in the most recent quarter, or 55% after including the Cerner acquisition. These sales have grown much faster than the cloud divisions of Amazon, Google and Microsoft. Oracle also outwitted them to snatch the cloud contract to host the American operations of TikTok, a Chinese-owned short-video app to which millions of youngsters are glued.

投资者很满意眼前的成绩。甲骨文的股价在过去12个月上涨了73%，遥遥领先于以科技股为主的纳斯达克指数（见图表）。该公司的市值达到了3300亿美元，成为全球价值第四高的商业软件公司，仅次于微软、谷歌母公司Alphabet和亚马逊。

Investors like what they see. Oracle’s share price has risen by 73% in the past 12 months, well ahead of the tech-heavy NASDAQ index (see chart). The company’s market value is $330bn, making it the world’s fourth-most-valuable business-software provider, behind only Microsoft, Alphabet (Google’s corporate parent) and Amazon.

甲骨文现在希望在最新的科技热潮中分得一杯羹：支撑ChatGPT及其他内容创作机器人的生成式AI。今年3月，该公司成为首家提供DGX云服务接入的云供应商，DGX云是专门用于训练AI模型的超级计算机，由美国芯片制造商英伟达设计。在最新的财报电话会议上，埃里森宣布，甲骨文还将与它最近入股的AI创业公司Cohere合作推出一项新服务，帮助客户使用自己的数据建立专用生成式AI模型。同时，甲骨文也在逐步把生成式AI功能嵌入自家的各种企业应用中。

Mr Ellison’s company is now hoping to cash in on the latest craze in tech: generative AI of the sort that powers ChatGPT and other content-creating bots. In March it became the first cloud provider to offer access to the DGX Cloud, a supercomputer designed by Nvidia, an American chipmaker, specially for training AI models. During the latest earnings call Mr Ellison announced that Oracle will also be launching a new service with Cohere, an AI startup in which it recently took a stake, to help clients use their own data to build specialised generative-AI models. Meanwhile, the firm is embedding generative-AI features into its various business applications.

但有一个隐患。过去五年，甲骨文通过股票回购向股东返还了1000亿美元现金，令其股本减少了约三分之一。埃里森一直握着自己的那些股份，成为最大受益者之一——在此期间他在甲骨文的股份从28%跃升至42%。为回购股票和投资云计算，公司借下巨额债务，当前净债务已是息税折旧摊销前利润的四倍多（三倍以上被视为存在风险）。实际上，甲骨文的债务现在超过了其资产账面价值，资产负债表上的股东权益为负，这是杠杆过高的危险信号。

There is one potential snag. Over the past five years Oracle has returned $100bn in cash to shareholders through share buy-backs, reducing its share count by around a third. Mr Ellison, who has held onto his shares, has been among the biggest beneficiaries—his slice of the company jumped from 28% to 42% in the period. To fund those repurchases, and its cloud investments, the company has taken on hefty debts. Its net debt is now more than four times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (a figure above three is considered risky). Indeed, the firm’s debts now exceed the book value of its assets, leaving it with negative shareholder equity on its balance-sheet, a telltale sign of dangerously high leverage.

目前来看，甲骨文还有时间应对。它的债务为固定利息，意味着基准利率上升对其影响不大。它的公司债券在市场上的收益率为5.7%，但需支付的票息仅为3.8%。而且，其债务中只有五分之一将在未来三年内到期。在最近几个季度，甲骨文已放慢了股票回购，并开始偿还积压的债务。

For now, the company has time on its hands. Fixed interest on its debts means it has suffered little from rising benchmark rates. Its corporate bonds are priced by the market at a yield of 5.7%, but require coupon payments of only 3.8%. And just one-fifth of its debt will mature in the next three years. In recent quarters it has slowed share repurchases and started to chip away at its debt mountain.

希望在于过去两年所做的大举投资能给甲骨文带来足够的增长以摆脱债务风险。如果成功，埃里森在世界富豪榜上的排名可能继续攀升。无论如何，甲骨文还不会灭绝。

The hope will be that the heavy investments made in the past two years will allow the company to grow out of its debt. If it pays off, Mr Ellison may continue his climb up the world’s rich list. Either way, Oracle is not about to go extinct. ■