缅甸大亨潘继泽的艰辛奋斗史
A business school of hard knocks
On meeting Serge Pun in his office in central Yangon, it is hard to imagine that one of Myanmar’s most successful tycoons was once a penniless migrant in Hong Kong, delivering ship supplies from a small sampan and selling air sanitisers for a pitiful commission. Clad in traditional garb of collarless white shirt and longyi, or sarong, Mr Pun puffs on a cigar as he recalls: “I had just HK$5 when I arrived in 1973, it was all I had in the world. I was 20, I was fit, and I knew I had to survive.”
与潘继泽(Serge Pun)在他位于仰光市中心的办公室会面之前，我很难想象缅甸最成功的商业大亨之一是曾经不名一文的香港移民，靠用小舢板给轮船运送补给品以及销售空气消毒剂以赚取微薄的佣金为生。潘继泽穿着由无领白衬衣和腰布（又称莎笼）组成的传统服装，吸了一口雪茄回忆道：“1973年当我来到香港时，身上只有5港元，这就是我在这个世界上的全部财产。当时我20岁，身体很好，我知道我必须生存下来。”
Negotiating difficult circumstances is something Mr Pun, a Myanmar-born ethnic Chinese, has done throughout his life. Just eight years before landing in Hong Kong, he was uprooted from a comfortable, middle-class life in Yangon by the socialist coup of 1962. Amid a backlash against foreign residents and businesses, the family moved to Beijing – only to be caught up nine months later in the Cultural Revolution.
作为一名生于缅甸的少数华裔，克服困境是潘继泽这辈子一直在做的事。在到达香港八年前，1962年的社会主义政变迫使潘继泽离开了在仰光舒适的中产生活。受缅甸排挤抵制外国居民和企业影响，潘继泽的一家移居至北京，但此后仅九个月中国就爆发了文化大革命(Cultural Revolution)。
The 12-year-old Mr Pun was separated from his parents and four siblings, corralled into a Red Guard work unit and sent with 1,500 other children for “re-education” to the remote Yunnan province. “For four years, we built a dam with our bare hands,” he says. “We lived in huts we built from bamboo and constructed beds from branches. We had no electricity and bathed in a stream – even in winter. We were given the bare staple, rice, and the rest was up to us. If your battalion was good, planting vegetables and raising pigs, you could eat meat. Otherwise, it was dried vegetables – they tasted horrible”.
当时年仅12岁的潘继泽被和自己的双亲以及四个兄弟姐妹拆散，关入一个红卫兵工作队，和其他1500名青少年一起送至边远的云南省接受“再教育”。他回忆道：“我们花了四年时间仅凭双手建起了一座水坝。我们住在自己用竹子搭建的茅屋里，用树枝搭床。我们没有电，即使是冬天也在一条小溪中洗澡。上面仅仅发给我们基本的主食和大米，其他的都得靠我们自己。如果你所在的生产队条件较好，既种蔬菜又养猪，那你就有可能吃上肉。除此之外我们只能吃蔬菜干——味道很糟。”
Today, he runs a sprawling empire of more than 32 companies grouped under Serge Pun and Associates, which includes interests in banking, property development, agribusiness, medical services and vehicle distribution. Mr Pun also runs one of Myanmar’s only internationally listed companies: the Singapore-listed Yoma Strategic, which has a market capitalisation of about SD$380m. His latest venture, launched this week, is an air shuttle service between Yangon and Naypyidaw, the new capital.
现如今，潘继泽经营着一个规模庞大的商业帝国——恒泽集团(Serge Pun and Associates)，旗下拥有32家公司，业务领域包括银行、房地产开发、农业综合经营、医疗服务以及汽车分销等等。潘继泽还经营着缅甸唯一一家国际上市公司：在新加坡上市的祐玛战略控股有限公司(Yoma Strategic Holdings)，当前市值约为3.8亿新加坡元。他最新的一项商业冒险于上周启动，是在仰光与缅甸新首都奈比多之间的往来航空运输服务。
Mr Pun says real valuations of his group are complicated due to a lack of international benchmarks in Myanmar. Much of the group’s fortunes lie in lucrative land development rights over some 1,600 acres of property in Yangon, whose value is rising quickly amid growing investor interest in the country and moves to reform property ownership laws. “Anyway,” he says, “I hope people don’t judge me by how much I’m worth financially – in this situation it’s so relative it renders itself rather irrelevant.”
潘继泽表示，自己集团的真实价值很难估算，因为缅甸国内企业缺乏国际参照物。恒泽集团的大部分财富是对仰光市内1600英亩土地盈利前景诱人的房地产开发权。随着投资者对缅甸的兴趣上升以及该国采取措施改革与房产所有权有关法律，仰光市内土地的开发价值快速上升。潘继泽表示：“不管怎样，我希望人们不要仅凭我的资产规模来评价我——在这种情况下，资产规模的相关度过高以至于反倒显得不那么重要了。”
More relevant, perhaps, is the way Mr Pun is increasingly portrayed as Myanmar’s “Mr Clean”, a rare model of success and internationalisation in a country known for corruption under decades of harsh military rule. Now, under the reformist regime, he is regularly consulted on matters affecting business, while visiting foreign executives seek his advice or co-operation.
或许，更重要的是他正越来越多地被树立为缅甸的“清白先生”，在一个经历了数十年严厉军事统治、以腐败而闻名的国家中少见的兼具成功与国际化的榜样。在目前的改革派政府治下，官方会定期征询潘继泽对商业相关事务的意见，来缅甸访问的外国企业高管也会向他寻求建议或者讨论合作。
He rarely talks about his own life but when he does, he speaks candidly about a remarkable journey. “I had no education, no papers, no qualifications,” he says. “I spoke Mandarin, Burmese and not much English – and I knew virtually no one apart from distant relatives I was staying with. The only thing I felt I could do well was become a salesman. As a battalion commander in the re-education camp, I felt I had done a good job of selling the ideology.”
潘继泽很少谈论自己的个人生活，不过当他真的打开话匣子的时候，他会坦率地讲述一段不同寻常的人生旅程。潘继泽说：“我没有受过教育，没写过论文，也没有学历。我会说普通话、缅甸语，但不太会说英语——除了当时一起生活的远房亲戚以外，我几乎谁也不认识。我觉得自己唯一能做好的事情就是成为一名销售员。在再教育营里我担任生产队长，我觉得自己在传播官方意识形态方面做得很好。”
He saw a job ad for a salesman, which turned out to be for air sanitisers. Within a month, he was the company’s star salesman. The job led to another, this time selling real estate. Mr Pun had found his forte. “I was lucky,” he admits. “I worked for a German entrepreneur, Elmar Busch . . . who took me under his wing and taught me everything.”
后来他发现了一份招聘销售员的职位广告，工作内容是销售空气消毒剂。仅仅用了一个月的时间，他就成为了公司的明星销售员。这份工作又带来了一个新的机会，这次是销售房地产。潘继泽就此找到了自己的特长。他承认：“我很幸运，我为一位名为埃尔马•布施(Elmar Busch)的德国企业家工作，他很照顾我并教给了我很多东西。”
In 1983, Mr Pun set up Serge Pun and Associates, to focus on property. His Chinese connections helped him land lucrative projects – initially in Hong Kong and later, across the region. But Mr Pun could not shake the memories of Myanmar. “I’d kept thinking about it and wanted to go back . . . when I visited in 1989, I was astounded by the acute need for investment; I felt a strange but strong desire, like a moral obligation, to do something for this country I had known as prosperous and beautiful . . . it had become so run down, so destitute.”
1983年潘继泽成立了恒泽集团，专攻房地产业务。他与中国的渊源为他赢得获利颇丰的地产项目起到了很大帮助——起初公司仅在香港开展业务，随后业务范围扩大到整个周边地区。但潘继泽无法抑制对缅甸的思念。他说：“我一直很想念缅甸并希望能够回去……1989年当我访问缅甸时，我被当地对投资需求的迫切程度所震惊；我产生了一种奇怪而强烈的意念，类似于一种道德责任感，要为这个我记忆中繁荣而美丽的国家做点什么……当时的缅甸变得如此凋敝，如此贫困。”
Mr Pun returned to Yangon in 1991 and opened businesses in financial services, agribusiness and property. The timing was good: a foreign investment act had just been introduced, he obtained a bank licence in 1993 and set up Yoma Bank, the country’s second private bank. “The business just kept growing,” he recalls.
潘继泽于1991年回到仰光，并开始经营金融服务、综合农业以及房地产业务。这个时机非常有利：当时缅甸刚刚通过了一部外国投资法案。潘继泽于1993年获得了一张银行牌照并成立了祐玛银行(Yoma Bank)，目前该行是缅甸第二大私立银行。潘继泽回忆称：“当时银行的业务持续增长。”
From the mid-2000s, however, he says the rise of cronyism under the military junta left those who “refused to play the game” in the cold. “Those were my worst years. There were forces who wanted to take over my businesses, many who would have liked to get rid of me. We kept our heads low and continued to do our business; 2008-09 was the height of the crony regime, unless you played their game you were outcast. Not only that . . . they could have ruined me.”
但他表示，自2005年前后以来，缅甸军政府治下任人唯亲的风气愈演愈烈，那些“拒绝同流合污”的人因此受到冷遇。他说：“那几年是我最艰难的时期。有些势力想要夺走我的企业，还有很多人希望除掉我。我们放低姿态继续经营自己的业务；2008至2009年间是政府结党营私最为严重的时期，如果你不参与他们的游戏，你就将遭到排斥。这还不算最糟的……当时他们可以毁了我。”
The political currents began shifting in 2010 as an election was announced. For Mr Pun, the oft-asked question is how he managed to keep rising while steering clear of corruption. It elicits a vehement response. “People forget I was outcast for six years. I never paid a cent for any favours . . . The pressure was huge but I can say honestly: I have never received a sweetheart deal.
自2010年起政治风向开始变化，缅甸宣布将举行大选。对于潘继泽来说，最常被问到的问题是他如何能在远离腐败行贿的情况下保持公司业务持续发展。这通常会引出一番情绪激动的回应。“人们忘记了我曾被排挤六年。我从没有为获得任何好处行贿过一分钱……由此带来的压力是巨大的，但我可以问心无愧地说：我从未接受过任何有悖于道德法律的私下交易”。
“We landed deals that needed performance – and we delivered, every time, the right way and in right time.”
他指出：“我们获得的项目都是需要靠实力说话的，而我们每一次都拿出了实力，用正确的方法、在正确的时间完成。”
He also benefited from good luck and savvy. Most of the group’s land development rights for lucrative Yangon tracts had been purchased in the 1990s. “And nearly all our businesses – the bank, the golf course, property sales – rely chiefly on the consumer, not the government,” he says.
他还从自己的好运气和经验见识中受益匪浅。恒泽集团对仰光市内大片地块颇有获利潜力的房地产开发权绝大多数是在20世纪90年代购入的。他说：“几乎我们的所有业务——银行、高尔夫球场以及房地产销售——都主要依靠消费者支持，而非政府关系。”
Numerous interviews with those who have done business with Mr Pun have yielded no suggestion of dubious practices. “Serge is tough – you offer him a slice of bread and he’ll take the loaf. But he’s clean,” says one Yangon-based businessman.
对曾与潘继泽有过业务往来的人的大量访谈无一显示潘继泽在经营中存在可疑操作。一名在仰光工作的商人表示：“潘继泽非常强硬——如果你给他一片面包，他会把整块面包都夺过去。但他是清白的。”
Underpinning Mr Pun’s business philosophy are the lessons from his “re-education” camp experience. “Not only do I not regret the hardships I went through in China, I actually treasure them,” he says. “Because whatever I learnt and endured over those years laid the foundation for what I achieved in my later years.” Those hardships also left him with his most important friendships. “I actually have lots of good memories; there might be no common interests but there is . . . a deep and strange bond that develops between people who have shared extreme experiences.”
支撑潘继泽的商业哲学的是他从自己的再教育营经历中收获的感悟。他说：“我不但不后悔在中国经历的种种艰辛，事实上我还很珍视这段经历。因为那些年间我所经历的和学到的为我日后所能取得的成就打下了基础。”在那段艰难岁月中他还结下了一生最为重要的友谊。潘继泽表示：“我实际上拥有许多美好记忆……有过同样极端经历的人之间也许没有共同利益，但存在着一种深厚而奇特的紧密关系。”
The experiences taught him to value what others might take for granted. “Because of that continuous fight for survival in those years – both physically and politically – I learnt how to look beyond the surface, to understand people’s actions and motives . . . I developed a much sharper sense of analysing political whims and anticipating changes.”
那段经历使他学会珍惜在其他人看来也许是理所应当的东西。潘继泽说：“正是由于那些年里为了生存不断奋斗——既是在物质上也是在政治上——我学会了如何透过表面看实质，理解人们的行为和动机……我锻炼出了分析政治风潮以及预判社会变化的敏锐直觉。”
Judging by the steady rise in the stock price of Mr Pun’s Singapore-listed YSH, many of Mr Pun’s shareholders approve of his approach. As one international investor, Jim Rogers, puts it: “Serge Pun knows the country, he knows what is going on . . . unless he gets thrown out, he should be able to carry on regardless, and make money for himself and his shareholders.”
潘继泽的新加坡上市公司祐玛战略的股价稳健上行表明，他的行事方式得到了很多股东支持。国际投资人吉姆•罗杰斯(Jim Rogers)表示：“潘继泽对缅甸非常了解，他洞悉形势走向……除非被排挤出局，潘继泽有能力迎着挑战一往直前，为他自己以及他的股东创造财富。”
If his own history of survival is anything to go by, few will bet against him.
如果要对潘继泽的奋斗史做出评判的话，不会有什么人不看好他。
译者:马拉 |
