Why Capital is invisible, but not invincible
In a galaxy of forgettable corporate names, one is especially forgettable: Capital Group of Companies. It has a generic-sounding Capital International arm, and then there is its yawn-inducing Capital Research and Management Company. Behold one of the great unseen hands of the financial world.
It is remarkable that Capital remains the name on nobody's lips. It is one of the biggest money managers in the world: its $800bn (￡440bn) under management rivals that of Fidelity, a recognisable US industry giant; it is forthright in its investing stance: witness Gordon Crawford, its media fund manager, who recently led the charge to push out Steve Case as AOL chairman; and it is popular: it is easily the top-selling mutual fund company in the US this year, as it was last year.
One explanation is that the group never advertises and has no public relations department. A huge, silent profit machine, the 70-year old privately owned company has, over the years, developed a highly successful - and somewhat quirky - management blueprint which is simple to articulate but hard to replicate.
Jon Lovelace, the son of the founder whose single-minded vision built the company, recently retired after many years of holding various senior roles in the company. He seemed almost obsessive about sharing control with others, but there is no doubt that with his departure the group has lost a guiding presence, and also a symbolic one, who maintained and shaped Capital's corporate culture.
And even some of those inside the company have voiced doubts about how to manage the staggering amounts of new money flooding in: in the first seven months of this year, investors poured $56bn into its mutual funds, sold under the American Funds name, according to Financial Research Corporation.
Morningstar, an influential fund tracker, has called on the group to close some of its big funds to new investors in order to maintain returns.
Russel Kinnel, director of funds analysis at Morningstar, says: "I do think the size is a concern. They're in uncharted waters with these funds of $60bn, $70bn." Fidelity's Magellan, the only fund of equivalent size, has underperformed the market for the past decade.
Founded by Jonathan Bell Lovelace in 1931, Capital, based in Los Angeles, is still owned by the Lovelace family and by its employees, most of whom stick with the company for life. Even at the company's call centre, employee turnover is barely above 10 per cent, in an industry where more than 50 per cent is the norm. The group has not made a loss since the early 1970s, and one analyst has estimated its value at about $35bn.
The corporate structure is remarkably flat, with a consensus-driven, no-stars culture and policies being set by a handful of committees rather than individuals. The rule against self-promotion is so great that Capital has banned corner offices, according to Charles Ellis, a former managing partner at Greenwich Associates, the US financial consultancy, who recently wrote a book about the company.
In exchange for giving up some of their egotism, individual employees are given considerable leeway. Mike Shanahan, the chairman of the executive committee - the closest the group comes to having a chief executive - mostly works from his home near Palm Springs.
The flat structure dovetails with an unusual method of money management. American Funds has a very small number of funds - less than 30, compared with Fidelity's almost 300. Because the fund management business is one where size counts - it does not cost that much more to manage $100m than it does $10m - having a small number of very large funds, as Capital does, is the way to maximum profit.
It eschews the two main industry models: a single fund manager making stockpicking decisions or a group which make decisions by committee. American Funds has its funds run by several people, with each given a pot of money to manage.
Mr Crawford, for example, works for several different American funds and specialises in media stocks. A team of research analysts is also usually given a set portion of each fund - up to 20 per cent.
The plan reduces a fund's dependence on any one manager, helps smooth returns - since one person's big bet does not dominate performance - and allows individuals to take risks - which reduces the tendency of a very large fund to start replicating the index. The fund managers are not necessarily even in the same place - the New Perspective fund, for instance, has seven managers who are based, variously, in Washington DC, San Francisco, London and Los Angeles. The group's average turnover of stocks is less than 30 per cent a year, a quarter of the industry average. That in turn lifts performance, because high turnover costs investors in transaction fees.
But some industry observers think that Capital's multi-manager system could be groaning under the strain of absorbing floods of new money. In recent months, several small US pension funds have fired Capital as their offshore manager after it trailed its benchmarks in international markets. Others have put the group on notice.
Chuck Freadhoff, a spokesman for Capital, defends the system, saying that the group is better able to manage very large funds and pools of money. "We have no plans to close any funds. We don't believe any of them have reached the size where performance is declining. At the Washington Mutual Investors fund, which is close to $70bn, there are 45 people who actually make investment decisions."
He attributes the group's success in attracting money to the group's superior returns and also to the way it sells its funds.
Unlike most investment houses, Capital does not sell its funds directly. Instead, it relies on financial advisers and brokers, whom it assiduously courts and supports. "The independent advisers love them, and they have built up a lot of goodwill there," says Mr Kinnel.
Whether Capital can keep up its growth, its investment returns and its robust corporate culture will be a challenge. But Mr Freadhoff does not read too much into Mr Lovelace's departure. "The way we manage money and the way we are constructed [means that] any one person's departure does not have a significant effect," he says. "Mr Lovelace's influence and philosophy remain. He didn't move away [and] if there's a need to talk to him - he is there. In any company, the tone and tenor is set at the top, and he set a tone and tenor that those remaining retain."
企业资本集团看不见的手
一些企业的名字很容易让人遗忘，这样的企业多如群星，其中，尤以企业资本集团(Capital Group of Companies)为甚。这个公司有个听起来相象的分支机构，叫资本国际。下面还有个听起来能让人打哈欠的资本研究和管理公司。然而大家注意了，它可是金融世界的一只看不见的手。
企业资本集团的名字并不家喻户晓，这是一件很让人称奇的事情。该公司是全球最大的资本管理公司之一。它管理的资本总额达8000亿美元，堪与知名的行业巨头富达证券(Fidelity)媲美。该公司的投资立场鲜明：例如，最近，该公司媒体业务基金管理人高敦?克劳福德(Gordon Crawford)最近发动一场斗争，导致美国在线董事长史蒂夫?凯斯(Steve Case)下台。企业资本集团也很受欢迎，今年，它轻而易举地就登上最畅销共同基金公司的榜首，去年也是一样。
该公司默默无闻的一个原因，可能是该集团从来不做广告，也没有公关部。它是个庞大的、无声的赢利机器。它是个私营的公司，有着70年的历史。多年来，它发展出了一套非常成功，却也有些古怪的管理模式。这模式说来简单，却难以模仿。
公司的创办人苦心孤诣，凭着一个远景设想，缔造了这个公司。创办人的儿子约翰?拉弗雷斯(Jon Lovelace)最近退休。此前他曾在公司担任过不同的高层管理职位。他以一种痴迷的态度和他人分享公司的控制权，但是无疑，随着他的离开，公司失去了一个指导方向，也失去了一个象征力量。公司企业文化的形成和保持，应归功于拉弗雷斯先生。
还有，公司内部人士都在提出疑问，在源源不断流入的巨额新资金面前,公司该如何管理呢?根据金融研究集团的统计，在今年前7个月，投资人投入560亿进入其共同基金，以美国基金的名义售出。
著名的基金监督机构晨星公司（Morningstar） 最近呼吁，企业资本集团应关闭部分基金帐户，不接受新的投资者，以保证投资回报水平。
晨星公司基金分析主任拉塞尔?肯内尔(Russel Kinnel) 说：“我确实觉得规模是个问题。这些基金高达600亿、700亿，他们已进入不明水域。”富达属下的麦哲伦公司(Magellan)是唯一在规模上能和企业资本集团相提并论的公司，过去十年间，其业绩低于市场平均水平。
企业资本集团1931年成立，创办人是乔纳森?贝尔?拉弗雷斯(Jonathan Bell Lovelace)，公司总部设在洛杉矶。直到现在，该公司仍由拉弗雷斯家族及其员工控股。很多员工终身为该公司服务。即使在该公司的电话中心，员工的离职率也很少超过10%，而行业的常规离职率为50%。企业资本集团自1970年代早期以来就没有亏损过，一个分析家估计，该公司价值为350亿美元。
该公司的架构非常扁平，企业文化强调共同协商，不为个别明星式人物所左右，公司政策是由委员会而非某些个人制定。查尔斯?埃里斯(Charles Ellis)说，该公司严格禁止自我提升，甚至到了排斥豪华办公室的地步。埃里斯曾在美国金融顾问机构格林威治伙伴公司（Greenwich Associates）任总经理兼合伙人。他最近写了一本关于企业资本集团的书。
作为让雇员舍弃一些自负的补偿，公司给了他们相当大的自主权。该公司不设首席执行官，而设立执行委员会。该委员会是公司在职能上最接近首席执行官的机构。委员会主席迈克?沙纳汉(Mike Shanahan)多半时间在棕榈泉（Palm Springs）的家中办公。
这种扁平的组织架构和公司独特的资金管理方式非常契合。美国基金名下的基金数量很少，不到30种，而富达则接近300种。基金管理以规模取胜，管理1亿美元的成本不比管理1000万高多少。管理少量大额基金是利润最大化的最好办法，而企业资本集团正是这种做法。
这种做法避开了基金业的两大业务模式：单一的基金管理人做出选股决策，或者是通过委员会集体决策。美国基金是由几个人共同管理，同时每个人又分管部分资金。
例如， 克劳福德先生就管理着几种不同的美国基金，尤其专精于媒体类股票。研究分析师组成的团队也会负责一部分基金，通常是20%.
这种做法能减少各基金对某个管理人的依赖性，有助于实现平稳回报。因为这样一来，业绩就不会完全受制于个人的赌博性投资，但个人又可冒一定风险，这能减少大型基金复制基金指数的倾向。 基金管理者也不一定要在同一个地方。例如，新视角基金（New Perspective）的各管理人就分别在华盛顿、旧金山、伦敦和洛杉矶各地。集团的股票年均周转率低于每年30%，为行业平均水平的四分之一。这同样也能提高业绩，因为周转率高，就会给投资人增添交易成本。
但是一些行业观察家认为，随着新资金的大量涌入，企业资本集团多管理人体制将岌岌可危。最近几个月,有几家小型美国退休基金就与该公司解约,不再让它担任海外基金管理人。其原因是该公司的业绩落后于这些企业在国际市场的基准水平。其它企业则对企业资本集团提出了警告。
企业资本集团公司发言人查克?弗瑞多霍夫(Chuck Freadhoff)对公司现行的体制进行了辩护，他说集团现在更有能力管理很大的基金和各种资本。“我们并没有关闭任何一个基金的计划。我们认为这些基金都还没达到让业绩滑坡的规模。华盛顿投资基金名下管理的资金将近700亿美元，而实际上作出投资决策的有45人。”
他解释说，集团之所以成功，是因为能够吸引资金，实现高额回报。还有一个原因，是集团出售基金的方式。
和大部分投资公司不同的是，企业资本集团并不直接出售基金。相反，它依靠金融顾问和中介，它努力寻找这些顾问和中介，也对他们大力支持。“独立的顾问非常喜欢企业资本集团，集团也得到了他们的很多好感。”肯内尔先生说。
企业资本集团能否保持现有的增长幅度？能否保持投资的高回报？能否保持积极的企业文化？这都是挑战。但是弗瑞多霍夫先生并不对拉弗雷斯先生的去职作过多解释。“我们现在的资金管理方式和结构(意味着)不会因个人的离开而产生太大影响，”他说。“拉弗雷斯先生的影响和他的哲学将保持下来。他也没有搬走，要是有什么事情，还可以找到他。在任何公司，风格和基调都是高层定下来的。他给我们定下了风格和基调，余下的人会将其保持下来。”
