(单词翻译:单击)
Many Blackstone executives worked grueling seven-day weeks for a month to put together last Friday’s $23 billion acquisition of mortgages and office buildings from General Electric. But Blackstone’s chief executive says he has been spending twice as much of his time on an entirely different project: the scholarship fund he started at a top Beijing university.
这一个月来,黑石集团(Blackstone)的很多高管每周七天地艰苦工作,为上周五斥资230亿美元(约合1400亿元人民币)收购通用电气公司(General Electric,简称GE)的抵押贷款和写字楼做准备。但黑石集团的首席执行官说,他在一个截然不同的项目上花的时间是这个的两倍,那就是他在北京一所顶级大学设立的奖学金。
Stephen A. Schwarzman, Blackstone’s chairman, chief executive and co-founder, said that he had been immersed in a welter of details for his Schwarzman Scholars program at Tsinghua University, for which applications became available online Wednesday morning. All the while, he was advising his staff members on crucial decisions as they analyzed a complex montage of mortgages and equity stakes in G.E. buildings around the world.
黑石集团董事长、首席执行官以及联合创始人苏世民(Stephen A. Schwarzman)说,他一直沉浸在清华大学苏世民奖学金(Schwarzman Scholars)项目的细节中,这个项目于周三上午开始接受在线申请。与此同时,他的下属在分析GE在世界各地的建筑物的复杂抵押贷款和股权,如果需要做一些关键决定,他也会向他们提供建议。
“G.E. was easy for me; it was hard for everybody else,” he said. “It was 110 percent of their time for these weeks; for me, it was 5.”
“对于GE的事情,我的这部分很容易,其他人的很难,”他说。“这几周他们投入了110%的时间;而我只投入了5%的时间。”
By now, real estate transactions were practically second nature to Mr. Schwarzman. He has been making real estate investment decisions practically every week at Blackstone since 1993 and had a process in place at the company to provide him with the information he needed for each of them. He typically starts his day every morning at 6 and finishes at midnight.
时至今日,房地产交易几乎已经成了苏世民的第二天性。自1993年以来,他在黑石集团几乎每周都要做房地产投资方面的决策,他还在公司里规定了一个流程,向他提供每项决策中他所需的信息。他通常每天早上6点开工,到午夜才结束工作。
That allows him ample time, he said, to run Blackstone, the world’s most profitable money management company for the last two years, and also oversee the minutiae of starting a scholarship program 12 time zones away in China.
他说,因此他有足够的时间来经营黑石集团,并兼顾一个奖学金项目的细枝末节;这个项目在12个时区之外的中国开展,而过去两年里,黑石是全球最赚钱的资金管理公司。
Mr. Schwarzman estimated that he had been spending about 10 percent of his time on the Schwarzman Scholars program, for which he has already raised $333 million, including $100 million of his own money. He plans to announce shortly that he is raising his target for the overall scholarship fund to $400 million, and he believes he can reach that target next year, he said.
苏世民估计自己的时间有10%用在了奖学金项目上。他已经为该项目筹集了3.33亿美元(约合人民币20亿元),其中有1亿美元是他自己的钱。他计划不久后宣布自己要将整个奖学金基金的目标提高到4亿美元,他说,自己很可能明年就能实现这个目标。
“We’re not chasing a rainbow; we’re chasing an overhead structure,” he said.
“我们追逐的东西不像彩虹那么遥远,就在我们头上,”他说。
The program was a labor of love for Mr. Schwarzman and underscores the tremendous importance of China and its market to Wall Street financiers and corporate leaders.
苏世民不计回报地开展这个项目,显示了中国及其市场对华尔街的金融家和企业领导者的重大意义。
Although the construction of a college at Tsinghua to house scholars and provide meeting rooms for the yearlong graduate program has proceeded on schedule and on budget, other aspects of the program have proved more expensive than expected, Mr. Schwarzman said. Extra costs have involved areas like providing medical insurance for scholars and faculty members, recruiting and retaining visiting professors like Niall Ferguson of Harvard, and setting up internships and mentoring for scholars.
这个研究生项目为期一年,清华大学正在修建一个学院,以安置该项目的学生,并提供会议室。虽然施工在按时按预算地进行,但该项目其他方面的费用实际上都高于预期,苏世民说。额外的费用涉及为学生和教师提供医疗保险,招聘和留住客座教授,比如哈佛大学的尼尔·弗格森(Niall Ferguson),并为学生提供实习和辅导机会。
Gerard A. Postiglione, the director of Hong Kong University’s Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China, said that philanthropists setting up large scholarship programs in China face difficult choices to keep their spending focused on academic pursuits.
香港大学(University of Hong Kong)华正中国教育研究中心(Wah Ching Center of Research on Education in China)主任白杰瑞(Gerard A. Postiglione)说,在中国设立大型奖学金项目的慈善家要想把钱主要花在学术上,会面临着一些艰难的选择。
“Foreign donor programs in China come along with many bureaucratic and financial hurdles,” he wrote in an email. “Making sure that the bulk of the donation is focused on the program objectives is always the main challenge.”
“外国捐助项目在中国遇到了很多官僚主义和财务障碍,”他在一封电邮中写道。“要确保捐款主要用在项目的目标上,始终是个巨大挑战。”
During a 75-minute interview in a wood-paneled penthouse meeting room overlooking the Upper East Side at Blackstone’s headquarters on Park Avenue, Mr. Schwarzman spoke mainly about the scholars program, while discussing the G.E. deal more briefly. To call an assistant and request a folder on the scholarship program, he pulled out an old Nokia flip phone from the outer right pocket of his dark blue suit coat (he later explained that he had no desire to get a smartphone).
在公园大道黑石集团总部顶楼一个可以俯瞰上东区、用木壁板装潢的会议室中,苏世民接受了75分钟长的采访。他谈的主要是这个奖学金项目,虽然也比较简短地讨论了GE的交易。他从深蓝色西装外套的右口袋掏出一部老掉牙的诺基亚翻盖手机,让助手拿来一个文件夹,里面是这个奖学金项目的资料(后来他解释说,他无意改用智能手机)。
His aggressive promotion of Tsinghua University since announcing the scholarship program two years ago appears to have played a role in the greater international visibility lately of Tsinghua; in an annual ranking released last month of the world’s best universities by reputation, Tsinghua jumped to 26th, from 36th a year earlier.
自从两年前宣布推出这个奖学金项目以来,他一直非常积极地宣传清华大学;该校近来在国际上知名度进一步提高,他的宣传似乎有些帮助;在上个月公布的全球声誉最高的顶级大学年度排名中,清华从去年的第36位跃升至26位。
The yearlong Schwarzman Scholars master’s degree program has a selection process modeled partly on the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford University. Online applications will be initially screened by the Institute of International Education in New York, and 300 finalists will be brought in for interviews in New York, London, Beijing or Bangkok. Mr. Schwarzman said that he planned to participate in the interviews done in New York and London.
苏世民学者硕士学位项目为期一年,其遴选过程部分参照了牛津大学的罗德奖学金(Rhodes scholarships)项目。纽约的国际教育协会(Institute of International Education)将对网上申请进行初步筛选,300个入围者将在纽约、伦敦、北京和曼谷参加面试。苏世民说自己计划参加纽约和伦敦的面试。
Mr. Schwarzman said that the finalist interviews would be scheduled so as not to coincide with the Rhodes Scholar selection interviews. Charles Conn, the chief executive of the Rhodes Trust and warden of Rhodes House at Oxford University, said in a telephone interview, “We work together not only with Steve’s program but also other programs to make sure we don’t put candidates in awkward positions.”
苏世民说,面试在日期安排上会避免与罗德奖学金的遴选面试日期相冲突。罗德信托(Rhodes Trust)首席执行官、牛津大学罗德楼舍监查尔斯·康恩(Charles Conn)在接受电话采访时说,“我们不仅会和史蒂夫的项目进行协调,还会与其他项目协调,以确保不让候选人为难。”
The Rhodes scholarships and Schwarzman Scholars programs have similar endowments and fund-raising goals. Which one is ahead in any given week depends mainly on the exchange rate of the pound, which has weakened lately against the dollar. The Rhodes Trust has about 200 million pounds, or $296 million, and has a fund-raising target of £250 million, Mr. Conn said.
罗德奖学金和苏世民奖学金项目有类似的捐赠基金和筹款目标。任何一周中,哪一个项目处于领先主要取决于英镑汇率,而英镑兑美元的汇率近来已经走弱。罗德信托目前拥有大约2亿英镑(约合人民币18亿元),筹款目标为2.5亿英镑,康恩说。
The Rhodes program announced last month that it was expanding to accept scholars from China.
罗德奖学金项目上个月宣布,它将接收更多来自中国的学生。
The logistical issues of setting up a program so far away have nonetheless been challenging, Mr. Schwarzman said, adding that his wife keeps asking him: “Why did you pick something half a globe away? Couldn’t you find something in the same time zone?”
在如此遥远的地方开展项目,统筹安排上终归是个挑战,苏世民说妻子时常问他:“为什么会选半个地球之外的地方?你就不能找个同时区的吗?”