Starting your own business is risky, so why not buy one that someone else has already steered through the perilous formative years? That is the logic behind the search fund, a specialist vehicle in which investors back a promising individual rather than an existing start-up team.
自己创业是有风险的，所以干嘛不去买一家已经度过危险的成长期的公司呢？这就是搜索基金(search fund)背后的逻辑，利用这一专业工具，投资者可以资助一个有前途的人，而不是一支现有的初创团队。
In the first stage, money is raised to pay the individual a nominal salary and expenses, sometimes for several years, while they hunt for an acquisition target in which they believe they can add value. Further funds are used to manage and grow the company.
在第一阶段，筹集的资金用于支付这个人的名义工资和开销，这个阶段有时达数年时间，与此同时他们寻找一个他们认为自己可使其增值的收购目标。后续筹集的资金用于管理和发展这家公司。

The concept was developed at business school more than 30 years ago, led by Irving Grousbeck, a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business in the US, who started teaching the concept to his MBA students.
这一概念于30多年形成于商学院，先驱者欧文•格劳斯贝克(Irving Grousbeck)是美国斯坦福大学商学院(Stanford Graduate School of Business)教授，当时他开始向他的MBA学生传授这一理论。
Now, like that other Californian creation, the venture capital-backed model for high-growth tech start-ups, search funds are being tried in countries around the world.
现在，正如高增长科技初创企业的风投模式——加州创造的另一个融资工具，搜索基金也在世界各地获得尝试。
In April, for example, Barcelona’s Iese Business School, one of the first business schools outside the US to teach the theory of search funds, is hosting a conference for entrepreneurs and investors involved in more than 20 search funds from five continents.
比如，美国以外首批教授搜索基金理论的商学院之一——巴塞罗那的IESE商学院(Iese Business School)，定于今年4月举办一场会议，参加者有来自五大洲20多支搜索基金的企业家和投资者。
Since the first search fund was created in the early 1980s, almost 200 funds have been raised in the US and Canada. A study of 134 of these, by Stanford’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies in 2013, found that the aggregate pre-tax internal return on investment was a healthy 34.9 per cent.
自20世纪80年代初第一支搜索基金建立以来，迄今美国和加拿大已有近200支搜索基金成立。2013年斯坦福创业研究中心(Stanford’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies)对其中134支搜索基金做的一项研究发现，总体税前内部报酬率(IRR)为34.9%，相当健康。
This method of backing an entrepreneur, who can be given guidance to making a company acquisition, is seen as less risky by some angel investors.
一些天使投资者认为，这种投资于一名企业家的方式风险更低，这名企业家在收购企业时可接受指导。
Peter Kelly is a lecturer in management at Stanford who has also run search fund classes at Iese. “It is highly unlikely that an investor will lose all their money,” he says.
彼得•凯利(Peter Kelly)是斯坦福大学管理学讲师，他也在IESE商学院教授搜索基金课程。他说：“投资者赔掉所有钱的可能性极低。”
“People do it mostly because they want a return, but it is also fun and interesting to be involved with these potential chief executives and see them become real chief executives.”
“人们这样做主要还是想获得回报，但与那些潜在的首席执行官打交道，看着他们成为真正的首席执行官也是件有趣的事。”
Having said that, even enthusiasts like Mr Kelly admit that search funds should come with a warning sign. About a third of them lose capital after an acquisition, although he notes this is still better than the failure rate for start-ups, where investors lose all their money if the venture collapses.
话虽如此，即便像凯利这样的热衷者也承认，应该给搜索基金加上警示标。约有三分之一的搜素基金在完成收购后会损失本金，不过他指出这仍好过初创企业的失败率，初创企业一旦倒闭，投资者所有的钱都将打水漂。
“Running a search fund is hard to do,” he says. “If you start one and it goes wrong, it is a serious sidetrack to your career.”
凯利说：“运营一个搜索基金是很难的。如果启动了一个搜索基金，结果失败了，将导致你的职业生涯严重偏离正轨。”
This probably explains why in Mr Kelly’s classes of about 40 MBA students, only three or four each year choose to set up a search fund. “It is not right for everybody,” he says.
这或许解释了为什么凯利班上的约40名MBA学生里，每年只有三四个人选择去创建一支搜索基金。他说：“不是所有人都适合做搜索基金。”
Europe should be ripe for search fund entrepreneurs because it has so many family businesses with succession problems. Recent years have also seen a more risk-taking culture among investors, encouraged by the emergence of start-up hotspots in cities such as London, Berlin, Stockholm and Barcelona.
欧洲出现搜索基金企业家的时机应该已经成熟，因为该地区有很多存在接班问题的家族企业。此外，最近几年，投资者中间还出现了一种愿意承担更多风险的文化，在伦敦、柏林、斯德哥尔摩和巴塞罗那等城市，初创企业汇聚地的出现推动了这种文化的兴起。
However, understanding of the concept remains limited largely to those who have been through business school.
然而，理解这一概念的仍基本上限于读过商学院的人。
Furthermore, only a few schools have it on their curriculum, such as Insead in France and Singapore, and Harvard and Chicago Booth in the US.
另外，只有为数不多的几所商学院将这一理论列入课程表，例如在法国和新加坡均有校区的欧洲工商管理学院(Insead)、以及美国的哈佛大学(Harvard)和芝加哥大学布斯商学院(Chicago Booth)。
Simon Webster was the first person outside North America to create a search fund, after reading about a US one on his MBA at London Business School in 1989. “Most [case studies] send me to sleep but this one kept me awake all night,” he admits.
西蒙•韦伯斯特(Simon Webster)是北美以外第一个创建搜索基金的人，1989年，他在伦敦商学院(LBS)攻读MBA时曾读到过有关一只美国搜索基金的资料。他承认：“多数（案例研究）让我昏昏欲睡，这个案例却让我彻夜未眠。”
Before his MBA, Mr Webster had only worked for large companies such as IBM. He dreamt of working for an entrepreneurial company but lacked “the big idea” as he calls it. Search funds were a way around this.
在攻读MBA之前，韦伯斯特只为IBM等大企业工作过。他曾梦想为一家初创企业工作，但缺乏他所说的“好点子”。搜索基金则为他指出了一条路。
Although it only took Mr Webster seven months to persuade 70 US and UK-based investors to back him — raising £80,000 — he admits it was “bloody hard” to get the British backers on board compared with their counterparts.
尽管韦伯斯特只花了7个月的时间就说服70名英美投资者支持他（筹得资金8万英镑），但他承认，与美国投资者相比，获得英国投资者的支持“非常困难”。
Some of those British investors may have felt their caution was justified in the early stages since Mr Webster admits he almost ran out of money finding the right acquisition target. Fortunately, UK access to a greater amount of data on potential companies helped.
在初期，其中一些英国投资者可能曾认为他们的谨慎是有道理的，因为韦伯斯特承认，在寻找合适收购目标的过程中，他几乎耗尽所有资金。幸运的是，在英国可以获得更多有关潜在被收购企业的数据，这帮了他的忙。
Under British corporate law, UK-registered businesses must provide the names and ages of all directors. This makes it easier to spot companies where the owners are approaching an age when they might be looking to hand over the reins.
根据英国公司法，在英国注册的公司必须提供所有董事的姓名和年龄。因此找到那些所有者已到了可能已开始考虑接班问题的公司较为容易。
In total, it took Mr Webster and his team more than three years to find their company, a prosthetic limb supplier called RSL. But after 10 years in charge they were able to create what Mr Webster calls “a nice return” for his investors, through a mixture of acquisition and organic growth. This increased turnover 10-fold to £30m.
总之，韦伯斯特和他的团队用了3年多的时间找到了他们心仪的公司——假肢供应商RSL。在管理10年后，通过并购和有机增长，他们已经能够为投资者创造出韦伯斯特所说的“不错的回报率”。该公司营业额增长了9倍，至3000万英镑。
Yet despite the success stories, expansion of the search fund market looks like a slow-burn activity. While there are now at least three private equity funds in the US dedicated to the model and some investors backing more than 100, it remains a niche concern even among business students.
然而，尽管有成功的案例，但搜索基金市场的扩张好似小火慢烧。尽管目前美国至少有3家私人股本基金致力于这种模式，一些投资者投资的企业家超过100名，但即便在商学院学员中，这也仍属于一个小众领域。
Mr Webster now spends a chunk of his time sharing his story at LBS, Insead and Iese. This is not so much to help raise the profile of search funds, as it is to make people aware of the risks, he concedes, adding that search funds are never going to overtake the VC model of backing start-ups, even among MBA graduates, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
韦伯斯特现在正花费大量时间在伦敦商学院、欧洲工商管理学院和西班牙IESE商学院分享他的故事。这不是为了提高搜索基金的知名度，他承认，这是为了让人们了解风险。他补充称，即便在MBA毕业生中间，搜索基金也永远不会取代投资初创企业的风投模式，但这未必是件坏事。