Owning less than 1 per cent of a company does not normally entitle an investor to take control of its destiny but things work differently in Italy. When Vincent Bolloré acquires a tiny minority interest, everything is up for grabs.

持有不到1%股份的投资者通常不会有资格掌控公司的命运，但是意大利的体制有所不同。当万桑•博洛雷(Vincent Bolloré)买下少数股权后，一切都是囊中之物。

Vivendi, in which the French industrialist and investor holds a 14.5 per cent stake, last week took 3.5 per cent of Mediaset, the company founded by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s former prime minister. The deal gives Mr Bolloré an indirect interest in Mediaset of 0.5 per cent, together with control of its premium sports and films channel, yet his ascent to power is already being treated in Italy as a fait accompli.

这位法国实业家和投资者持有威望迪(Vivendi) 14.5%的股份。威望迪最近收购了意大利前总理西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼(Silvio Berlusconi)创办的Mediaset公司3.5%的股份，这笔交易让博洛雷间接持有Mediaset 0.5%的权益，加上其付费体育和电影付费频道的控制权，然而他的势力上升在意大利已被视为既成事实。

The global media industry is replete with treacherous alliances, bulging pay packages and moguls who dominate companies by holding minority stakes with special voting rights. But Mr Bolloré’s style of corporate governance makes Rupert Murdoch, chairman of 21st Century Fox, look like a saint.

全球媒体业充斥着诡谲的联盟、天文数字的薪酬方案以及通过持有带有特殊投票权的少数股份而主宰公司的大亨。但博洛雷的企业治理风格让21世纪福克斯(21st Century Fox)的董事长鲁珀特•默多克(Rupert Murdoch)看起来像个圣人。

Join the club if you cannot understand Mr Bolloré’s plans for Mediaset and Telecom Italia, of which Vivendi holds just under 25 per cent. He does not feel the need to explain himself, and may not even have worked out his endgame yet. Those who question or resist him tend not to survive for long.

如果你无法理解博洛雷对Mediaset和意大利电信(Telecom Italia)——威望迪持有意大利电信略低于25%的股份———的计划，欢迎加入俱乐部。他不觉得有必要解释自己的意图，甚至可能还没有想好自己的终局。那些质疑或者抵制他的人往往撑不了多久。

There is much to admire about Mr Bolloré. He is a Breton outsider, not a product of the Paris establishment. He invests for the long term — decades rather than the months or years of others. He is imaginative, investing in Africa when others shunned it (although his company’s offices were raided last week as part of a corruption inquiry) and cleverly shifting out of papermaking into plastics and now batteries and electric cars.

博洛雷有许多可钦佩之处。他是布列塔尼（法国西北部布列塔尼半岛上的民族——译者注）的一个局外人，而非巴黎的名门望族之后。他注重长期投资，眼光长达几十年、而非其他人的数月或者数年。他富有想象力，在其他人唯恐避之不及的时候对非洲投资（尽管其公司的非洲办公室最近因一项腐败调查而遭到突击搜查），精明地将造纸业务转型为塑料业务，现在又生产电池和电动汽车。

But Mr Bolloré learnt long ago how to be a capitalist with the minimum of capital, and he has honed that skill. He regards France and Italy as fertile places to mount a challenge to Netflix and HBO. It is equally valuable to him that they permit his Game of Thrones approach to business.

但博洛雷很早就学会了如何用最少的资本成为一名资本家，他在多年的实践中锤炼了这一技巧。他把法国和意大利视为叫板Netflix和HBO的沃土。对他来说，同样重要的是，这两个国家允许他以《权力的游戏》(Game of Thrones)中的那种方式经商。

The French government did Mr Bolloré a big favour with its 2014 Florange law, which encouraged companies to allow investors holding shares for more than two years double voting rights. He exploited this well-meaning blunder to take control of Vivendi despite holding only a minority stake and to become its chairman. He has also assumed managerial oversight of Canal Plus, Vivendi’s television and film group.

法国政府在2014年出台的《弗洛朗热法》(Florange law)帮了博洛雷大忙——该法规定，持股两年以上的股东具备双倍的表决权。他利用这种无心之过掌控了威望迪（尽管只持有少数股份），并成为其董事长。他还在威望迪旗下的影视集团Canal Plus担负管理监督职责。

Mr Bolloré’s personal prominence at the helm of Vivendi is unusual. In the past he has mounted raids on French companies as an activist investor to extract better terms or to shake up management. But his use of minority stakes to give himself a large degree of influence is tried and tested.

已成为掌门人的博洛雷在威望迪拥有非同寻常的个人威望。过去，他曾作为一名维权投资者袭击法国公司，以争取更好的条款或者推动管理层改组。但他利用少数股权让自己获得极大影响力的做法是由来已久的。

Antoine Bernheim, the sphinx-like former partner of Lazard Frères and Mediobanca, the French and Italian merchant banks that once wielded influence over swaths of industry in those countries, taught him a lot. Mr Bolloré holds a stake in Mediobanca and his daughter, Marie, sits on its board, a useful position in the byzantine world of Italian high finance and politics.

已故的安东尼•本海姆(Antoine Bernheim)曾经是法国拉扎德银行(Lazard Frères)和意大利中期银行(Mediobanca)的神秘合伙人——这两家商业银行在法意两国的工商界影响巨大。本海姆教会了博洛雷很多诀窍。博洛雷持有中期银行的股份，而他的女儿玛丽(Marie)是该行董事会成员，在意大利错综复杂的高级金融和政治圈子里，这个职位非常有用。

Bernheim, who died in 2012, trained Mr Bolloré to build an empire from small beginnings. As Thomas Singlehurst, a Citigroup media analyst, observes, he is “economical” — if he gains control at 15 per cent, that is what he invests. Muddy Waters, the short seller, calls him an “outstanding capital allocator” despite the “horrifically complex” structure of the Bolloré group.

2012年去世的本海姆让博洛雷明白伟大始于微末。正如花旗集团(Citigroup)媒体分析师托马斯•辛格尔赫斯特(Thomas Singlehurst)观察到的，他“很经济”——如果他能以15%的股份获得控制权，那么他就只会投资这么多。做空机构浑水公司(Muddy Waters)将他称为“卓越的资本配置者”，尽管博洛雷集团(Bolloré Group)的架构“复杂得可怕”。

All very clever but is Mr Bolloré a builder of businesses or simply of assets that he can one day dispose of at a higher price? Those close to him suggest he is both — he thinks Vivendi, once run by Jean-Marie Messier, whose attempt to build it into a global media company failed, still has potential.

所有这些做法都非常精明，但博洛雷是要打造企业还是构建有朝一日可以高价出手的资产？他身边的人表示，两者兼而有之——他认为威望迪还有潜力。让-马利•梅西耶(Jean-Marie Messier)曾经执掌威望迪，并希望把它打造为一家全球媒体企业，但未能成功。

If it transpires, though, that French, Spanish and Italian programmes and films only travel so far, he will be in control when a bidder — Liberty Global, BSkyB, 21st Century Fox or whoever — knocks on the door. Meanwhile, perhaps he will swap some of Telecom Italia for more of Mediaset. Who knows?

然而，如果到头来法国、西班牙和意大利的影视内容市场有限，他将在竞购者（Liberty Global、BSkyB、21世纪福克斯或者其他任何机构）敲门的时候处于控制地位。与此同时，或许他会用一些意大利电信的股份来换取更多的Mediaset股份。谁知道呢？

It is a fair bet that Mr Bolloré will somehow emerge richer, given that he has achieved his usual trick of securing control without paying a control premium. The tactic failed in the UK in the mid-2000s when he tried to finagle a 29 per cent stake in advertising group Aegis into board control and was rightly rebuffed. Even so, he came out ahead when Japanese group Dentsu acquired Aegis in 2013.

鉴于博洛雷已经像通常那样，在没有为控制权支付溢价的情况下获得了控制权，因此合理的推测是，他将在交易做成后更加富裕。这种战术在2005年前后在英国受挫，当时他试图借助安吉斯广告集团(Aegis)的29%股份获取董事会控制权，结果遭到拒绝。即便如此，当2013年日本电通集团(Dentsu)收购安吉斯的时候，他仍然赚了一把。

But it begs the question of whether others should go along on his opaque quest. Mr Murdoch took little account of minority investors in News Corp before he spun out its entertainment arm into 21st Century Fox in 2013 but his interests were at least simple. Mr Bolloré operates through various vehicles including 60 per cent of Havas, the advertising group.

但这引发了其他人应不应该默许他的隐晦企图的问题。在2013年将旗下娱乐部门注入21世纪福克斯之前，默多克很少考虑新闻集团(News Corp)少数股东的利益，但至少他的权益是简单的。博洛雷通过多个工具运作，其中包括广告集团哈瓦斯(Havas) 60%的股份。

A deal that suits Mr Bolloré in the round could be very good for shareholders in Vivendi but not so good for those in Telecom Italia and Havas, or any other combination of the above. Even if you trust him, you would need to mirror his investment structure to match all of the returns he makes.

对博洛雷有利的交易可能对威望迪的股东非常有利，但不利于意大利电信和哈瓦斯的股东（或者以上股东的其他任何组合）。即便你信任他，你也需要模仿他的投资架构来跟上他的全部回报。

It also begs the question of why he is allowed to get away with it. France and Italy’s perverse and lax governance rules enable Mr Bolloré to flourish. Southern Europe is gaining the media mogul it deserves.

这也引发他为什么会被允许这么操作的问题。法国和意大利扭曲而宽松的治理规则让博洛雷如鱼得水。南欧正在得到其应得的媒体大亨。