An Olympics gives a host nation an opportunity to promote itself as an investment destination to foreign companies. Brazil’s task is more difficult than most, despite such prime assets as samba, Pelé and a market of 200m people. The performance of earlier investments resembles that of the girl from Ipanema’s attitude to admirers: indifferent.

奥运会给了主办国一个推介自身作为外国企业投资目的地的机会。尽管拥有桑巴、贝利(Pelé)和2亿人口的市场等优质资产，但巴西的任务仍比多数主办国更为艰巨。早些时候的投资的表现就像巴西歌曲《依帕内玛姑娘》(The Girl From Ipanema)中的姑娘对倾慕者的态度：无动于衷。

Brokers, bankers and management consultants in the financial centres of the developed world like nothing better than a new land of opportunity they can promote to clients. It is a centuries-old sales wheeze that was given focus in the early noughties by Jim O’Neill’s categorisation of the most promising emerging economies as “Brics”: Brazil, Russia, India and China.

对发达国家金融中心的经纪商、银行家和管理咨询顾问而言，没有什么东西比一块充满机会的新大陆更容易兜售给客户了。这种古老的销售招数在21世纪头10年初再次获得了关注——吉姆•奥尼尔(Jim O'Neill)将最有希望的新兴经济体统称为“金砖四国”(Bric)：巴西、俄罗斯、印度和中国。

The economist, then working for Goldman Sachs, never set out to trigger an investment craze. However chief executives of multinational companies were keen to buy into Brazil or expand operations there. The problems they met offer a cautionary tale for bosses contemplating any new “Next Big Thing” presented by advisers or colleagues.

当时任职于高盛(Goldman Sachs)的经济学家奥尼尔从未想过要引发一股投资狂潮。然而跨国公司的首席执行官们热切地在巴西进行收购，或者把业务扩展到巴西。对于正在考虑顾问或同事兜售的新的“下一件大事”的老板们，他们遇到的问题提出了警示。

World Bank figures suggest annual foreign direct investment in Brazil fell only by a quarter to $75bn between 2011 and 2015. That is despite an economic crisis manifested in a halving of the dollar value of the Brazilian real over the period and a 3.8 per cent contraction in output in 2015.

世界银行(World Bank)的数据表明，在2011年到2015年间，对巴西的年度外国直接投资(FDI)仅下降四分之一，至750亿美元。尽管在此期间，一场经济危机让巴西雷亚尔的美元价值折半，并使该国2015年经济产出收缩3.8%。

Doubters mutter that official FDI numbers may be skewed by deposits shunted into Brazilian bank accounts by treasurers of multinationals hungry for interest rates of more than 14 per cent. A more revealing measure is that manufacturing greenfield investment fell from $25bn in 2010 to $2bn in 2015, says fDi Intelligence, an FT division. Statistics from data group Dealogic show the value of inbound takeovers fell from $68bn to $22bn over the same period.

持怀疑态度的人嘀咕，官方的FDI数据可能扭曲了，原因是跨国公司的财务主管因为渴求逾14%的利率而把存款转入巴西银行账户。英国《金融时报》旗下部门fDi Intelligence表示，一个更能说明情况的衡量指标是，对巴西制造业的绿地项目投资从2010年的250亿美元跌至2015年的20亿美元。数据提供商Dealogic的统计表明，同期对巴西的收购交易价值从680亿美元下滑至220亿美元。

Last week, the international press ran stories on Rio’s supposedly poor state of preparedness for the games. Their business pages meanwhile reported that HSBC, the world’s seventh-largest bank, would channel some cash from the recent sale of its lossmaking Brazilian wing into a $2.5bn share buyback.

前段时间，国际媒体针对里约对奥运会糟糕的筹备情况进行了大肆报道。它们的商业版面同时报道了全球第7大银行汇丰(HSBC)将把最近出售亏损的巴西业务所得的一部分用于25亿美元的股票回购。

HSBC went into the Brazilian market in 1997. Its withdrawal was part of a broader effort to focus on core markets, particularly in Asia. But HSBC Brasil was also lossmaking. Citigroup, shrinking to fit like HSBC, has meanwhile put its Brazilian retail banking unit up for sale.

汇丰1997年进入了巴西市场。该行的退出是专注于核心市场（尤其是在亚洲）的整体努力的一部分。但汇丰巴西此前确实在亏损。花旗集团(Citigroup)也效仿汇丰进行“瘦身”，宣布有意出售其巴西零售银行业务。

The going has been tough elsewhere, too. Experian, the world’s biggest credit checking agency, has had a series of difficulties with Serasa, the large Brazilian counterpart it bought for $2.7bn via transactions in 2007 and 2012. Helpful credit checking regulation was watered down. Street protests disrupted trading. Recently, banks threatened to set up a rival agency. The biggest problem has been the translational impact of a falling local currency on sales and profits, which Experian reports at a group level in dollars. It has been a similar story for Diageo. The UK-based drinks giant acquired Ypióca, a maker of cachaça, a traditional Brazilian tipple, for $450m in 2012. Sales crashed 28 per cent in 2015/16. The damage was a more modest 6 per cent in constant currencies. But the ratio of 20 times earnings Diageo is thought to have paid for Ypióca now looks steep. Diageo and Experian regard their Brazilian offshoots as long-term bets on a country with a big consumer base and growing middle class.

别处的境况也变得困难起来。世界最大的征信机构益博睿(Experian)在2007年和2012年分两次共斥资27亿美元收购的大型巴西征信机构Serasa让其遭遇了一系列困难。有帮助的信用调查法规遭到削弱。街头抗议扰乱了业务。最近，一些银行威胁要设立一家与之竞争的征信机构。最大的难题是巴西货币的贬值对益博睿销售和利润的影响，益博睿在集团层面上将这些数据换算成美元进行报告。总部位于英国的饮品巨头帝亚吉欧(Diageo)也有相似的遭遇。帝亚吉欧2012年斥资4.5亿美元收购了巴西传统烈酒卡沙夏（或称巴西甘蔗酒））制造商Ypióca。在2015-16年度，Ypióca的销售下滑28%。按恒定货币价值计算，销售降幅为较小的6%。但帝亚吉欧当年据信以20倍盈利的价格买下Ypióca，现在看来过高了。帝亚吉欧和益博睿都把它们的巴西业务看作对一个拥有庞大消费群和不断壮大的中产阶层的国家的长期押注。

HSBC and Citi were poorly positioned in the areas of banking from which they are withdrawing, according to Alessandra Ribeiro, head of macroeconomic and political analysis at Tendencias, a São Paulo consultancy. By contrast, Santander Brasil has a strong market position and was an underbidder for the unit HSBC sold to Bradesco. Ms Ribeiro forecasts Brazil’s growth will rise to 1.2 per cent next year and 2.3 per cent in 2018 before reaching a long-term trend rate of about 3 per cent. That would be a relief for inward investors. But healthier growth depends on political stability and economic reform. These can hardly be relied on given the extraordinary events of recent times, which have left president Dilma Rousseff suspended from office pending impeachment proceedings.

圣保罗咨询公司Tendencias宏观经济和政治分析主管亚历山德拉•里贝罗(Alessandra Ribeiro)表示，汇丰和花旗在它们退出的银行业定位糟糕。相比之下，桑坦德巴西(Santander Brasil)拥有强有力的市场地位，该行是汇丰出售给Bradesco的巴西业务的低价投标者。里贝罗预测，巴西的经济增长率将在明年升至1.2%，2018年升至2.3%，最终达到约3%的长期趋势增长率。这会让投资巴西的外来投资者松一口气。但更健康的增长需要政治稳定和经济改革。考虑到巴西近期发生的非常事态——巴西总统迪尔玛•罗塞夫(Dilma Rousseff)遭暂时停职，等候弹劾程序——这一点很难指望。

As things stand, Brazil has been the Bric that has underperformed as reliably as its sports people until recently excelled. Its share of world GDP has slipped back since 2011 while China’s has surged. FDI specialists are promoting India as the Next Big Thing. Bosses should consider the travails of investors in Brazil and beware. In business, as at the Olympics, runners-up receive no gold medals.

照目前情况看来，巴西是金砖国家中的落后者这一点是没有悬念的，就像该国运动员在直到不久以前还表现优秀一样。自2011年以来，巴西在世界国内生产总值(GDP)中的比例下滑，而中国的比例则大幅上升。FDI专家们现在将印度作为“下一件大事”进行宣传。老板们应该考虑一下投资者在巴西遭遇的困境并小心提防。在奥运会上，第二名得不到金牌，在商界也是如此。