2014年商務(wù)英語中級閱讀材料：香港房地產(chǎn)

Hong Kong has long attracted attention in the global property world due to the volatility of its real estate prices. Now, however, it has shot into the spotlight for another reason - property derivatives.

On the 27th Feb ABN Amro bank and Sun Hung Kai Financial announced that they had traded a property swap based on Hong Kong's residential market, marking the first such transaction ever to be done in Asia.

With the ink now dry on the Hong Kong deal, bankers are predicting that a similar deal could take place in Australia in the next three months, followed by another transaction in Singapore in the next six months, and transactions in Japan and Korea towards the end of the year.

That means that in a few months' time an investor may potentially be able to "buy" an office in Sydney, "sell" a retail store in London and "buy" a residential property in Hong Kong by placing just one phone call, bankers say.

If so, this will mark a striking turnround for a sector that some bankers believe could soon be an exciting new frontier for financial innovation, not just in Hong Kong but around the world.

長期以來，香港一直因其房地產(chǎn)價格的波動性而吸引著全球地產(chǎn)界的目光。而如今，香港卻由于另一個原因而舉世矚目--房地產(chǎn)衍生品。

2月27日，荷蘭銀行(ABN Amro)和新鴻基金融(Sun Hung Kai Financial)宣布，雙方以香港住宅市場價格為基礎(chǔ)，進(jìn)行了一筆"房地產(chǎn)掉期"交易，這是亞洲首筆此類交易。

隨著香港此筆掉期交易的完成，銀行業(yè)人士預(yù)測，未來3個月，澳大利亞可能會出現(xiàn)類似交易，而未來6個月同樣的情況將出現(xiàn)在新加坡，今年年底前，日本和韓國也將出現(xiàn)類似的交易。

銀行業(yè)人士表示，這意味著幾個月后，投資者可能只需撥打一個電話，就可以"買進(jìn)"悉尼的一間辦公室，"賣出"倫敦的一家零售商店，或是在香港"買進(jìn)"一處住宅地產(chǎn)。

果真如此，這將標(biāo)志著房地產(chǎn)行業(yè)一個引人注目的轉(zhuǎn)折點。一些銀行業(yè)人士認(rèn)為，該行業(yè)可能很快將成為一個令人興奮的新金融創(chuàng)新領(lǐng)域，不僅是在香港，也是在全球。

Until a couple of years ago, property derivatives existed only in theory. But in recent months the sector has started to grow rapidly: in the UK, which barely had a market two years ago, there have been more than 300 deals worth in total close to ￡5bn, according to figures from Investment Property Databank, the research firm. A number of transactions have been completed in the US and continental Europe, and bankers expect this to grow.

The inaugural transaction in Asia, at less than HK$100m ($13m), is small by global standards. But it comes amid growing appetite among cash-rich investors for new ways to invest in some of the world's fastest growing property sectors - that can also be alternatives to property stocks or real estate investment trusts, for example.

"Property is one of the hottest games in town and the potential for growth of property derivatives in Hong Kong is huge," says Philip Ljubic, a director of property derivatives at ABN Amro, which completed on the 27th Feb's transaction with Sun Hung Kai Financial.

In the Hong Kong transaction, traded as a one-year "price return swap," ABN Amro - the buyer of the derivative - gains exposure to the city's housing market by receiving the annual change in the HKU-HRPI, an index measuring the price of Hong Kong Island residential property. This index is one of the subsets of a series developed by the University of Hong Kong partly for this specific transaction.

數(shù)年前，房地產(chǎn)衍生品還只是存在于理論上。但研究機構(gòu)Investment Property Databank公布的數(shù)據(jù)顯示，最近幾個月，房地產(chǎn)衍生品市場已開始迅速發(fā)展：在兩年前市場剛剛形成的英國，迄今已達(dá)成逾300筆此類交易，價值近 50億英鎊。美國和歐洲大陸也已達(dá)成了大量此類交易，銀行業(yè)人士預(yù)計，此類交易數(shù)量將繼續(xù)上升。

亞洲第一筆掉期交易價值不到1億港元(合1300萬美元)，以全球標(biāo)準(zhǔn)衡量規(guī)模較小。然而，此筆交易達(dá)成之際，正值現(xiàn)金充裕的投資者對于投資全球一些增長最快的房地產(chǎn)領(lǐng)域的新方式興趣日增之時。例如，這些新方式可以替代房地產(chǎn)股票或房地產(chǎn)投資信托。

荷蘭銀行房地產(chǎn)衍生品主管菲利普o柳比奇(Philip Ljubic)表示："房地產(chǎn)是香港最熱門的游戲之一，香港房地產(chǎn)衍生品的增長潛力巨大。"荷蘭銀行與新鴻基金融完成了2月27日的亞洲首筆房地產(chǎn)掉期交易。

香港這筆房地產(chǎn)掉期交易屬于一年期"價格回報掉期"。荷蘭銀行--此款衍生品的買家--通過獲得HKU-HRPI年度變動率，得以投資香港住宅市場。 HKU-HRPI是衡量香港住宅房地產(chǎn)價格的指數(shù)。該指數(shù)是由香港大學(xué)(University of Hong Kong)開發(fā)的一系列指數(shù)的分項指數(shù)，一定程度上特為此筆交易而開發(fā)。