Masters of the Air

你好。

Hello.

我是爱德华·钱塞勒，欢迎收听又一期《资本周期》播客。

This is Edward Chancellor with another episode of the Capital Cycle podcast.

今天和我一起的是本·斯林斯比，他是马拉松欧洲投资组合的分析师。

And I've got with me today Ben Slingsby, who's an analyst on the Marathon's European portfolios.

欢迎你，本。

Welcome, Ben.

你好，爱德华。

Hello, Edward.

再次感谢你邀请我。

Thanks for having me again.

本，今天我们要讨论欧洲航空航天业的资本周期，特别是你关注的那些欧洲飞机发动机制造商。

Ben, we're going to talk today about the capital cycle in European aerospace, and in particular, the European aircraft engine manufacturers that you're keen on.

但是你在最新一期《全球投资评论》的文章开头，简要回顾了欧洲航空业起步的历史。

But you start your latest contribution to the Global Investment Review with a brief summary of the history of the European inception of the aircraft industry.

是的。

Yes.

没错，爱德华。

Exactly, Edward.

我觉得今天最好先来点历史课，毕竟我面前坐着像您这样一位杰出的金融历史学家。

I thought we'd better start with a quick history lesson today, seeing as I'm sat opposite such a preeminent financial historian in your good self.

欧洲航空业的辉煌历史可以追溯到1909年7月，当时路易·布莱里奥驾驶他的11型单翼机飞越了英吉利海峡。

And Europe's rich history of aeronautical excellence traces back to July '9 when Louis Bleriot flew over the English Channel in his type 11 monoplane.

那是全球首次成功飞越大型水域，他一夜之间成了名人。

It was the first successful flight over any large body of water globally, and he became a celebrity overnight.

在二十世纪早期，欧洲的航空技术发展迅速。

And then throughout the early twentieth century, aeronautical technology developed a pace in Europe.

1909年，诺姆旋转发动机问世，这是早期欧洲航空的秘密武器。

Nineteen o nine saw the invention of the Gnome rotary engine, the secret sauce of early European aviation.

与汽车发动机不同，这种发动机的汽缸固定不动，而是整个发动机绕着曲轴旋转，散热效果极佳，功率重量比也很高。

And unlike in a car where the cylinders stay still, the entire engine spun around the crankshaft, providing excellent cooling and a high power to weight ratio.

布莱里奥最初的那架单翼机一号。

Blerio's original monoplane I.

E型。

E.

后来这种单翼设计就被淘汰了，转而采用双翼机，因为双翼在稳定性和升力方面表现更好。

One wing design was left behind in favor of biplanes with two wings for better stability and lift.

所用材料也随着时间推移发生了变化。

The materials involved changed over time as well.

早期的飞机都是用木头和帆布做的，所以在强风里很容易坏。

Planes were originally made from wooden canvas, so were fragile in high winds.

不过到了1915年，雨果·容克斯造出了世界上第一架全金属飞机，也就是J-1型。

But in 1915, Hugo Junkers built the world's first all metal aircraft, the J-one.

然后在1919年，发生了第一次不间断的跨大西洋飞行。

And in 1919, the first nonstop transatlantic flight took place.

20世纪20年代和30年代，出现了我们今天看来就是现代飞机样子的那些设计。

The 1920s and 30s saw the emergence of the designs that we would recognise as planes today.

而劳斯莱斯梅林发动机是在1933年到1935年间在英国发明的，它成为了二战中盟军飞机的中坚力量。

And the Rolls Royce Merlin engine was invented in Britain in 1933 to '35 and became the bedrock of the Allied Forces planes in World War II.

在你开头的引言中，你引用了英国早期航空先驱克劳德·格雷厄姆·怀特的一段激动人心的评论。

In your introductory epigraph, you quote an excitable comment by an early English pioneer of aviation, Claude Graham White.

是的，在他1914年出版的《飞机》一书中，怀特写道：“首先欧洲，然后全球，将被飞行连接起来，各国将紧密相连，以至于它们会成为隔壁邻居。”

Yes, in his 1914 book, The Aeroplane, White writes, First Europe and then the globe will be linked by flight and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next door neighbors.

征服天空最终将被证明是人类最伟大、最辉煌的胜利。

The conquest of the air will prove ultimately to be man's greatest and most glorious triumph.

我喜欢那段评论的地方在于，它让我想起了我们几乎每天都能听到的关于人工智能的激动人心的讨论，比如AI将如何改变世界，让我们团结在一起。

So what I like about that comment was that it reminds me of the excitable chatter that we hear almost every day about AI, how AI is going to change the world and bring us all together.

这也让我想起，在航空工业的早期，飞机制造商之间竞争激烈，导致投资者回报不佳，这也是今天的人工智能投资者可能需要注意的一点。

And it also reminded me that in the early years of the aviation industry, there was a lot of hot competition among aircraft manufacturers that resulted in disappointing returns for investors, and another thing that today's AI investors might bear in mind.

我最近读到了沃伦·巴菲特在1999年11月为《财富》杂志写的一篇文章，他在文中向当时陷入泡沫的科技投资者发出了警告。

I was reading recently a piece that Warren Buffett wrote for Fortune magazine in November 1999, in which he's writing a warning to tech investors caught up in the bubble at the time.

巴菲特首先谈到了汽车行业，以及早期投资汽车所获得的令人失望的回报。

And Buffett, first of all, talks about the motor industry and disappointing returns from the early investments in motor cars.

然后他说他回去查了飞机制造商，发现在1919年到1939年期间，美国大约有300家飞机制造商，但到1999年还在运营的只有少数几家。

And then he says that he went back to check on aircraft manufacturers and found that in the 1919 to 'thirty nine period, there were about 300 US aircraft manufacturers, but only a handful were still breathing by 1999.

巴菲特还发现，当时制造的飞机中，有一款叫“内布拉斯加”，另一款叫“奥马哈”。

And Buffett found that among the planes that were being made then was one called the Nebraska and the other called the Omaha.

顺便说一下，我后来查了格雷厄姆·怀特，就是你引用的那位，发现他其实有自己的航空业务，格雷厄姆·怀特航空公司，制造飞机和飞机库，还有自己的机场，后来变成了皇家空军亨登基地。

And incidentally, then I looked up Graham White, who you cite, and found that he actually had his own aviation business, the Graham White Aviation Company, which made aircraft and aircraft hangars, and had its own airfield, which later became RAF Hendon.

他在第一次世界大战期间是主要的飞机制造商，但在1924年破产了。

He was a major manufacturer of airplanes during the First World War, but went bust in 1924.

所以，尽管他对航空业的未来做出了正确的预测，但他也是这个行业负面资本周期的早期警示。

So he was also, despite, if you will, making a good call on the future of aircraft, he was also an early warning sign of the negative capital cycle in this industry.

然后巴菲特把注意力转向了航空公司，他指出，从飞机问世到1993年，也就是他写这篇文章的前几年，所有美国航空公司赚的钱加起来是零，绝对是零。

So Buffett then turned his attention to the airlines and pointed out that since the inception of the aircraft through to, I think, 1993, a few years before he wrote this piece, that the total amount of money that had been made by all US airline companies was zero, absolutely zero.

这经常被用作一个长期糟糕的资本周期的例子。

And it's often used as an example of a chronically bad capital cycle.

对吧？

Correct?

对，完全正确。

Yeah, absolutely.

因为竞争太激烈了。

Because there was too much competition.

但在欧洲，快进到1970年，几家分散的欧洲制造商合并成立了空客，以与占主导地位的美国波音公司竞争。

But in Europe, sort of fast forwarding to 1970, a number of fragmented European manufacturers were consolidated to form Airbus to compete with the dominant US player Boeing.

此后，这个双头垄断格局持续了五十多年。

And this duopoly has endured for over fifty years since.

尽管我以前合作过的一位明智的投资组合经理常开玩笑说，这是历史上最不赚钱的双头垄断。

Although a wise portfolio manager that I used to work with used to joke that it's been the least profitable duopoly in history.

为什么这么说？

Why is that?

因为这两家公司都没能持续盈利，而且遇到了各种生产问题，我们稍后会谈到。

Because neither of them have been able to consistently make money and they've had all sorts of production issues that we'll get onto later.

尽管空客和波音之间存在竞争，但跨大西洋的合作也在进行。

Despite the sort of Airbus and Boeing competition, there was also transatlantic cooperation happening.

1974年，斯奈克玛（现在的赛峰）和通用电气航空成立了一家非常成功的合资企业，制造了CFM56发动机，这款发动机至今仍是全球使用最广泛的发动机。

In 1974, Snekba, now Safran, and GE Aviation formed a highly successful joint venture to create the CFM56 engine, which remains the most widely used engine in the world today.

从20世纪80年代起，欧洲建立了一流的一级供应链，以罗尔斯·罗伊斯、赛峰和泰雷兹等公司为核心。

And from the 1980s onwards, Europe built a world class tier one supply chain anchored by companies like Rolls Royce, Safran and Thales.

你说，从投资者的角度看，这个行业的竞争格局自90年代以来有所改善？

And you say that the competitive dynamics of the industry has improved from an investor's perspective since the 1990s?

确实如此。

Most definitely.

冷战结束后，政府国防开支大幅下降，航空航天业被迫进行整合。

After Cold War ended, government defence spending plummeted and the aerospace industry was forced to consolidate.

由此形成的寡头市场结构，是发动机原始设备制造商（简称OEM）的股票近期表现强劲的关键原因。

The oligopolistic market structure that has emerged has been a key reason why the engine original equipment manufacturer stocks or OEMs for short have been so strong recently.

我们已经了解了历史背景，现在请谈谈你对前景的看法。

Now we've had a sense of history, tell us your thoughts on the outlook.

作为专注于供给侧分析的资本周期投资者，我们认为新飞机供应紧张意味着这些股票，尤其是发动机OEM，未来仍将一片光明。

Well, as capital cycle investors focused on supply side analysis, we think that tight supply of new aircraft means continued blue skies ahead for the stocks, especially the engine OEMs.

罗尔斯·罗伊斯仍然是马拉松欧洲团队的重仓股，过去五年其表现比基准指数MSCI欧洲高出近900%。

Rolls Royce remains a large holding for Marathon's European team and has outperformed its benchmark MSCI Europe by nearly 900% in the past five years.

像赛峰和MTU航空发动机这样的发动机制造商的股价也接近历史高位。

And shares in engine OEMs like Safran and MTU Aero Engines are also flying close to all time highs.

所以这些股票的估值看起来确实很贵，但你认为它们能通过增长来消化这些估值吗？

So the valuations of these stocks are optically expensive, but you think that they can grow into their valuations?

是的，在美国，GE航空航天按2026年预期市盈率计算是41倍，和英国的罗尔斯·罗伊斯一样，但MTU是24倍，赛峰是30倍。

Yes, in The US, GE Aerospace trades on a price to earnings ratio of 41 times twenty twenty six, same as Rolls Royce does in The UK, but MTU trades on 24 times PE and Safran trades on 30 times.

虽然这些短期估值指标看起来很贵，但这些股票的每股收益正以每年15%到19%的速度增长，所以它们很快就能消化这些倍数。

While these sort of short term valuation metrics look expensive, the stocks are compounding earnings per share at a mid to high teens annual rate, so they soon grow into these multiples.

资本周期动态是有利的，因为供给侧已经整合，而且进入壁垒很高。

The capital cycle dynamics are favorable as the supply side is consolidated and has strong barriers to entry.

而且目前航空旅行的需求依然强劲。

And then demand for air travel remains solid today.

自1990年以来，全球旅行需求平均每年增长超过5%。

Global travel demand has grown at plus 5% per year on average since 1990.

而且每次重大冲击之后，它都反弹了。

And it's rebounded after every major shock.

还有一些积极的结构性需求驱动因素。

There are positive structural demand drivers.

新兴市场的需求预计会随着时间推移向发达市场看齐。

Emerging market demand is expected to converge with developed markets over time.

现在，美国每人每年平均飞行次数是2.2次，欧洲是1.9次，但印度只有0.1次，巴西也只有0.5次。

Today, average number of flights per person per year in The US is 2.2 or 1.9 in Europe, but it's only 0.1 in India or 0.5 in Brazil.

所以，这种强劲的需求意味着航空公司利润不错，而且订购了大量新飞机。

So this strong demand means that airlines are making healthy margins and ordering lots of new planes.

航空公司之间也出现了一些整合。

There's also been some consolidation amongst the airlines.

所以欧洲的竞争有所缓和。

So competition has eased in Europe.

那你能再详细讲讲供应方面的情况吗？

And can you give us a bit more detail on the supply side?

是的。

Yes.

所以，正如提到的，由于需求强劲，航空公司赚了不少钱。

So as mentioned, the airlines are making good money due to that strong demand.

因此，他们一直在向两大供应商波音和空客订购新飞机。

So they've been ordering new planes from their two main suppliers, Boeing and Airbus.

然而，近年来，这两家寡头履行订单的能力面临很大压力。

However, the ability of the duopoly to fill these orders has been much under pressure in recent years.

波音在媒体上曝光了多起生产问题，而空客的供应链在疫情后受到严重干扰，至今没有真正恢复。

Boeing's had several well published production issues in the press, and then Airbus's supply chain was heavily disrupted after the pandemic and has not really recovered.

他们计划到2027年每月生产75架飞机，但市场共识认为，鉴于他们近期表现不佳，能否实现这一目标值得怀疑。

So they're aiming to produce 75 planes per month by 2027, but consensus rightfully doubts that they can get there based on their mixed recent track record.

即使每月新增75架飞机，与全球现有超过14000架的机队相比，也是微不足道的。

Even 75 new planes per month pales into insignificance versus the existing global fleet of over 14,000.

这两家供应商的订单已经排到2030年代了。

Both those suppliers are sold out to the 2030s.

所以，你知道，在我们生活的这个动荡的世界里，很难找到收入如此可预测的企业。

So, you know, in this volatile world in which we live in, it is rare to find businesses with such revenue visibility.

然而，该行业的订单积压量已升至创纪录水平。

Yet the industry's order backlog has risen to record levels.

如果你现在想订购一架新的宽体客机，你得等五年，而以前只需要等两年。

If you wanted to order a new wide body jet now, you'd be waiting five years, whereas you used to only have to wait for two years to get one.

你写道，这种供应紧张局面的主要受益者是发动机制造商。

And you write that the major beneficiaries of this tight supply situation have been the engine OEMs.

是的，尤其是罗尔斯·罗伊斯和赛峰。

Yes, especially Rolls Royce and Safran.

他们是供应商的关键供应商。

So they are the key suppliers to the suppliers.

他们受益于我们之前提到的90年代发生的行业整合。

They are benefiting from the industry consolidation that we mentioned earlier that took place in the 1990s.

而且一直没有新的进入者。

And there's been a lack of new entrants.

这是因为设计一款全新的飞机发动机需要复杂的技术要求和巨额的资金投入。

This is due to the complex technical requirements and the huge amounts of capital that will be required to design a new aircraft engine from scratch.

而且客户无法容忍飞行途中出现故障。

And failure mid flight cannot be tolerated by their customers.

所以进入门槛确实非常高。

So the entry barriers are very high indeed.

你还说他们像吉列一样采用刀片模式。

And you say that they have a razor blade model like Gillette.

是的，完全正确。

Yes, exactly.

他们前期要承担开发新发动机的成本，可能高达100亿欧元，然后原始设备制造商以微薄的利润出售发动机，但主要利润来自售后市场服务。

They incur the costs of developing a new engine upfront, which might be €10,000,000,000 And then the OEMs sell the engine for little margin upfront, but they make their margin mainly from aftermarket services.

所以一个成功的产品周期可以持续超过四十年。

So a successful product cycle can last over forty years.

CFM56首次飞行我记得是在1976年。

The CFM56 first flew in 1976, I believe.

发动机OEM在维修店修理发动机时按工时和材料收费，并且在长期服务协议下按飞行小时收费。

The engine OEMs get paid for time and materials when the engines are mended at their repair shops and they get paid per flight hour under long term service agreements.

因此，新飞机的缺乏意味着现有发动机被使用得更久，需要更多的售后服务和维修，这增加了像赛峰和罗尔斯·罗伊斯这样的OEM的收入、利润和自由现金流。

So the lack of new aircraft means that the current engines in use are being flown for longer and they're requiring more aftermarket services, more repairs, which boosts revenues, profits, and free cash flow for the OEMs like Safran and Rolls Royce.

这些公司的资产负债表很强劲吗？

And these companies have strong balance sheets?

是的。

Yes.

没错。

Exactly.

他们的资产负债表状况非常好，这继续使他们能够通过分红和股票回购增加股东回报，超出市场预期。

Their balance sheets are in great shape, which continues to enable them to increase shareholder payouts via dividends and share buybacks ahead of consensus expectations.

所以股价会非常强劲。

So the stock will be very strong.

据我所知，赛峰目前正在进行一项50亿欧元的股票回购计划。

Safran has a €5,000,000,000 share buyback program underway currently from memory.

那给我们简单总结一下欧洲航空航天业吧。

So give us a the concise take on European aerospace.

GIR的重点是突出一个不太受关注、但欧洲真正处于世界顶尖水平的行业。

The point of the GIR was to highlight a slightly off the radar industry where Europe is truly world class.

航空航天市场结构很有吸引力，飞机制造是双寡头，发动机则是寡头垄断，进入门槛很高。

The aerospace market structure is attractive with aircraft a duopoly and engines and oligopoly with high barriers to entry.

有一大批流动性好的大型上市公司，让投资者能受益于欧洲在这个行业的优势，包括空客、罗尔斯·罗伊斯、赛峰和MTU航空发动机等。

There are a number of large liquid listed stocks enabling investors to benefit from Europe's strength in this industry, including Airbus, Rolls Royce, Safran and MTU Aero Engines amongst others.

需求方面，航空旅行的需求依然强劲，而且随着新兴市场消费者变得更富裕、飞行次数更多，需求还会结构性增长。

On the demand side, demand for air travel remains strong and is set to structurally increase as emerging market consumers become wealthier and fly more.

波音和空客的新飞机供应依然紧张，积压订单处于创纪录水平。

Supply of new aircraft from Boeing and Airbus remains tight with backlogs at record levels.

这对发动机供应商来说是个好消息，他们可以从现有飞机队中更长时间地获取更多自由现金流。

And so this is good news for the engine providers who can harvest more free cash flow for longer from their existing fleet.

那马拉松在罗尔斯·罗伊斯上仍然持有大量仓位吗？

And Marathon continues to hold a significant position in roles.

是的，没错。

Yes, exactly.

这只股票一直是资本周期的赢家，过去五年为马拉松的客户带来了近900%的总回报。

The stock has been a capital cycle winner, generating a total return of nearly 900% in the past five years for Marathon's clients.

可以说，现任CEO完成了欧洲企业史上最成功的转型之一。

The current CEO has executed one of the most successful turnarounds in European corporate history, I think you could say.

他深谙行业的资本周期，并利用供需失衡来增强定价权，从而提升了罗尔斯·罗伊斯的利润率。

He understands the industry's capital cycle, and he's exploited the demand supply imbalances to exert pricing power and boost Rolls Royce's margins.

鉴于供应短缺短期内不会结束，我们认为该股有望继续大涨。

With no end to the supply shortages in sight, we think the shares look well placed to continue to soar.

太好了。

Great.

非常感谢，本。

Thanks a lot, Ben.

谢谢你，爱德华。

Thank you, Edward.

感谢你今天抽出时间。

Thank you for your time today.

希望你会收听下一期的《资本周期》。

I hope you will listen to the next edition of the Capital Cycle.

本通讯仅供参考。

This communication is provided for information purposes only.

请访问马拉松的网站和《全球投资评论》以获取更多信息，包括重要披露。

Please refer to Marathon's website and the Global Investment Reviews for further information, including important disclosures.