holders of what?

[Kenny同志]

We (a law firm) advised holders on a USPP (US private placement) by ABC Company.

 

Not sure if I understand this sentence correctly. Holders are holders of ABC Company, I suppose? Any help is appreciated.

[Lu]

As I read it, the holders-of-something will be helped/placed/whatever by ABC company. That doesn't answer the question on what they are holders of. Is there any more context? I'd expect it to be explained somewhere earlier in the text.

[Kenny同志]

Thanks Lu. Unfortunately there is no more context. The original sentence is an example listing of the firm's experience and it reads: 'Advising holders on a USPP by' ABC Company.

[Altair]

 I don't like English jargon like this, but I think they are referring to "bond holders," "stock holders," or something similar.  A private placement can apply to a great variety of financial instruments, and so they seem to want not to be specific about the instrument or instruments and have simply used "holders" as a suitably vague term.  I have no idea of the Chinese for these things, but maybe you could use the shortest and vaguest term that could apply to the owner of a financial instrument.

[li3wei1]

I think it means bond holders, i.e. the people buying the shares through the placement. Which begs the question of who paid these guys to do this, and if it was ABC Company, how impartial could their advice be?

[Kenny同志]

Thanks Altair. I agree with you.

 

Besides being vague, another problem with the sentence is that those holders cannot be properly so called when they seek advice from the firm, or in other words, before they buy the instrument from ABC Company.

 

Edit:

 

Thanks Liwei. From the document, it seems those holders are companies rather than persons.

 

Which begs the question of who paid these guys to do this, and if it was ABC Company, how impartial could their advice be?

Am I right to say it's ABC Company who initiated the placement?

[roddy]

My assumption would be that the placement was offered preferentially or exclusively to those who already hold similar instruments from the same company. I'd never heard of the USPP market though and it looks pretty obscure. 

[Kenny同志]

Thanks for your help, Roddy. To be safe, I will translate it as 持有者.

 

I have one more question before finalising the translation. 

 

Advising numerous bidders and sponsors or financiers on XXX privatizations

 

I can't decide what sponsors refer to exactly. Who do you think they are?

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/sponsor_1

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/sponsor.html

http://www.wordreference.com/definition/sponsor

[roddy]

Sorry for the delay, I haven't been online much lately. My best guess is that it refers to the 'owner' of whatever is being privatised. So if a public service - say the railways - is managed by a certain government department - say the Ministry of Transport, and the railways are spun off into a company to be privatised, the MoT would be the sponsor - it organises the sale. 

[Kenny同志]

Thanks again, Roddy. That seems to make sense. If possible, could you give me the link to the page or name of the dictionary where I can find this definition? Thanks.

[roddy]

It was actually just some Google Books results - try searching 'sponsor privatisation'. 

 

This one seems to be what I thought. Here though it seems to be used differently, where I'd expect to see underwriter?

[Kenny同志]

Many thanks Roddy. You are always so helpful! : )