劳斯莱斯发动机：蓝天下的巨亏（慢速朗读版）

原文

Rolls with the punches: Rolls-Royce

Today the world’s second-largest enginemaker publishes its results for 2016. Bad news is expected, due to losses on its currency hedges on the weak pound. The past few years have been hard going, with five profit warnings in 2014 and 2015 as turbulence hit all the company’s businesses simultaneously. In November it revealed that dodgy accounting practices had for years been flattering the performance of its biggest division, making jetliner engines. In 2015 it recorded £800m ($1bn) in profits; in 2016 it probably lost money. Worse was Rolls’s admission in January that it had for decades clinched sales with bribes to officials: money, hotel stays and even, perhaps predictably, a posh Rolls-Royce car. It coughed up £671m to settle allegations with American, British and Brazilian regulators—Britain’s largest-ever penalty imposed on a firm for criminal conduct. But with skeletons now out the closet, investors are hoping that underlying profits will gain altitude.