VMWare ESXi 3.5, USB and APC UPS

It appears that ESXi doesn't support sharing USB ports among VMs, and as my APC battery is monitored through USB, I cannot have APC PowerChute running on one of my VMs.
For USB (or serial port) monitored batteries, you will need to use a physical machine. This can be understandable if you want to shut down the host too.