巴菲特：伯克希尔--过去、现在和未来（来自2014年股东信）

时间：2014年02月27日

来源：Berkshire Hathaway Letters to Shareholders, 2014

原文标题：Berkshire — Past, Present and Future

在一开始 In the Beginning

1964年5月6日，那时由Seabury Stanton先生领导的伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司向其股东发送了一份通知，提议以每股11.375美元的价格回购225,000股股票。我原本预期会收到这样的通知；但价格让我有些意外。

On May 6, 1964, Berkshire Hathaway, then run by a man named Seabury Stanton, sent a letter to its shareholders offering to buy 225,000 shares of its stock for $11.375 per share. I had expected the letter; I was surprised by the price.

伯克希尔当时有1,583,680股未流通股份。其中大约7%由我管理并投资了几乎所有净资产的巴菲特合伙有限公司（“BPL”）所持有。在要约信发出不久前，Stanton曾询问我BPL打算以什么价格出售其持股。我回答说11.50美元，他回应：“好的，我们达成协议了。”但随后伯克希尔的来信却降低了价格至少了八分之一点。这让我对Stanton的行为感到不满，因此我没有响应此要约。

Berkshire then had 1,583,680 shares outstanding. About 7% of these were owned by Buffett Partnership Ltd. (“BPL”), an investing entity that I managed and in which I had virtually all of my net worth. Shortly before the tender offer was mailed, Stanton had asked me at what price BPL would sell its holdings. I answered $11.50, and he said, “Fine, we have a deal.” Then came Berkshire’s letter, offering an eighth of a point less. I bristled at Stanton’s behavior and didn’t tender.

那实际上是一个非常糟糕的决定。

That was a monumentally stupid decision.

那时的伯克希尔是一家处于困境的北方纺织制造商。它所在的行业不仅名义上，而且实际上也在衰退中。而伯克希尔因为各种原因，未能及时调整方向。

Berkshire was then a northern textile manufacturer mired in a terrible business. The industry in which it operated was heading south, both metaphorically and physically. And Berkshire, for a variety of reasons, was unable to change course.

尽管这个行业的问题早已为人们所熟知，但情况仍然如此。1954年7月29日，伯克希尔的董事会记录清楚地列出了严酷的事实：“新英格兰的纺织业从四十年前就开始衰退。战争年代这一趋势得到了暂停。但这种趋势必须持续，直到供需达到平衡。”

That was true even though the industry’s problems had long been widely understood. Berkshire’s own Board minutes of July 29, 1954, laid out the grim facts: “The textile industry in New England started going out of business forty years ago. During the war years this trend was stopped. The trend must continue until supply and demand have been balanced.”

大约一年后的那次董事会后，拥有19世纪根基的伯克希尔精纺联合和哈撒韦制造公司携手合作，采用了我们今天的名字。凭借其十四家工厂和1万名员工，新合并的公司成为了新英格兰纺织业的巨擘。然而，两家公司的高层原本看做是合并协议的，很快就变成了灾难性的联盟。在合并后的七年里，伯克希尔一直处于整体亏损状态，其净资产缩水了37%。

About a year after that board meeting, Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates and Hathaway Manufacturing — both with roots in the 19th Century — joined forces, taking the name we bear today. With its fourteen plants and 10,000 employees, the merged company became the giant of New England textiles. What the two managements viewed as a merger agreement, however, soon morphed into a suicide pact. During the seven years following the consolidation, Berkshire operated at an overall loss, and its net worth shrunk by 37%.

同时，该公司关闭了九家工厂，有时用清算所得来回购股份。这种情况引起了我的注意。

Meanwhile, the company closed nine plants, sometimes using the liquidation proceeds to repurchase shares. And that pattern caught my attention.

1962年12月，我购买了BPL的首批伯克希尔股票，预期还会有更多的关闭和回购。当时股票的售价只有7.50美元，远低于每股10.25美元的营运资本和20.20美元的账面价值。买这股票就像捡到一个被丢弃的雪茄烟蒂，上面还留有一口可以吸的烟。虽然烟蒂看起来破烂不堪、湿漉漉的，但那一口却是免费的。然而，一旦享受了那一刹那的愉悦，就别再期待更多了。

I purchased BPL’s first shares of Berkshire in December 1962, anticipating more closings and more repurchases. The stock was then selling for $7.50, a wide discount from per-share working capital of $10.25 and book value of $20.20. Buying the stock at that price was like picking up a discarded cigar butt that had one puff remaining in it. Though the stub might be ugly and soggy, the puff would be free. Once that momentary pleasure was enjoyed, however, no more could be expected.

从那时起，伯克希尔紧紧地遵循了原定的脚本：很快又关闭了两家工厂，并在1964年5月用关闭的收益来回购股份。斯坦顿提供的价格比我们最初购买的成本高出50%。那它就在那里 —— 我那免费的一口气，就这样静静地等待着我，此后我可以在其他地方找寻更多被抛弃的烟蒂。

Berkshire thereafter stuck to the script: It soon closed another two plants, and in that May 1964 move, set out to repurchase shares with the shutdown proceeds. The price that Stanton offered was 50% above the cost of our original purchases. There it was — my free puff, just waiting for me, after which I could look elsewhere for other discarded butts.

然而，被斯坦顿的小气激怒后，我放弃了他的报价，开始大举购买更多的伯克希尔股份。

Instead, irritated by Stanton’s chiseling, I ignored his offer and began to aggressively buy more Berkshire shares.

到1965年4月，BPL拥有392,633股（那时共有1,017,547股流通在外），而在五月初的董事会我们正式掌控了这家公司。通过西伯里和我那幼稚的行为 —— 毕竟，对我们两人来说这一点点分歧有什么大不了的呢？ —— 他失去了他的职位，我却发现自己将超过25%的BPL资本投资在一个我几乎一无所知的糟糕行业中。我仿佛成了那只追上了车的狗，却不知所措。

By April 1965, BPL owned 392,633 shares (out of 1,017,547 then outstanding) and at an early-May board meeting we formally took control of the company. Through Seabury’s and my childish behavior — after all, what was an eighth of a point to either of us? — he lost his job, and I found myself with more than 25% of BPL’s capital invested in a terrible business about which I knew very little. I became the dog who caught the car.

由于伯克希尔的运营损失和股票回购，到1964财年末其净值从1955年合并时的5500万美元降至2200万美元。这整整2200万美元都被纺织业务所占用：公司现金告罄，并且欠银行250万美元。（伯克希尔1964年的年度报告已在第130-142页上复制。）

Because of Berkshire’s operating losses and share repurchases, its net worth at the end of fiscal 1964 had fallen to $22 million from $55 million at the time of the 1955 merger. The full $22 million was required by the textile operation: The company had no excess cash and owed its bank $2.5 million. (Berkshire’s 1964 annual report is reproduced on pages 130-142.)

有段时间我算是走运了：伯克希尔立刻享受了两年的良好运营环境。更为幸运的是，在那几年里我们不需要缴纳所得税，因为我们有大量的亏损可以结转，这是前几年糟糕表现的结果。

For a time I got lucky: Berkshire immediately enjoyed two years of good operating conditions. Better yet, its earnings in those years were free of income tax because it possessed a large loss carry-forward that had arisen from the disastrous results in earlier years.

然而好景不长。自1966年起的18年里，我们持续不断地与纺织业务进行斗争，但都无济于事。但固执——或者说愚蠢？——也是有限度的。到了1985年，我终于认输了，并关闭了该业务。

Then the honeymoon ended. During the 18 years following 1966, we struggled unremittingly with the textile business, all to no avail. But stubbornness — stupidity? — has its limits. In 1985, I finally threw in the towel and closed the operation.

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不受我首次将BPL的大部分资源投入到一个即将消亡的业务的错误影响，我迅速加剧了这个错误。确实，我的第二次错误比第一次更为严重，最终成为我职业生涯中代价最高的失误。

Undeterred by my first mistake of committing much of BPL’s resources to a dying business, I quickly compounded the error. Indeed, my second blunder was far more serious than the first, eventually becoming the most costly in my career.

在1967年初，我指示伯克希尔花费860万美元购买了国家赔偿公司（“NICO”），这是一家规模不大但颇具潜力的奥马哈基础保险公司。（交易还包括了一个小型的姊妹公司。）保险业是我的舒适区：我深刻理解并热衷于这个行业。

Early in 1967, I had Berkshire pay $8.6 million to buy National Indemnity Company (“NICO”), a small but promising Omaha-based insurer. (A tiny sister company was also included in the deal.) Insurance was in my sweet spot: I understood and liked the industry.

Jack Ringwalt是NICO的老板，也是我的多年朋友，他想卖给我——确切的说，卖给我个人。他从没有打算把它卖给伯克希尔。那么，我为何选择用伯克希尔而非BPL来购买NICO呢？对于这个问题，我已经思考了48年，但仍然没有一个合理的答案。我只是犯了一个巨大的错误。

Jack Ringwalt, the owner of NICO, was a long-time friend who wanted to sell to me — me, personally. In no way was his offer intended for Berkshire. So why did I purchase NICO for Berkshire rather than for BPL? I’ve had 48 years to think about that question, and I’ve yet to come up with a good answer. I simply made a colossal mistake.

如果BPL是购买方，我和我的合伙人本可以完全拥有一家优秀的企业，它本应是构建伯克希尔成为今天这样规模的基石。更进一步，我们的成长不会被纺织业务中那些未产生效益的资金所拖累将近二十年。最终，我们随后的收购将完全由我和我的合伙人所拥有，而不是被伯克希尔的原股东所持有39%，我们并不对他们承担任何义务。尽管这些明显的事实就在我面前，我还是选择了将一个优良业务（NICO）的全部和一个糟糕业务（伯克希尔哈撒韦）的61%结合，这一决定最终导致大约1万亿美元从BPL的合伙人转移到了一群陌生人手中。

If BPL had been the purchaser, my partners and I would have owned 100% of a fine business, destined to form the base for building the company Berkshire has become. Moreover, our growth would not have been impeded for nearly two decades by the unproductive funds imprisoned in the textile operation. Finally, our subsequent acquisitions would have been owned in their entirety by my partners and me rather than being 39%-owned by the legacy shareholders of Berkshire, to whom we had no obligation. Despite these facts staring me in the face, I opted to marry 100% of an excellent business (NICO) to a 61%-owned terrible business (Berkshire Hathaway), a decision that eventually diverted $100 billion or so from BPL partners to a collection of strangers.

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再多坦白一件事然后我将转向更加愉快的话题：你能相信在1975年我竟然购买了Waumbec Mills，另一家新英格兰的纺织公司吗？当然，从我们收到的资产和与伯克希尔原有纺织业务预期的协同效应来看，购买价格确实是个“便宜货”。但是——你猜怎么着——Waumbec成为了一个灾难，没过几年，这家工厂就被迫关闭了。

One more confession and then I’ll go on to more pleasant topics: Can you believe that in 1975 I bought Waumbec Mills, another New England textile company? Of course, the purchase price was a “bargain” based on the assets we received and the projected synergies with Berkshire’s existing textile business. Nevertheless — surprise, surprise — Waumbec was a disaster, with the mill having to be closed down not many years later.

现在来报告些好消息：北部的纺织行业终于消失了。如果你听说我被看到在新英格兰徘徊，你就不必再惊慌了。

And now some good news: The northern textile industry is finally extinct. You need no longer panic if you hear that I’ve been spotted wandering around New England.

查理给我指明方向 Charlie Straightens Me Out

当我管理着微薄资金时，我的“雪茄蒂”投资策略表现得非常出色。实际上，上世纪五十年代，我获得了许多免费的机会，这使得那个十年成为了我绝对和相对投资表现最佳的时期。

My cigar-butt strategy worked very well while I was managing small sums. Indeed, the many dozens of free puffs I obtained in the 1950s made that decade by far the best of my life for both relative and absolute investment performance.

然而，即便在那个时候，我也有一些例外，其中最重要的就是GEICO。多亏了我在1951年与洛里默·戴维森（Lorimer Davidson）进行的一次交谈。这位后来成为该公司首席执行官的出色人才让我了解到，GEICO是一家了不起的企业，于是我立刻将我的净资产的65%投入到了它的股票中。然而，那些早期年份的大部分收益都来自于那些以低价交易的中等水平公司的投资。本·格雷厄姆（Ben Graham）教给了我这一技巧，而它确实有效。

Even then, however, I made a few exceptions to cigar butts, the most important being GEICO. Thanks to a 1951 conversation I had with Lorimer Davidson, a wonderful man who later became CEO of the company, I learned that GEICO was a terrific business and promptly put 65% of my $9,800 net worth into its shares. Most of my gains in those early years, though, came from investments in mediocre companies that traded at bargain prices. Ben Graham had taught me that technique, and it worked.

然而，这种策略的一个主要弱点逐渐显现出来：雪茄蒂投资策略只在某个程度上可扩展。对于大笔资金，这种策略将永远无法表现良好。

But a major weakness in this approach gradually became apparent: Cigar-butt investing was scalable only to a point. With large sums, it would never work well.

此外，尽管以低价购买的边际企业可能在短期内吸引人，但它们不是建立一个大而持久企业的正确基础。选择结婚伙伴明显需要比约会更为严格的标准。（值得注意的是，伯克希尔哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）可能是一个非常理想的“约会对象”：如果我们接受了西伯利·斯坦顿（Seabury Stanton）以11.375美元的价格购买我们的股份的提议，那么伯克希尔哈撒韦对其投资的年化加权回报率将达到约40%。）

In addition, though marginal businesses purchased at cheap prices may be attractive as short-term investments, they are the wrong foundation on which to build a large and enduring enterprise. Selecting a marriage partner clearly requires more demanding criteria than does dating. (Berkshire, it should be noted, would have been a highly satisfactory “date”: If we had taken Seabury Stanton’s $11.375 offer for our shares, BPL’s weighted annual return on its Berkshire investment would have been about 40%.)

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需要查理·芒格才能打破我的雪茄蒂投资习惯，为建立一个规模庞大但获得令人满意利润的企业制定方向。查理就在我现在居住的地方几百英尺处长大，年轻时曾像我一样在我祖父的杂货店工作。然而，直到1959年，我才第一次见到查理，那时他已经离开奥马哈，定居洛杉矶。我当时28岁，而他35岁。介绍我们认识的奥马哈医生曾预言我们会合得来，事实证明他说得对。

It took Charlie Munger to break my cigar-butt habits and set the course for building a business that could combine huge size with satisfactory profits. Charlie had grown up a few hundred feet from where I now live and as a youth had worked, as did I, in my grandfather’s grocery store. Nevertheless, it was 1959 before I met Charlie, long after he had left Omaha to make Los Angeles his home. I was then 28 and he was 35. The Omaha doctor who introduced us predicted that we would hit it off — and we did.

如果你们参加过我们的年度股东大会，你们就知道查理拥有广泛的才智、惊人的记忆力，还有一些坚定的观点。我自己也不是个优柔寡断的人，我们有时候意见不合。然而，56年来，我们从未发生过争执。当我们有分歧时，查理通常会结束对话，说：“沃伦，好好考虑一下，你会同意我的，因为你很聪明，而我是正确的。”

If you’ve attended our annual meetings, you know Charlie has a wide-ranging brilliance, a prodigious memory, and some firm opinions. I’m not exactly wishy-washy myself, and we sometimes don’t agree. In 56 years, however, we’ve never had an argument. When we differ, Charlie usually ends the conversation by saying: “Warren, think it over and you’ll agree with me because you’re smart and I’m right.”

大多数人不知道的是，查理对建筑有着浓厚的兴趣。尽管他开始职业生涯是执业律师（计时费用为每小时15美元），但在30多岁时，查理通过设计和建造洛杉矶附近的五个公寓项目第一次赚到了真正的钱。与此同时，他设计了他今天住的房子，已经有55年了。（和我一样，如果他身处喜欢的环境中，查理也是不可动摇的。）近年来，查理还设计了斯坦福大学和密歇根大学的大型宿舍综合体，而现在，已经91岁的他正在进行另一个重大项目的设计。

What most of you do not know about Charlie is that architecture is among his passions. Though he began his career as a practicing lawyer (with his time billed at $15 per hour), Charlie made his first real money in his 30s by designing and building five apartment projects near Los Angeles. Concurrently, he designed the house that he lives in today — some 55 years later. (Like me, Charlie can’t be budged if he is happy in his surroundings.) In recent years, Charlie has designed large dorm complexes at Stanford and the University of Michigan and today, at age 91, is working on another major project.

从我的角度来看，查理最重要的建筑壮举是设计今天的伯克希尔。他给我的蓝图很简单：忘记你知道的以美妙的价格购买普通企业的方式，取而代之的是，以公平的价格购买出色企业。

From my perspective, though, Charlie’s most important architectural feat was the design of today’s Berkshire. The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.

改变我的行为并非易事（问问我的家人就知道了）。在没有查理的建议之前，我已经取得了一些合理的成功，那么为什么要听一个从未在商学院待过一天的律师（咳咳，我则已经上了三个学期）呢？但查理从未厌倦地向我重复他关于商业和投资的格言，而他的逻辑是无可辩驳的。因此，伯克希尔是按照查理的蓝图建立起来的。我的角色就像总承包商，伯克希尔子公司的首席执行官才是实际工作的分包商。

Altering my behavior is not an easy task (ask my family). I had enjoyed reasonable success without Charlie’s input, so why should I listen to a lawyer who had never spent a day in business school (when — ahem — I had attended three). But Charlie never tired of repeating his maxims about business and investing to me, and his logic was irrefutable. Consequently, Berkshire has been built to Charlie’s blueprint. My role has been that of general contractor, with the CEOs of Berkshire’s subsidiaries doing the real work as sub-contractors.

1972年对伯克希尔来说是一个转折点（尽管在我方面偶尔会有一些倒退，记得我在1975年购买Waumbec吗）。那时，我们有机会以蓝筹股票（Blue Chip Stamps）的名义购买See’s Candy，这家公司是查理、我和伯克希尔都持有大量股份的公司，后来并入了伯克希尔。

The year 1972 was a turning point for Berkshire (though not without occasional backsliding on my part — remember my 1975 purchase of Waumbec). We had the opportunity then to buy See’s Candy for Blue Chip Stamps, a company in which Charlie, I and Berkshire had major stakes, and which was later merged into Berkshire.

See’s是一家传奇的西海岸巧克力制造和零售商，当时每年实现税前约400万美元的利润，只利用了800万美元的净有形资产。此外，公司拥有一项在资产负债表上没有显示的巨大优势：广泛而持久的竞争优势，赋予了它重要的定价权。这种优势几乎可以肯定地使See’s在未来的时间里获得重大的盈利。更好的是，这些盈利将只需进行少量增量投资就能实现。换句话说，See’s可以预期未来几十年都会产生大量现金流。

See’s was a legendary West Coast manufacturer and retailer of boxed chocolates, then annually earning about $4 million pre-tax while utilizing only $8 million of net tangible assets. Moreover, the company had a huge asset that did not appear on its balance sheet: a broad and durable competitive advantage that gave it significant pricing power. That strength was virtually certain to give See’s major gains in earnings over time. Better yet, these would materialize with only minor amounts of incremental investment. In other words, See’s could be expected to gush cash for decades to come.

控制See’s的家族希望以3000万美元出售该业务，查理说它值那么多是正确的。但我不想支付超过2500万美元，即使在那个数字上也不是特别热衷。（三倍净有形资产的价格让我感到有点吃惊。）我的谨慎可能会破坏一次绝佳的收购。但幸运的是，卖方决定接受我们2500万美元的报价。

The family controlling See’s wanted $30 million for the business, and Charlie rightly said it was worth that much. But I didn’t want to pay more than $25 million and wasn’t all that enthusiastic even at that figure. (A price that was three times net tangible assets made me gulp.) My misguided caution could have scuttled a terrific purchase. But, luckily, the sellers decided to take our $25 million bid.

至今，See’s公司税前赚取了190亿美元，而这一增长仅需要额外投资4000万美元。西兹公司因此能够分配巨额资金，用以协助伯克希尔购并其他企业，这些企业进而创造了可观的可分配利润（可视为兔子的繁殖过程）。此外，透过观察西兹公司的运营，我获得了一份关于强大品牌价值的商业教育，这打开了我对许多其他有利可图投资的眼界。

To date, See’s has earned $1.9 billion pre-tax, with its growth having required added investment of only $40 million. See’s has thus been able to distribute huge sums that have helped Berkshire buy other businesses that, in turn, have themselves produced large distributable profits. (Envision rabbits breeding.) Additionally, through watching See’s in action, I gained a business education about the value of powerful brands that opened my eyes to many other profitable investments.

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即便有了查理的蓝图，自Waumbec以来，我也犯了不少错误，其中最严重的是德克斯特鞋业。1993年我们收购了这家公司，当时它的业绩相当出色，绝不像一家“雪茄蒂”公司。然而，由于外国竞争的崛起，它的竞争优势迅速蒸发，而我却未能看到这一点。

Even with Charlie’s blueprint, I have made plenty of mistakes since Waumbec. The most gruesome was Dexter Shoe. When we purchased the company in 1993, it had a terrific record and in no way looked to me like a cigar butt. Its competitive strengths, however, were soon to evaporate because of foreign competition. And I simply didn’t see that coming.

因此，伯克希尔以43.3亿美元购得德克斯特，然而其价值很快便一落千丈。然而，根据通用会计准则，无法准确反映我的错误之重大。事实上，我向德克斯特的出售方提供了伯克希尔的股票，而我用于交易的股票现在价值约57亿美元。从财务灾难的角度看，这次错误堪称吉尼斯世界纪录的奇迹。

Consequently, Berkshire paid $433 million for Dexter and, rather promptly, its value went to zero. GAAP accounting, however, doesn’t come close to recording the magnitude of my error. The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

我随后的一些错误也包括使用伯克希尔的股票购买那些注定无法实现增长的企业。这类错误是致命的。以一家卓越企业的股票 - 伯克希尔绝对属于此类企业 - 来换取一家普通企业的所有权将不可逆地损害价值。

Several of my subsequent errors also involved the use of Berkshire shares to purchase businesses whose earnings were destined to simply limp along. Mistakes of that kind are deadly. Trading shares of a wonderful business — which Berkshire most certainly is — for ownership of a so-so business irreparably destroys value.

在我们持有的公司犯下这种错误时，我们也遭受了财务损失（有时我还担任董事职务）。太多时候，CEO们似乎对一个基本的现实视而不见：在一项并购中，你用股票支付的内在价值不应该大于你获得的企业的内在价值。

We’ve also suffered financially when this mistake has been committed by companies whose shares Berkshire has owned (with the errors sometimes occurring while I was serving as a director). Too often CEOs seem blind to an elementary reality: The intrinsic value of the shares you give in an acquisition must not be greater than the intrinsic value of the business you receive.

我从未见过一位投资银行家在向潜在收购方董事会提出股权交易时量化这一极其重要的数学关系。相反，银行家的关注点往往在于描述当前用于并购的“惯例”市价溢价，这种评估并购吸引力的方式绝对是愚蠢的，或者交易是否将提高收购方的每股盈利（这本身不应该是决定性因素）。为了实现所需的每股数字，气喘吁吁的CEO和他的“助手”们经常会虚构出奇想的“协同效应”。（作为多年来19家公司的董事，我从未听说过“非协同效应”的提及，尽管我见证了交易完成后大量的这种情况。）美国董事会会议室中很少有对并购的事后总结，其中实际情况诚实地与最初的预测进行比较。它们应该成为标准做法。

I’ve yet to see an investment banker quantify this all-important math when he is presenting a stock-for-stock deal to the board of a potential acquirer. Instead, the banker’s focus will be on describing “customary” premiums-to-market-price that are currently being paid for acquisitions — an absolutely asinine way to evaluate the attractiveness of an acquisition — or whether the deal will increase the acquirer’s earnings-per-share (which in itself should be far from determinative). In striving to achieve the desired per-share number, a panting CEO and his “helpers” will often conjure up fanciful “synergies.” (As a director of 19 companies over the years, I’ve never heard “dis-synergies” mentioned, though I’ve witnessed plenty of these once deals have closed.) Post mortems of acquisitions, in which reality is honestly compared to the original projections, are rare in American boardrooms. They should instead be standard practice.

我向您保证，即使在我离开后的很长时间里，伯克希尔的CEO和董事会在发行股份进行任何收购之前都会仔细进行内在价值计算。即使您的顾问向您推荐了一份昂贵的“公允性”意见支持这种交易，您也不可能通过用一张百元钞票交换八张十元钞票而致富。

I can promise you that long after I’m gone, Berkshire’s CEO and Board will carefully make intrinsic value calculations before issuing shares in any acquisitions. You can’t get rich trading a hundred-dollar bill for eight tens (even if your advisor has handed you an expensive “fairness” opinion endorsing that swap).

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总体而言，伯克希尔的收购表现得非常出色，尤其是在一些大规模收购案例中。同样，我们在可交易证券方面的投资也表现不俗。后者始终以其市场价格计值，因此任何收益，包括未实现的收益，都会立即反映在我们的净值中。但是，我们完全拥有的企业永远不会在我们的资产负债表上被重新升值，即使我们可以以数十亿美元以上的价格出售它们，高于其账面价值。伯克希尔子公司价值的未记录增长已经巨大，尤其在过去十年中增长迅猛。

Overall, Berkshire’s acquisitions have worked out well — and very well in the case of a few large ones. So, too, have our investments in marketable securities. The latter are always valued on our balance sheet at their market prices so any gains — including those unrealized — are immediately reflected in our net worth. But the businesses we buy outright are never revalued upward on our balance sheet, even when we could sell them for many billions of dollars more than their carrying value. The unrecorded gains in the value of Berkshire’s subsidiaries have become huge, with these growing at a particularly fast pace in the last decade.

倾听查理的建议确实带来了回报。

Listening to Charlie has paid off.

今日的伯克希尔Berkshire Today

如今，伯克希尔是一个庞大的企业集团，不断试图扩张更广泛。

Berkshire is now a sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further.

必须承认，企业集团在投资者中享有糟糕的声誉，而这一声誉是当之无愧的。首先，让我解释一下它们为何备受诟病，然后我将继续描述为何企业集团的形式为伯克希尔带来了巨大且长久的优势。

Conglomerates, it should be acknowledged, have a terrible reputation with investors. And they richly deserve it. Let me first explain why they are in the doghouse, and then I will go on to describe why the conglomerate form brings huge and enduring advantages to Berkshire.

自从我踏入商界以来，企业集团曾多次极为流行，其中最愚蠢的时期出现在20世纪60年代末。当时，企业集团的首席执行官们的做法很简单：通过个人魅力、推销手段，甚至可疑的会计方法（通常三者兼具），他们将新兴企业集团的股价推高至盈利的20倍左右，然后尽快发行股票，以收购其他盈利大约为10倍左右的企业。他们随后将“合并会计”这一术语应用于收购，尽管基础业务毫无改变，但这自动增加了每股盈利，他们以此作为管理天才的证明。接下来，他们向投资者解释，这种才能足以证明维持或甚至增强收购方的市盈率是正当的。最后，他们承诺将不断重复此程序，从而创造不断增长的每股盈利。

Since I entered the business world, conglomerates have enjoyed several periods of extreme popularity, the silliest of which occurred in the late 1960s. The drill for conglomerate CEOs then was simple: By personality, promotion or dubious accounting — and often by all three — these managers drove a fledgling conglomerate’s stock to, say, 20 times earnings and then issued shares as fast as possible to acquire another business selling at ten-or-so times earnings. They immediately applied “pooling” accounting to the acquisition, which — with not a dime’s worth of change in the underlying businesses — automatically increased per-share earnings, and used the rise as proof of managerial genius. They next explained to investors that this sort of talent justified the maintenance, or even the enhancement, of the acquirer’s p/e multiple. And, finally, they promised to endlessly repeat this procedure and thereby create ever-increasing per-share earnings.

华尔街对这种戏法的热爱在20世纪60年代愈演愈烈。华尔街的从业者总是愿意在可疑的手法用于捏造每股盈利上升时暂时抛开怀疑，尤其是如果这些高难度动作会产生巨额投行费用的并购交易的话。审计师们乐意为企业集团的会计工作洒下神圣的一抹水，有时甚至提出如何进一步榨取数字的建议。对许多人来说，容易赚取的丰厚利润淹没了道德底线。

Wall Street’s love affair with this hocus-pocus intensified as the 1960s rolled by. The Street’s denizens are always ready to suspend disbelief when dubious maneuvers are used to manufacture rising per-share earnings, particularly if these acrobatics produce mergers that generate huge fees for investment bankers. Auditors willingly sprinkled their holy water on the conglomerates’ accounting and sometimes even made suggestions as to how to further juice the numbers. For many, gushers of easy money washed away ethical sensitivities.

由于不断扩张的企业集团的每股盈利增长来自于利用市盈率差异，其首席执行官必须寻找那些以较低盈利倍数出售的企业。当然，这些企业通常都是前景平平的平庸企业。这种寻找低估股票的激励通常导致企业集团持有的基础企业变得越来越不值得投资。但这对投资者来说并不重要：他们主要看重的是交易速度和合并会计，以实现盈利的增长。

Since the per-share earnings gains of an expanding conglomerate came from exploiting p/e differences, its CEO had to search for businesses selling at low multiples of earnings. These, of course, were characteristically mediocre businesses with poor long-term prospects. This incentive to bottom-fish usually led to a conglomerate’s collection of underlying businesses becoming more and more junky. That mattered little to investors: It was deal velocity and pooling accounting they looked to for increased earnings.

由此带来的并购活动的火爆局面受到了媒体的追捧。像ITT、利顿工业、湾岸与西部以及LTV等公司备受推崇，它们的首席执行官成为名人。（这些曾经声名显赫的企业集团现在早已不复存在。正如约吉·贝拉所说，“每个拿破仑都会遭遇他的‘水门事件’。”）

The resulting firestorm of merger activity was fanned by an adoring press. Companies such as ITT, Litton Industries, Gulf & Western, and LTV were lionized, and their CEOs became celebrities. (These once-famous conglomerates are now long gone. As Yogi Berra said, “Every Napoleon meets his Watergate.”)

那个时候，各种各样的会计把戏——其中许多都毫无遮掩——被原谅或被忽视。事实上，在不断扩张的企业集团中，拥有一位会计巫师的领导被视为巨大的优势：在这些情况下，股东可以确信报告的盈利永远不会令人失望，无论业务的实际状况如何。

Back then, accounting shenanigans of all sorts — many of them ridiculously transparent — were excused or overlooked. Indeed, having an accounting wizard at the helm of an expanding conglomerate was viewed as a huge plus: Shareholders in those instances could be sure that reported earnings would never disappoint, no matter how bad the operating realities of the business might become.

20世纪60年代晚期，我参加了一次会议，一位热衷于并购的首席执行官吹嘘自己的“大胆、富有想象力的会计手法”。大多数聆听的分析师都表示认可，他们认为找到了一个无论业务结果如何都能实现预测的经理。

In the late 1960s, I attended a meeting at which an acquisitive CEO bragged of his “bold, imaginative accounting.” Most of the analysts listening responded with approving nods, seeing themselves as having found a manager whose forecasts were certain to be met, whatever the business results might be.

然而，最终钟声响起，一切都变成了南瓜和老鼠。再次变得明显的是，基于高价股票的连续发行的商业模式——就像连锁信模式一样——确实重新分配财富，但绝不创造财富。然而，这两种现象周期性地在我们的国家盛行——它们是每个推销员的梦想——尽管它们经常以精心策划的伪装出现。结局总是一样的：钱从轻信者流向欺诈者。而与连锁信不同，股票的金额被劫持可能会令人震惊。

Eventually, however, the clock struck twelve, and everything turned to pumpkins and mice. Once again, it became evident that business models based on the serial issuances of overpriced shares — just like chain-letter models — most assuredly redistribute wealth, but in no way create it. Both phenomena, nevertheless, periodically blossom in our country — they are every promoter’s dream — though often they appear in a carefully-crafted disguise. The ending is always the same: Money flows from the gullible to the fraudster. And with stocks, unlike chain letters, the sums hijacked can be staggering.

在BPL和伯克希尔，我们从未投资于那些执意发行股票的公司。这种行为往往是一个典型的推销型管理、脆弱的会计体系、高估值的股票，而且太常常还涉及到彻底的不诚实。

At both BPL and Berkshire, we have never invested in companies that are hell-bent on issuing shares. That behavior is one of the surest indicators of a promotion-minded management, weak accounting, a stock that is overpriced and — all too often — outright dishonesty.

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那么，查理和我对伯克希尔的企业集团结构有什么吸引力呢？简单来说：如果企业集团形式得当，它是最大程度实现长期资本增长的理想结构之一。

So what do Charlie and I find so attractive about Berkshire’s conglomerate structure? To put the case simply: If the conglomerate form is used judiciously, it is an ideal structure for maximizing long-term capital growth.

资本主义的一大优点之一是它能够高效配置资金。论点是市场将资金引导到有前景的企业，拒绝流向注定衰败的企业。这是正确的：尽管市场存在过度之处，但市场驱动的资本配置通常比任何其他方式要好得多。

One of the heralded virtues of capitalism is that it efficiently allocates funds. The argument is that markets will direct investment to promising businesses and deny it to those destined to wither. That is true: With all its excesses, market-driven allocation of capital is usually far superior to any alternative.

然而，在纺织行业内，理性的资本撤回常常会受到障碍。正如那些1954年的伯克希尔会议记录所清楚显示的那样，本应该显而易见的纺织业内资本的撤回被因管理层的虚荣和自身利益而拖延了几十年。事实上，我自己对于放弃陈旧的纺织厂也拖延了太久。

Nevertheless, there are often obstacles to the rational movement of capital. As those 1954 Berkshire minutes made clear, capital withdrawals within the textile industry that should have been obvious were delayed for decades because of the vain hopes and self-interest of managements. Indeed, I myself delayed abandoning our obsolete textile mills for far too long.

资本已用于不断衰退业务的首席执行官很少会选择将大量资本重新投入无关的活动中。这种举措通常需要解雇长期的合作伙伴并承认错误。此外，即使他或她有意进行，也不太可能成为您希望处理重新配置工作的经理。

A CEO with capital employed in a declining operation seldom elects to massively redeploy that capital into unrelated activities. A move of that kind would usually require that long-time associates be fired and mistakes be admitted. Moreover, it’s unlikely that CEO would be the manager you would wish to handle the redeployment job even if he or she was inclined to undertake it.

在股东层面上，当个人投资者试图在业务和行业之间重新配置资本时，税收和摩擦成本会对他们产生重大影响。即使是免税的机构投资者在移动资本时也会面临重大成本，因为他们通常需要中介来完成这项工作。此时会有许多口味高昂的人争相获得满足，包括投资银行家、会计师、顾问、律师以及资本重新配置者等。金钱转移者并非便宜。

At the shareholder level, taxes and frictional costs weigh heavily on individual investors when they attempt to reallocate capital among businesses and industries. Even tax-free institutional investors face major costs as they move capital because they usually need intermediaries to do this job. A lot of mouths with expensive tastes then clamor to be fed — among them investment bankers, accountants, consultants, lawyers and such capital-reallocators as leveraged buyout operators. Money-shufflers don’t come cheap.

相比之下，像伯克希尔这样的企业集团完全有条件以合理的方式和最低的成本分配资本。当然，形式本身并不能保证成功：我们犯了很多错误，还会犯更多错误。然而，我们的结构性优势是强大的。

In contrast, a conglomerate such as Berkshire is perfectly positioned to allocate capital rationally and at minimal cost. Of course, form itself is no guarantee of success: We have made plenty of mistakes, and we will make more. Our structural advantages, however, are formidable.

在伯克希尔，我们可以在几乎没有税收或其他成本的情况下，将巨额资金从那些具有有限增长机会的业务领域转移到其他拥有更大潜力的领域。此外，我们不受终身与特定行业相联的历史偏见影响，也不受那些对维护现状有利益关系的同事的压力。这一点非常重要：如果马匹掌控着投资决策，汽车工业就不会存在。

At Berkshire, we can — without incurring taxes or much in the way of other costs — move huge sums from businesses that have limited opportunities for incremental investment to other sectors with greater promise. Moreover, we are free of historical biases created by lifelong association with a given industry and are not subject to pressures from colleagues having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s important: If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.

我们拥有的另一个主要优势是能够购买优秀企业的一部分，也就是常规股票。这对于大多数管理层来说并不是一个可行的选择。在我们的历史中，这种战略选择已被证明非常有帮助；广泛的选择总是能够提高决策质量。股市每天向我们提供的企业，虽然只提供了一小部分，通常比我们同时被提供的整个企业更具吸引力。此外，我们从可交易证券中获得的收益帮助我们进行了一些大规模的收购，否则这些收购将超出我们的财务能力。

Another major advantage we possess is the ability to buy pieces of wonderful businesses — a.k.a. common stocks. That’s not a course of action open to most managements. Over our history, this strategic alternative has proved to be very helpful; a broad range of options always sharpens decision-making. The businesses we are offered by the stock market every day — in small pieces, to be sure — are often far more attractive than the businesses we are concurrently being offered in their entirety. Additionally, the gains we’ve realized from marketable securities have helped us make certain large acquisitions that would otherwise have been beyond our financial capabilities.

实际上，对于伯克希尔来说，世界是一个巨大的宝库——一个为我们提供比大多数公司更多机会的世界。当然，我们受到了一个限制，那就是我们只能评估我们能够理解的企业的经济前景。这是一个严重的限制：查理和我对许多公司十年后会变成什么样毫无头绪。但这个限制要比那些经验局限于单一行业的高管所受到的限制小得多。此外，我们能够以可观的规模扩大业务，远远超出了那些受制于单一行业有限潜力的许多企业。

In effect, the world is Berkshire’s oyster — a world offering us a range of opportunities far beyond those realistically open to most companies. We are limited, of course, to businesses whose economic prospects we can evaluate. And that’s a serious limitation: Charlie and I have no idea what a great many companies will look like ten years from now. But that limitation is much smaller than that borne by an executive whose experience has been confined to a single industry. On top of that, we can profitably scale to a far larger size than the many businesses that are constrained by the limited potential of the single industry in which they operate.

正如我之前提到的，西兹糖果相对较少的资本需求却创造了巨大的盈利。当然，我们本来希望能够聪明地利用这些资金来扩展我们的糖果业务。但是，我们多次尝试都基本无功而返。因此，无需产生税收低效或摩擦成本，我们已经利用西兹糖果产生的多余资金来帮助购买其他企业。如果西兹糖果保持了独立性，那么它的盈利将不得不分配给投资者以重新投资，有时在经过大额税收和几乎总是伴随着重大摩擦和代理成本的大幅削减之后。

I mentioned earlier that See’s Candy had produced huge earnings compared to its modest capital requirements. We would have loved, of course, to intelligently use those funds to expand our candy operation. But our many attempts to do so were largely futile. So, without incurring tax inefficiencies or frictional costs, we have used the excess funds generated by See’s to help purchase other businesses. If See’s had remained a stand-alone company, its earnings would have had to be distributed to investors to redeploy, sometimes after being heavily depleted by large taxes and, almost always, by significant frictional and agency costs.

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伯克希尔还有一个优势，这一优势随着时间的推移变得愈发重要：我们现在是许多杰出企业的首选之地。

Berkshire has one further advantage that has become increasingly important over the years: We are now the home of choice for the owners and managers of many outstanding businesses.

拥有成功企业的家族在考虑出售时有多种选择。经常情况下，最好的决策是什么都不做。生活中还有比拥有一家繁荣企业，而且这家企业自己非常了解的更糟糕的事情。但坐而不动通常不是华尔街的建议。（不要问理发师是否需要理发。）

Families that own successful businesses have multiple options when they contemplate sale. Frequently, the best decision is to do nothing. There are worse things in life than having a prosperous business that one understands well. But sitting tight is seldom recommended by Wall Street. (Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.)

当家族中的一部分希望出售而其他人希望继续时，公开发行通常是明智的选择。但是，当业主希望完全退出时，他们通常会考虑其中一种路径。

When one part of a family wishes to sell while others wish to continue, a public offering often makes sense. But, when owners wish to cash out entirely, they usually consider one of two paths.

卖家的第一选择是将企业卖给一个渴望能够从两家公司合并中获得“协同效应”而垂涎三尺的竞争对手。这类买家通常考虑摆脱掉卖方企业的大量员工，而这些员工正是协助企业主建立业务的可贵力量。然而，一个负责任的企业主——而且这样的企业主众多——通常不愿看到自己多年的同事沮丧地唱起那首老式乡村歌曲：“她得了金矿，我得到了矿井。”

The first is sale to a competitor who is salivating at the possibility of wringing “synergies” from the combining of the two companies. This buyer invariably contemplates getting rid of large numbers of the seller’s associates, the very people who have helped the owner build his business. A caring owner, however — and there are plenty of them — usually does not want to leave his long-time associates sadly singing the old country song: “She got the goldmine, I got the shaft.”

卖家的第二选择是选择华尔街买家。多年来，这些买家准确地称自己为“杠杆收购公司”。当这个词汇在1990年代初声名狼藉——还记得RJR和《大门上的野蛮人》吗？——这些买家急忙将自己改名为“私募股权公司”。

The second choice for sellers is the Wall Street buyer. For some years, these purchasers accurately called themselves “leveraged buyout firms.” When that term got a bad name in the early 1990s — remember RJR and Barbarians at the Gate? — these buyers hastily relabeled themselves “private-equity.”

名字或许改了，但那只是表面的变化：在几乎所有私募股权交易中，股权被大幅削减，而债务则累积起来。事实上，私募股权买家向卖家提供的金额部分取决于买家评估能够放在被收购公司身上的最大债务数额。

The name may have changed but that was all: Equity is dramatically reduced and debt is piled on in virtually all private-equity purchases. Indeed, the amount that a private-equity purchaser offers to the seller is in part determined by the buyer assessing the maximum amount of debt that can be placed on the acquired company.

随后，如果事情进展顺利，股权开始增加，杠杆收购公司通常会寻求通过新的借款再次加杠杆。然后，他们通常会使用部分收益支付巨额股息，将股权迅速压低，有时甚至变成负数。

Later, if things go well and equity begins to build, leveraged buy-out shops will often seek to re-leverage with new borrowings. They then typically use part of the proceeds to pay a huge dividend that drives equity sharply downward, sometimes even to a negative figure.

事实上，对于许多私募股权买家来说，“股权”是一个不太受欢迎的词汇；他们更喜欢债务。而且，由于债务目前如此廉价，这些买家通常可以付出最高价。随后，企业将经常被再次出售，通常是卖给另一家杠杆买家。实际上，企业变成了商品。

In truth, “equity” is a dirty word for many private-equity buyers; what they love is debt. And, because debt is currently so inexpensive, these buyers can frequently pay top dollar. Later, the business will be resold, often to another leveraged buyer. In effect, the business becomes a piece of merchandise.

对于那些希望出售的企业主来说，伯克希尔提供了第三种选择：一个永久的家，其中公司的人员和文化将被保留（尽管偶尔需要管理变更）。此外，我们所收购的任何企业都将大幅增强其财务实力和增长能力。它不再需要与银行和华尔街分析师打交道。

Berkshire offers a third choice to the business owner who wishes to sell: a permanent home, in which the company’s people and culture will be retained (though, occasionally, management changes will be needed). Beyond that, any business we acquire dramatically increases its financial strength and ability to grow. Its days of dealing with banks and Wall Street analysts are also forever ended.

有些卖家可能不关心这些事情。但是，当卖家关心时，伯克希尔并没有太多的竞争对手。

Some sellers don’t care about these matters. But, when sellers do, Berkshire does not have a lot of competition.

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有时候，专家会建议伯克希尔公司将其某些业务分拆出去。这些建议毫无道理。我们的公司作为伯克希尔的一部分，价值更高，而不是独立实体。一个原因是我们有能力在业务之间或进入新的企业时，立即进行资金调动，而且无需支付税款。此外，如果业务被分开，某些成本可能会在全部或部分业务中重复产生。这里有一个最明显的例子：伯克希尔仅为其单一董事会支付名义成本；如果我们的数十个子公司被拆分出去，董事会的总成本将飙升。监管和行政开支也会同样增加。

Sometimes pundits propose that Berkshire spin-off certain of its businesses. These suggestions make no sense. Our companies are worth more as part of Berkshire than as separate entities. One reason is our ability to move funds between businesses or into new ventures instantly and without tax. In addition, certain costs duplicate themselves, in full or part, if operations are separated. Here’s the most obvious example: Berkshire incurs nominal costs for its single board of directors; were our dozens of subsidiaries to be split off, the overall cost for directors would soar. So, too, would regulatory and administration expenditures.

最后，由于我们拥有子公司B，因此子公司A有时会获得重要的税收效益。例如，我们的公用事业部门目前只能实现某些税收抵免，因为我们在伯克希尔的其他运营部门产生了巨额应税收入。这使得伯克希尔哈撒韦能源在开发风能和太阳能项目方面比大多数上市公用事业公司具有更大的优势。

Finally, there are sometimes important tax efficiencies for Subsidiary A because we own Subsidiary B. For example, certain tax credits that are available to our utilities are currently realizable only because we generate huge amounts of taxable income at other Berkshire operations. That gives Berkshire Hathaway Energy a major advantage over most public-utility companies in developing wind and solar projects.

投资银行家，由于他们的行动而得到报酬，不断敦促收购者为公开持有的企业支付市场价值的20%到50%的溢价。银行家告诉买方，这种溢价是为了“控制价值”和一旦收购者的CEO掌握公司后将发生的美好事情所合理化的。（哪位渴望收购的经理会质疑这一说法呢？）

Investment bankers, being paid as they are for action, constantly urge acquirers to pay 20% to 50% premiums over market price for publicly-held businesses. The bankers tell the buyer that the premium is justified for “control value” and for the wonderful things that are going to happen once the acquirer’s CEO takes charge. (What acquisition-hungry manager will challenge that assertion?)

几年后，银行家——一脸严肃地再次出现，一如既往地急切地建议剥离先前的收购，以“释放股东价值”。分拆，当然，会剥夺所属公司所谓的“控制价值”，而不提供任何补偿。银行家解释说，分拆后的公司将蓬勃发展，因为其管理层将更具企业家精神，摆脱了母公司沉闷的官僚主义。（那位才华横溢的CEO我们早先见过的事情就这么被抛在脑后了。）

A few years later, bankers — bearing straight faces — again appear and just as earnestly urge spinning off the earlier acquisition in order to “unlock shareholder value.” Spin-offs, of course, strip the owning company of its purported “control value” without any compensating payment. The bankers explain that the spun-off company will flourish because its management will be more entrepreneurial, having been freed from the smothering bureaucracy of the parent company. (So much for that talented CEO we met earlier.)

如果剥离的公司后来希望重新收购被分拆的业务，毫无疑问，再次会被银行家敦促支付可观的“控制”溢价以获得这一特权。（银行界这种思维方式已经引发了人们说，费用太经常导致交易，而不是交易引发费用。）

If the divesting company later wishes to reacquire the spun-off operation, it presumably would again be urged by its bankers to pay a hefty “control” premium for the privilege. (Mental “flexibility” of this sort by the banking fraternity has prompted the saying that fees too often lead to transactions rather than transactions leading to fees.)

当然，伯克希尔未来可能会受到监管机构要求进行分拆或出售的可能性。1979年，伯克希尔就曾进行过这样的分拆，当时，新的银行控股公司监管规定迫使我们剥离了伊利诺伊州洛克福德的一家银行。

It’s possible, of course, that someday a spin-off or sale at Berkshire would be required by regulators. Berkshire carried out such a spin-off in 1979, when new regulations for bank holding companies forced us to divest a bank we owned in Rockford, Illinois.

然而，对我们来说，自愿性分拆毫无意义：我们将失去控制价值、资本分配的灵活性，以及在某些情况下，重要的税收优势。目前出色地管理着我们子公司的CEO，如果要管理分拆出去的业务，将会面临困难，因为他们得益于伯克希尔的所有权而拥有的运营和财务优势。此外，母公司和分拆出去的业务一旦分开，很可能会产生比它们合并时更高的适度成本。

Voluntary spin-offs, though, make no sense for us: We would lose control value, capital-allocation flexibility and, in some cases, important tax advantages. The CEOs who brilliantly run our subsidiaries now would have difficulty in being as effective if running a spun-off operation, given the operating and financial advantages derived from Berkshire’s ownership. Moreover, the parent and the spun-off operations, once separated, would likely incur moderately greater costs than existed when they were combined.

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在我结束关于分拆的讨论之前，让我们从早前提到的一个混合企业中汲取一些教训：LTV。我会在这里做个简要总结，但那些喜欢精彩财经故事的人可以查看1982年10月份D Magazine上刊登的关于Jimmy Ling的文章。可以在互联网上找到这篇文章。

Before I depart the subject of spin-offs, let’s look at a lesson to be learned from a conglomerate mentioned earlier: LTV. I’ll summarize here, but those who enjoy a good financial story should read the piece about Jimmy Ling that ran in the October 1982 issue of D Magazine. Look it up on the Internet.

通过大量企业策略的精彩表演，Ling将LTV从1965年仅3600万美元的销售额提升到仅仅两年后的《财富》500强排名第14位。值得注意的是，Ling从未展示过任何管理技能。但查理很早以前告诉我，永远不要低估那些高估自己的人。在这一点上，Ling没有对手。

Through a lot of corporate razzle-dazzle, Ling had taken LTV from sales of only $36 million in 1965 to number 14 on the Fortune 500 list just two years later. Ling, it should be noted, had never displayed any managerial skills. But Charlie told me long ago to never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. And Ling had no peer in that respect.

林的策略，他称之为“项目重组”，是购买一家大公司，然后部分分拆其各个部门。在LTV的1966年年报中，他解释了随之而来的魔法：“最重要的是，收购必须符合2加2等于5（或6）的测试公式。”媒体、公众和华尔街都喜欢这种说法。

Ling’s strategy, which he labeled “project redeployment,” was to buy a large company and then partially spin off its various divisions. In LTV’s 1966 annual report, he explained the magic that would follow: “Most importantly, acquisitions must meet the test of the 2 plus 2 equals 5 (or 6) formula.” The press, the public and Wall Street loved this sort of talk.

1967年，林购买了威尔森公司（Wilson & Co.），这是一家巨大的肉类加工公司，还涉足高尔夫装备和制药业。不久之后，他将母公司分拆为三个业务，威尔森公司（肉类加工），威尔森体育用品和威尔森制药公司，每个业务都将部分分拆。这些公司很快在华尔街被称为肉丸（Meatball），高尔夫球（Golf Ball）和傻瓜球（Goof Ball）。

In 1967 Ling bought Wilson & Co., a huge meatpacker that also had interests in golf equipment and pharmaceuticals. Soon after, he split the parent into three businesses, Wilson & Co. (meatpacking), Wilson Sporting Goods and Wilson Pharmaceuticals, each of which was to be partially spun off. These companies quickly became known on Wall Street as Meatball, Golf Ball and Goof Ball.

然而，不久之后，就像伊卡洛斯一样，林飞得太靠近太阳，问题开始显现。到了20世纪70年代初，林的帝国开始溃败，而他本人也被从LTV中“分拆”出去……也就是被解雇了。

Soon thereafter, it became clear that, like Icarus, Ling had flown too close to the sun. By the early 1970s, Ling’s empire was melting, and he himself had been spun off from LTV . . . that is, fired.

定期地，金融市场会脱离现实——可以肯定会发生这种情况。会出现更多的吉米·林（Jimmy Ling）。他们看起来和听起来都很有权威。媒体会追随他们的每个言论。银行家们会争夺他们的业务。他们所说的话最近都“奏效了”。他们的早期追随者会感到非常聪明。我们的建议是：不管他们怎么说，永远不要忘记2加2始终等于4。当有人告诉你这种数学已经过时时——扣紧你的钱包，度个假，几年后以便以便宜的价格购买股票回来。

Periodically, financial markets will become divorced from reality — you can count on that. More Jimmy Lings will appear. They will look and sound authoritative. The press will hang on their every word. Bankers will fight for their business. What they are saying will recently have “worked.” Their early followers will be feeling very clever. Our suggestion: Whatever their line, never forget that 2+2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is —zip up your wallet, take a vacation and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.

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今天，伯克希尔拥有以下强大优势：（1）无与伦比的企业组合，其中大多数现在享有良好的经济前景；（2）一支杰出的管理团队，几乎没有例外，他们对自己经营的子公司和伯克希尔都非常忠诚；（3）非同寻常的收益多样性、卓越的财务实力和充沛的流动性，在任何情况下我们都将保持；（4）在许多正在考虑出售他们的企业的业主和经理中，我们排名第一选择；以及（5）与前一项相关的一点，一种与大多数大公司在许多方面都截然不同的文化，这是我们花费了50年时间来培养的，现在已经牢不可破。

Today Berkshire possesses (1) an unmatched collection of businesses, most of them now enjoying favorable economic prospects; (2) a cadre of outstanding managers who, with few exceptions, are unusually devoted to both the subsidiary they operate and to Berkshire; (3) an extraordinary diversity of earnings, premier financial strength and oceans of liquidity that we will maintain under all circumstances; (4) a first-choice ranking among many owners and managers who are contemplating sale of their businesses and (5) in a point related to the preceding item, a culture, distinctive in many ways from that of most large companies, that we have worked 50 years to develop and that is now rock-solid.

这些优势为我们提供了一个出色的基础，可以在其上继续发展。

These strengths provide us a wonderful foundation on which to build.

伯克希尔未来50年 The Next 50 Years at Berkshire

接下来，让我们来看看未来的道路。请记住，如果50年前我尝试评估未来会发生什么，那么我的某些预测可能会大大偏离实际情况。在这个警告下，如果我的家人今天问我关于伯克希尔的未来，我会告诉他们什么呢？

Now let’s take a look at the road ahead. Bear in mind that if I had attempted 50 years ago to gauge what was coming, certain of my predictions would have been far off the mark. With that warning, I will tell you what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire’s future.

1.首先，也绝对是最重要的，我相信耐心持有伯克希尔股票的投资者永久资本损失的机会几乎是可以在单一公司投资中找到的最低的。这是因为我们每股的内在业务价值几乎肯定会随着时间的推移而增长。

1.First and definitely foremost, I believe that the chance of permanent capital loss for patient Berkshire shareholders is as low as can be found among single-company investments. That’s because our per-share intrinsic business value is almost certain to advance over time.

然而，这个乐观的预测伴随着一个重要的警告：如果投资者以高于公司回购股票的价格进入伯克希尔股票——比如，接近百分之二百的账面价值，就像伯克希尔股票偶尔达到的那样——可能需要很多年才能实现利润。换句话说，如果以高价购买，一个明智的投资可能会变成冒险的投机。伯克希尔不例外。

This cheery prediction comes, however, with an important caution: If an investor’s entry point into Berkshire stock is unusually high — at a price, say, approaching double book value, which Berkshire shares have occasionally reached — it may well be many years before the investor can realize a profit. In other words, a sound investment can morph into a rash speculation if it is bought at an elevated price. Berkshire is not exempt from this truth.

然而，以略高于公司回购股票的价格购买伯克希尔的投资者，应该能够在合理的时间内获得收益。伯克希尔的董事会只会在他们认为远低于内在价值的价格下批准回购。在我们看来，这是回购经常被其他管理层忽视的一个重要标准。

Purchases of Berkshire that investors make at a price modestly above the level at which the company would repurchase its shares, however, should produce gains within a reasonable period of time. Berkshire’s directors will only authorize repurchases at a price they believe to be well below intrinsic value. (In our view, that is an essential criterion for repurchases that is often ignored by other managements.)

对于那些计划在购买后一两年内出售的投资者，我无法提供任何保证，无论购入价格如何。在这种缩短的时间段内，总体股市的波动可能对您的结果产生更大的影响，而不是伯克希尔股票内在价值的同时变化。正如本·格雷厄姆几十年前所说：“短期内，市场是一台投票机；长期内，它则充当一个称重机。” 偶尔，投资者的投票决策，无论是业余投资者还是专业投资者，有时会近乎疯狂。

For those investors who plan to sell within a year or two after their purchase, I can offer no assurances, whatever the entry price. Movements of the general stock market during such abbreviated periods will likely be far more important in determining your results than the concomitant change in the intrinsic value of your Berkshire shares. As Ben Graham said many decades ago: “In the short-term the market is a voting machine; in the long-run it acts as a weighing machine.” Occasionally, the voting decisions of investors — amateurs and professionals alike — border on lunacy.

由于我不知道如何可靠地预测市场走势，因此我建议您只在预计持有至少五年的情况下购买伯克希尔股票。那些寻求短期利润的人应该另寻他路。

Since I know of no way to reliably predict market movements, I recommend that you purchase Berkshire shares only if you expect to hold them for at least five years. Those who seek short-term profits should look elsewhere.

另一个警告：伯克希尔股票不应该用借来的资金购买。自1965年以来，我们的股票曾三次从高点下跌约50%。总有一天，会再次发生类似的下跌，而且没有人知道何时会发生。对于投资者来说，伯克希尔几乎肯定是一个满意的投资选择。但对于利用杠杆的投机者来说，这可能是一个灾难性的选择。

Another warning: Berkshire shares should not be purchased with borrowed money. There have been three times since 1965 when our stock has fallen about 50% from its high point. Someday, something close to this kind of drop will happen again, and no one knows when. Berkshire will almost certainly be a satisfactory holding for investors. But it could well be a disastrous choice for speculators employing leverage.

2.我相信导致伯克希尔陷入财务问题的机会基本上是零。我们将永远为千年一遇的大灾做好准备；事实上，如果发生这种情况，我们将向没有做好准备的人出售救生衣。在2008-2009年的危机中，伯克希尔扮演了“第一响应者”的重要角色，而且自那以后，我们已经将资产负债表的实力和盈利潜力增加了一倍以上。贵公司是美国企业的不可动摇的支柱，将始终如此。

2.I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact, if it occurs we will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. Berkshire played an important role as a “first responder” during the 2008-2009 meltdown, and we have since more than doubled the strength of our balance sheet and our earnings potential. Your company is the Gibraltar of American business and will remain so.

财务稳定力要求公司在任何情况下都保持三个关键因素：（1）大规模且可靠的盈利流；（2）大规模的流动性资产；以及（3）没有重大的近期现金需求。忽视最后一个要点通常会导致公司经历意想不到的问题：太多时候，盈利的公司首席执行官会觉得他们永远能够偿还到期债务，无论这些债务有多大。在2008-2009年，许多管理层都意识到这种心态有多危险。

Financial staying power requires a company to maintain three strengths under all circumstances: (1) a large and reliable stream of earnings; (2) massive liquid assets and (3) no significant near-term cash requirements. Ignoring that last necessity is what usually leads companies to experience unexpected problems: Too often, CEOs of profitable companies feel they will always be able to refund maturing obligations, however large these are. In 2008-2009, many managements learned how perilous that mindset can be.

以下是我们将始终坚守这三个关键要点的方式。首先，我们的盈利流量巨大，来自各种各样的业务。我们的股东现在拥有许多具有持久竞争优势的大型公司，未来我们还将收购更多这样的公司。我们的多元化确保了伯克希尔的持续盈利，即使一场灾难导致保险损失远远超过以往的任何损失。

Here’s how we will always stand on the three essentials. First, our earnings stream is huge and comes from a vast array of businesses. Our shareholders now own many large companies that have durable competitive advantages, and we will acquire more of those in the future. Our diversification assures Berkshire’s continued profitability, even if a catastrophe causes insurance losses that far exceed any previously experienced.

接下来是现金。在一个健康的企业中，有时会将现金视为需要最小化的东西——一种无效的资产，对股本回报等指标产生负担。然而，对于企业而言，现金就像对个人而言的氧气一样不可或缺：当它存在时，几乎不会考虑它，但当它不足时，它会成为唯一关心的事物。

Next up is cash. At a healthy business, cash is sometimes thought of as something to be minimized — as an unproductive asset that acts as a drag on such markers as return on equity. Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent.

2008年，美国企业提供了一个典型案例。那年九月，许多长期繁荣的公司突然担心未来几天自己的支票是否会被退票。一夜之间，它们的财务氧气消失了。

American business provided a case study of that in 2008. In September of that year, many long-prosperous companies suddenly wondered whether their checks would bounce in the days ahead. Overnight, their financial oxygen disappeared.

在伯克希尔，我们的“呼吸”从未间断。事实上，在2008年九月底到十月初的三周时间内，我们向美国企业提供了1560亿美元的新鲜资金。

At Berkshire, our “breathing” went uninterrupted. Indeed, in a three-week period spanning late September and early October, we supplied $15.6 billion of fresh money to American businesses.

我们之所以能够做到这一点，是因为我们始终至少保持着200亿美元，通常远远超过这个数字，以备用金的形式。我们所说的备用金是指美国国债，而不是其他声称可以提供流动性的现金替代品，实际上只在真正需要时才能够如此。到期时，只有现金才是法定货币。外出前请务必携带足够的现金。

We could do that because we always maintain at least $20 billion — and usually far more — in cash equivalents. And by that we mean U.S. Treasury bills, not other substitutes for cash that are claimed to deliver liquidity and actually do so, except when it is truly needed. When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don’t leave home without it.

最后一点，我们永远不会从事可能导致突然大额资金需求的经营或投资做法。这意味着我们不会将伯克希尔暴露于大规模短期债务到期或进入衍生合同或其他业务安排可能需要大额担保调用的情况。

Finally — getting to our third point — we will never engage in operating or investment practices that can result in sudden demands for large sums. That means we will not expose Berkshire to short-term debt maturities of size nor enter into derivative contracts or other business arrangements that could require large collateral calls.

几年前，我们成为某些衍生合同的一方，我们认为这些合同明显定价不准确，而且只需要少量担保。这些合同已被证明非常有利可图。然而，最近编写的衍生合同要求提供充分担保。这结束了我们对衍生品的兴趣，无论它们可能提供什么利润潜力。多年来，我们已不再编写这些合同，除了为我们公用事业业务的操作目的编写了一些合同。

Some years ago, we became a party to certain derivative contracts that we believed were significantly mispriced and that had only minor collateral requirements. These have proved to be quite profitable. Recently, however, newly-written derivative contracts have required full collateralization. And that ended our interest in derivatives, regardless of what profit potential they might offer. We have not, for some years, written these contracts, except for a few needed for operational purposes at our utility businesses.

此外，我们不会编写那些允许保单持有人随时提取现金的保险合同。许多寿险产品包含赎回条款，使它们容易在极端恐慌时被批量赎回。然而，在我们所经营的财产损失领域，不存在这种类型的合同。即使我们的保费收入减少，我们的保费资金也只会以非常缓慢的速度减少。

Moreover, we will not write insurance contracts that give policyholders the right to cash out at their option. Many life insurance products contain redemption features that make them susceptible to a “run” in times of extreme panic. Contracts of that sort, however, do not exist in the property-casualty world that we inhabit. If our premium volume should shrink, our float would decline — but only at a very slow pace.

我们之所以如此保守，可能会给一些人留下极端的印象，是因为可以完全预见到人们偶尔会恐慌，但不能预测这将在何时发生。尽管几乎每一天都相对平稳，但明天总是不确定的。（1941年12月6日或2001年9月10日，我都没有特别的担忧。）如果您不能预测明天会发生什么，那么您必须为明天可能发生的任何事情做好准备。

The reason for our conservatism, which may impress some people as extreme, is that it is entirely predictable that people will occasionally panic, but not at all predictable when this will happen. Though practically all days are relatively uneventful, tomorrow is always uncertain. (I felt no special apprehension on December 6, 1941 or September 10, 2001.) And if you can’t predict what tomorrow will bring, you must be prepared for whatever it does.

一个64岁计划在65岁退休的首席执行官可能会根据一年内发生机会微乎其微的风险进行特殊的计算。事实上，他可能在99%的时间里都是“正确”的。然而，对我们来说，这些机会没有吸引力。即使是隐喻性的枪中有100个弹膛，只有一个子弹，我们也不会冒险失去您托付给我们的资金，即使隐喻的枪中有100个弹膛，只有一个子弹。在我们看来，冒险失去您所需的东西以追求您仅仅渴望的东西是疯狂的。

A CEO who is 64 and plans to retire at 65 may have his own special calculus in evaluating risks that have only a tiny chance of happening in a given year. He may, in fact, be “right” 99% of the time. Those odds, however, hold no appeal for us. We will never play financial Russian roulette with the funds you’ve entrusted to us, even if the metaphorical gun has 100 chambers and only one bullet. In our view, it is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire.

3.尽管我们保守谨慎，但我认为我们每年都将能够提升伯克希尔的基础每股盈利能力。这并不意味着经营收益每年都会增加——远非如此。美国经济将会起伏不定，尽管大多数时间会向好发展，但当它疲软时，我们当前的盈利也会受到影响。但我们将继续实现有机增长，进行并购以及进入新领域。因此，我相信伯克希尔将每年都增加其基础盈利能力。

3.Despite our conservatism, I think we will be able every year to build the underlying per-share earning power of Berkshire. That does not mean operating earnings will increase each year — far from it. The U.S. economy will ebb and flow — though mostly flow — and, when it weakens, so will our current earnings. But we will continue to achieve organic gains, make bolt-on acquisitions and enter new fields. I believe, therefore, that Berkshire will annually add to its underlying earning power.

在某些年份，增益将会很可观，而在其他时候则较小。市场、竞争和机遇将决定机会何时降临。在此过程中，伯克希尔将继续前进，依靠我们现在拥有的一系列坚实企业和我们将要收购的新公司。此外，大多数年份里，我们国家的经济将为企业提供强大的迎风助力。我们有幸将美国视为我们的主场。

In some years the gains will be substantial, and at other times they will be minor. Markets, competition, and chance will determine when opportunities come our way. Through it all, Berkshire will keep moving forward, powered by the array of solid businesses we now possess and the new companies we will purchase. In most years, moreover, our country’s economy will provide a strong tailwind for business. We are blessed to have the United States as our home field.

4.不好的消息是，伯克希尔的长期增益——以百分比衡量，而不是以美元衡量——不可能是惊人的，也不会接近过去50年所取得的成就。数字已经变得太大了。我认为伯克希尔将会胜过普通美国公司，但如果有任何优势，也不会太大。

4.The bad news is that Berkshire’s long-term gains — measured by percentages, not by dollars — cannot be dramatic and will not come close to those achieved in the past 50 years. The numbers have become too big. I think Berkshire will outperform the average American company, but our advantage, if any, won’t be great.

最终——可能在未来十到二十年之间——伯克希尔的收益和资本资源将达到一个水平，不允许管理层明智地再投资公司全部收益。那时，我们的董事们将需要决定通过股息、股份回购或两者结合的方式分配多余的收益。如果伯克希尔的股价低于内在企业价值，大规模回购几乎肯定是最佳选择。您可以放心，您的董事会将会做出正确的决策。

Eventually — probably between ten and twenty years from now — Berkshire’s earnings and capital resources will reach a level that will not allow management to intelligently reinvest all of the company’s earnings. At that time our directors will need to determine whether the best method to distribute the excess earnings is through dividends, share repurchases or both. If Berkshire shares are selling below intrinsic business value, massive repurchases will almost certainly be the best choice. You can be comfortable that your directors will make the right decision.

5.没有公司比伯克希尔更加注重股东利益。三十多年来，我们每年都再次确认我们的股东原则（请见第117页），始终以以下话语开头：“虽然我们的形式是公司，但我们的态度是合伙关系。”这与您的契约已经铭刻在石头上。

5.No company will be more shareholder-minded than Berkshire. For more than 30 years, we have annually reaffirmed our Shareholder Principles (see page 117), always leading off with: “Although our form is corporate, our attitude is partnership.” This covenant with you is etched in stone.

我们拥有一支非常博学且以业务为导向的董事会，愿意履行合作伙伴的承诺。他们没有因金钱而担任这个职位：在几乎没有其他地方存在的安排中，我们的董事只获得象征性的报酬。他们通过持有伯克希尔股份来获得回报，以及成为一家重要企业的善良管理者所带来的满足感。

We have an extraordinarily knowledgeable and business-oriented board of directors ready to carry out that promise of partnership. None took the job for the money: In an arrangement almost non-existent elsewhere, our directors are paid only token fees. They receive their rewards instead through ownership of Berkshire shares and the satisfaction that comes from being good stewards of an important enterprise.

他们和他们家人拥有的股份——在许多情况下，价值非常可观——都是在市场上购买的（而不是通过期权或授予获得的）。此外，与几乎所有其他规模较大的上市公司不同，我们没有董事和高管责任保险。在伯克希尔，董事们与您的立场是一样的。

The shares that they and their families own — which, in many cases, are worth very substantial sums — were purchased in the market (rather than their materializing through options or grants). In addition, unlike almost all other sizable public companies, we carry no directors and officers liability insurance. At Berkshire, directors walk in your shoes.

为了进一步确保我们文化的延续，我建议我的儿子霍华德接替我成为非执行主席。我之所以有这个愿望，唯一的原因是为了使如果任命了错误的首席执行官，需要主席采取有力措施来进行变革更加容易。我可以向您保证，在伯克希尔这种问题发生的概率非常低，可能与任何其他上市公司一样低。然而，在我服务过的十九家上市公司董事会中，我看到了如果一个平庸的首席执行官同时也是主席，要替换他是多么困难。（通常最终会完成，但几乎总是很晚。）

To further ensure continuation of our culture, I have suggested that my son, Howard, succeed me as a non-executive Chairman. My only reason for this wish is to make change easier if the wrong CEO should ever be employed and there occurs a need for the Chairman to move forcefully. I can assure you that this problem has a very low probability of arising at Berkshire — likely as low as at any public company. In my service on the boards of nineteen public companies, however, I’ve seen how hard it is to replace a mediocre CEO if that person is also Chairman. (The deed usually gets done, but almost always very late.)

如果当选，霍华德将不获得薪水，也不会花费除了所有董事都需要的时间以外的任何时间。他只是一个安全阀，任何董事如果对首席执行官有顾虑，并希望了解其他董事是否也有疑虑，可以找他。如果有多个董事感到担忧，霍华德的主席地位将使问题能够迅速而正确地得到解决。

If elected, Howard will receive no pay and will spend no time at the job other than that required of all directors. He will simply be a safety valve to whom any director can go if he or she has concerns about the CEO and wishes to learn if other directors are expressing doubts as well. Should multiple directors be apprehensive, Howard’s chairmanship will allow the matter to be promptly and properly addressed.

6.选择合适的首席执行官至关重要，这是伯克希尔董事会会议上花费大量时间讨论的课题。管理伯克希尔主要是关于资本配置，同时也涉及到选择和保留出色的管理者来领导我们的运营子公司。当然，这项工作还需要在必要时更换子公司的首席执行官。这些职责要求伯克希尔的首席执行官必须是一个理性、沉稳和果断的人，他对业务有广泛的了解，对人类行为有深刻的洞察力。同样重要的是，他必须知道自己的局限性。（正如IBM的汤姆·沃森·斯尔所说，“我并非天才，但在某些方面很聪明，我会集中精力做那些方面。”）

6.Choosing the right CEO is all-important and is a subject that commands much time at Berkshire board meetings. Managing Berkshire is primarily a job of capital allocation, coupled with the selection and retention of outstanding managers to captain our operating subsidiaries. Obviously, the job also requires the replacement of a subsidiary’s CEO when that is called for. These duties require Berkshire’s CEO to be a rational, calm and decisive individual who has a broad understanding of business and good insights into human behavior. It’s important as well that he knows his limits. (As Tom Watson, Sr. of IBM said, “I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots and I stay around those spots.”)

品格至关重要：一位伯克希尔的首席执行官必须全身心地为公司服务，而不是只为个人利益着想。（我使用男性代词以避免措辞上的尴尬，但性别永远不应该决定谁能成为首席执行官。）他难以避免地会赚取远远超过任何可能需要的财富。但重要的是，不论他的成就有多大，都不应该让自己的自负或贪婪驱使他追求与同行最慷慨薪酬相匹配的报酬，即使他的成就远远超过他们的水平。一位首席执行官的行为对下属管理者产生巨大的影响：如果他们清楚地看到股东的利益对他来说是最重要的，他们将在很少例外的情况下也会采纳这种思维方式。

Character is crucial: A Berkshire CEO must be “all in” for the company, not for himself. (I’m using male pronouns to avoid awkward wording, but gender should never decide who becomes CEO.) He can’t help but earn money far in excess of any possible need for it. But it’s important that neither ego nor avarice motivate him to reach for pay matching his most lavishly-compensated peers, even if his achievements far exceed theirs. A CEO’s behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line: If it’s clear to them that shareholders’ interests are paramount to him, they will, with few exceptions, also embrace that way of thinking.

我的继任者还需要具备另外一种特殊的能力：抵御企业腐化的ABC，即傲慢、官僚主义和自满。当这些企业病变扩散时，即使最强大的公司也可能失利。证明这一点的例子有很多，但为了保持友好关系，我只会挖掘遥远过去的案例。

My successor will need one other particular strength: the ability to fight off the ABCs of business decay, which are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency. When these corporate cancers metastasize, even the strongest of companies can falter. The examples available to prove the point are legion, but to maintain friendships I will exhume only cases from the distant past.

在它们的辉煌时期，通用汽车、IBM、西尔斯-罗巴克（Sears Roebuck）和美国钢铁公司（U.S. Steel）都是庞大产业的领头羊。它们的优势似乎无可撼动。但我在上文所痛斥的破坏性行为最终导致它们各自跌落到其首席执行官和董事们不久前还认为不可能的深渊。事实证明，它们曾经的雄厚财力和历史盈利能力都无法抵挡。

In their glory days, General Motors, IBM, Sears Roebuck and U.S. Steel sat atop huge industries. Their strengths seemed unassailable. But the destructive behavior I deplored above eventually led each of them to fall to depths that their CEOs and directors had not long before thought impossible. Their one-time financial strength and their historical earning power proved no defense.

在伯克希尔日益壮大的过程中，只有警觉而坚定的首席执行官才能抵御这种削弱力量。他决不能忘记查理的恳求： “告诉我死在哪里，我就不会去那里” 如果我们的非经济价值丧失殆尽，伯克希尔的大部分经济价值也将随之崩溃。要保持伯克希尔的特殊文化，”高层语调 “将是关键。

Only a vigilant and determined CEO can ward off such debilitating forces as Berkshire grows ever larger. He must never forget Charlie’s plea: “Tell me where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” If our noneconomic values were to be lost, much of Berkshire’s economic value would collapse as well. “Tone at the top” will be key to maintaining Berkshire’s special culture.

幸运的是，我们未来的首席执行官取得成功所需的结构已经稳固建立。伯克希尔现有的非凡授权是官僚主义的理想解药。从运营意义上讲，伯克希尔不是一家巨型公司，而是多家大公司的集合体。在总部，我们从未设立过委员会，也从未要求子公司提交预算（尽管许多子公司将预算作为重要的内部工具）。我们没有法律办公室，也没有其他公司认为理所当然的部门：人际关系部、公共关系部、投资者关系部、战略部、收购部等等。

Fortunately, the structure our future CEOs will need to be successful is firmly in place. The extraordinary delegation of authority now existing at Berkshire is the ideal antidote to bureaucracy. In an operating sense, Berkshire is not a giant company but rather a collection of large companies. At headquarters, we have never had a committee nor have we ever required our subsidiaries to submit budgets (though many use them as an important internal tool). We don’t have a legal office nor departments that other companies take for granted: human relations, public relations, investor relations, strategy, acquisitions, you name it.

当然，我们有一个积极的审计职能部门；做一个该死的傻瓜是没有意义的。不过，我们在某种程度上异常信任我们的经理人，相信他们会以敏锐的管理意识来经营业务。毕竟，在我们收购他们的企业之前，他们正是这样做的。此外，除了偶尔的例外情况，我们的信任所产生的结果比层层指令、无休止的审查和层层官僚主义所产生的结果要好得多。查理和我努力与我们的经理们进行互动，如果我们的立场颠倒过来，我们也会这样做。

We do, of course, have an active audit function; no sense being a dammed fool. To an unusual degree, however, we trust our managers to run their operations with a keen sense of stewardship. After all, they were doing exactly that before we acquired their businesses. With only occasional exceptions, furthermore, our trust produces better results than would be achieved by streams of directives, endless reviews and layers of bureaucracy. Charlie and I try to interact with our managers in a manner consistent with what we would wish for, if the positions were reversed.

7.我们的董事认为，我们未来的首席执行官应该来自伯克希尔董事会非常熟悉的内部候选人。我们的董事还认为，即将上任的首席执行官应该相对年轻，这样他或她才能在这个职位上长期工作。如果首席执行官的平均执掌年限超过十年，伯克希尔的运营将达到最佳状态。(他们也不可能在 65 岁退休（你注意到了吗？）

7.Our directors believe that our future CEOs should come from internal candidates whom the Berkshire board has grown to know well. Our directors also believe that an incoming CEO should be relatively young, so that he or she can have a long run in the job. Berkshire will operate best if its CEOs average well over ten years at the helm. (It’s hard to teach a new dog old tricks.) And they are not likely to retire at 65 either (or have you noticed?).

在伯克希尔的业务收购和大型定制投资活动中，我们的交易对手必须熟悉伯克希尔的首席执行官，并对其感到满意。培养这种信心和巩固关系需要时间。但回报可能是巨大的。

In both Berkshire’s business acquisitions and large, tailored investment moves, it is important that our counterparties be both familiar with and feel comfortable with Berkshire’s CEO. Developing confidence of that sort and cementing relationships takes time. The payoff, though, can be huge.

董事会和我都相信，我们现在已经有了接替我担任首席执行官的合适人选–一个可以在我去世或卸任后第二天上任的继任者。在某些重要方面，他将比我做得更好。

Both the board and I believe we now have the right person to succeed me as CEO — a successor ready to assume the job the day after I die or step down. In certain important respects, this person will do a better job than I am doing.

8.投资对伯克希尔来说始终非常重要，将由几位专家负责。他们将向首席执行官汇报，因为他们的投资决策在很大程度上需要与伯克希尔的运营和收购计划相协调。但总的来说，我们的投资经理将享有极大的自主权。在这一领域，我们在未来几十年也将处于良好的状态。托德-康博斯（Todd Combs）和泰德-韦施勒（Ted Weschler）都曾在伯克希尔的投资团队工作过数年，他们在各方面都是一流的，尤其能帮助首席执行官评估收购项目。

8.Investments will always be of great importance to Berkshire and will be handled by several specialists. They will report to the CEO because their investment decisions, in a broad way, will need to be coordinated with Berkshire’s operating and acquisition programs. Overall, though, our investment managers will enjoy great autonomy. In this area, too, we are in fine shape for decades to come. Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, each of whom has spent several years on Berkshire’s investment team, are first-rate in all respects and can be of particular help to the CEO in evaluating acquisitions.

总而言之，伯克希尔为查理和我离开后的生活做好了理想的准备。我们拥有合适的人才–合适的董事、经理和这些经理的未来继任者。此外，我们的文化已经深入到他们的队伍中。我们的系统还具有再生能力。在很大程度上，好的文化和坏的文化都会自我选择，使自己永久存在。出于很好的理由，拥有与我们相似价值观的企业主和运营经理将继续被伯克希尔吸引，将其视为独一无二的永久家园。

All told, Berkshire is ideally positioned for life after Charlie and I leave the scene. We have the right people in place — the right directors, managers and prospective successors to those managers. Our culture, furthermore, is embedded throughout their ranks. Our system is also regenerative. To a large degree, both good and bad cultures self-select to perpetuate themselves. For very good reasons, business owners and operating managers with values similar to ours will continue to be attracted to Berkshire as a one-of-a-kind and permanent home.

9.如果我不向使伯克希尔与众不同的另一个关键群体–我们的股东–致敬，那将是我的失职。伯克希尔真正拥有与其他任何巨型公司都不同的股东基础。这一事实在去年的年会上得到了充分体现，股东们在会上通过了一项代理决议：

9.I would be remiss if I didn’t salute another key constituency that makes Berkshire special: our shareholders. Berkshire truly has an owner base unlike that of any other giant corporation. That fact was demonstrated in spades at last year’s annual meeting, where the shareholders were offered a proxy resolution:

决议：鉴于公司的资金超过其需求，而且公司所有者与沃伦不同，都不是亿万富翁，董事会应考虑每年支付有意义的股票股息。

RESOLVED: Whereas the corporation has more money than it needs and since the owners unlike Warren are not multi billionaires, the board shall consider paying a meaningful annual dividend on the shares.

该决议的提案股东从未出席会议，因此他的动议没有被正式提出。不过，代理投票已经统计出来，而且很有启发性。

The sponsoring shareholder of that resolution never showed up at the meeting, so his motion was not officially proposed. Nevertheless, the proxy votes had been tallied, and they were enlightening.

不足为奇的是，A 股（股东人数相对较少，但每个股东都拥有巨大的经济利益）在股息问题上以 89 票对 1 票的比例投了反对票。

Not surprisingly, the A shares — owned by relatively few shareholders, each with a large economic interest — voted “no” on the dividend question by a margin of 89 to 1.

最引人注目的是我们的 B 股股东。他们有几十万人，甚至可能有一百万人，他们投了 660,759,855 票 “反对 “和 13,927,026 票 “赞成”，比例约为 47:1。

The remarkable vote was that of our B shareholders. They number in the hundreds of thousands — perhaps even totaling one million — and they voted 660,759,855 “no” and 13,927,026 “yes,” a ratio of about 47 to 1.

我们的董事建议投 “反对 “票，但公司并未试图以其他方式影响股东。尽管如此，98% 的投票股份实际上是在说：”不要给我们派发股息，而是将所有收益再投资”。我们的大小股东们与我们的管理理念如此一致，这既了不起，也很有意义。

Our directors recommended a “no” vote but the company did not otherwise attempt to influence shareholders. Nevertheless, 98% of the shares voting said, in effect, “Don’t send us a dividend but instead reinvest all of the earnings.” To have our fellow owners — large and small — be so in sync with our managerial philosophy is both remarkable and rewarding.

我很幸运能与你们成为合作伙伴。

I am a lucky fellow to have you as partners.

沃伦-巴菲特 Warren E. Buffett