巴菲特致股东的信（1995年）②并购活动

Acquisitions

It may seem strange that we exult over a year in which we made three acquisitions, given that we have regularly used these pages to question the acquisition activities of most managers. Rest assured, Charlie and I haven't lost our skepticism: We believe most deals do damage to the shareholders of the acquiring company. Too often, the words from HMS Pinafore apply: "Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream." Specifically, sellers and their representatives invariably present financial projections having more entertainment value than educational value. In the production of rosy scenarios, Wall Street can hold its own against Washington.

并购活动

以往到了这里，通常是我们质疑其它公司从事的并购活动的时间，然而大家对于我们在去年突然发神经地进行了三件并购案可能会感到相当奇怪，不过大家倒是可以放心，查理跟我本人从来就没有失去我们原来保持的怀疑态度，我们坚信大部分的并购活动会大大损及收购方公司的股东利益，《皮纳福号军舰》歌剧中的台词说得没有错：事情通常不是他们外表所看到得的那样，脱脂牛奶会被冒充成奶油。具体来说，卖方与其代表总是会提出一些娱乐性质高于教育性质的财务预测，在画大饼方面，华尔街的能力可是不会输给华府的。

In any case, why potential buyers even look at projections prepared by sellers baffles me. Charlie and I never give them a glance, but instead keep in mind the story of the man with an ailing horse. Visiting the vet, he said: "Can you help me? Sometimes my horse walks just fine and sometimes he limps." The vet's reply was pointed: "No problem - when he's walking fine, sell him." In the world of mergers and acquisitions, that horse would be peddled as Secretariat.

我实在不了解为什么有买方会去相信卖方给出的预估数字，查理跟我连看都懒得看他们一眼，我们一再谨记一位拥有跛脚马主人的故事，他牵着病马去给兽医看时说到：你可以帮我看看吗？我实在是搞不懂为什么这匹马的表现时好时坏。兽医的回答正中要害：没问题，趁它表现正常的时候，赶快把它卖掉就好了。在并购的世界中，这样的跛脚马往往被装饰成一代宝马到处行骗。

At Berkshire, we have all the difficulties in perceiving the future that other acquisition-minded companies do. Like they also, we face the inherent problem that the seller of a business practically always knows far more about it than the buyer and also picks the time of sale - a time when the business is likely to be walking "just fine."

在伯克希尔，我们无从了解这些有意从事并购的公司到底怎么会做出这样的举动，与他们一样，我们也面临一个先天性的问题，那就是卖方永远比买方了解内情，所以很自然地，他们一定会挑选卖出的最佳时机，也就是当跛脚马表现的都很正常的时候。

Even so, we do have a few advantages, perhaps the greatest being that we don't have a strategic plan. Thus we feel no need to proceed in an ordained direction (a course leading almost invariably to silly purchase prices) but can instead simply decide what makes sense for our owners. In doing that, we always mentally compare any move we are contemplating with dozens of other opportunities open to us, including the purchase of small pieces of the best businesses in the world via the stock market. Our practice of making this comparison - acquisitions against passive investments - is a discipline that managers focused simply on expansion seldom use.

尽管如此，我们还是拥有几项优势，其中最大的优势大概就是我们并没有一套战略计划，所以我们就没有必要依照固定的模式(一种几乎注定会以离谱的价钱成交的模式)，而是完全以股东利益为先。在这样的心态之下，我们随时可以客观地将并购案与其它潜在的几十种投资机会做比较，其中也包含经由股票市场买进最好公司的部分股权，我们习惯性地进行比较，并购 vs 被动的投资，这是一昧地想要扩张经营版图的经理人很少做到的。

Talking to Time Magazine a few years back, Peter Drucker got to the heart of things: "I will tell you a secret: Dealmaking beats working. Dealmaking is exciting and fun, and working is grubby. Running anything is primarily an enormous amount of grubby detail work . . . dealmaking is romantic, sexy. That's why you have deals that make no sense."

管理大师彼得·德鲁克几年前在接受时代杂志的一次专访中，切中要点的提到：“让我告诉你一个秘密，促成交易比埋头苦干好，促成交易刺激有趣，而工作却尽是一些麻烦事。经营任何事业无可避免的是一大堆繁杂的工作，而促成交易相对的就很性感浪漫，而这也是为什么通常交易的发生都没什么道理可循。”

In making acquisitions, we have a further advantage: As payment, we can offer sellers a stock backed by an extraordinary collection of outstanding businesses. An individual or a family wishing to dispose of a single fine business, but also wishing to defer personal taxes indefinitely, is apt to find Berkshire stock a particularly comfortable holding. I believe, in fact, that this calculus played an important part in the two acquisitions for which we paid shares in 1995.

在从事并购案时，我们还有另一项优势，那就是在付款方式上，我们可以提供给卖方由众多优秀企业所组成的股份当作对价。当一家公司的老板或家族想要处分绩优的家族产业，同时希望相关的税负能够继续递延下去时，应该会发现伯克希尔的股票是一种相当好的选择。事实上，我相信这样的考量在我们 1995 年促成的两项并购案中发挥了重要作用。

Beyond that, sellers sometimes care about placing their companies in a corporate home that will both endure and provide pleasant, productive working conditions for their managers. Here again, Berkshire offers something special. Our managers operate with extraordinary autonomy. Additionally, our ownership structure enables sellers to know that when I say we are buying to keep, the promise means something. For our part, we like dealing with owners who care what happens to their companies and people. A buyer is likely to find fewer unpleasant surprises dealing with that type of seller than with one simply auctioning off his business.

此外，有些卖方也会关心他们的公司是否能够找到一个稳定可靠的美满归宿，可以让其经理人有一个良好的工作环境，而就这点而言，伯克希尔绝对与众不同，我们旗下事业的经理人拥有绝对的自主权，此外我们的股权结构使得卖方可以相信当我们在并购时，所做出的每一个承诺将会被信守，对我们而言，我们也希望能与真正关其公司与员工的老板打交道。就我们的经验而言，与这类的卖主打交道，比起那些一心要把所拥有的公司拍卖掉的家伙，通常会少许多令人不愉快的意外。

In addition to the foregoing being an explanation of our acquisition style, it is, of course, a not-so-subtle sales pitch. If you own or represent a business earning $25 million or more before tax, and it fits the criteria listed on page 23, just give me a call. Our discussion will be confidential. And if you aren't interested now, file our proposition in the back of your mind: We are never going to lose our appetite for buying companies with good economics and excellent management.

以上算是对于我们并购风格的一些解释，当然在这里我也要打一点小广告，如果你拥有或代表一家每年税前收益超过 2,500 万美元的公司，同时也符合我们后文列出的各项并购标准的话，记得打个电话给我，我们谈话的内容将会完全保密，当然若是你现在没有兴趣，也请你记住我们的提议，因为我们从来就不会失去买下拥有优良的竞争优势与杰出经理人的公司的兴趣。

Concluding this little dissertation on acquisitions, I can't resist repeating a tale told me last year by a corporate executive. The business he grew up in was a fine one, with a long-time record of leadership in its industry. Its main product, however, was distressingly glamorless. So several decades ago, the company hired a management consultant who - naturally - advised diversification, the then-current fad. ("Focus" was not yet in style.) Before long, the company acquired a number of businesses, each after the consulting firm had gone through a long - and expensive - acquisition study. And the outcome? Said the executive sadly, "When we started, we were getting 100% of our earnings from the original business. After ten years, we were getting 150%."

作为这篇并购论文的一个总结，我忍不住再重复一遍，去年一位企业经理人告诉我的一则小故事：他提到他原来经营一家很好的公司，在其所处的行业拥有长期的领导地位，只是其前景显得有些黯淡，所以几十年前，这家公司特别聘请一家管理顾问公司，很自然的管理顾问建议他们应该要多元化经营，这在当时还是股风潮(聚焦主业的论调还未成形)，不久之后，这家公司在经过顾问公司一连串冗长且收费昂贵的并购调查之后，陆续买进了好几家公司，你一定会想要问，最后结果如何？这位主管很难过的说，一开始我们的收益 100%是来自于我们原来的本业，但是过了十年后，这个比例变成 150%！(多元化➡多元恶化)