巴菲特致股东的信（1995年）
⑦报告收益来源

Sources of Reported Earnings

     The table below shows the main sources of Berkshire's reported earnings. In this presentation, purchase-premium charges are not assigned to the specific businesses to which they apply, but are instead aggregated and shown separately. This procedure lets you view the earnings of our businesses as they would have been reported had we not purchased them. This form of presentation seems to us to be more useful to investors and managers than one utilizing GAAP, which requires purchase-premiums to be charged off, business-by-business. The total earnings we show in the table are, of course, identical to the GAAP total in our audited financial statements.

报告收益来源

下表显示伯克希尔报告收益的主要来源，在这张表中收购的溢价从具体公司分离出来，单独加总列示，之所以这样做是为了让旗下各事业的收益状况，不因我们的投资而有所影响，过去我一再地强调我们认为这样的表达方式，较之 GAAP 要求以个别企业基础做调整，不管是对投资者或是管理者来说，更有帮助。当然，最后损益加总的数字仍然会与经会计师查核的数字一致。

(1) Includes R.C. Willey from June 29, 1995.
(2) Includes Helzberg's from April 30, 1995.
(3) Jewelry earnings were included in "Other" in 1994.
(4) Excludes interest expense of Finance Businesses.

(1)包含 R.C.Willey 自 1995 年 6 月 29 日以后的收益
(2)包含 Helzberg 自 1995 年 4 月 30 日以后的收益
(3)珠宝事业 1994 年的收益包含在其他项目之下
(4)不包含金融业务的利息支出

     A large amount of information about these businesses is given on pages 41-52, where you will also find our segment earnings reported on a GAAP basis. In addition, on pages 57-63, we have rearranged Berkshire's financial data into four segments on a non-GAAP basis, a presentation that corresponds to the way Charlie and I think about the company. Our intent is to supply you with the financial information that we would wish you to give us if our positions were reversed.

有关这些业务的大量资料载于第41-52页，你会发现我们的分部盈利按公认会计原则呈报。此外，在第57-63页，我们在非公认会计原则的基础上将伯克希尔的财务数据重新整理为四个部分，这符合查理和我对公司的看法。我们的目的是希望能够给大家，所有查理跟我认为在评估伯克希尔价值时，应该必要的信息。 

     At Berkshire, we believe in Charlie's dictum - "Just tell me the bad news; the good news will take care of itself" - and that is the behavior we expect of our managers when they are reporting to us. Consequently, I also owe you - Berkshire's owners - a report on three operations that, though they continued to earn decent (or better) returns on invested capital, experienced a decline in earnings last year. Each encountered a different type of problem.

在伯克希尔，我们相信查理的格言：只管告诉我坏消息，因为好消息绝对会不请自来。而这也是我们希望旗下事业经理人向我们报告时所采取的态度，也因此身为伯克希尔负责人的我有义务向大家报告，去年总共有三个业务营运发生问题，虽然投资在他们身上的资金所取得的回报率仍然相当的不错(或甚至是更好)，但每个业务都面临了不同的问题。

     Our shoe business operated in an industry that suffered depressed earnings throughout last year, and many of our competitors made only marginal profits or worse. That means we at least maintained, and in some instances widened, our competitive superiority. So I have no doubt that our shoe operations will climb back to top-grade earnings in the future. In other words, though the turn has not yet occurred, we believe you should view last year's figures as reflecting a cyclical problem, not a secular one.

去年整个鞋业都面临困境，很多同业只能勉强维持边际利润，有的亏钱。当然这也代表在某个层面来说，至少我们与同业间仍维持着甚至是扩大了竞争差距，所以我依然坚信在未来，我们的鞋类事业一定能够恢复以往的高收益，换句话说，虽然目前尚未看到反转的迹象，但我认为大家可以将去年的数字视为周期性的底部，而不是永远的谷底。

     The Buffalo News, though still doing very well in comparison to other newspapers, is another story. In this case, industry trends are not good. In the 1991 Annual Report, I explained that newspapers had lost a notch in their economic attractiveness from the days when they appeared to have a bullet-proof franchise. Today, the industry retains its excellent economics, but has lost still another notch. Over time, we expect the competitive strength of newspapers to gradually erode, though the industry should nevertheless remain a fine business for many years to come.

至于布法罗新闻报的表现，较之同业虽然还是相当不错，却也面临另外的问题，那就是报业前景不佳，在1991 年的年报中，我就曾说过，相比以往金刚不摧的特许经营权，报业已失去一大部分竞争优势，虽然时至今日，报业经营还算稳定，但却逐渐失去另一项竞争优势，我们预期报业的竞争力将与日剧减，虽然这产业在未来可见的年度内还是一项不错的投资。

     Berkshire's most difficult problem is World Book, which operates in an industry beset by increasingly tough competition from CD-ROM and on-line offerings. True, we are still profitable, a claim that perhaps no other print encyclopedia can make. But our sales and earnings trends have gone in the wrong direction. At the end of 1995, World Book made major changes in the way it distributes its product, stepped up its efforts with electronic products and sharply reduced its overhead costs. It will take time for us to evaluate the effects of these initiatives, but we are confident they will significantly improve our viability. 

在伯克希尔目前最棘手的就属世界百科全书，它正面临来自 CD 与网络的激烈竞争，虽然我们仍能勉强维持盈利，(大概没有其它百科全书业者能做到)，不过销售和盈利却直线下滑，因此在 1995 年底，世界百科全书决定大幅改变营销方式，加大电子产品并大幅降低营运成本，当然这些做法的成效还有待观察，不过我个人相信此举绝对有助于我们继续维持生存。

     All of our operations, including those whose earnings fell last year, benefit from exceptionally talented and dedicated managers. Were we to have the choice of any other executives now working in their industries, there is not one of our managers we would replace.

我们旗下所有的事业，也包含几个盈利大幅衰退的公司，一直都由杰出专注的经理人所经营，就算我们有机会能够挖到业界最好的经理人，但我们还是不会考虑将给他们取代掉。

     Many of our managers don't have to work for a living, but simply go out and perform every day for the same reason that wealthy golfers stay on the tour: They love both doing what they do and doing it well. To describe them as working may be a misnomer - they simply prefer spending much of their time on a productive activity at which they excel to spending it on leisure activities. Our job is to provide an environment that will keep them feeling this way, and so far we seem to have succeeded: Thinking back over the 1965-95 period, I can't recall that a single key manager has left Berkshire to join another employer.

我们有许多经理人根本就不必靠这份工作过活，但每天还是一样全力以赴，就像是身价不菲的职业高尔夫球选手还是继续打巡回赛一样，他们喜欢现在从事的工作，而且要把它做的很好，把他们形容是在工作或许是个错误的名词，他们只不过是把他们大部分的时间花在他们所擅长的生产活动而非休闲活动之上而已，而我的工作则是努力提供一个让他们保持这样感觉的环境，截至目前为止，我们做的还算是相当成功，回顾过去 1965 年到1995 年这三十年间，伯克希尔没有任何一位关键经理人发生跳槽的情况。

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