巴菲特致股东的信（1999年）③别处读不到的经营故事

A Managerial Story You Will Never Read Elsewhere

Berkshire's collection of managers is unusual in several important ways. As one example, a very high percentage of these men and women are independently wealthy, having made fortunes in the businesses that they run. They work neither because they need the money nor because they are contractually obligated to -- we have no contracts at Berkshire. Rather, they work long and hard because they love their businesses. And I use the word "their" advisedly, since these managers are truly in charge -- there are no show-and-tell presentations in Omaha, no budgets to be approved by headquarters, no dictums issued about capital expenditures. We simply ask our managers to run their companies as if these are the sole asset of their families and will remain so for the next century.

别处读不到的经营故事

伯克希尔的经营团队在许多方面都与众不同，举个例子来说，这些经理人大部分都已经相当有钱，靠着自己经营的事业而发家致富，他们之所以愿意继续留在工作岗位上，并不是因为缺钱或是有任何合约上的限制，事实上伯克希尔并没有跟他们签订任何契约，他们之所以辛勤工作，完全是因为他们热爱自己的事业，而我之所以用“他们”这个字眼，是因为他们对这些事业完全负全责，不需要到奥马哈做演示汇报，也不需要编预算到总部核准，对于任何开支也没有繁复的规定，我们只是简单地要他们就像是经营自己祖传百年的事业一样来对待即可。

Charlie and I try to behave with our managers just as we attempt to behave with Berkshire's shareholders, treating both groups as we would wish to be treated if our positions were reversed. Though "working" means nothing to me financially, I love doing it at Berkshire for some simple reasons: It gives me a sense of achievement, a freedom to act as I see fit and an opportunity to interact daily with people I like and trust. Why should our managers -- accomplished artists at what they do -- see things differently?

查理跟我和旗下经理人保持互动的模式，与我们和股东们保持的互动模式一致，那就是换位思考，试着尽量站在对方的立场为大家设想，虽然我本人早就可以不必为了钱而工作，不过我还是很喜欢现在在伯克希尔所做的一切，原因很简单，因为这让我很有成就感、可以自由的去做我认为应该做的事，同时让我每天都有机会与欣赏及信赖的人一起共事，所以为什么我们的经理人，在各自产业卓然有成的大师，一定要有不同的想法呢？

In their relations with Berkshire, our managers often appear to be hewing to President Kennedy's charge, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Here's a remarkable story from last year: It's about R. C. Willey, Utah's dominant home furnishing business, which Berkshire purchased from Bill Child and his family in 1995. Bill and most of his managers are Mormons, and for this reason R. C. Willey's stores have never operated on Sunday. This is a difficult way to do business: Sunday is the favorite shopping day for many customers. Bill, nonetheless, stuck to his principles -- and while doing so built his business from $250,000 of annual sales in 1954, when he took over, to $342 million in 1999.

在与伯克希尔母公司的关系上，我们的经理人通常恪守肯尼迪总统曾说过的名言，“不要问国家为你做了什么，问问你为国家做了什么？”去年一个最明显的例子是犹它州家具业的霸主威利家具 R.C.Willey，伯克希尔是在 1995 年从 Bill Child 家族买下这家公司的，Bill 跟他大部分的经营团队都是摩门教徒，也因此他们的店周日从来不开张，这样的惯例实在是不适合用在做生意上，因为对大部分的顾客来说，周日正是他们外出血拼购物的大好时机，不过尽管如此，Bill 还是坚守这项原则，而且将这家店从 1954 年他接手时的 25 万美金营业额，一路成长到 1999 年的 3.42 亿美元。

Bill felt that R. C. Willey could operate successfully in markets outside of Utah and in 1997 suggested that we open a store in Boise. I was highly skeptical about taking a no-Sunday policy into a new territory where we would be up against entrenched rivals open seven days a week. Nevertheless, this was Bill's business to run. So, despite my reservations, I told him to follow both his business judgment and his religious convictions.

Bill 认为 R.C.Willey 应该也能够在犹它州以外的地区成功开拓市场，因此在 1997 年我们计划在爱达荷州(Idaho)首府博伊西(Boise)设立一家分店，不过我还是相当怀疑这种周日打烊的经营策略能否在陌生的地区抵抗对手每周七天无休的强力竞争，当然由于这是 Bill 负责经营的事业，所以尽管我对这点持保留态度，但我还是尊重他的商业判断与宗教信仰。

Bill then insisted on a truly extraordinary proposition: He would personally buy the land and build the store -- for about $9 million as it turned out -- and would sell it to us at his cost if it proved to be successful. On the other hand, if sales fell short of his expectations, we could exit the business without paying Bill a cent. This outcome, of course, would leave him with a huge investment in an empty building. I told him that I appreciated his offer but felt that if Berkshire was going to get the upside it should also take the downside. Bill said nothing doing: If there was to be failure because of his religious beliefs, he wanted to take the blow personally.

Bill 后来甚至提出一个非常特别的提案，那就是他愿意先花 900 万美元，以私人的名义买下土地，等建筑物盖好，确定营运良好之后，再以成本价卖回给我们，而要是营运不如预期，那么公司可以不必付出一毛钱，虽然这样他个人必须独力承担庞大的损失，对此我告诉 Bill 很感谢他的提议，但若伯克希尔想要获取投资的回报，那么它也必须同时承担可能的风险，Bill 没有多说什么，只是表示如果因为个人的宗教信仰而使得公司经营不善，他希望能够独力承担这个苦果。

The store opened last August and immediately became a huge success. Bill thereupon turned the property over to us -- including some extra land that had appreciated significantly -- and we wrote him a check for his cost. And get this: Bill refused to take a dime of interest on the capital he had tied up over the two years.

这家店后来顺利于去年 8 月开幕，立即造成当地的轰动，Bill 随即就将产权移交我们，其中包含一些地价已高涨的土地，并收下我们以成本价开出的支票，还有一点必须特别说明，对于两年来陆续投入的资金，Bill 婉拒收取任何利息。

If a manager has behaved similarly at some other public corporation, I haven't heard about it. You can understand why the opportunity to partner with people like Bill Child causes me to tap dance to work every morning.

从来就没有一家公开发行公司的经理人会这样做，至少我个人没有听说过，所以各位不难想象能够与这样的经理人共事，让我每天早上上班时都雀跃不已。

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A footnote: After our "soft" opening in August, we had a grand opening of the Boise store about a month later. Naturally, I went there to cut the ribbon (your Chairman, I wish to emphasize, is good for something). In my talk I told the crowd how sales had far exceeded expectations, making us, by a considerable margin, the largest home furnishings store in Idaho. Then, as the speech progressed, my memory miraculously began to improve. By the end of my talk, it all had come back to me: Opening a store in Boise had been my idea.

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附带一提的是，在八月简单的开幕仪式之后，一个月后我们在 Boise 举行了盛大的开业仪式，自然我也受邀参加剪彩(我必须强调看来你们的董事长还是有点用处的)，在致词时我告诉在场的来宾销售状况远超过我们当初的预期，让我们成为爱达荷州最大的家具店，远远将其它同业拋在脑后，而等到致词快结束时，我突然想起来，当初决定在 Boise 开店的，正是我的主意。