巴菲特致股东的信（2000年）⑧详实客观的财务报告

Full and Fair Reporting

At Berkshire, full reporting means giving you the information that we would wish you to give to us if our positions were reversed. What Charlie and I would want under that circumstance would be all the important facts about current operations as well as the CEO’s frank view of the long-term economic characteristics of the business. We would expect both a lot of financial details and a discussion of any significant data we would need to interpret what was presented.

详实客观的财务报告

在伯克希尔，所谓详实的报告代表着今天如果角色互换，我希望各位能够提供所有我们想要知道的信息，这包含了目前经营的重大信息以及 CEO 对于公司长远发展的真正看法，当并辅以相关的财务资料。

When Charlie and I read reports, we have no interest in pictures of personnel, plants or products. References to EBITDA make us shudder ¾ does management think the tooth fairy pays for capital expenditures? We’re very suspicious of accounting methodology that is vague or unclear, since too often that means management wishes to hide something. And we don’t want to read messages that a public relations department or consultant has turned out. Instead, we expect a company’s CEO to explain in his or her own words what’s happening.

当查理跟我在阅读财务报告时，我们对于人员、工厂或产品的介绍没有多大兴趣，提到息税折旧摊销前收益(EBITDA)更是让我们不寒而栗，难道管理层真的认为牙仙子会为资本支出买单吗？对于那些模糊不清的会计原则，我们一向抱持怀疑的态度，因为管理层通常都会藉此掩盖来一些事实，此外我们也不想读那些由公关部门或顾问所提供的资料，我们希望能够由 CEO 自己亲自解释实际发生的状况。

For us, fair reporting means getting information to our 300,000 "partners" simultaneously, or as close to that mark as possible. We therefore put our annual and quarterly financials on the Internet between the close of the market on a Friday and the following morning. By our doing that, shareholders and other interested investors have timely access to these important releases and also have a reasonable amount of time to digest the information they include before the markets open on Monday. This year our quarterly information will be available on the Saturdays of May 12, August 11, and November 10. The 2001 annual report will be posted on March 9.

对我们来说，公平的报告意味着我们 30 万股东可以同时得到相同的信息，至少能够尽可能地做到，因此，我们通常将季报与年报在周五收盘后通过网络统一对外公布，如此一来，股东们与所有关心伯克希尔的投资人都可以及时的得到重要的讯息，同时在周一开盘之前，有足够的时间吸收消化相关的信息，今年我们的季报分别会在 5月 12 号、8 月 11 号及 11 月 10 号周六公布，至于 2001 年的年报则会在 3 月 9 号公开。

We applaud the work that Arthur Levitt, Jr., until recently Chairman of the SEC, has done in cracking down on the corporate practice of "selective disclosure" that had spread like cancer in recent years. Indeed, it had become virtually standard practice for major corporations to "guide" analysts or large holders to earnings expectations that were intended either to be on the nose or a tiny bit below what the company truly expected to earn. Through the selectively dispersed hints, winks and nods that companies engaged in, speculatively-minded institutions and advisors were given an information edge over investment-oriented individuals. This was corrupt behavior, unfortunately embraced by both Wall Street and corporate America.

对于证监会主席小亚瑟·莱维特(Arthur Levitt,Jr.)近来大力打击企业如癌症般扩散的选择性披露的做法喝采，确实近年来许多大企业引导分析师或大股东的收益预期刚好符合公司本身的收益预期(或只差一点)几乎已成常态，通过选择性地披露信息，不论公司是如何挤眉弄眼，投机性的机构与投资顾问因此得到比以投资为导向的投资者更多的内部信息，这实在是一种堕落的行为，不幸的这在华尔街与美国企业间广受欢迎。

Thanks to Chairman Levitt, whose general efforts on behalf of investors were both tireless and effective, corporations are now required to treat all of their owners equally. The fact that this reform came about because of coercion rather than conscience should be a matter of shame for CEOs and their investor relations departments.

由于 Levitt 主席为投资人所做的努力，美国企业现在才得以被要求要公平对待所有的股东与投资人，同时我们也为这些 CEO 与公关部门基于被动而非主动才这样做感到羞耻。

One further thought while I’m on my soapbox: Charlie and I think it is both deceptive and dangerous for CEOs to predict growth rates for their companies. They are, of course, frequently egged on to do so by both analysts and their own investor relations departments. They should resist, however, because too often these predictions lead to trouble.

最后站在这个肥皂箱上，我再发表一点个人的看法，那就是查理跟我认为 CEO 预估公司未来成长率是相当危险且不当的，他们通常是在分析师与公关部门要求下才这样做的，但我认为他们应该要坚决抗拒，因为这样做通常会惹来许多不必要的麻烦。

It’s fine for a CEO to have his own internal goals and, in our view, it’s even appropriate for the CEO to publicly express some hopes about the future, if these expectations are accompanied by sensible caveats. But for a major corporation to predict that its per-share earnings will grow over the long term at, say, 15% annually is to court trouble.

CEO 自己心中有一个目标不是件坏事，甚至我们认为 CEO 公开发表个人心中的愿景是很好的一件事，如果这些期望能够附带合理的条件，但如果一家大公司公开的宣称每股收益长期可以维持 15%的年成长率的话，那肯定会招致许多不必要的麻烦。

That’s true because a growth rate of that magnitude can only be maintained by a very small percentage of large businesses. Here’s a test: Examine the record of, say, the 200 highest earning companies from 1970 or 1980 and tabulate how many have increased per-share earnings by 15% annually since those dates. You will find that only a handful have. I would wager you a very significant sum that fewer than 10 of the 200 most profitable companies in 2000 will attain 15% annual growth in earnings-per-share over the next 20 years.

其原因在于这种高标准只有在极少数的企业才有可能做得到，让我们做一个简单的测试，根据历史记录，1970 年与 1980 年代，在 200 家收益最高的公司当中，算算到底有几家在此之后能够继续维持 15%的年收益成长率，你会发现，能够达到这个目标的公司少之又少，我可以跟你打赌，在 2000 年盈利最高的 200 家公司当中，能够在接下来的 20 年年平均成长率达到 15%的公司，绝对不超过 10 家。

The problem arising from lofty predictions is not just that they spread unwarranted optimism. Even more troublesome is the fact that they corrode CEO behavior. Over the years, Charlie and I have observed many instances in which CEOs engaged in uneconomic operating maneuvers so that they could meet earnings targets they had announced. Worse still, after exhausting all that operating acrobatics would do, they sometimes played a wide variety of accounting games to "make the numbers." These accounting shenanigans have a way of snowballing: Once a company moves earnings from one period to another, operating shortfalls that occur thereafter require it to engage in further accounting maneuvers that must be even more "heroic." These can turn fudging into fraud. (More money, it has been noted, has been stolen with the point of a pen than at the point of a gun.)

过高的预估不但造成没有根据的乐观，麻烦的是此举还会导致 CEO 行为的腐化，这么多年来，查理跟我已经看过很多 CEO 不专注于本业而热衷于运用一些非经济的手段来达成他们先前所做的收益预估，更糟的的是，在用尽营运上的各种手段之后，被逼得走投无路的经理人最后还会运用各种会计方法无所不用其极的做假帐，这种会计骗术会产生滚雪球效应，一旦今天你挪用以后的收益，明天你就要变本加厉地挪用以后的收益，到最后从造假演变为贪污，(毕竟用笔偷钱要比用枪抢钱要来得容易得多了)。

Charlie and I tend to be leery of companies run by CEOs who woo investors with fancy predictions. A few of these managers will prove prophetic ¾ but others will turn out to be congenital optimists, or even charlatans. Unfortunately, it’s not easy for investors to know in advance which species they are dealing with.

查理跟我对于那些习惯以绚丽的收益预估吸引投资人的 CEO 所带领的公司，总是报以怀疑的态度，或许少数的经理人确实能说到做到，但大部分的经理人最后都变成无可救药的乐观派，甚至可以说是骗子，不幸的是，投资人实在是很难事先分辨出他们到底是在跟哪一种人打交道。

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I’ve warned you in the past that you should not believe everything you read or hear about Berkshire ¾ even when it is published or broadcast by a prestigious news organization. Indeed, erroneous reports are particularly dangerous when they are circulated by highly-respected members of the media, simply because most readers and listeners know these outlets to be generally credible and therefore believe what they say.

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过去我就一再警告大家千万不要将你在外面听到或读到有关伯克希尔的任何消息信以为真，即使这消息来自最具权威的新闻单位也一样，错误报导的杀伤力确实相当高，特别是它们是从令人崇敬的媒体人士口中传出来的，因为读者与观众一向倾向相信这些渠道所传出来的讯息。

An example is a glaring error about Berkshire’s activities that appeared in the December 29 issue of The Wall Street Journal, a generally excellent paper that I have for all of my life found useful. On the front page (and above the fold, as they say) The Journal published a news brief that said, in unequivocal terms, that we were buying bonds of Conseco and Finova. This item directed the reader to the lead story of the Money and Investing section. There, in the second paragraph of the story, The Journal reported, again without any qualification, that Berkshire was buying Conseco and Finova bonds, adding that Berkshire had invested "several hundred million dollars" in each. Only in the 18th paragraph of the story (which by that point had jumped to an inside page) did the paper hedge a bit, saying that our Conseco purchases had been disclosed by "people familiar with the matter."

有关伯克希尔错误讯息最离谱的是刊登在 12 月 29 号华尔街日报的一则新闻，那是一份一直以来我认为相当有用的报纸，在当天的头版上(而且是头条)，刊登了一则简短的讯息，以肯定的语气报导伯克希尔正大举买进Conseco 与 Finova 的公司债，这条消息又导引读者到投资理财专栏的专题报导，在那篇文章的第二段，华尔街日报再一次毫无保留的指出伯克希尔正积极买进 Conseco 与 Finova 的公司债，并强调金额已达数亿美元之谱，只有到了文章的第 18 段(那时文章已换到新闻的内页)，文章才含蓄地表示买进 Conseco 的消息是由熟悉内情的人士所透露。

Well, not that familiar. True, we had purchased bonds and bank debt of Finova ¾ though the report was wildly inaccurate as to the amount. But to this day neither Berkshire nor I have ever bought a share of stock or a bond of Conseco.

嗯！这篇报导不太对，没错，我们确实买进 Finova 的公司债与银行债权，只是金额与报纸所说的有很大的出入，而但到目前为止，伯克希尔公司以及我本人从来就没有买进过 Conseco 任何的股份或者是债券。

Berkshire is normally covered by a Journal reporter in Chicago who is both accurate and conscientious. In this case, however, the "scoop" was the product of a New York reporter for the paper. Indeed, the 29th was a busy day for him: By early afternoon, he had repeated the story on CNBC. Immediately, in lemming-like manner, other respected news organizations, relying solely on the Journal, began relating the same "facts." The result: Conseco stock advanced sharply during the day on exceptional volume that placed it ninth on the NYSE most-active list.

有一位芝加哥报纸的记者长期追踪伯克希尔，其报导就相当详实严谨，至于这一回，这则“独家新闻”则是纽约报社记者所捅的偻子，我想 29 号当天应该是他相当忙碌的一天，因为下午他又在 CNBC 重复相同的报导，过了不久，一窝蜂效应产生，其它的新闻媒体开始跟进争相报导相关新闻，其根据来源就完全只靠这则报导，结果竟造成 Conseco 的股价在当天爆量大涨，成为当天纽约交易所前十大成交量的公司之一。

During all of the story’s iterations, I never heard or read the word "rumor." Apparently reporters and editors, who generally pride themselves on their careful use of language, just can’t bring themselves to attach this word to their accounts. But what description would fit more precisely? Certainly not the usual "sources say" or "it has been reported."

在整个故事的过程中，我从来没有听到或读到过“谣言”这个词。显然，记者和编辑通常对自己谨慎使用语言感到自豪，他们只是不能让自己将这个词与他们的报道联系起来。但什么样的描述更符合呢?当然不是通常的“据消息人士称”或“据报道”。

A column entitled "Today’s Rumors," however, would not equate with the self-image of the many news organizations that think themselves above such stuff. These members of the media would feel that publishing such acknowledged fluff would be akin to L’Osservatore Romano initiating a gossip column. But rumors are what these organizations often publish and broadcast, whatever euphemism they duck behind. At a minimum, readers deserve honest terminology ¾ a warning label that will protect their financial health in the same way that smokers whose physical health is at risk are given a warning.

若把这个专栏取名为“今日谣传”，这实在是很难让新闻媒体将之与自我形象划上等号，这些新闻从业人员可能会觉得刊登这类明显的错误就好象是 L'Osservatore Romano(该报专门追踪教宗与教廷的讯息)开辟了一个小道消息专栏一样，这些媒体机构确实经常广泛报导各种未经证实的谣言，不管他们用了多少借口作推托，最起码，读者应该看到诚实的用语-以保护投资人本身的财产身家，这就好象香烟盒上都会印有吸烟有害健康的警语。

The Constitution’s First Amendment allows the media to print or say almost anything. Journalism’s First Principle should require that the media be scrupulous in deciding what that will be.

美国宪法第一修正案允许媒体自由刊登或发表任何信息，但新闻学的第一项原则却要求媒体在判断此真义时必须要小心谨慎。