巴菲特致股东的信（2004年）⑤金融和金融产品

Finance and Finance Products

金融和金融产品

Last year in this section we discussed a potpourri of activities. In this report, we’ll skip over several that are now of lesser importance: Berkadia is down to tag ends; Value Capital has added other investors, negating our expectation that we would need to consolidate its financials into ours; and the trading operation that I run continues to shrink.

去年在这一部分，我们讨论了一系列业务，今年我们将一些比较不重要的省略掉，Berkadia 已接进尾声，ValueCapital 也有新的投资者加入，降低其并入伯克希尔报表的必要性，至于我个人负责操刀的交易业务也持续萎缩。

•Both of Berkshire’s leasing operations rebounded last year. At CORT (office furniture), earnings remain inadequate, but are trending upward. XTRA disposed of its container and intermodal businesses in order to concentrate on trailer leasing, long its strong suit. Overhead has been reduced, asset utilization is up and decent profits are now being achieved under Bill Franz, the company’s new CEO.

• 伯克希尔旗下两项租赁业务去年有所起色，办公家具租赁 CORT 的收益虽依旧不佳，但已有好转，XTRA 出售了集装箱及联运业务，以专注于货柜拖车租赁的强项业务，在现任总裁 Bill Franz 的领导下，费用开支大幅减少，资产运用效率提高，获得了不错的利润。

•The wind-down of Gen Re Securities continues. We decided to exit this derivative operation three years ago, but getting out is easier said than done. Though derivative instruments are purported to be highly liquid – and though we have had the benefit of a benign market while liquidating ours – we still had 2,890 contracts outstanding at yearend, down from 23,218 at the peak. Like Hell, derivative trading is easy to enter but difficult to leave. (Other similarities come to mind as well.)

• 通用再保险证券业务的清盘动作仍在持续当中，我们在三年前决定退出这个市场，但要退出谈何容易。虽然衍生品理论上流动性颇高，且以目前温和的市场环境也有利于我们的退出，但截至年底，我们依然有 2890 份合约缠身(高峰时有 23218 份合约)。就像是地狱一样，衍生品市场易进难出。（当然其它还有很多相似的地方。）

Gen Re’s derivative contracts have always been required to be marked to market, and I believe the company’s management conscientiously tried to make realistic “marks.” The market prices of derivatives, however, can be very fuzzy in a world in which settlement of a transaction is sometimes decades away and often involves multiple variables as well. In the interim the marks influence the managerial and trading bonuses that are paid annually. It’s small wonder that phantom profits are often recorded.

通用再保险证券的衍生性金融合约要求随时以市价反应，而我也确信该公司的管理层已尽力做出反应现实的计价，但衍生品的市价却由于真正结算的时点可能要在几十年以后，而使得市价很难估算，同时还须仰赖非常多个变量，但以此为基础来计算的奖金却是每年发放，这也难怪虚幻的获利数字满天乱飞。

Investors should understand that in all types of financial institutions, rapid growth sometimes masks major underlying problems (and occasionally fraud). The real test of the earning power of a derivatives operation is what it achieves after operating for an extended period in a no-growth mode. You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.

投资人必须了解在各种金融机构当中，快速成长通常蕴藏天大的问题，有时甚至是重大舞弊，要真正测试衍生品业务的获利能力，必须是在无成长的状态下运营一段时间看看结果。你只有在等潮退了才知道是谁在裸泳。

•After 40 years, we’ve finally generated a little synergy at Berkshire: Clayton Homes is doing well and that’s in part due to its association with Berkshire. The manufactured home industry continues to reside in the intensive care unit of Corporate America, having sold less than 135,000 new homes last year, about the same as in 2003. Volume in these years was the lowest since 1962, and it was also only about 40% of annual sales during the years 1995-99. That era, characterized by irresponsible financing and naïve funders, was a fool’s paradise for the industry.

• 历经 40 年，伯克希尔终于展现出一点协同效应，Clayton 表现的相当不错，部分原因当然要归功于伯克希尔的加持，预制房屋行业目前仍处于 ICU 阶段，去年售出的新屋不超过 13.5 万套，与上一年大致持平，创 1962 年以来新低，约 90 年代高峰时的 40%，当时在不负责任业者的推波助澜下，达到前所未有的疯狂地步。

Because one major lender after another has fled the field, financing continues to bedevil manufacturers, retailers and purchasers of manufactured homes. Here Berkshire’s support has proven valuable to Clayton. We stand ready to fund whatever makes sense, and last year Clayton’s management found much that qualified.

由于主要的贷款人纷纷撤离这个市场，使得财务问题一直困扰着预制房屋厂商、零售商和消费者，此时伯克希尔的支持对 Clayton 来说，可谓久旱逢甘霖，只要合理，我们愿意随时提供资金，而一年下来，Clayton 也不负我们所望。

As we explained in our 2003 report, we believe in using borrowed money to support profitable, interest-bearing receivables. At the beginning of last year, we had borrowed $2 billion to relend to Clayton (at a one percentage-point markup) and by January 2005 the total was $7.35 billion. Most of the dollars added were borrowed by us on January 4, 2005, to finance a seasoned portfolio that Clayton purchased on December 30, 2004 from a bank exiting the business.

在 2003 年的年报中我就曾解释过，我们认为融资借钱来支应可收取利息的应收款项将有利可图，去年初我们转借 20 亿美元给 Clayton，并收取 1%的利差，到 2005 年 1 月 4 日，这笔借款增加为 73.5 亿美元，主要是用于 Clayton 从一家 2004 年 12 月 30 日退出该业务的银行手中买下的应收款组合。

We now have two additional portfolio purchases in the works, totaling about $1.6 billion, but it’s quite unlikely that we will secure others of any significance. Therefore, Clayton’s receivables (in which originations will roughly offset payoffs) will probably hover around $9 billion for some time and should deliver steady earnings. This pattern will be far different from that of the past, in which Clayton, like all major players in its industry, “securitized” its receivables, causing earnings to be front-ended. In the last two years, the securitization market has dried up. The limited funds available today come only at higher cost and with harsh terms. Had Clayton remained independent in this period, it would have had mediocre earnings as it struggled with financing.

目前还有另外两笔应收款组合洽谈中，金额合计 16 亿美元，不过这大概是最后一笔大额的交易，所以Clayton 帐上的应收款组合将会一直停留在 90 亿美元左右的水准，(新增的金额大约会被偿还的帐款所抵消)，并持续贡献稳定的收益，这景况与业者过去习惯将应收帐款证券化刻意让收益提早实现的做法截然不同，过去两年，应收帐款证券化的市场几乎停摆，就算能取得资金，其利率与条件都相当严酷，如果 Clayton 依旧单打独斗，将只能维持惨淡的经营局面。

In April, Clayton completed the acquisition of Oakwood Homes and is now the industry’s largest producer and retailer of manufactured homes. We love putting more assets in the hands of Kevin Clayton, the company’s CEO. He is a prototype Berkshire manager. Today, Clayton has 11,837 employees, up from 7,136 when we purchased it, and Charlie and I are pleased that Berkshire has been useful in facilitating this growth.

去年 4 月份，Clayton 顺利买下 Oakwood，一举成为预制房屋业界最大的制造与销售商，我们乐意将更多的资源交予该公司总裁 Kevin，他是典型的伯克希尔经理人，当初我们买下 Clayton 时，该公司员工有 7 千多人，目前已增加到 1.1 万人，查理跟我很高兴能与他们共同参与成长的过程。

For simplicity’s sake, we include all of Clayton’s earnings in this sector, though a sizable portion of these are derived from areas other than consumer finance.

为了简化起见，我们将 Clayton 所有的收益归类到消费金融项下，虽然它还有一大部分的收益不属于此项。