巴菲特致股东的信（2005年）①概述

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:

致伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司所有股东：

Our gain in net worth during 2005 was $5.6 billion, which increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 6.4%. Over the last 41 years (that is, since present management took over) book value has grown from $19 to $59,377, a rate of 21.5% compounded annually.*

公司 2005 年的账面价值增加 56 亿美元，A/B 股每股的账面价值增加 6.4%(标普 4.9%)，自现任管理层接手的 41 年以来，每股账面价值由当初的 19 美元成长到目前的 59377 美元，年复合成长率约为 21.5%。

*All figures used in this report apply to Berkshire’s A shares, the successor to the only stock that the company had outstanding before 1996. The B shares have an economic interest equal to 1/30th that of the A.

*本报告中使用的所有数据均适用于伯克希尔的A股，这是公司在1996年之前唯一发行在外的股票。B股的经济权益等于A股的1/30。

Berkshire had a decent year in 2005. We initiated five acquisitions (two of which have yet to close) and most of our operating subsidiaries prospered. Even our insurance business in its entirety did well, though Hurricane Katrina inflicted record losses on both Berkshire and the industry. We estimate our loss from Katrina at $2.5 billion – and her ugly sisters, Rita and Wilma, cost us an additional $.9 billion.

2005 年伯克希尔的表现相当不错。我们进行了 5 起并购，其中 2 起并购已经完成，而且我们下属的大多数业务经营良好。尽管卡特里娜飓风(Katrina)让伯克希尔公司和整个保险行业遭受到了创纪录的巨大损失。估计卡特里娜飓风给我们造成的损失高达 25 亿美元，她那两个同样可恶的妹妹丽塔(Rita)和威尔玛(Wilma)飓风，又让我们进一步损失了 9 亿美元。

Credit GEICO – and its brilliant CEO, Tony Nicely – for our stellar insurance results in a disaster-ridden year. One statistic stands out: In just two years, GEICO improved its productivity by 32%. Remarkably, employment fell by 4% even as policy count grew by 26% – and more gains are in store. When we drive unit costs down in such a dramatic manner, we can offer ever-greater value to our customers. The payoff: Last year, GEICO gained market-share, earned commendable profits and strengthened its brand. If you have a new son or grandson in 2006, name him Tony.

在 2005 年这个巨灾之年我们的保险业务能够取得如此辉煌的业绩，应该归功于 GEICO 及其杰出的首席执行官托尼·莱斯利。统计数据清楚地表明，在过去仅仅两年时间里，GEICO 经营效率提高了 32%。尤为引人注目的是，保单数量增长了 26%，收益大幅增长，与此同时，公司员工数量却减少了 4%。由于我们能够如此显著地降低单位运营成本，所以能为客户创造更多的价值。这样的结果如何呢？GEICO 去年赢得了更多的市场份额，获得了令人羡慕的盈利，并进一步提高了品牌的影响力。如果你 2006 年喜得子孙的话，给他起名叫 Tony。

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My goal in writing this report is to give you the information you need to estimate Berkshire’s intrinsic value. I say “estimate” because calculations of intrinsic value, though all-important, are necessarily imprecise and often seriously wrong. The more uncertain the future of a business, the more possibility there is that the calculation will be wildly off-base. (For an explanation of intrinsic value, see pages 77 – 78.) Here Berkshire has some advantages: a wide variety of relatively-stable earnings streams, combined with great liquidity and minimum debt. These factors mean that Berkshire’s intrinsic value can be more precisely calculated than can the intrinsic value of most companies.

我写这份报告的目的是为股东们估计伯克希尔的内在价值并提供相应的信息，之所以说是估计，是因为尽管计算内在价值在投资中为重中之重，但往往并不精确，且错误常常非常严重。公司业务的前景越是不确定，内在价值的计算就越是有可能谬之千里(关于内在价值的有关解释，请参见股东手册)。不过伯克希尔公司具有以下有利因素：业务种类众多的相对稳定的现金流，同时拥有巨大的流动性和很少的债务。这些因素使伯克希尔公司能够比其他绝大多数公司更为准确地估计内在价值。

Yet if precision is aided by Berkshire’s financial characteristics, the job of calculating intrinsic value has been made more complex by the mere presence of so many earnings streams. Back in 1965, when we owned only a small textile operation, the task of calculating intrinsic value was a snap. Now we own 68 distinct businesses with widely disparate operating and financial characteristics. This array of unrelated enterprises, coupled with our massive investment holdings, makes it impossible for you to simply examine our consolidated financial statements and arrive at an informed estimate of intrinsic value.

尽管伯克希尔的财务特征有助于提高估值的准确度，但计算内在价值的工作由于有如此之多的收益来源而变得更加复杂。早在 1965 年，我们只有一家小小的纺织厂，估值不过是小菜一碟。如今我们已经拥有 68 种经营特性和财务特性相差很大的业务，这些各不相关的业务，加上我们巨大的投资规模，使你根本不可能简单地分析一下我们的合并报表就能对公司内在价值做出一个合理的估计。

We have attempted to ease this problem by clustering our businesses into four logical groups, each of which we discuss later in this report. In these discussions, we will provide the key figures for both the group and its important components. Of course, the value of Berkshire may be either greater or less than the sum of these four parts. The outcome depends on whether our many units function better or worse by being part of a larger enterprise and whether capital allocation improves or deteriorates when it is under the direction of a holding company. In other words, does Berkshire ownership bring anything to the party, or would our shareholders be better off if they directly owned shares in each of our 68 businesses? These are important questions but ones that you will have to answer for yourself.

为了更好地解决这一难题，我们将自身的业务合理地分为四类并在以下报告中详细分析每一类业务，讨论中我们会提供每类业务及其主要企业的关键数据。当然，伯克希尔的总体价值可能会高于或低于四类业务价值之和。最终结果取决于两个因素，一是我们下属的众多部门作为一个规模更大的企业的组成部分，运作得更好还是更差？二是在母公司的管理下，资本配置进一步改善了还是进一步恶化了？简而言之，伯克希尔作为母公司为下属各企业带来了什么好处？是不是伯克希尔公司的股东们，直接持股而不是通过伯克希尔间接持股，更加有利？这是一个至关重要的问题，各位股东必须自己寻找答案。

Before we look at our individual businesses, however, let’s review two sets of figures that show where we’ve come from and where we are now. The first set is the amount of investments (including cash and cash-equivalents) we own on a per-share basis. In making this calculation, we exclude investments held in our finance operation because these are largely offset by borrowings:

在讨论下属各个业务之前，让我们先来看看两组说明我们的起点如何及现状如何的数据。第一列数据是每股投资金额(包括现金及现金等价物)，在进行计算时，我们将下属金融企业中持有的投资排除不计，因为这些投资大部分为借款所抵消。

In addition to these marketable securities, which with minor exceptions are held in our insurance companies, we own a wide variety of non-insurance businesses. Below, we show the pre-tax earnings (excluding goodwill amortization) of these businesses, again on a per-share basis:

除了这些有价证券(除少数例外情况外)由我们的保险公司持有外，我们还拥有各种各样的非保险业务。下面，我们再次以每股为基础显示这些业务的税前盈利(不包括商誉摊销):

When growth rates are under discussion, it will pay you to be suspicious as to why the beginning and terminal years have been selected. If either year was aberrational, any calculation of growth will be distorted. In particular, a base year in which earnings were poor can produce a breathtaking, but meaningless, growth rate. In the table above, however, the base year of 1965 was abnormally good; Berkshire earned more money in that year than it did in all but one of the previous ten.

在讨论增长率时，你非常有必要留心基期与终期年度的选择。开始与结束的年度二者中有一个选择不当，无论如何计算出来的增长率都会被歪曲，尤其是当基期年度盈利很少时，计算出来的增长率会高得惊人却毫无实际意义。在表中，作为基期的 1965 年度的盈利却是异乎寻常地好，伯克希尔 1965 年的盈利水平高于此前 10 年中的 9 个年度。

As you can see from the two tables, the comparative growth rates of Berkshire’s two elements of value have changed in the last decade, a result reflecting our ever-increasing emphasis on business acquisitions. Nevertheless, Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman and my partner, and I want to increase the figures in both tables. In this ambition, we hope – metaphorically – to avoid the fate of the elderly couple who had been romantically challenged for some time. As they finished dinner on their 50th anniversary, however, the wife – stimulated by soft music, wine and candlelight – felt a long-absent tickle and demurely suggested to her husband that they go upstairs and make love. He agonized for a moment and then replied, “I can do one or the other, but not both.”

从上表中可以看出，伯克希尔的两个价值要素的复合增长率，在最后一个 10 年期间发生了很大的变化，这一结果反映了我们的经营重心日益向企业并购倾斜。尽管如此，伯克希尔的副董事长兼我的合伙人查理·芒格，和我的目标还是努力使这两个表格中的数字能够双双实现增长。对于这一雄心壮志，我们希望打个比方，避免那些年迈的夫妇一度在浪漫方面面临挑战的命运。当这对夫妇庆祝结婚 50 周年的晚餐结束之后，妻子在温柔的音乐、醉人的香槟和摇曳的烛光的刺激下，忽然感到一阵久违的冲动，于是故作娇羞地建议她的丈夫一起上楼到卧室去做爱。她丈夫极度痛苦了好一阵子才回答说："我可以做其中一个，但两个都做可不行。"