巴菲特致股东的信（2006年）②评判标准

Yardsticks

评判标准

Charlie and I measure Berkshire’s progress and evaluate its intrinsic value in a number of ways. No single criterion is effective in doing these jobs, and even an avalanche of statistics will not capture some factors that are important. For example, it’s essential that we have managers much younger than I available to succeed me. Berkshire has never been in better shape in this regard – but I can’t prove it to you with numbers.

芒格与我用来衡量伯克希尔的表现与评估其内在价值的方法有很多种，其中并没有任何一个绝对标准能用以评估伯克希尔，而且很多重要事实也是无法用大量统计数据表示出来的。举例来说，对伯克希尔而言，拥有很多未来大有可为的年轻经理人是很重要的优势，但我可没办法单纯用数字来证明这点。

There are two statistics, however, that are of real importance. The first is the amount of investments (including cash and cash-equivalents) that we own on a per-share basis. Arriving at this figure, we exclude investments held in our finance operation because these are largely offset by borrowings. Here’s the record since present management acquired control of Berkshire:

然而，还是有两个非常重要的衡量基准，第一个是每股拥有的投资金额(包括现金与类现金)，在计算时，我们排除了金融部门所持有的投资部位，因为其价值被大量的融资负债所抵消。以下是自从现任管理层接手伯克希尔到现今的数据记录：

In our early years we put most of our retained earnings and insurance float into investments in marketable securities. Because of this emphasis, and because the securities we purchased generally did well, our growth rate in investments was for a long time quite high.

伯克希尔早期的作法，是将大部分的留存收益及保险浮存金用于有价证券投资，由于如此专注投资，再加上购买的公司都有不错的表现，我们的投资增长率在很长的一段时间都相当高。

Over the years, however, we have focused more and more on the acquisition of operating businesses. Using our funds for these purchases has both slowed our growth in investments and accelerated our gains in pre-tax earnings from non-insurance businesses, the second yardstick we use. Here’s how those earnings have looked:

然而近年来，我们越来越专注于收购运营业务，我们的资金用于并购，使得我们投资规模的增长放缓，但加快了我们非保险业务的税前收益加速成长，这是我们的第二个衡量基准。

Last year we had a good increase in non-insurance earnings – 38%. Large gains from here on in, though, will come only if we are able to make major, and sensible, acquisitions. That will not be easy. We do, however, have one advantage: More and more, Berkshire has become “the buyer of choice” for business owners and managers. Initially, we were viewed that way only in the U.S. (and more often than not by private companies). We’ve long wanted, nonetheless, to extend Berkshire’s appeal beyond U.S. borders. And last year, our globe-trotting finally got underway.

去年我们非保险业务的税前收益增长了 38%。但只有当我们能够进行一些重大且明智的收购时，日后的收益增长才有保障，而这并非易事。所幸我们确实有一个优势，因为对许多企业主及经理人来说，伯克希尔越来越成为"首选买家"。最初，我们通常只在美国私营公司中被如此看待，但我们一直希望将伯克希尔的吸引力拓展到海外去，去年我们的国际化终于开花结果了。