巴菲特致股东的信（2006年）⑦金融及金融产品

Finance and Financial Products

金融及金融产品

You will be happy to hear – and I’m even happier – that this will be my last discussion of the losses at Gen Re’s derivative operation. When we started to wind this business down early in 2002, we had 23,218 contracts outstanding. Now we have 197. Our cumulative pre-tax loss from this operation totals $409 million, but only $5 million occurred in 2006. Charlie says that if we had properly classified the $409 million on our 2001 balance sheet, it would have been labeled “Good Until Reached For.” In any event, a Shakespearean thought – slightly modified – seems appropriate for the tombstone of this derivative business: “All’s well that ends.”

各位一定很高兴听到这个消息(当然我本人更高兴)：这将是我最后一次，在股东信中提及通用再保险公司在衍生性金融商品业务的亏损了。伯克希尔从 2002 年初开始关闭这项业务时，我们有 23218 个在外流通合约，现在已处置到只剩 197 个，而这部分业务的税前亏损累计达 4.09 亿美元(但 2006 年只有 500 万亏损)。查理表示，如果我们在 2001 年的资产负债表中要对这 4.09 亿美元下个批注，那会是"直到最后，才知有没有"。总而言之，这句改编过的莎士比亚的台词，会是此衍生性金融商品业务的最佳墓志铭："结束了就万事大吉"。

We’ve also wound up our investment in Value Capital. So earnings or losses from these two lines of business are making their final appearance in the table that annually appears in this section.

同时，我们也结束了对价值资本公司的投资。因此在此部分的报表中，这两个业务的损益，都不会再出现在未来的报表中。

Clayton Homes remains an anomaly in the manufactured-housing industry, which last year recorded its lowest unit sales since 1962. Indeed, the industry’s volume last year was only about one-third that of 1999. Outside of Clayton, I doubt if the industry, overall, made any money in 2006.

克莱顿预制房(ClaytonHomes)仍然是制造业中异类，在去年创下自 1962 年来最低的销售量。事实上该业务去年的销售额只有 1999 年的 1/3 左右，除了 Clayton，我对这个产业在 2006 年是否有赚到任何钱感到怀疑。

Yet Clayton earned $513 million pre-tax and paid Berkshire an additional $86 million as a fee for our obtaining the funds to finance Clayton’s $10 billion portfolio of installment receivables. Berkshire’s financial strength has clearly been of huge help to Clayton. But the driving force behind the company’s success is Kevin Clayton. Kevin knows the business forward and backward, is a rational decision-maker and a joy to work with. Because of acquisitions, Clayton now employs 14,787 people, compared to 6,661 at the time of our purchase.

Clayton 税前收益为 5.13 亿，并向伯克希尔支付了 8600 万利息，作为我们为 Clayton 持有的 100 亿美元分期付款的贷款组合的借款费用。伯克希尔健全的财务体质，显然对 Clayton 帮助不少，但企业成功幕后的真正推手要归功于凯文克莱顿 KevinClayton。Kevin 对此事业了解透彻，是位理性的决策者，与之合作非常愉快。通过收购， Clayton 现今的员工规模已成长至 14787 人，而我们收购时只有 6661 人。

We have two leasing operations: CORT (furniture), run by Paul Arnold, and XTRA (truck trailers), run by Bill Franz. CORT’s earnings improved significantly last year, and XTRA’s remained at the high level attained in 2005. We continue to look for tuck-in acquisitions to be run by Paul or Bill, and also are open to ideas for new leasing opportunities.

而在租赁方面包含两大业务，由 PaulArnold 经营的 CORT 家具租赁公司，以及由 BillFranz 经营的 XTRA 货柜卡车租赁公司。CORT 的营收在去年有显著的成长，而 XTRA 则维持 2005 年的高水平。我们会继续让 Paul 跟Bill 寻找小型收购机会，并对新租赁业务持开放态度。

Here’s a breakdown of earnings in this sector:

以下为本业务群收益状况：