巴菲特致股东的信（2007年）④企业–-出色的、良好的、糟糕的

Businesses – The Great, the Good and the Gruesome

企业–-出色的、良好的、糟糕的

Let’s take a look at what kind of businesses turn us on. And while we’re at it, let’s also discuss what we wish to avoid.

让我们来看看，什么样的企业能让我们兴奋不已。在关注于此时，我们同样也要探讨，哪些是我们期望极力避开的企业。

Charlie and I look for companies that have a) a business we understand; b) favorable long-term economics; c) able and trustworthy management; and d) a sensible price tag. We like to buy the whole business or, if management is our partner, at least 80%. When control-type purchases of quality aren’t available, though, we are also happy to simply buy small portions of great businesses by way of stock-market purchases. It’s better to have a part interest in the Hope Diamond than to own all of a rhinestone.

查理和我要寻找的公司是：a)我们能理解的业务；b)长期可持续的竞争优势；c)有能力且值得信赖的管理层；d)合理的标价。我们倾向买下整个公司，或者当管理层是我们的合伙人时，至少买下 80％的股份。如果控股收购的方式不可行，我们也很乐意简单地通过证券市场上买入那些出色公司的一小部分股权，这就好比拥有"希望之钻"(重 45.52 克拉的蓝色钻石)的一小部分权益，也远远好过拥有一整颗水钻(人造钻石)。

A truly great business must have an enduring “moat” that protects excellent returns on invested capital. The dynamics of capitalism guarantee that competitors will repeatedly assault any business “castle” that is earning high returns. Therefore a formidable barrier such as a company’s being the low-cost producer (GEICO, Costco) or possessing a powerful world-wide brand (Coca-Cola, Gillette, American Express) is essential for sustained success. Business history is filled with “Roman Candles,” companies whose moats proved illusory and were soon crossed.

一家真正伟大的企业必须要有一道持久的"护城河"来保护投资资本获得高额回报。但资本主义的竞争活力使得，任何正赚取高额回报的商业"城堡"，都会受到竞争对手的反复攻击。因此，一道难以逾越的屏障，比如一家公司成为低成本生产商(GEICO 保险或 Costco 好事多超市)，或者拥有强大的世界性品牌(可口可乐、吉列、美国运通)，才是企业获得持续成功的关键。商业史中充斥着"罗马烟火筒"般光彩炫目的公司，这些公司所谓的"护城河"最终被证明是虚幻的，很快就被对手跨越。

Our criterion of “enduring” causes us to rule out companies in industries prone to rapid and continuous change. Though capitalism’s “creative destruction” is highly beneficial for society, it precludes investment certainty. A moat that must be continuously rebuilt will eventually be no moat at all.

我们对"持久性"的评判标准，使我们排除了许多处在发展迅速且不断变化行业里的公司。尽管资本主义的"创造性破坏"对社会发展很有利，但它失去了投资的确定性。一条需要不断重建的护城河，最终将完全没有护城河。

Additionally, this criterion eliminates the business whose success depends on having a great manager. Of course, a terrific CEO is a huge asset for any enterprise, and at Berkshire we have an abundance of these managers. Their abilities have created billions of dollars of value that would never have materialized if typical CEOs had been running their businesses.

另外，这个标准也排除那些成功依靠某个伟大的管理者的企业。当然，一个伟大的 CEO 对任何企业都是一笔巨大的财富，在伯克希尔，我们拥有相当数量这样的经理人。他们的能力创造了数十亿的财富，如果让一般的CEO 们来运营这些业务，这些财富将永远无法实现的。

But if a business requires a superstar to produce great results, the business itself cannot be deemed great. A medical partnership led by your area’s premier brain surgeon may enjoy outsized and growing earnings, but that tells little about its future. The partnership’s moat will go when the surgeon goes. You can count, though, on the moat of the Mayo Clinic to endure, even though you can’t name its CEO.

但是，如果一个企业，需要依赖一个超级经理人才能产生伟大的成果，那这个企业本身就不会被认为是个伟大的企业。由你所在地区首席脑外科医生领导的医疗合伙公司，可能有着令人高兴的巨大且增长的收入，但是这并不能说明它的未来将会如何。随着外科医生的离开，合伙公司的"护城河"也将一起消失。即使你不能叫出梅奥诊所(美国最好的医院之一)CEO 的名字，你也能知道它的"护城河"能够持续很久。

Long-term competitive advantage in a stable industry is what we seek in a business. If that comes with rapid organic growth, great. But even without organic growth, such a business is rewarding. We will simply take the lush earnings of the business and use them to buy similar businesses elsewhere. There’s no rule that you have to invest money where you’ve earned it. Indeed, it’s often a mistake to do so: Truly great businesses, earning huge returns on tangible assets, can’t for any extended period reinvest a large portion of their earnings internally at high rates of return.

我们所要寻找的企业，是在稳定行业中，具有长期竞争优势的公司。如果它伴随着快速的有机增长，那就更好了。但是即使没有有机增长，那样的生意也是值得的。我们只需简单地把这些生意中获得的可观收益，去购买其它类似的企业。这里没有什么规定你，必须把钱投资在你赚到的地方。事实上，这样的做法通常是一个错误：真正伟大的企业，从有形资产中获得的巨大回报，在任何一个较长的持续期内，都无法以高回报率在内部将其大部分收益再投资。

Let’s look at the prototype of a dream business, our own See’s Candy. The boxed-chocolates industry in which it operates is unexciting: Per-capita consumption in the U.S. is extremely low and doesn’t grow. Many once-important brands have disappeared, and only three companies have earned more than token profits over the last forty years. Indeed, I believe that See’s, though it obtains the bulk of its revenues from only a few states, accounts for nearly half of the entire industry’s earnings.

让我们来看看这种梦幻般生意的原型——我们拥有的喜诗糖果公司。它经营的盒装巧克力业务并不能令人兴奋，因为美国人均的消费量非常低而且没有增长。许多名噪一时的品牌都已消失，并且在过去 40 年中只有三家公司赚到了超过象征性的收益。事实上我认为，尽管喜诗糖果的收入大部分来源于少数几个州，但却占到整个行业将近一半的收益。

At See’s, annual sales were 16 million pounds of candy when Blue Chip Stamps purchased the company in 1972. (Charlie and I controlled Blue Chip at the time and later merged it into Berkshire.) Last year See’s sold 31 million pounds, a growth rate of only 2% annually. Yet its durable competitive advantage, built by the See’s family over a 50-year period, and strengthened subsequently by Chuck Huggins and Brad Kinstler, has produced extraordinary results for Berkshire.

1972 年当蓝筹印花公司买下喜诗糖果时，它年销售 1600 万磅的糖果。(那时查理和我控制着蓝筹印花公司，后来将其并入伯克希尔)，喜诗去年的销售额是 3100 万磅，年增长率只有 2％。然而由 See's 家族在 50 多年里，建立起来的持久竞争优势，随后被 ChuckHuggins 和 BradKinstler 继续巩固，给伯克希尔创造出非凡的利润。

We bought See’s for $25 million when its sales were $30 million and pre-tax earnings were less than $5 million. The capital then required to conduct the business was $8 million. (Modest seasonal debt was also needed for a few months each year.) Consequently, the company was earning 60% pre-tax on invested capital. Two factors helped to minimize the funds required for operations. First, the product was sold for cash, and that eliminated accounts receivable. Second, the production and distribution cycle was short, which minimized inventories.

我们用 2500 万美元买下它时，它的销售额是 3000 万美元，税前收益不到 500 万美元。企业的运营资本是800 万美元(每年有几个月，它需要适度的季节性债务)。因此，该公司投入资本赚取了 60％的税前收益。有两个因素帮助了运营资本的最小化。首先，该产品是现金销售，消除了应收账款；其次，生产和分销的周期很短，使存货最小化。

Last year See’s sales were $383 million, and pre-tax profits were $82 million. The capital now required to run the business is $40 million. This means we have had to reinvest only $32 million since 1972 to handle the modest physical growth – and somewhat immodest financial growth – of the business. In the meantime pre-tax earnings have totaled $1.35 billion. All of that, except for the $32 million, has been sent to Berkshire (or, in the early years, to Blue Chip). After paying corporate taxes on the profits, we have used the rest to buy other attractive businesses. Just as Adam and Eve kick-started an activity that led to six billion humans, See’s has given birth to multiple new streams of cash for us. (The biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply” is one we take seriously at Berkshire.)

去年喜诗糖果的销售额是 3.83 亿美元，税前收益是 8200 万美元，运营资本是 4000 万美元。这意味着从1972 年以来，我们只需再投资区区 3200 万美元，以适应业务的适度实际增长，和稍许过度的财务增长。同时税前收益总计是 13.5 亿美元，扣除 3200 万美元后，所有这些收益都流到伯克希尔(或早些年的蓝筹印花公司)。利润在缴纳公司税后，我们用余下的钱购买了其他有吸引力的公司。就像从亚当和夏娃最初喜好的活动，带来了 60亿人一样，喜诗糖果开启了我们后来的许多滚滚而来的新财源。(在伯克希尔，我们非常重视圣经多子多孙的命令)

There aren’t many See’s in Corporate America. Typically, companies that increase their earnings from $5 million to $82 million require, say, $400 million or so of capital investment to finance their growth. That’s because growing businesses have both working capital needs that increase in proportion to sales growth and significant requirements for fixed asset investments.

在美国的企业中，象喜诗糖果这样的企业并不多。通常要将公司的收入从 500 万美元提升到 8200 万美元，需要为其增长投入约 4 亿美元的资金(即 1 美元税前利润增加，需要 5 美元资本投入)。这是因为成长中的企业，既有与销售额增长成比例增长的营运资本的需求(营收+存货)，也有对固定资产投资的重大需求。

A company that needs large increases in capital to engender its growth may well prove to be a satisfactory investment. There is, to follow through on our example, nothing shabby about earning $82 million pre-tax on $400 million of net tangible assets. But that equation for the owner is vastly different from the See’s situation. It’s far better to have an ever-increasing stream of earnings with virtually no major capital requirements. Ask Microsoft or Google.

一家需要大幅增加资本投入来实现增长的公司，也可能被证实是一项令人满意的投资。回到我们的例子中，能从 4 亿美元有形资产净值中赚到 8200 万美元税前收益，这也不错。但对于股东来说，这一回报水平与喜诗糖果是完全不能比的。喜诗在几乎没有没有重大资本投入的情况下，就能带来源源不断增长的现金流，这简直是太棒了！不信去问问微软或谷歌吧！

One example of good, but far from sensational, business economics is our own FlightSafety. This company delivers benefits to its customers that are the equal of those delivered by any business that I know of. It also possesses a durable competitive advantage: Going to any other flight-training provider than the best is like taking the low bid on a surgical procedure.

一个良好但远非出色的生意例子是我们拥有的飞安公司(Flight Safty)。这家公司为它的客户创造的价值，跟其他我知道的类似公司一样。它还拥有一项持久的竞争优势：接受飞行训练，如果选择其他公司，而不是这家最顶尖的公司，就像在一次外科手术前，选择价低的医生一样愚蠢。

Nevertheless, this business requires a significant reinvestment of earnings if it is to grow. When we purchased FlightSafety in 1996, its pre-tax operating earnings were $111 million, and its net investment in fixed assets was $570 million. Since our purchase, depreciation charges have totaled $923 million. But capital expenditures have totaled $1.635 billion, most of that for simulators to match the new airplane models that are constantly being introduced. (A simulator can cost us more than $12 million, and we have 273 of them.) Our fixed assets, after depreciation, now amount to $1.079 billion. Pre-tax operating earnings in 2007 were $270 million, a gain of $159 million since 1996. That gain gave us a good, but far from See’s-like, return on our incremental investment of $509 million.

当然，这项生意如果要增长，就需要将收益中的很大一部分再投入。当我们 1996 年买下飞安公司时，它的税前经营收益是 1.11 亿美元，在固定资产上的净投资是 5.7 亿美元。自从我们购买以来，折旧费用总计 9.23 亿美元，但资本支出总计为 16.35 亿美元，其中的大部分用来购买飞行训练模拟器，以适配不断推出的新型飞机，(一个模拟器花费超过 1200 万美元，我们共有 273 个)。现在我们的固定资产经折旧后，现为 10.79 亿美元。2007 年的税前经营收益为 2.7 亿美元，与 1996 年比，增加了 1.59 亿美元。这个收益相比于我们投入的 5.09 亿美元增量投资来说，回报还不错，但和喜诗糖果的回报率根本没法比。(累计折旧 9.23 亿，累计资本支出 16.35 亿，净投入 7.12 亿，固定资产净增加 5.09 亿，减值 2.03 亿？)

Consequently, if measured only by economic returns, FlightSafety is an excellent but not extraordinary business. Its put-up-more-to-earn-more experience is that faced by most corporations. For example, our large investment in regulated utilities falls squarely in this category. We will earn considerably more money in this business ten years from now, but we will invest many billions to make it.

因此，如果仅仅以经济回报衡量，飞安公司是一个良好但绝非出色的业务。这种高投入高产出的发展经历，正是许多公司所面临的。例如，我们在受监管的公用事业业务中的投资就属于这一类别，十年后，我们将从这个业务中赚到相当多的钱，但是我们需要投入数十亿美元才能实现这个目标。

Now let’s move to the gruesome. The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.

现在让我们来看看糟糕的生意。最糟糕生意是那种收入虽然增长迅速，但需要巨大的投资才能实现增长，然后赚很少的钱甚至赔钱的生意。想想航空业吧，自从莱特兄弟时代以来，整个行业所谓的持续竞争优势，已被证明纯粹子虚乌有。事实上，假如当时某个富有远见的资本家在 KittyHawk (莱特兄弟试飞的地方)，他应该把Orville Wright 打下来，给后来者帮上一个大忙。

The airline industry’s demand for capital ever since that first flight has been insatiable. Investors have poured money into a bottomless pit, attracted by growth when they should have been repelled by it. And I, to my shame, participated in this foolishness when I had Berkshire buy U.S. Air preferred stock in 1989. As the ink was drying on our check, the company went into a tailspin, and before long our preferred dividend was no longer being paid. But we then got very lucky. In one of the recurrent, but always misguided, bursts of optimism for airlines, we were actually able to sell our shares in 1998 for a hefty gain. In the decade following our sale, the company went bankrupt. Twice.

自首次飞行以来，航空业对资本的需求就是永无止境的。投资者本该对它避而远之的时候，却被它的成长所吸引，将钱源源不断地投入这个无底洞。令人羞愧的是，1989 年当我让伯克希尔买入全美航空公司的优先股时，我犯了这种愚蠢的错误。可我们付款支票上的墨迹未干，全美航空就陷入困境，不久它就不再支付给我们优先股的股息。不过最后我们算是很幸运。在又一轮被误导的，对航空公司的乐观情绪爆发时，我们在 1998 年卖掉了我们手里的股票，实际上大赚了一笔。在我们出售后的 10 年里，美国航空申请破产了两次！

To sum up, think of three types of “savings accounts.” The great one pays an extraordinarily high interest rate that will rise as the years pass. The good one pays an attractive rate of interest that will be earned also on deposits that are added. Finally, the gruesome account both pays an inadequate interest rate and requires you to keep adding money at those disappointing returns.

总结一下，想想如下三类"储蓄账户"。伟大的账户，利率非常高，而且随着时间推移，利率会继续增长；良好的账户，支付的利率也很有吸引力，还可以通过增加存款获得更多利息；最后，糟糕的账户，既支付了非常低的利率，还要求你为那些令人失望的回报继续投入资金。

* * * * * * * * * * * *

And now it’s confession time. It should be noted that no consultant, board of directors or investment banker pushed me into the mistakes I will describe. In tennis parlance, they were all unforced errors.

过去的错误现在又到忏悔时间了。必须明确的是，并没有哪个咨询顾问、董事会或投资银行家，把我推到我将描述的那些错误中去。用网球术语来说，它们都是非受迫性失误(主动失误)。

To begin with, I almost blew the See’s purchase. The seller was asking $30 million, and I was adamant about not going above $25 million. Fortunately, he caved. Otherwise I would have balked, and that $1.35 billion would have gone to somebody else.

就从我差点搞砸对喜诗糖果的收购说起。当时卖主开价 3000 万美元，而我坚持不能超过 2500 万美元。幸运的是，他退让了。否则我的犹豫不决会让这 13.5 亿美元落入别人的腰包。

About the time of the See’s purchase, Tom Murphy, then running Capital Cities Broadcasting, called and offered me the Dallas-Fort Worth NBC station for $35 million. The station came with the Fort Worth paper that Capital Cities was buying, and under the “cross-ownership” rules Murph had to divest it. I knew that TV stations were See’s-like businesses that required virtually no capital investment and had excellent prospects for growth. They were simple to run and showered cash on their owners.

大约在收购喜诗糖果的时候，当时管理大都会广播公司的汤姆·墨菲打来电话，提议我出价 3500 万美元买下位于达拉斯沃尔斯堡(Dallas-FortWorth)的 NBC 电视台，该电视台附带了大都会广播公司要买下的"沃尔斯堡报"，鉴于"交叉持股"的法律规定，汤姆·墨菲不得不剥离它。我知道电视台也是象喜诗糖果那样的生意，实际上不需要什么资本投人，就会获得可观的增长前景，它们很容易运营并且为股东带来滚滚财富。

Moreover, Murph, then as now, was a close friend, a man I admired as an extraordinary manager and outstanding human being. He knew the television business forward and backward and would not have called me unless he felt a purchase was certain to work. In effect Murph whispered “buy” into my ear. But I didn’t listen.

此外，汤姆·墨菲至今都是我们的亲密朋友，我钦佩他是一位出色的经理人和杰出的人。他了解电视这门生意了如指掌，而且除非他认为这个收购必会成功，否则不会给我打电话。实际上汤姆·墨菲已经近乎在我耳边低声说"买"了，可惜我充耳不闻。

In 2006, the station earned $73 million pre-tax, bringing its total earnings since I turned down the deal to at least $1 billion – almost all available to its owner for other purposes. Moreover, the property now has a capital value of about $800 million. Why did I say “no”? The only explanation is that my brain had gone on vacation and forgot to notify me. (My behavior resembled that of a politician Molly Ivins once described: “If his I.Q. was any lower, you would have to water him twice a day.”)

在 2006 年，该电视台赚到 7300 万美元的税前收益。从我放弃那个交易至今，至少赚了 10 亿美元，这些收益都是可以让股东另作他用的。不仅如此，该公司目前的资本价值大约 8 亿美元。为什么我要说"NO"？唯一的解释就是，我的大脑度假去了却忘记通报我。(我的行为类似于政治家 MolyIvins 说过的："如果他的智商再低一点，你就需要每天拿水泼他两次。")

Finally, I made an even worse mistake when I said “yes” to Dexter, a shoe business I bought in 1993 for $433 million in Berkshire stock (25,203 shares of A). What I had assessed as durable competitive advantage vanished within a few years. But that’s just the beginning: By using Berkshire stock, I compounded this error hugely. That move made the cost to Berkshire shareholders not $400 million, but rather $3.5 billion. In essence, I gave away 1.6% of a wonderful business – one now valued at $220 billion – to buy a worthless business.

最后，当我对 Dexter 鞋业说"YES"的时候，我又犯了一个更严重的错误。Dexter 是 1993 年我用价值 4.33亿美元的 25203 股伯克希尔 A 股股票收购的一家制鞋公司。我当时所评估的持久的竞争优势在随后几年里消失得无影无踪。但这只是个开始：由于购买用的是伯克希尔的股票，我将这个错误放大很多。这次交易的成本对伯克希尔股东来说不是 4 亿美元，而是 35 亿美元。从本质上说，我放弃的是，现在的价值 2200 亿美元出色的生意的1.6％，购买了一家毫无价值的公司。

To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made. But I’ll make more mistakes in the future – you can bet on that. A line from Bobby Bare’s country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions: “I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few.”

到目前为止，Dexter 是我做过的最糟糕的交易。但是你可以打赌，我将来还会犯更多的错误。BobbyBare 的乡村歌曲中有一段歌词，解释了收购为什么会如此频繁的发生这样的结果："我决不会和一个丑女人上床，但当我醒来时，肯定身边总有几个。"

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Now, let’s examine the four major operating sectors of Berkshire. Each sector has vastly different balance sheet and income account characteristics. Therefore, lumping them together impedes analysis. So we’ll present them as four separate businesses, which is how Charlie and I view them.

现在，让我们检视伯克希尔四个主要的运营部门。每个部门都有截然不同的资产负债表和损益表特征。因此，将他们合并会阻碍分析。所以，我们把它们当作四个独立业务来呈现，这就是查理和我看待它们的方式。