巴菲特致股东的信（2010年）④GEICO保险

GEICO

GEICO保险

Now let me tell you a story that will help you understand how the intrinsic value of a business can far exceed its book value. Relating this tale also gives me a chance to relive some great memories.

现在，让我来给你讲一个故事，该故事有助于你理解一项业务的内在价值可以远远超过其账面价值。讲述这个故事可以让我重温一些美好的记忆。

Sixty years ago last month, GEICO entered my life, destined to shape it in a huge way. I was then a 20-year-old graduate student at Columbia, having elected to go there because my hero, Ben Graham, taught a once-a-week class at the school.

60 年前的一个月，GEICO 保险步入我的生活，从此改变了我的一生。当时，我是哥伦比亚大学一名 20 岁的研究生，之所以到那儿上学，因为我心目中的偶像本杰明.格雷厄姆，每周都会在学校教一次课。

One day at the library, I checked out Ben’s entry in Who’s Who in America and found he was chairman of Government Employees Insurance Co. (now called GEICO). I knew nothing of insurance and had never heard of the company. The librarian, however, steered me to a large compendium of insurers and, after reading the page on GEICO, I decided to visit the company. The following Saturday, I boarded an early train for Washington.

一天在图书馆，我在美国名人录中发现他是 GEICO 保险的主席。我对保险一无所知，并且从来没有听过该公司。然而，图书管理员指引我阅读一个大型的保险公司目录。在阅读到 GEICO 保险的时候，我决定拜访该公司。在接下来的周六，我登上了前往华盛顿的早班车。

Alas, when I arrived at the company’s headquarters, the building was closed. I then rather frantically started pounding on a door, until finally a janitor appeared. I asked him if there was anyone in the office I could talk to, and he steered me to the only person around, Lorimer Davidson.

在我抵达公司总部的时候，大楼已经关门了。我当时不断敲门，直到最后一名看门人出来了。我问他公司是否还有人可以进行交谈，他就领我去找当时唯一一个还在办公室里的人，洛里默·戴维森(Lorimer Davidson)。

That was my lucky moment. During the next four hours, “Davy” gave me an education about both insurance and GEICO. It was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. Soon thereafter, I graduated from Columbia and became a stock salesman in Omaha. GEICO, of course, was my prime recommendation, which got me off to a great start with dozens of customers. GEICO also jump-started my net worth because, soon after meeting Davy, I made the stock 75% of my $9,800 investment portfolio. (Even so, I felt over-diversified.)

我的幸运时刻到了。在接下来的四个小时里，"Davy"给我上了一节关于保险和 GEICO 的课程。我们之间伟大的友谊由此开始。不久以后，我从哥伦比亚大学毕业，成了奥马哈的一名股票销售员。当然，GEICO 保险就是我的首要推荐，这让我与数十名客户建立了一个绝好的开端。就在与Davy 会面后不久，在我 9800 美元的投资组合中，GEICO 保险占了 75%，即便如此，我现在还是认为这个比例少了点。

Subsequently, Davy became CEO of GEICO, taking the company to undreamed-of heights before it got into trouble in the mid-1970s, a few years after his retirement. When that happened – with the stock falling by more than 95% – Berkshire bought about one-third of the company in the market, a position that over the years increased to 50% because of GEICO’s repurchases of its own shares. Berkshire’s cost for this half of the business was $46 million. (Despite the size of our position, we exercised no control over operations.)

后来，Davy 担任 GEICO 保险的 CEO，把公司发展到了梦想不到的高度。但是，就在 Davy 退休后的1970 年代，GEICO 保险陷入困境，股票价格下跌 95%。伯克希尔在市场上购买了该公司大约 1/3 的股票。数年之后，由于 GEICO 保险的回购，伯克希尔的持股比例增加到 50%，伯克希尔的持有成本为 4600 万美元(尽管我们的持股比例比较高，但是没有行使控制权)。

We then purchased the remaining 50% of GEICO at the beginning of 1996, which spurred Davy, at 95, to make a video tape saying how happy he was that his beloved GEICO would permanently reside with Berkshire. (He also playfully concluded with, “Next time, Warren, please make an appointment.”)

在 1996 年初，我们又收购了 GEICO 保险剩余 50%的股票，这促使 Davy 在其 95 岁高龄之际，通过录像带向我表明他是多么高兴，他所热爱的 GEICO 保险将永久性地成为伯克希尔的一部分。(他还十分风趣地总结道，"下次沃伦，请任命我哦。")

A lot has happened at GEICO during the last 60 years, but its core goal – saving Americans substantial money on their purchase of auto insurance – remains unchanged. (Try us at 1-800-847-7536 or www.GEICO.com.) In other words, get the policyholder’s business by deserving his business. Focusing on this objective, the company has grown to be America’s third-largest auto insurer, with a market share of 8.8%.

在过去的 60 年间，GEICO 保险发生了很多变故，但是，它的核心目标，大幅节省美国人的汽车保险购买成本，却始终未变(可以拨打电话 1-800-847-7596，或者登陆 www.GEICO.com 了解详情)。换而言之，通过获得保险客户的认可来获得业务。通过专注于该目标，公司发展成为美国第三大汽车保险商，市场占有率为 8.8%。

When Tony Nicely, GEICO’s CEO, took over in 1993, that share was 2.0%, a level at which it had been stuck for more than a decade. GEICO became a different company under Tony, finding a path to consistent growth while simultaneously maintaining underwriting discipline and keeping its costs low.

当 GEICO 保险的 CEO 托尼·莱斯利(Tony Nicely)上任的时候，GEICO 保险的市场占有率为 2.0%。GEICO 保险的市场占有率曾经在 10 年中徘徊在该水平。在 Tony 的领导下，GEICO 保险成长为一家不同的公司，因为Tony 发现了一条持续增长的道路，既能保持承保纪律，又能保持低成本。

Let me quantify Tony’s achievement. When, in 1996, we bought the 50% of GEICO we didn’t already own, it cost us about $2.3 billion. That price implied a value of $4.6 billion for 100%. GEICO then had tangible net worth of $1.9 billion.

让我来量化一下 Tony 的成绩。当我们在 1996 年购买 GEICO 保险剩余的 50%的股权时，成本为 23 亿美元，对应的隐含价值为 46 亿美元，GEICO 保险当时有形资产账面价值为 19 亿美元。

The excess over tangible net worth of the implied value – $2.7 billion – was what we estimated GEICO’s “goodwill” to be worth at that time. That goodwill represented the economic value of the policyholders who were then doing business with GEICO. In 1995, those customers had paid the company $2.8 billion in premiums. Consequently, we were valuing GEICO’s customers at about 97% (2.7/2.8) of what they were annually paying the company. By industry standards, that was a very high price. But GEICO was no ordinary insurer: Because of the company’s low costs, its policyholders were consistently profitable and unusually loyal.

隐含价值比有形资产价值高27 亿美元，这 27 亿美元就是我们估算的 GEICO 保险的"商誉'在当时的价值。这种商誉代表当时与 GEICO 保险发生业务联系的保险客户的经济价值。在 1995 年，这些客户向 GEICO 保险支付了 28 亿美元的保费，因此我们对 GEICO 客户的估值为他们每年支付给公司保费的 97%(27/28)。按照行业标准，这是一个非常高的价格。但是，GEICO 保险不是普通的保险公司。由于运营成本比较低，承保一直是保持盈利的，并且客户忠诚度非常高。

Today, premium volume is $14.3 billion and growing. Yet we carry the goodwill of GEICO on our books at only $1.4 billion, an amount that will remain unchanged no matter how much the value of GEICO increases. (Under accounting rules, you write down the carrying value of goodwill if its economic value decreases, but leave it unchanged if economic value increases.) Using the 97%-of-premium-volume yardstick we applied to our 1996 purchase, the real value today of GEICO’s economic goodwill is about $14 billion. And this value is likely to be much higher ten and twenty years from now. GEICO – off to a strong start in 2011 – is the gift that keeps giving.

现在公司保费为 143 亿美元，并且持续上升。然而，在我们的账上，GEICO 商誉的账面价值仅为 14 亿美元。无论 GEICO 保险的价值增加多少，商誉的账面价值都保持不变(按照会计准则，如果商誉的经济价值降低，则需要减值，但如果经济价值增加，则保持不变)。按照我们 1996 年购买 GEICO 保险的估值标准，现在 GEICO商誉的实际价值大约为 140 亿美元。在 10-20 年之后，这个金额也更高。在 2011 年 GEICO 保险迎来了一个强劲的开端，这是一份不断奉献给你们的礼物。

One not-so-small footnote: Under Tony, GEICO has developed one of the country’s largest personal-lines insurance agencies, which primarily sells homeowners policies to our GEICO auto insurance customers. In this business, we represent a number of insurers that are not affiliated with us. They take the risk; we simply sign up the customers. Last year we sold 769,898 new policies at this agency operation, up 34% from the year before. The obvious way this activity aids us is that it produces commission revenue; equally important is the fact that it further strengthens our relationship with our policyholders, helping us retain them.

一个不可忽略的备注：在 Tony 的领导下，GEICO 保险已经发展成为美国境内最大的个人保险机构，主要向GEICO 保险汽车保险客户销售房主保单。在该项业务中，我们代表了众多与我们无关的保险公司。他们承担风险，我们只是负责销售。在 2010 年，我们出售了 769898 份新保单，比 2009 年增加了 34%。该项业务对我们最明显的帮助是能够带来佣金收入。同等重要的是，它进一步增强了我们的保险客户与我们的关系，有助于我们留住客户。

I owe an enormous debt to Tony and Davy (and, come to think of it, to that janitor as well).

我欠 Tony 和 Davy 很多(也同样欠那个看门人很多)。

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

现在，让我们来检查一下伯克希尔的四大部门。每个部门的资产负债表和收入特征各有不同，将它们搅合在一块则无法分析。因此，我们将其作为四项独立业务展示，这是查理和我对它们的看法。

We will look first at insurance, Berkshire’s core operation and the engine that has propelled our expansion over the years.

首先来看保险业务，这是伯克希尔的核心业务以及多年来推动我们扩张的发动机。