巴菲特致股东的信（2010年）⑧金融和金融产品业务

Finance and Financial Products

金融和金融产品业务

This, our smallest sector, includes two rental companies, XTRA (trailers) and CORT (furniture), and Clayton Homes, the country’s leading producer and financer of manufactured homes.

这是我们规模最小的部门，包括两家租赁公司，分别是经营拖车租赁业务的 XTRA 公司和经营家具租赁的科特家具(CORT)，以及全美最大的预制房屋建造商和融资公司克莱顿(Clayton Homes)。

Both of our leasing businesses improved their performances last year, albeit from a very low base. XTRA increased the utilization of its equipment from 63% in 2009 to 75% in 2010, thereby raising pre-tax earnings to $35 million from $17 million in 2009. CORT experienced a pickup in business as the year progressed and also significantly tightened its operations. The combination increased its pre-tax results from a loss of $3 million in 2009 to $18 million of profit in 2010.

去年两家租赁公司的业绩都有所改善，尽管基数很低。XTRA 公司的设备利用率从 2009 年的 63%提高至2010 年的 75%，税前利润也随之从 1700 万美元增加到 3500 万美元；科特家具的业务也逐步复苏，同时严控运营费用，合并后的税前收益从 300 万美元提高到 1800 万美元。

At Clayton, we produced 23,343 homes, 47% of the industry’s total of 50,046. Contrast this to the peak year of 1998, when 372,843 homes were manufactured. (We then had an industry share of 8%.) Sales would have been terrible last year under any circumstances, but the financing problems I commented upon in the 2009 report continue to exacerbate the distress. To explain: Home-financing policies of our government, expressed through the loans found acceptable by FHA, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, favor site-built homes and work to negate the price advantage that manufactured homes offer.

克莱顿去年建造了 23343 套预制房，占整个行业 50046 套产量的 47%。与之形成鲜明对比的是 1998 年的行业高峰，当年我们建造了 372843 套(只占 8%行业份额)。去年的销售业绩在任何情况下看都很糟糕，而我在2009 年的报告中提及的融资问题加剧了我们的困境。具体来说：美国政府的住房贷款政策偏好现场建造的住宅(从适用于联邦住房管理局 FHA，房地美和房利美可接受的贷款中可以看出)，使预制房的价格优势遭到削弱。

We finance more manufactured-home buyers than any other company. Our experience, therefore, should be instructive to those parties preparing to overhaul our country’s home-loan practices. Let’s take a look.

克莱顿向预制房买家提供的贷款比任何其他公司都多。我们的经验对致力于改革美国住房贷款政策的各方都具有借鉴意义。让我们来看看。

Clayton owns 200,804 mortgages that it originated. (It also has some mortgage portfolios that it purchased.) At the origination of these contracts, the average FICO score of our borrowers was 648, and 47% were 640 or below. Your banker will tell you that people with such scores are generally regarded as questionable credits.

克莱顿提供了 200804 笔住房抵押贷款(它还购买了一些抵押贷款组合)。在克莱顿发放贷款时，客户的平均 FICO 信用分为 648，其中 47%的客户信用分为 640 或者更低。通常银行认为这些客户的信用有问题。

Nevertheless, our portfolio has performed well during conditions of stress. Here’s our loss experience during the last five years for originated loans:

尽管如此，即使在金融危机期间，我们的贷款投资组合业绩仍然表现不错。下面是过去 5 年我们的原始贷款的损失经验：

Our borrowers get in trouble when they lose their jobs, have health problems, get divorced, etc. The recession has hit them hard. But they want to stay in their homes, and generally they borrowed sensible amounts in relation to their income. In addition, we were keeping the originated mortgages for our own account, which means we were not securitizing or otherwise reselling them. If we were stupid in our lending, we were going to pay the price. That concentrates the mind.

我们的贷款客户在失业、健康问题、离婚等情况下而陷入困境，经济衰退对他们打击很大，但他们希望能保住住房。通常来说，他们贷款的额度与收入相称。另外，我们将原始的抵押贷款保留在自己报表中，这意味着我们没有将其证券化或者再次转售。如果我们在放贷方面愚蠢行事，我们必会付出代价。必须牢记这一点。

If home buyers throughout the country had behaved like our buyers, America would not have had the crisis that it did. Our approach was simply to get a meaningful down-payment and gear fixed monthly payments to a sensible percentage of income. This policy kept Clayton solvent and also kept buyers in their homes.

如果全国的购房者都像我们的客户那样行事，美国就不会面临信贷危机了。我们的成功法则是：收取合理的首付，且将固定月还款额度与收入挂钩。该政策使克莱顿保持偿付能力，也帮助客户保住了房子。

Home ownership makes sense for most Americans, particularly at today’s lower prices and bargain interest rates. All things considered, the third best investment I ever made was the purchase of my home, though I would have made far more money had I instead rented and used the purchase money to buy stocks. (The two best investments were wedding rings.) For the $31,500 I paid for our house, my family and I gained 52 years of terrific memories with more to come.

考虑到现今美国的房价和利率都很低，购买住房对大多数美国人来说都是明智的选择。总的来说，我自己就把购买住宅看成我第三成功的投资(前两大成功投资是购买一对婚戒)，仅仅花了 3.15 万美元，我和家人获得了 52年的美好回忆，而且今后还将继续受益。

But a house can be a nightmare if the buyer’s eyes are bigger than his wallet and if a lender – often protected by a government guarantee – facilitates his fantasy. Our country’s social goal should not be to put families into the house of their dreams, but rather to put them into a house they can afford.

但是，如果购房者的眼光高于其经济承受能力，而银行(受政府担保)助长了他的幻想，那房子就可能成为灾难。我们国家的社会目标不应该是让家庭享受梦幻住宅，而是住进能够负担得起的住房。