巴菲特致股东的信（2012年）⑥投资业务

Investments

投资业务

Below we show our common stock investments that at yearend had a market value of more than $1 billion.

下面是我们年末持有的，市值超过 10 亿美元的股票投资：

One point about the composition of this list deserves mention. In Berkshire’s past annual reports, every stock itemized in this space has been bought by me, in the sense that I made the decision to buy it for Berkshire. But starting with this list, any investment made by Todd Combs or Ted Weschler – or a combined purchase by them – that meets the dollar threshold for the list ($1 billion this year) will be included. Above is the first such stock, DIRECTV, which both Todd and Ted hold in their portfolios and whose combined holdings at the end of 2012 were valued at the $1.15 billion shown.

关于上面的投资组合，有一点需要说明。在伯克希尔以前的年报中，该领域的每只股票都是我购买的，也就是说，我为伯克希尔做出了投资决策。但从这个组合开始，由 Todd Combs 或 Ted Weschlerg 做出的投资，或两人联合投资的，只要满足列示的门槛(今年是 10 亿美元)都会被包括在内。DIRECTV 就是第一支这样的股票，Todd 和 Ted 在他们的投资组合中都持有它，2012 年末市值合计 11.5 美元。

Todd and Ted also manage the pension funds of certain Berkshire subsidiaries, while others, for regulatory reasons, are managed by outside advisers. We do not include holdings of the pension funds in our annual report tabulations, though their portfolios often overlap Berkshire’s.

Todd 和 Ted 还管理着一些伯克希尔子公司的养老金，另外一些由于监管的原因由外部的投资公司管理。我们的年报里不包括养老金账户的持股，虽然它们的组合有许多与伯克希尔的组合相重叠。

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We continue to wind down the part of our derivatives portfolio that involved the assumption by Berkshire of insurance-like risks. (Our electric and gas utility businesses, however, will continue to use derivatives for operational purposes.) New commitments would require us to post collateral and, with minor exceptions, we are unwilling to do that. Markets can behave in extraordinary ways, and we have no interest in exposing Berkshire to some out-of-the-blue event in the financial world that might require our posting mountains of cash on a moment’s notice.

我们将继续削减涉及伯克希尔承担类似保险风险的衍生品投资组合。不过我们的电力和天然气公用事业业务还会继续进行运营所需的衍生品投资。除了少数的例外，新的合约将会要求我们提供抵押，我们不愿做抵押。市场有可能会走极端，但我们无意于将伯克希尔暴露在任何金融市场的突发事件中，这可能片刻之间就吞噬掉伯克希尔堆积如山的现金。

Charlie and I believe in operating with many redundant layers of liquidity, and we avoid any sort of obligation that could drain our cash in a material way. That reduces our returns in 99 years out of 100. But we will survive in the 100 th while many others fail. And we will sleep well in all 100.

查理和我都认为，在运营中要维持多余的流动性，避免任何形式可能会耗光我们现金的债务。这种策略在100 年中的 99 年里将降低我们的回报率。但是这可以在别人都倒下的时候，保护我们在第 100 年活下来。那么我们将在 100 年里高枕无忧。

The derivatives we have sold that provide credit protection for corporate bonds will all expire in the next year. It’s now almost certain that our profit from these contracts will approximate $1 billion pre-tax. We also received very substantial sums upfront on these derivatives, and the “float” attributable to them has averaged about $2 billion over their five-year lives. All told, these derivatives have provided a more-than-satisfactory result, especially considering the fact that we were guaranteeing corporate credits – mostly of the high-yield variety – throughout the financial panic and subsequent recession.

我们出售的为企业债提供信用保障的衍生品明年将会到期。基本可以确定我们将会在这些合约上实现 10 亿美元的税前收益。我们还收到了在 5 年存续期里这些合约的大笔预收款，贡献的"浮存金"平均大于 20 亿美元。总的来说，这些衍生品提供了一个非常令人满意的回报，尤其考虑到在整个金融危机合随后的恐慌中，我们承保的是高风险的企业债券(大部分是高收益品种)。

In our other major derivatives commitment, we sold long-term puts on four leading stock indices in the U.S., U.K., Europe and Japan. These contracts were initiated between 2004 and 2008 and even under the worst of circumstances have only minor collateral requirements. In 2010 we unwound about 10% of our exposure at a profit of $222 million. The remaining contracts expire between 2018 and 2026. Only the index value at expiration date counts; our counterparties have no right to early termination.

在其他主要的衍生品合约里，我们曾卖出了四个主要股票指数(美国、英国、欧洲和日本)的长期看跌期权。这些合约是 2004 年至 2008 年期间签订的，即使在市场最糟糕的时候，也仅有少量的抵押品要求。2010 年，我们解除了 10%的风险敞口，赚得 2.22 亿美元。剩余的合约将会在 2018 年至 2026 年之间到期。只有到期日的指数才能用于结算，我们的交易对手不能提前行权。

Berkshire received premiums of $4.2 billion when we wrote the contracts that remain outstanding. If all of these contracts had come due at yearend 2011, we would have had to pay $6.2 billion; the corresponding figure at yearend 2012 was $3.9 billion. With this large drop in immediate settlement liability, we reduced our GAAP liability at yearend 2012 to $7.5 billion from $8.5 billion at the end of 2011. Though it’s no sure thing, Charlie and I believe it likely that the final liability will be considerably less than the amount we currently carry on our books. In the meantime, we can invest the $4.2 billion of float derived from these contracts as we see fit.

伯克希尔签订以上还未到期的合约时，收到了 42 亿美元的保费。如果所有合约都在 2011 年到期，我们必须要支付 62 亿美元，2012 年这个数字是 39 亿美元。由于结算负债的大幅下降，我们的 GAAP 负债从 2011 年的85 亿下降到 2012 年的 75 亿。虽然最终结果还不确定，但是查理和我相信，最终的负债将会比我们现有的账面负债还低。另外，我们可以自由运用这些合约收到的 42 亿美元，投资于我们喜欢的标的。

We Buy Some Newspapers . . . Newspapers? During the past fifteen months, we acquired 28 daily newspapers at a cost of $344 million. This may puzzle you for two reasons. First, I have long told you in these letters and at our annual meetings that the circulation, advertising and profits of the newspaper industry overall are certain to decline. That prediction still holds. Second, the properties we purchased fell far short of meeting our oft-stated size requirements for acquisitions.

我们买了一些报业公司……报业？过去的 15 个月里，我们以 3.44 亿美元收购了 28 家日报。有两个原因可能让你非常疑惑。第一，我一直在致股东信和年会里向大家说，整个报业的发行量、广告和利润毫无疑问会下降。这个预测依然有效。第二，我们买下的资产完全达不到我们要求的收购规模标准。

We can address the second point easily. Charlie and I love newspapers and, if their economics make sense, will buy them even when they fall far short of the size threshold we would require for the purchase of, say, a widget company. Addressing the first point requires me to provide a more elaborate explanation, including some history.

第二点可能比较容易解释。查理和我喜欢报纸，如果它们的经济情况合意，我们会买下它们，哪怕它们的规模根本达不到我们的收购标准，比如一些袖珍型公司。解释第一点需要多费一些功夫，还需要一些历史。

News, to put it simply, is what people don’t know that they want to know. And people will seek their news – what’s important to them – from whatever sources provide the best combination of immediacy, ease of access, reliability, comprehensiveness and low cost. The relative importance of these factors varies with the nature of the news and the person wanting it.

简单的说，新闻就是人们不知道但却又想知道的事情。考虑即时性、方便性、可靠性、全面性和低成本，人们会从任何最佳组合的来源寻找对他们来说重要的新闻。这些因素的重要程度随新闻的特性和受众的需求而不同。

Before television and the Internet, newspapers were the primary source for an incredible variety of news, a fact that made them indispensable to a very high percentage of the population. Whether your interests were international, national, local, sports or financial quotations, your newspaper usually was first to tell you the latest information. Indeed, your paper contained so much you wanted to learn that you received your money’s worth, even if only a small number of its pages spoke to your specific interests. Better yet, advertisers typically paid almost all of the product’s cost, and readers rode their coattails.

在电视和互联网出现以前，报纸是各种新闻的最主要信息渠道，这一事实让其成为大部分人不可或缺的产品。无论你关注国际、国内、地方，体育还是财经，大家订阅的报纸通常是最快的信息来源。哪怕整份报纸里只有几页满足大家的兴趣爱好，报纸里所包含的信息还是让你的订阅物超所值。更好的是，广告商通常支付了几乎全部的刊印成本，读者只需搭个顺风车。

Additionally, the ads themselves delivered information of vital interest to hordes of readers, in effect providing even more “news.” Editors would cringe at the thought, but for many readers learning what jobs or apartments were available, what supermarkets were carrying which weekend specials, or what movies were showing where and when was far more important than the views expressed on the editorial page.

此外，广告本身也提供了很多信息给有兴趣的读者，实际上相当于提供了更多"新闻"。编辑们在这方面绞尽脑汁，但是对很多读者来说，招聘信息，哪里有房屋出租，哪个超市周末打折，或者哪部电影何时在哪里上映，比主要文章里的社论要有意义的多。

In turn, the local paper was indispensable to advertisers. If Sears or Safeway built stores in Omaha, they required a “megaphone” to tell the city’s residents why their stores should be visited today. Indeed, big department stores and grocers vied to outshout their competition with multi-page spreads, knowing that the goods they advertised would fly off the shelves. With no other megaphone remotely comparable to that of the newspaper, ads sold themselves.

反过来说，报纸对于打广告的公司来说也是不可或缺的。如果 Sears 和 Safeway 在奥马哈开了新店，它们需要一个"大喇叭"来告诉城里的居民为何今天应该去光顾它们的商店。实际上，大型百货商店、杂货店争相在报纸上打出多页广告来压倒竞争对手，因为他们知道广告促销的产品立马就会被抢购一空。再没其他宣传方式比得上报纸了，广告会一传百应。

As long as a newspaper was the only one in its community, its profits were certain to be extraordinary; whether it was managed well or poorly made little difference. (As one Southern publisher famously confessed, “I owe my exalted position in life to two great American institutions – nepotism and monopoly.”)

只要是当地社区的唯一报纸，它的利润肯定非常可观，经营水平的好坏没有太大影响。正如一家南部的出版商坦言，"我一生优越的地位全部归功于美国的两项制度——裙带关系和垄断。"

Over the years, almost all cities became one-newspaper towns (or harbored two competing papers that joined forces to operate as a single economic unit). This contraction was inevitable because most people wished to read and pay for only one paper. When competition existed, the paper that gained a significant lead in circulation almost automatically received the most ads. That left ads drawing readers and readers drawing ads. This symbiotic process spelled doom for the weaker paper and became known as “survival of the fattest.”

近年来，绝大部分城市都只剩下了一份报纸(或者两家竞争的报纸合并如同一个经济利益体)。这种减缩是不可避免的，大部分人只愿意订阅和阅读一份报纸。当竞争存在的时候，发行量显著领先的报纸几乎会自动获得大部分的广告。于是广告吸引读者，读者吸引广告。共生的过程淘汰了弱势的报纸，即所谓的"胖者生存"。

Now the world has changed. Stock market quotes and the details of national sports events are old news long before the presses begin to roll. The Internet offers extensive information about both available jobs and homes. Television bombards viewers with political, national and international news. In one area of interest after another, newspapers have therefore lost their “primacy.” And, as their audiences have fallen, so has advertising. (Revenues from “help wanted” classified ads – long a huge source of income for newspapers – have plunged more than 90% in the past 12 years.)

现在世界已经改变了，早在报纸开始印刷的时候，股价信息和全国体育赛事的细节就已经成了旧闻。互联网提供了大量招聘和租房信息。电视机随时播放政治、国内和国际新闻。在一个接一个领域报纸失去了首要地位。随着受众减少，广告也随之下降。(招聘类广告收入曾经是报纸的重要收入，过去的 12 年里下降超过 90%。)

Newspapers continue to reign supreme, however, in the delivery of local news. If you want to know what’s going on in your town – whether the news is about the mayor or taxes or high school football – there is no substitute for a local newspaper that is doing its job. A reader’s eyes may glaze over after they take in a couple of paragraphs about Canadian tariffs or political developments in Pakistan; a story about the reader himself or his neighbors will be read to the end. Wherever there is a pervasive sense of community, a paper that serves the special informational needs of that community will remain indispensable to a significant portion of its residents.

然而，报纸在传递地方新闻方面，依然维持着霸主地位。如果大家想知道自己的社区发生了什么——无论是关于市长，税收，还是高中橄榄球队的新闻，没有任何东西能取代地方报纸。读者读到加拿大关税局或者巴基斯坦政局发展的文章可能会犯困，但是一条与读者或者他的邻居有关的新闻，将会被一读到底。只要社区观念普遍存在，满足社区特定新闻需求的报纸就会对社区内的大部分居民不可或缺。

Even a valuable product, however, can self-destruct from a faulty business strategy. And that process has been underway during the past decade at almost all papers of size. Publishers – including Berkshire in Buffalo – have offered their paper free on the Internet while charging meaningful sums for the physical specimen. How could this lead to anything other than a sharp and steady drop in sales of the printed product? Falling circulation, moreover, makes a paper less essential to advertisers. Under these conditions, the “virtuous circle” of the past reverses.

即便一个有价值的产品，也会因错误的商业策略而自毁。过去几十年，几乎所有的大型报纸都在进行这一个过程。出版商(包括伯克希尔旗下的布法罗新闻报)都曾在互联网上免费提供它们的报纸，同时却对纸质报纸收费。这怎么能不导致纸质报纸发行量的大幅下降呢？此外，下跌的发行量，进一步降低了它对广告商的重要意义。于是过去的"良性循环"彻底逆转。

The Wall Street Journal went to a pay model early. But the main exemplar for local newspapers is the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, published by Walter Hussman, Jr. Walter also adopted a pay format early, and over the past decade his paper has retained its circulation far better than any other large paper in the country. Despite Walter’s powerful example, it’s only been in the last year or so that other papers, including Berkshire’s, have explored pay arrangements. Whatever works best – and the answer is not yet clear – will be copied widely.

《华尔街日报》很早就开始尝试收费模式。地方性报纸的范例则是 Walter Hussman Jr.出版的《阿肯色民主党公报》，Walter 也很早开始尝试收费模式，过去的几十年里，它的发行量维持的比国内其他报纸都要好。除了Walter 外，其他报纸包括伯克希尔的报纸，直到最近几年才尝试收费模式。只要模式的效果最好(现在还不确定)，就会被广泛复制。

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Charlie and I believe that papers delivering comprehensive and reliable information to tightly-bound communities and having a sensible Internet strategy will remain viable for a long time. We do not believe that success will come from cutting either the news content or frequency of publication. Indeed, skimpy news coverage will almost certainly lead to skimpy readership. And the less-than-daily publication that is now being tried in some large towns or cities – while it may improve profits in the short term – seems certain to diminish the papers’ relevance over time. Our goal is to keep our papers loaded with content of interest to our readers and to be paid appropriately by those who find us useful, whether the product they view is in their hands or on the Internet.

查理和我认为，向一个联系紧密的社区提供全面可靠的信息，并制定合理的互联网策略，社区报纸将会在很长时间内保持活力。我们不认为削减内容和发行频率会带来成功。实际上，狭窄的覆盖范围会导致狭窄的客户群。而在一些较大的城镇也尝试过了降低发行频率，虽然短期内可能提高利润，但是长期来看会减少报纸的曝光频率。我们的目标是让报纸充满读者感兴趣的内容，并且让那些觉得它有用的人支付合理的费用，无论是纸质的还是网络版。

Our confidence is buttressed by the availability of Terry Kroeger’s outstanding management group at the Omaha World-Herald, a team that has the ability to oversee a large group of papers. The individual papers, however, will be independent in their news coverage and editorial opinions. (I voted for Obama; of our 12 dailies that endorsed a presidential candidate, 10 opted for Romney.)

我们的信心来源于 TerryKroeger 在《奥马哈先驱报》的卓越管理，他的团队有能力管理更多的报纸。各份报纸则会在新闻采编上保持独立。(我投票给了奥巴马；但我们支持总统候选人的 12 份日报中，有 10 份选择了罗姆尼。)

Our newspapers are certainly not insulated from the forces that have been driving revenues downward. Still, the six small dailies we owned throughout 2012 had unchanged revenues for the year, a result far superior to that experienced by big-city dailies. Moreover, the two large papers we operated throughout the year – The Buffalo News and the Omaha World-Herald – held their revenue loss to 3%, which was also an above-average outcome. Among newspapers in America’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, our Buffalo and Omaha papers rank near the top in circulation penetration of their home territories.

我们的报纸当然也摆脱不了导致收入下滑的压力。尽管如此，我们拥有的 6 份小型日报 2012 年的收入没有下降，这是比其他大城市日报要好的成绩。另外，我们全年运营的两份大型报纸《布法罗新闻报》和《奥马哈世界先驱报》的收入下滑维持在 3%，也优于平均水平。在全美 50 个大城市圈，我们在布法罗和奥马哈的报纸在当地的渗透率名列前茅。

This popularity is no accident: Credit the editors of those papers – Margaret Sullivan at the News and Mike Reilly at the World-Herald — for delivering information that has made their publications indispensable to community-interested readers. (Margaret, I regret to say, recently left us to join The New York Times, whose job offers are tough to turn down. That paper made a great hire, and we wish her the best.) Berkshire’s cash earnings from its papers will almost certainly trend downward over time. Even a sensible Internet strategy will not be able to prevent modest erosion. At our cost, however, I believe these papers will meet or exceed our economic test for acquisitions. Results to date support that belief.

这种受欢迎程度并非意外：这要归功于报纸的编辑们，布法罗的 Margaret Sullivan 和奥马哈的 Mike Reilly，他们传递的信息使他们的报纸对关注社区的读者来说不可或缺。(非常遗憾，Margaret 最近离开我们加入了《纽约时报》，这个机会很难拒绝。纽约时报挖到了一个宝，我们祝她一切顺利。)几乎可以肯定的是，长期来看伯克希尔在报纸上获得的现金收入将会不断下降。即便是明智的互联网策略也不能阻止温和的侵蚀。至于我们的投资，我们相信这些报纸将会达到或者超过我们的收购回报标准。迄今为止的结果都证明了我们的想法。

Charlie and I, however, still operate under economic principle 11 (detailed on page 99) and will not continue the operation of any business doomed to unending losses. One daily paper that we acquired in a bulk purchase from Media General was significantly unprofitable under that company’s ownership. After analyzing the paper’s results, we saw no remedy for the losses and reluctantly shut it down. All of our remaining dailies, however, should be profitable for a long time to come. (They are listed on page 108.) At appropriate prices – and that means at a very low multiple of current earnings – we will purchase more papers of the type we like.

查理和我始终坚持股东手册第 11 条经济原则，我们不会持续运营扭亏无望的业务。我们打包收购 Media General 时，其旗下包括一家无利可图的日报，我们对其分析后，找不出解决办法，于是不情愿的将其关闭。而我们其他的日报，则在未来很长一段时间内都会保持盈利。如果价格合理(意味着非常低的市盈率)，我们将购买更多我们喜欢类型的报纸。

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A milestone in Berkshire’s newspaper operations occurred at yearend when Stan Lipsey retired as publisher of The Buffalo News. It’s no exaggeration for me to say that the News might now be extinct were it not for Stan.

伯克希尔报纸业务的一个里程碑事件是，《布法罗新闻报》的 Stan Lipsey 去年底退休了。毫不夸张地说，如果不是 Stan，新闻报现在可能已经倒闭。

Charlie and I acquired the News in April 1977. It was an evening paper, dominant on weekdays but lacking a Sunday edition. Throughout the country, the circulation trend was toward morning papers. Moreover, Sunday was becoming ever more critical to the profitability of metropolitan dailies. Without a Sunday paper, the News was destined to lose out to its morning competitor, which had a fat and entrenched Sunday product.

查理和我 1977 年 4 月收购了新闻报。当时它是一份晚报，主打工作日而没有周日版。全国报纸的发行趋势是晨报。而且对于城市的日报的盈利来说，周日版越来越重要。没有周日版，布法罗几乎注定要输给它的晨报竞争对手，它们拥有庞大且死忠用户的周日版。

We therefore began to print a Sunday edition late in 1977. And then all hell broke loose. Our competitor sued us, and District Judge Charles Brieant, Jr. authored a harsh ruling that crippled the introduction of our paper. His ruling was later reversed – after 17 long months – in a 3-0 sharp rebuke by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. While the appeal was pending, we lost circulation, hemorrhaged money and stood in constant danger of going out of business.

于是我们在 1977 年底开始刊印周日版。但是噩梦开始了。竞争对手起诉我们，地区法官 CharleBrieant Jr.宣布了一项严厉的判决阻碍我们周日版的发行。在漫长的 17 个月以后，他的判决在第二巡回法院以 3-0 被驳回。在上诉期间，我们损失了发行量，现金大失血，并且随时面临着倒闭的危险。

Enter Stan Lipsey, a friend of mine from the 1960s, who, with his wife, had sold Berkshire a small Omaha weekly. I found Stan to be an extraordinary newspaperman, knowledgeable about every aspect of circulation, production, sales and editorial. (He was a key person in gaining that small weekly a Pulitzer Prize in 1973.) So when I was in big trouble at the News, I asked Stan to leave his comfortable way of life in Omaha to take over in Buffalo.

那时 StanLipse 是我 1960 年代的一位好朋友，他和妻子卖给了伯克希尔一家小型奥马哈周报。我发现 Stan是一位一流的报业人士，对发行、产品、销售和编辑各个方面了如指掌。(他是让那份小周报荣获 1973 年普利策奖的关键人物)。所以当我在布法罗焦头烂额的时候，我邀请 Stan 离开他奥马哈舒适的生活，去布法罗接手。

He never hesitated. Along with Murray Light, our editor, Stan persevered through four years of very dark days until the News won the competitive struggle in 1982. Ever since, despite a difficult Buffalo economy, the performance of the News has been exceptional. As both a friend and as a manager, Stan is simply the best.

他从不犹豫。Stan 和我们的主编 Murray Light 一起，在艰难的时光中坚持奋斗了 4 年，直到新闻报在 1982年从竞争中胜出。从那时起，即便在布法罗经济糟糕的时候，我们的报纸业绩都表现出色。无论作为朋友还是经理人，Stan 都是最棒的。