巴菲特致股东的信（2014年）附录二：伯克希尔50周年过去现在和未来 ③今天的伯克希尔

Berkshire Today

今天的伯克希尔

Berkshire is now a sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further.

伯克希尔现在是个庞大的企业集团(conglomerate)，并且试图进一步扩张。

Conglomerates, it should be acknowledged, have a terrible reputation with investors. And they richly deserve it. Let me first explain why they are in the doghouse, and then I will go on to describe why the conglomerate form brings huge and enduring advantages to Berkshire.

应当承认，企业集团在投资者中名声不佳。这是它们应得的。让我们先解释一下，为什么它们受到冷落，然后我将继续描述，为什么企业集团的形式会给伯克希尔带来巨大且持久的优势。

Since I entered the business world, conglomerates have enjoyed several periods of extreme popularity, the silliest of which occurred in the late 1960s. The drill for conglomerate CEOs then was simple: By personality, promotion or dubious accounting – and often by all three – these managers drove a fledgling conglomerate’s stock to, say, 20 times earnings and then issued shares as fast as possible to acquire another business selling at ten-or-so times earnings. They immediately applied “pooling” accounting to the acquisition, which – with not a dime’s worth of change in the underlying businesses – automatically increased per-share earnings, and used the rise as proof of managerial genius. They next explained to investors that this sort of talent justified the maintenance, or even the enhancement, of the acquirer’s p/e multiple. And, finally, they promised to endlessly repeat this procedure and thereby create ever-increasing per-share earnings.

自从我进入商界以来，企业集团已经经受了几段非常受欢迎的时期，其中最为愚蠢的一段发生在1960 年代末期。那时企业集团CEO 的把戏非常的简单：依靠人格魅力，依靠推广宣传，或者依靠可疑的会计操作——经常是三者并用，这些管理者把一个新组建的企业集团股价推升到20 倍市盈率，然后迅速发行股票，以10 倍左右的市盈率收购另一家公司。它们立即将"权益合并法"(pooling)会计应用于收购，在被收购公司业务没有任何的变化的情况下，但其每股收益却自动地增加了，并将其作为自己管理天才的体现。他们接着对投资者解释说，这种才能证明了，维持甚至提高收购方公司市盈率倍数的的合理性。最后，他们许诺会无尽地重复这一过程，从而创造不断增长的每股收益。

Wall Street’s love affair with this hocus-pocus intensified as the 1960s rolled by. The Street’s denizens are always ready to suspend disbelief when dubious maneuvers are used to manufacture rising per-share earnings, particularly if these acrobatics produce mergers that generate huge fees for investment bankers. Auditors willingly sprinkled their holy water on the conglomerates’ accounting and sometimes even made suggestions as to how to further juice the numbers. For many, gushers of easy money washed away ethical sensitivities.

随着60 年代的过去，华尔街对这种把戏的喜爱与日俱增。当这些可疑的策略被用于制造不断上升的每股收益时，华尔街的居民们总是愿意放弃对其暂时的怀疑，特别是当这些把戏产生的企业合并，能为投资银行家们带来巨额费用的时候。会计师们乐于在企业集团的会计报表上泼洒他们的圣水，有时甚至就如何进一步提高这些数字提出建议。对许多人来说，源源不断轻松赚来的钱冲刷掉了他们道德的敏感性。

Since the per-share earnings gains of an expanding conglomerate came from exploiting p/e differences, its CEO had to search for businesses selling at low multiples of earnings. These, of course, were characteristically mediocre businesses with poor long-term prospects. This incentive to bottom-fish usually led to a conglomerate’s collection of underlying businesses becoming more and more junky. That mattered little to investors: It was deal velocity and pooling accounting they looked to for increased earnings.

正是由于不断扩张的企业集团，其每股收益的增加来自于利用市盈率的差异，因此它的CEO 不得不寻找低市盈率的公司。当然，这些都是典型的平庸生意，长期前景不佳。在这在糟糕生意中捕鱼的动机，往往使得企业集团的基础业务变得越来越糟糕。这对投资者来说无关紧要：他们希望通过并购速度和合并法会计来增加收益。

The resulting firestorm of merger activity was fanned by an adoring press. Companies such as ITT, Litton Industries, Gulf & Western, and LTV were lionized, and their CEOs became celebrities. (These once-famous conglomerates are now long gone. As Yogi Berra said, “Every Napoleon meets his Watergate.”)

由此引发的并购风暴被盲目崇拜的媒体煽动起来。诸如国际电话电信(ITT)，利顿工业(Litton Industies)，海湾和西方集团(Gulf & Western)和LTV 防务集团(Ling-Temco-Vought)等公司受到了追捧，它们的CEO 也成了名人。(这些曾经出名的企业集团如今早已不复存在。就像Yogi Berra 说的，"每个拿破仑都会遇到他的水门(相对于凯旋门，代指失败)。")

Back then, accounting shenanigans of all sorts – many of them ridiculously transparent – were excused or overlooked. Indeed, having an accounting wizard at the helm of an expanding conglomerate was viewed as a huge plus: Shareholders in those instances could be sure that reported earnings would never disappoint, no matter how bad the operating realities of the business might become.

当时，各种各样的会计诡计(其中许多诡计透明的离谱)都被原谅或者忽视了。事实上，让一位会计造假专家执掌一家不断扩张的企业集团，竟被视为一个巨大的优势：在那种情况下，股东可以确信的是，不管企业运营的实际状况变得多么糟糕，报告的收益都不会让人失望。

In the late 1960s, I attended a meeting at which an acquisitive CEO bragged of his “bold, imaginative accounting.” Most of the analysts listening responded with approving nods, seeing themselves as having found a manager whose forecasts were certain to be met, whatever the business results might be.

在1960 年代末期，我参加了一个会议，会议上一位偏爱收购的CEO 吹嘘自己"大胆且富有想象力的会计手法"。大多数的分析师听着他的话，都频频点头表示赞赏，认为自己找到了一个无论业务经营结果如何，其预期一定会实现的经理人。

Eventually, however, the clock struck twelve, and everything turned to pumpkins and mice. Once again, it became evident that business models based on the serial issuances of overpriced shares – just like chain-letter models – most assuredly redistribute wealth, but in no way create it. Both phenomena, nevertheless, periodically blossom in our country – they are every promoter’s dream – though often they appear in a carefully-crafted disguise. The ending is always the same: Money flows from the gullible to the fraudster. And with stocks, unlike chain letters, the sums hijacked can be staggering.

然而，最终十二点的时钟敲响了，一切变成了南瓜和老鼠，再一次地证明，基于一系列的高价股票连续发行的商业模式(就像连锁信模式一样)，最可能的是财富的重新分配，但绝不会创造财富。然而，这两种现象在我们国家周期性的出现(它们是每个倡导者的梦想)，虽然它们往往以精心伪装的骗局出现。结局总是相同的：金钱从轻信者流向行骗者。与连锁信骗局不同，从股票中劫持的金额是惊人的。

At both BPL and Berkshire, we have never invested in companies that are hell-bent on issuing shares. That behavior is one of the surest indicators of a promotion-minded management, weak accounting, a stock that is overpriced and – all too often – outright dishonesty.

在BPL 和伯克希尔公司，我们从未投资过那些一心想要发行股票的公司。这种行为是以下情况的最可靠的指标之一：一个注重推销的管理层，糟糕的会计原则，高估的股价，以及往往全然地不诚实。

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So what do Charlie and I find so attractive about Berkshire’s conglomerate structure? To put the case simply: If the conglomerate form is used judiciously, it is an ideal structure for maximizing long-term capital growth.

那么，查理和我为什么会认为伯克希尔的企业集团结构如此有吸引力呢？简单地说：如果明智地使用企业集团形式，它是实现最大化长期资金增长的理想形式。

One of the heralded virtues of capitalism is that it efficiently allocates funds. The argument is that markets will direct investment to promising businesses and deny it to those destined to wither. That is true: With all its excesses, market-driven allocation of capital is usually far superior to any alternative.

资本主义的一个显著的优点就是能有效地配置资金。因为市场将资金引向有前途的生意中，而拒绝那些注定要倒闭的生意。这是真的：尽管存在过度的行为，但市场驱动的资金配置往往远胜过其他的选择。

Nevertheless, there are often obstacles to the rational movement of capital. As those 1954 Berkshire minutes made clear, capital withdrawals within the textile industry that should have been obvious were delayed for decades because of the vain hopes and self-interest of managements. Indeed, I myself delayed abandoning our obsolete textile mills for far too long.

然而，资本的合理流动往往存在障碍。正如1954 年伯克希尔会议记录所清晰体现的那样，由于自私的管理层空虚的期盼，在纺织业中本应及早的资本撤出却被推迟了数十年。事实上，我自己也拖延了很久才放弃了我们过时的纺织厂。

A CEO with capital employed in a declining operation seldom elects to massively redeploy that capital into unrelated activities. A move of that kind would usually require that long-time associates be fired and mistakes be admitted. Moreover, it’s unlikely that CEO would be the manager you would wish to handle the redeployment job even if he or she was inclined to undertake it.

当CEO 在一个衰退产业中投入了资本，他很少会选择将资本大规模地重新配置到不相关的业务中。因为这样的行为，往往需要解雇长期的合作伙伴并承认自己的错误。此外，CEO 也不太可能就是你希望承担重新配置工作的经理人，即使这个CEO 想要承担这项工作。

At the shareholder level, taxes and frictional costs weigh heavily on individual investors when they attempt to reallocate capital among businesses and industries. Even tax-free institutional investors face major costs as they move capital because they usually need intermediaries to do this job. A lot of mouths with expensive tastes then clamor to be fed – among them investment bankers, accountants, consultants, lawyers and such capital-reallocators as leveraged buyout operators. Money-shufflers don’t come cheap.

在股东的层面，当个人投资者试图在企业和行业之间重新分配资本时，税收和摩擦成本会给他们带来沉重的负担。即使免税的机构投资者在转换资本时也面临比较大的成本，因为他们通常需要中介机构去完成这个工作。此时，无数张昂贵的嘴需要被养活——其中包括投资银行家，会计师，咨询师，律师以及资本配置运营商比如杠杆收购者。资本的重新洗牌可一点也不便宜。

In contrast, a conglomerate such as Berkshire is perfectly positioned to allocate capital rationally and at minimal cost. Of course, form itself is no guarantee of success: We have made plenty of mistakes, and we will make more. Our structural advantages, however, are formidable.

相比之下，像伯克希尔这样的企业集团完全有能力以最低的成本，合理地配置资本。当然，企业形式本身并不能保证会成功：我们犯了无数错误，并且还会犯更多。然而，我们的结构性优势是非常强大的。

At Berkshire, we can – without incurring taxes or much in the way of other costs – move huge sums from businesses that have limited opportunities for incremental investment to other sectors with greater promise. Moreover, we are free of historical biases created by lifelong association with a given industry and are not subject to pressures from colleagues having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s important: If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.

在伯克希尔，我们能够在不产生税负或者其他成本的情况下，将巨额资本，从增量投资机会有限的业务中，转移到其他有更大前景的业务中。另外，我们不会因与特定行业的终身联系而产生历史偏见，也不会遭受维护现状符合其既得利益的同伴的压力。这一点很重要：如果马儿控制了投资决策，那么就不会有汽车行业了。

Another major advantage we possess is the ability to buy pieces of wonderful businesses – a.k.a. common stocks. That’s not a course of action open to most managements. Over our history, this strategic alternative has proved to be very helpful; a broad range of options always sharpens decision-making. The businesses we are offered by the stock market every day – in small pieces, to be sure – are often far more attractive than the businesses we are concurrently being offered in their entirety. Additionally, the gains we’ve realized from marketable securities have helped us make certain large acquisitions that would otherwise have been beyond our financial capabilities.

我们拥有的另一个主要优势是，购买好生意的一部分(普通股)的能力。这不是大多数管理层可以采取的活动。在我们的历史中，这种策略选择已被证明是非常有益的；广泛的选择总是使得决策更加明智。股票市场每天给予我们的企业报价(当然只是一小部分)，往往比我们整体收购的报价更具吸引力。此外，我们从股市上实现的收益，帮助我们进行了许多大型收购，否则这些收购将会超出我们的财务能力。

In effect, the world is Berkshire’s oyster – a world offering us a range of opportunities far beyond those realistically open to most companies. We are limited, of course, to businesses whose economic prospects we can evaluate. And that’s a serious limitation: Charlie and I have no idea what a great many companies will look like ten years from now. But that limitation is much smaller than that borne by an executive whose experience has been confined to a single industry. On top of that, we can profitably scale to a far larger size than the many businesses that are constrained by the limited potential of the single industry in which they operate.

实际上世界是属于伯克希尔的——这个世界提供给我们范围广泛的机会，远远超出大多数企业实际面临的机会。当然，我们仅限于那些我们能够评估其经济前景的企业。这是一个重要的限制：很多企业查理和我都不知道十年后将会如何。但是这种限制远远小于，一位经验仅限于单一领域的高管所承受的限制。除此之外，我们可以有利可图的持续扩大规模，远远超过许多企业，这些企业普遍受到其所在单一行业潜力有限的制约。

I mentioned earlier that See’s Candy had produced huge earnings compared to its modest capital requirements. We would have loved, of course, to intelligently use those funds to expand our candy operation. But our many attempts to do so were largely futile. So, without incurring tax inefficiencies or frictional costs, we have used the excess funds generated by See’s to help purchase other businesses. If See’s had remained a stand-alone company, its earnings would have had to be distributed to investors to redeploy, sometimes after being heavily depleted by large taxes and, almost always, by significant frictional and agency costs.

我前面提到，相比于它适度的资本需求，喜诗糖果产出了大量现金收益。当然，我们很乐意明智地使用那些资本，去扩大我们的糖果业务。但是我们多次扩张的尝试基本上都是徒劳的。所以，在不产生无效税负或摩擦成本的情况下，我们将喜诗糖果产出的多余资金用于收购其他业务。如果喜诗糖果仍然是一家独立的公司，它的巨额收益将不得不分配给投资者以重新配置，有时在巨额税收以后，几乎总是被巨大的摩擦和代理人成本耗尽。

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Berkshire has one further advantage that has become increasingly important over the years: We are now the home of choice for the owners and managers of many outstanding businesses.

伯克希尔还有一个近年来变得越来越重要的优势：我们现在是很多杰出企业拥有者和管理者的首选之地。

Families that own successful businesses have multiple options when they contemplate sale. Frequently, the best decision is to do nothing. There are worse things in life than having a prosperous business that one understands well. But sitting tight is seldom recommended by Wall Street. (Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.)

拥有成功企业的家族，在考虑出售时有多种选择。通常最好的选择是什么都不做。生活中有许多比拥有一个自己非常了解且繁荣的企业更加糟糕的事情，但华尔街很少建议人们呆坐不动(不要问理发师你是否需要理发)。

When one part of a family wishes to sell while others wish to continue, a public offering often makes sense. But, when owners wish to cash out entirely, they usually consider one of two paths.

当一个家庭部分成员想要出售，而另一部分想要继续经营的时候，公开发行股票通常会变得合理。但是，当所有者想要完全地出售，他们通常考虑以下两个途径之一。

The first is sale to a competitor who is salivating at the possibility of wringing “synergies” from the combining of the two companies. This buyer invariably contemplates getting rid of large numbers of the seller’s associates, the very people who have helped the owner build his business. A caring owner, however – and there are plenty of them – usually does not want to leave his long-time associates sadly singing the old country song: “She got the goldmine, I got the shaft.”

第一个选择是，出售给竞争对手。他们对两家公司的合并可能产生的"协同效应"正垂涎三尺。这类收购者总是考虑解雇出售方的大量员工，也就是那些帮助所有者建立起这个业务的人。然而，一个体贴的所有者(有很多这样的人)，往往不想让他的长期伙伴悲伤地唱古老的乡村歌曲："她得到了金矿，我得到了竖井(不公平对待)"。

The second choice for sellers is the Wall Street buyer. For some years, these purchasers accurately called themselves “leveraged buyout firms.” When that term got a bad name in the early 1990s – remember RJR and Barbarians at the Gate? – these buyers hastily relabeled themselves “private-equity.”

第二种选择是，出售给华尔街买家。多年来，确切的说这种收购方自称为"杠杆收购公司"。当这词汇在1990年代获得了恶名，还记得RJR 收购案和门口的野蛮人吗？这些买家匆忙地将自己改称为"私募股权"。

The name may have changed but that was all: Equity is dramatically reduced and debt is piled on in virtually all private-equity purchases. Indeed, the amount that a private-equity purchaser offers to the seller is in part determined by the buyer assessing the maximum amount of debt that can be placed on the acquired company.

名字可能已经改变，但本质不变：几乎所有的私募股权收购案中，股权比例大幅减少，债务大幅提高。实际上，私募股权购买方向卖方提供的报价，部分取决于买方对被收购公司所能承受的债务上限的评估。

Later, if things go well and equity begins to build, leveraged buy-out shops will often seek to re-leverage with new borrowings. They then typically use part of the proceeds to pay a huge dividend that drives equity sharply downward, sometimes even to a negative figure.

接着，如果事情进展顺利(债务下降)，股权比例开始回升，杠杆收购机构往往会寻求利用新的借贷来进行再杠杆化。然后他们通常会将部分收益用于支付巨额的债务利息，使得股东权益大幅度减少，有时甚至是负值。

In truth, “equity” is a dirty word for many private-equity buyers; what they love is debt. And, because debt is currently so inexpensive, these buyers can frequently pay top dollar. Later, the business will be resold, often to another leveraged buyer. In effect, the business becomes a piece of merchandise.

事实上，对于许多私募股权买方来说，"股权"是一个讨厌的词汇；他们喜爱的是债务。而且因为目前债务成本如此低廉，这些买方往往愿意支付最高价。接着公司将被转售，通常是卖给另外一个杠杠收购方。实际上公司变成了一件可交易的商品。

Berkshire offers a third choice to the business owner who wishes to sell: a permanent home, in which the company’s people and culture will be retained (though, occasionally, management changes will be needed). Beyond that, any business we acquire dramatically increases its financial strength and ability to grow. Its days of dealing with banks and Wall Street analysts are also forever ended.

伯克希尔提供了希望出售业务的所有者第三种选择：一个永久的家，公司的员工和文化将被保留其中(尽管偶尔也需要更换管理层)。除此之外，我们收购的任何业务，都会大大增强其财务实力和增长能力。它与银行和华尔街分析师打交道的日子也永远地结束了。

Some sellers don’t care about these matters. But, when sellers do, Berkshire does not have a lot of competition.

有些卖家并不关心这些问题。但卖家关心的时候，伯克希尔并没有太多的竞争对手。

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Sometimes pundits propose that Berkshire spin-off certain of its businesses. These suggestions make no sense. Our companies are worth more as part of Berkshire than as separate entities. One reason is our ability to move funds between businesses or into new ventures instantly and without tax. In addition, certain costs duplicate themselves, in full or part, if operations are separated. Here’s the most obvious example: Berkshire incurs nominal costs for its single board of directors; were our dozens of subsidiaries to be split off, the overall cost for directors would soar. So, too, would regulatory and administration expenditures.

有时评论员提议伯克希尔剥离部分业务。这些建议毫无道理。作为伯克希尔的一部分，我们的子公司比作为独立的实体要更有价值。其中一个原因是，我们能够立即免税地在企业之间转移资本或投入新的公司。此外，如果业务分开，某些成本会全部或者部分地重复。这里有个最明显的例子：伯克希尔单一的董事会只花费了微不足道的成本；如果我们几十家子公司被拆分，董事会成本将大幅增加。监管和管理成本也是如此。

Finally, there are sometimes important tax efficiencies for Subsidiary A because we own Subsidiary B. For example, certain tax credits that are available to our utilities are currently realizable only because we generate huge amounts of taxable income at other Berkshire operations. That gives Berkshire Hathaway Energy a major advantage over most public-utility companies in developing wind and solar projects.

最后，子公司A 有时会因为我们拥有子公司B，而产生重要的税负效率。例如，我们的公用事业公司目前获得了一些税收抵免，仅仅是因为伯克希尔其他公司的运营中产生了巨额的应税收入。这给予了伯克希尔能源公司在开发风能和太阳能项目方面，比大多数公用事业公司具有重大优势。

Investment bankers, being paid as they are for action, constantly urge acquirers to pay 20% to 50% premiums over market price for publicly-held businesses. The bankers tell the buyer that the premium is justified for “control value” and for the wonderful things that are going to happen once the acquirer’s CEO takes charge. (What acquisition-hungry manager will challenge that assertion?)

投资银行家不断地催促着收购方为上升公司支付高于市场价20-50％的溢价，他们获得的薪酬与这些活动直接相关。银行家们告诉收购方，溢价是合理的，因为获得了"控制价值"，以及一旦收购方CEO 接管好的事情就会发生。(哪一个渴望收购的经理人会对这一说法提出质疑？)

A few years later, bankers – bearing straight faces – again appear and just as earnestly urge spinning off the earlier acquisition in order to “unlock shareholder value.” Spin-offs, of course, strip the owning company of its purported “control value” without any compensating payment. The bankers explain that the spun-off company will flourish because its management will be more entrepreneurial, having been freed from the smothering bureaucracy of the parent company. (So much for that talented CEO we met earlier.)

几年以后，银行家们绷着脸再次出现，同样热切地催促分拆之前收购的公司，以"释放股东价值"。当然，分拆会剥离母公司所谓的"控制价值"，而且不会支付任何赔偿。银行家解释说，分拆后的公司将会蓬勃发展，因为它的管理层将会更具企业家精神，摆脱了母公司令人窒息的官僚作风。(我们早前见到的那位才华横溢的CEO 就这么点本事。)

If the divesting company later wishes to reacquire the spun-off operation, it presumably would again be urged by its bankers to pay a hefty “control” premium for the privilege. (Mental “flexibility” of this sort by the banking fraternity has prompted the saying that fees too often lead to transactions rather than transactions leading to fees.)

如果这家剥离后的公司日后希望重新收购分拆的业务，银行家可能会再次催促，其为这一特权支付巨额"控制"溢价。(银行界的这类心理上的"灵活性"促使人们认为，费用往往会导致交易，而不是交易导致了费用。)

It’s possible, of course, that someday a spin-off or sale at Berkshire would be required by regulators. Berkshire carried out such a spin-off in 1979, when new regulations for bank holding companies forced us to divest a bank we owned in Rockford, Illinois.

当然，可能有一天监管机构会要求伯克希尔进行分拆或者出售。伯克希尔于1979 年实施了这种分拆，当时针对银行控股公司的新规，迫使我们剥离位于Illinois 州Rockford 市的一家银行。

Voluntary spin-offs, though, make no sense for us: We would lose control value, capital-allocation flexibility and, in some cases, important tax advantages. The CEOs who brilliantly run our subsidiaries now would have difficulty in being as effective if running a spun-off operation, given the operating and financial advantages derived from Berkshire’s ownership. Moreover, the parent and the spun-off operations, once separated, would likely incur moderately greater costs than existed when they were combined.

然而，自愿分拆对我们而言毫无意义。我们将损失控制价值，资本配置的灵活性，在一些情况下，还好失去重要的税收优势。考虑到源于伯克希尔所有权所带来的运营和财务优势，那些管理我们子公司的出色CEO 们，将很难在运营分拆后的业务时发挥同样的作用。另外，母公司和分拆后的公司一旦分离，将可能产生比合并时更高的成本。

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Before I depart the subject of spin-offs, let’s look at a lesson to be learned from a conglomerate mentioned earlier: LTV. I’ll summarize here, but those who enjoy a good financial story should read the piece about Jimmy Ling that ran in the October 1982 issue of D Magazine. Look it up on the Internet.

在我离开分拆话题以前，让我们先来看一个从前面提到的LTV 企业集团中学到的教训。我将在这儿做总结，但那些喜好金融故事的人应当阅读在1982 年10 月D-Magazine 上发表的有关JimmyLing 的文章(网址如下：https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/october/jim-ling/)。

Through a lot of corporate razzle-dazzle, Ling had taken LTV from sales of only $36 million in 1965 to number 14 on the Fortune 500 list just two years later. Ling, it should be noted, had never displayed any managerial skills. But Charlie told me long ago to never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. And Ling had no peer in that respect.

经过一系列眼花缭乱的公司运作，Ling 将LTV 公司从1965 年仅仅3600 万美元销售额，提升到了两年后的世界500 强第14 名。应该指出的是，Ling 从未表现出任何的管理技能。但是查理很久以前告诉我说，永远不要低估那些高估自己的人。Ling 在这方面是无人能比的。

Ling’s strategy, which he labeled “project redeployment,” was to buy a large company and then partially spin off its various divisions. In LTV’s 1966 annual report, he explained the magic that would follow: “Most importantly, acquisitions must meet the test of the 2 plus 2 equals 5 (or 6) formula.” The press, the public and Wall Street loved this sort of talk.

Ling 的策略，他称之为"项目重新部署"(Project Touchdown)，也就是买入一家大公司，然后部分分拆其各个部门。在LTV 的1966 年度报告，他解释了接下来将要发生的魔法："最重要的是，收购一定要满足2＋2＝5(或6)的公式检验"。媒体，公众和华尔街喜欢这类的讲话。

In 1967 Ling bought Wilson & Co., a huge meatpacker that also had interests in golf equipment and pharmaceuticals. Soon after, he split the parent into three businesses, Wilson & Co. (meatpacking), Wilson Sporting Goods and Wilson Pharmaceuticals, each of which was to be partially spun off. These companies quickly became known on Wall Street as Meatball, Golf Ball and Goof Ball.

在1967 年，Ling 收购了一家大型肉类加工企业威尔逊公司(Wilson&Co.)，这家公司也有高尔夫设备和药业业务。很快地，他将母公司拆分为三家公司，Wilson 肉加工公司(Wilson&Co.),Wilson 体育用品公司(WilsonSporting Goods)和Wilson 制药公司(Wilson Pharmaceuticals)，这三家公司都将被部分地分拆独立。

Soon thereafter, it became clear that, like Icarus, Ling had flown too close to the sun. By the early 1970s, Ling’s empire was melting, and he himself had been spun off from LTV . . . that is, fired.

这些公司很快被华尔街称为肉球Meatball，高尔夫球Golfball，傻球Goofball。不久后，很清楚的是，就像希腊神话的Icarus 一样，Ling 飞得太靠近太阳了。在1970 年代初期，Ling 的帝国开始瓦解，他自己也被从LTV 中分拆出来，也就是被解雇了。

Periodically, financial markets will become divorced from reality – you can count on that. More Jimmy Lings will appear. They will look and sound authoritative. The press will hang on their every word. Bankers will fight for their business. What they are saying will recently have “worked.” Their early followers will be feeling very clever. Our suggestion: Whatever their line, never forget that 2+2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is --- zip up your wallet, take a vacation and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.

金融市场会周期性的脱离现实，你大可以相信这一点。更多的JimmyLing 们将会出现。他们看起来和听起来都很权威。媒体将紧盯着他们说的每一个字。银行家们将为他们的生意而战。他们近期说的话将"发挥作用"。他们早期的跟随着将会觉得自己非常明智。我们的建议是：不论他们说什么，永远不要忘记2＋2 永远等于4。当有人告诉你这个数学公式如何落伍时，拉上钱包拉链去度假，几年后回来以便宜的价格购买股票。

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Today Berkshire possesses (1) an unmatched collection of businesses, most of them now enjoying favorable economic prospects; (2) a cadre of outstanding managers who, with few exceptions, are unusually devoted to both the subsidiary they operate and to Berkshire; (3) an extraordinary diversity of earnings, premier financial strength and oceans of liquidity that we will maintain under all circumstances; (4) a first-choice ranking among many owners and managers who are contemplating sale of their businesses and (5) in a point related to the preceding item, a culture, distinctive in many ways from that of most large companies, that we have worked 50 years to develop and that is now rock-solid.

今天的伯克希尔拥有：1，一个无与伦比的公司组合，其中大多数都有着良好的经济前景。2，一批优秀的经理人，他们几无例外地异常专注于他们所经营的子公司和伯克希尔母公司。3，非凡的收益多元化来源，卓越的财务实力，和大量的流动资金，我们将在任何情况下保持。4，对于许多的所有者和管理者来说，在考虑出售他们的生意的时候，我们公司是他们的第一选择。5，在与上一项有关的方面，一种在许多方面和大多数的大公司不同的文化，我们公司已经努力了 50 年去发展公司文化，现在已经坚如磐石。

These strengths provide us a wonderful foundation on which to build.

以上这些优势为我们的未来发展奠定了一个美妙的基础。