巴菲特致股东的信（2016年）⑦金融和金融产品

Finance and Financial Products

金融和金融产品

Our three leasing and rental operations are conducted by CORT (furniture), XTRA (semi-trailers), and Marmon (primarily tank cars but also freight cars, intermodal tank containers and cranes). Each is the leader in its field.

我们的三个租赁相关的业务是由CORT(家具)、XTRA(半挂拖车)和Marmon(主要是油罐车租赁、还包括冷藏货车、联运式油罐集装箱车和起重机)构成。这三家公司都是其所在行业的领导者。

We also include Clayton Homes in this section. This company receives most of its revenue from the sale of manufactured homes, but derives the bulk of its earnings from its large mortgage portfolio. Last year, Clayton became America’s largest home builder, delivering 42,075 units that accounted for 5% of all new American homes. (In fairness, other large builders do far more dollar volume than Clayton because they sell site-built homes that command much higher prices.)

这个板块还包括克莱顿之家(ClaytonHomes)。这家公司大部分营收来自预制房销售，但大部分利润来自其庞大的抵押贷款组合。去年，克莱顿房屋成为美国最大的房屋制造商，共计交付42075 栋住宅，占美国新建住宅总数的5%。公平地说，其他大型建筑商销售额远超克莱顿，因为他们主要销售的是价格高得多的现场建造的房屋。

In 2015, Clayton branched out, purchasing its first site-builder. Two similar acquisitions followed in 2016, and more will come. Site-built houses are expected to amount to 3% or so of Clayton’s unit sales in 2017 and will likely deliver about 14% of its dollar volume.

2015 年，克莱顿房屋开始扩大业务规模，收购了第一家现场建造房屋公司。2016 年，克莱顿房屋又进行了另外两次类似的收购。而且未来还会有更多收购。2017 年，预计现场建造房屋在克莱顿的房屋销售总量中占比将达到3%以上，销售额占比将达到14%左右。

Even so, Clayton’s focus will always be manufactured homes, which account for about 70% of new American homes costing less than $150,000. Clayton manufactures close to one-half of the total. That is a far cry from Clayton’s position in 2003 when Berkshire purchased the company. It then ranked third in the industry in units sold and employed 6,731 people. Now, when its new acquisitions are included, the employee count is 14,677. And that number will increase in the future.

尽管如此，克莱顿的业务重心仍将是预制房制造上，在美国总成本低于15 万美元的新建房屋中，预制房占比超过70%。而克莱顿目前在预制房的市场份额约为一半，这比2003 年伯克希尔收购克莱顿时已有大幅提升。当时克莱顿的销售额位列行业第三，员工数量仅为6731 人。现在算上新收购的公司在内，员工总数上升到14677人。未来这个数字还将继续扩大。

Clayton’s earnings in recent years have materially benefited from extraordinarily low interest rates. The company’s mortgage loans to home-buyers are at fixed-rates and for long terms (averaging 25 years at inception). But Clayton’s own borrowings are short-term credits that re-price frequently. When rates plunge, Clayton’s earnings from its portfolio greatly increase. We normally would shun that kind of lend-long, borrow- short approach, which can cause major problems for financial institutions. As a whole, however, Berkshire is always asset-sensitive, meaning that higher short-term rates will benefit our consolidated earnings, even as they hurt at Clayton.

克莱顿近年来的盈利从超低的利率中受益匪浅。公司发放给购房者的房屋抵押贷款是长期的固定利率贷款(平均贷款年限长达25 年)。但公司自身的负债是定期重新定价的短期借款。当市场利率下行，克莱顿的贷款组合收益会大幅上升。我们通常会避免这种短债长贷的商业模式，这可能对金融机构造成严重的问题。但是，伯克希尔整体上属于敏感性资产，这意味着短期利率上行，伯克希尔合并收益将会上升，尽管这对克莱顿造成损害。

Last year Clayton had to foreclose on 8,304 manufactured-housing mortgages, about 2.5% of its total portfolio. Customer demographics help explain that percentage. Clayton’s customers are usually lower-income families with mediocre credit scores; many are supported by jobs that will be at risk in any recession; many, similarly, have financial profiles that will be damaged by divorce or death to an extent that would not be typical for a high-income family. Those risks that our customers face are partly mitigated because almost all have a strong desire to own a home and because they enjoy reasonable monthly payments that average only $587, including the cost of insurance and property taxes.

去年，克莱顿不得不取消了8304 笔预制房抵押贷款的赎回权，约占总的贷款组合的2.5%。客户结构的统计数据有助于解释这一违约比例。克莱顿的客户通常是信用评分较差的低收入家庭，许多人都从事于经济衰退时首先受到冲击的工作来维持生计。同时，许多人的财务状况也会因离婚或亲人离世而遭受打击，这对于高收入家庭来说通常影响较小。但是，几乎所有人都强烈希望拥有一套住房，同时他们每月只需偿还包含保险和房产税在内的共587 美元按揭，因此我们客户所面临的这些风险在一定程度上得到缓解。

Clayton also has long had programs that help borrowers through difficulties. The two most popular are loan extensions and payment forgiveness. Last year about 11,000 borrowers received extensions, and 3,800 had $3.4 million of scheduled payments permanently canceled by Clayton. The company does not earn interest or fees when these loss-mitigation moves are made. Our experience is that 93% of borrowers helped through these programs in the last two years now remain in their homes. Since we lose significant sums on foreclosures – losses last year totaled $150 million – our assistance programs end up helping Clayton as well as its borrowers.

同时，克莱顿一直以来都有帮助贷款人度过财务困境的项目。其中，最受欢迎的两个项目是贷款延期和还款豁免。去年，约有11000 人获得了贷款延期，3800 人的340 万美元预定还款被豁免。当批准这些项目时，公司不会赚到任何利息或手续费收入。我们的经验是，过去两年中，93%接受这些项目支持的贷款人仍然居住在自己的住房中。由于我们在丧失抵押品赎回权方面损失惨重，去年高达1.5 亿美元，但是我们的援助项目最终帮助克莱顿及其贷款人。

Clayton and Berkshire have been a wonderful partnership. Kevin Clayton came to us with a best-in-class management group and culture. Berkshire, in turn, provided unmatched staying power when the manufactured- home industry fell apart during the Great Recession. (As other lenders to the industry vanished, Clayton supplied credit not only to its own dealers but also to dealers who sold the products of its competitors.) At Berkshire, we never count on synergies when we acquire companies. Truly important ones, however, surfaced after our purchase of Clayton.

克莱顿和伯克希尔维持了非常良好的合作伙伴关系。Kevin Clayton 带来了一流的管理团队和企业文化。反过来，当预制房在经济衰退面临危机时，伯克希尔为克莱顿提供了无与伦比的财力支持。随着该行业其他贷款机构的退出，克莱顿不仅为自己的经销商提供信贷支持，也为销售竞争对手房屋的经销商提供贷款。伯克希尔收购其他公司时从来不期望协同效应，但在收购克莱顿之后，创造了非常重要的协同效应。

Marmon’s railcar business experienced a major slowdown in demand last year, which will cause earnings to decline in 2017. Fleet utilization was 91% in December, down from 97% a year earlier, with the drop particularly severe at the large fleet we purchased from General Electric in 2015. Marmon’s crane and container rentals have weakened as well.

Marmon 公司的铁路货车租赁业务去年经历了需求的大幅放缓，这将导致2017 年收益下降。去年12 月，车队的租赁率为91%，低于去年同期的97%。我们在2015 年从通用电气收购的大型车队的租赁率下降尤其严重。同时，Marmon 公司的起重机和集装箱的租赁率也出现不同程度的下降。

Big swings in railcar demand have occurred in the past and they will continue. Nevertheless, we very much like this business and expect decent returns on equity capital over the years. Tank cars are Marmon’s specialty. People often associate tank cars with the transportation of crude oil; in fact, they are essential to a great variety of shippers.

铁路货车市场需求的大幅波动过去曾经发生过，而这种情况未来将持续下去。尽管如此，我们仍然非常看好这项业务，并预计未来几年中这个业务将为我们创造良好的股权回报率。油罐车租赁业务是Marmon 公司的强项。人们通常将油罐车与原油运输联系一起，但实际上，这种油罐车可以用于运输多种多样的货物。

Over time, we expect to expand our railcar operation. Meanwhile, Marmon is making a number of bolt-on acquisitions whose results are included in the Manufacturing, Service and Retailing section.

未来我们预计将继续扩大铁路货车租赁业务的规模。与此同时，Marmon 公司也在进行一系列补强型并购交易，其结果将包括在制造、服务和零售业务板块中。

Here’s the pre-tax earnings recap for our finance-related companies:

以下是我们金融相关业务税前收益的摘要：