巴菲特致股东的信（2018年）④非保险业务—

Non-Insurance Operations – From Lollipops to Locomotives

非保险业务——从棒棒糖到火车头

Let’s now look further at Berkshire’s most valuable grove – our collection of non-insurance businesses – keeping in mind that we do not wish to unnecessarily hand our competitors information that might be useful to them. Additional details about individual operations can be found on pages K-5 – K-22 and pages K-40 – K-51.

让我们再来仔细看看伯克希尔最有价值的那片树林——我们的非保险业务集合。不过请记住，我们不想不必要地向竞争对手透露可能对他们有用的信息。各项业务的更多细节详见K-5至K-22页以及K-40至K-51页。

Viewed as a group, these businesses earned pre-tax income in 2018 of $20.8 billion, a 24% increase over 2017. Acquisitions we made in 2018 delivered only a trivial amount of that gain.

作为一个整体，这些业务2018年的税前收益为208亿美元，比2017年增长24%。我们2018年进行的收购对此贡献微乎其微。

I will stick with pre-tax figures in this discussion. But our after-tax gain in 2018 from these businesses was far greater – 47% – thanks in large part to the cut in the corporate tax rate that became effective at the beginning of that year. Let’s look at why the impact was so dramatic.

在这里的讨论中我将使用税前数字。但2018年这些业务的税后收益增幅要大得多——高达47%——这在很大程度上归功于年初开始实施的企业税率下调。让我们看看为什么影响如此之大。

Begin with an economic reality: Like it or not, the U.S. Government “owns” an interest in Berkshire’s earnings of a size determined by Congress. In effect, our country’s Treasury Department holds a special class of our stock – call this holding the AA shares – that receives large “dividends” (that is, tax payments) from Berkshire. In 2017, as in many years before, the corporate tax rate was 35%, which meant that the Treasury was doing very well with its AA shares. Indeed, the Treasury’s “stock,” which was paying nothing when we took over in 1965, had evolved into a holding that delivered billions of dollars annually to the federal government.

先从一个经济现实说起：不管你喜不喜欢，美国政府"拥有"伯克希尔收益的一部分，份额大小由国会决定。实际上，我们国家的财政部持有我们一种特殊类别的股票——姑且称之为AA股——从伯克希尔领取高额"股息"（也就是税款）。2017年跟往年一样，企业税率是35%，这意味着财政部的AA股表现相当不错。实际上，财政部这只1965年我们接管时还分文不付的"股票"，如今已经变成了每年向联邦政府贡献数十亿美元的资产。

Last year, however, 40% of the government’s “ownership” (14/35ths) was returned to Berkshire – free of charge – when the corporate tax rate was reduced to 21%. Consequently, our “A” and “B” shareholders received a major boost in the earnings attributable to their shares.

然而去年，当企业税率从35%降至21%时，政府"所有权"的40%（也就是14/35）被免费还给了伯克希尔。因此，我们A股和B股的股东在他们的股份上获得了重大的收益提升。

This happening materially increased the intrinsic value of the Berkshire shares you and I own. The same dynamic, moreover, enhanced the intrinsic value of almost all of the stocks Berkshire holds.

这实质性地增加了你我持有的伯克希尔股票的内在价值。同样的逻辑，也提升了伯克希尔所持几乎所有股票的内在价值。以上是主要情况。

Those are the headlines. But there are other factors to consider that tempered our gain. For example, the tax benefits garnered by our large utility operation get passed along to its customers. Meanwhile, the tax rate applicable to the substantial dividends we receive from domestic corporations is little changed at about 13%. (This lower rate has long been logical because our investees have already paid tax on the earnings that they pay to us.) Overall, however, the new law made our businesses and the stocks we own considerably more valuable.

但还有其他一些削弱我们收益的因素需要考虑。比如，我们大型公用事业业务获得的税收优惠会转嫁给客户。同时，我们从国内公司获得的大量股息所适用的税率几乎没变，大约为13%。（长期以来，这种较低的税率都是合理的，因为我们的被投资公司已经就向我们支付的收益缴过税了。）但总体而言，新税法使我们的业务和我们持有的股票都更有价值了——而且是相当多。

Which suggests that we return to the performance of our non-insurance businesses. Our two towering redwoods in this grove are BNSF and Berkshire Hathaway Energy (90.9% owned). Combined, they earned $9.3 billion before tax last year, up 6% from 2017. You can read more about these businesses on pages K-5 – K-10 and pages K-40 – K-45.

这表明我们又该回到非保险业务的表现上了。在这片树林中，我们的两棵参天红杉是BNSF铁路 (BNSF) 和伯克希尔·哈撒韦能源 (Berkshire Hathaway Energy)（持有90.9%的股权）。两者合计，去年的税前收益为93亿美元，比2017年增长6%。详见K-5至K-10页以及K-40至K-45页。

Our next five non-insurance subsidiaries, as ranked by earnings (but presented here alphabetically), Clayton Homes, International Metalworking, Lubrizol, Marmon and Precision Castparts, had aggregate pre-tax income in 2018 of $6.4 billion, up from the $5.5 billion these companies earned in 2017.

我们接下来的五家非保险子公司，按收益排名（但在此按字母顺序列示），分别是：克莱顿房屋 (Clayton Homes)、国际金属加工 (International Metalworking)、路博润 (Lubrizol)、马蒙集团 (Marmon) 和精密铸件公司 (Precision Castparts)，2018年税前收益合计64亿美元，高于2017年的55亿美元。

The next five, similarly ranked and listed (Forest River, Johns Manville, MiTek, Shaw and TTI) earned $2.4 billion pre-tax last year, up from $2.1 billion in 2017.

按同样方式排名和列示的下五家公司——森林河公司 (Forest River)、Johns Manville、MiTek、Shaw和TTI——去年的税前收益合计24亿美元，高于2017年的21亿美元。

The remaining non-insurance businesses that Berkshire owns – and there are many – had pre-tax income of $3.6 billion in 2018 vs. $3.3 billion in 2017.

伯克希尔旗下其余的非保险企业——数量还有很多——2018年的税前收益合计36亿美元，2017年为33亿美元。