巴菲特致股东的信（1984年）⑦华盛顿公共供电系统

Washington Public Power Supply System

From October, 1983 through June, 1984 Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries continuously purchased large quantities of bonds of Projects 1, 2, and 3 of Washington Public Power Supply System (“WPPSS”). This is the same entity that, on July 1, 1983, defaulted on $2.2 billion of bonds issued to finance partial construction of the now-abandoned Projects 4 and 5. While there are material differences in the obligors, promises, and properties underlying the two categories of bonds, the problems of Projects 4 and 5 have cast a major cloud over Projects 1, 2, and 3, and might possibly cause serious problems for the latter issues. In addition, there have been a multitude of problems related directly to Projects 1, 2, and 3 that could weaken or destroy an otherwise strong credit position arising from guarantees by Bonneville Power Administration.

华盛顿公共供电系统

1983 年 10 月至 1984 年 6 月，伯克希尔的保险子公司持续买进大笔的华盛顿公用供电系统的一、二、三期债券，1983 年 7 月 1 日，WPPSS 用以兴建四、五期电厂(现已放弃)而发行的 22 亿美元债券违约。虽然这两类债券在义务人、承诺事项与抵押担保品上有极大不同，但四、五期项目的问题给一、二、三期债券蒙上一层阴影，且有可能对后续发行债券产生重大影响。此外一、二、三期本身还存在的一些问题也可能摧毁 Bonneville 电力管理局担保产生的信用基础。

Despite these important negatives, Charlie and I judged the risks at the time we purchased the bonds and at the prices Berkshire paid (much lower than present prices) to be considerably more than compensated for by prospects of profit.

尽管有这些负面因素，但查理跟我判断，以我们买进时所承担的风险与当初购买的价格(已远低于当前价格)相比，其预期报酬远远超过所要承担的风险。

As you know, we buy marketable stocks for our insurance companies based upon the criteria we would apply in the purchase of an entire business. This business-valuation approach is not widespread among professional money managers and is scorned by many academics. Nevertheless, it has served its followers well (to which the academics seem to say, “Well, it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory.”) Simply put, we feel that if we can buy small pieces of businesses with satisfactory underlying economics at a fraction of the per-share value of the entire business, something good is likely to happen to us - particularly if we own a group of such securities.

如你所知，我们为保险子公司买进上市公司股票的标准与我们买下整家企业的标准并无二致，然而这种企业评价模式并未广为基金经理人所应用，甚至受到许多学者的蔑视，尽管如此，对于那些追随者来说却颇为受用，对此有些学者会说：嗯，在实践中可能没问题，但理论上永远行不通。简而言之，若我们能以合理的价格买到优质企业的一小部分经济利益，特别是拥有一个这样的投资组合的话，对我们来说就是一件美妙的事。

We extend this business-valuation approach even to bond purchases such as WPPSS. We compare the $139 million cost of our yearend investment in WPPSS to a similar $139 million investment in an operating business. In the case of WPPSS, the “business” contractually earns $22.7 million after tax (via the interest paid on the bonds), and those earnings are available to us currently in cash. We are unable to buy operating businesses with economics close to these. Only a relatively few businesses earn the 16.3% after tax on unleveraged capital that our WPPSS investment does and those businesses, when available for purchase, sell at large premiums to that capital. In the average negotiated business transaction, unleveraged corporate earnings of $22.7 million after-tax (equivalent to about $45 million pre-tax) might command a price of $250 - $300 million (or sometimes far more). For a business we understand well and strongly like, we will gladly pay that much. But it is double the price we paid to realize the same earnings from WPPSS bonds.

而我们甚至把这种企业评价模式延伸至债券投资之上，比如 WPPSS，我们对 WPPSS 的 1.39 亿美元投资成本与同样金额的股权投资进行了比较，前者可产生 2270 万美元的税后收益(通过支付债券利息)，且都是现金，只有少数企业每年可赚得 16.3%的非杠杆的税后资本回报率，就算有，其股票价格也高得吓人。对一般并购交易来说，一家无财务杠杆每年可赚得 2270 万的税后收益(相当于税前约 4500 万)的公司，大约要价 2.5-3 亿美元甚至更高。当然对于我们了解且特别偏爱的公司很乐意支付这么多，但那毕竟是我们购买 WPPSS 价钱的两倍。

However, in the case of WPPSS, there is what we view to be a very slight risk that the “business” could be worth nothing within a year or two. There also is the risk that interest payments might be interrupted for a considerable period of time. Furthermore, the most that the “business” could be worth is about the $205 million face value of the bonds that we own, an amount only 48% higher than the price we paid.

就 WPPSS 而言，我们认为存在非常轻微的潜在风险，即公司在一两年内可能一文不值，同时利息还可能中断暂时付不出。但业务最大的价值是我们拥有的债券面值是 2.05 亿美元，仅比我们持有成本高出 48%。

This ceiling on upside potential is an important minus. It should be realized, however, that the great majority of operating businesses have a limited upside potential also unless more capital is continuously invested in them. That is so because most businesses are unable to significantly improve their average returns on equity - even under inflationary conditions, though these were once thought to automatically raise returns.

获利空间的上限不大是债券投资的一大负面因素，但各位必须了解，大部分的经营性企业，除非持续投入更多资金，否则他们的获利潜力也是有限的，这是因为大部分的企业无法有效地提高其股本回报率，即使在通胀条件下也是如此，尽管这曾被认为会自动提高回报率。

(Let’s push our bond-as-a-business example one notch further: if you elect to “retain” the annual earnings of a 12% bond by using the proceeds from coupons to buy more bonds, earnings of that bond “business” will grow at a rate comparable to that of most operating businesses that similarly reinvest all earnings. In the first instance, a 30-year, zero-coupon, 12% bond purchased today for $10 million will be worth $300 million in 2015. In the second, a $10 million business that regularly earns 12% on equity and retains all earnings to grow, will also end up with $300 million of capital in 2015. Both the business and the bond will earn over $32 million in the final year.)

让我们对债券当作企业投资的个案作进一步说明，若你选择通过将息票收益买入更多 12%报酬的债券，那么，该债券业务的收益增长率与大多数保留收益用于再投资的企业一样。就前者而言，如果今天以 1000 万买入30 年期、0 息票、票面利率为 12%的债券，则 2015 年价值约 3 亿美元。而后者，若你同样投资 1000 万、资本回报率为 12%、且保留所有收益用以实现增长的企业，2015 年也将最终获得 3 亿美元的资本。该企业和债券在最后一年的收益都将超过 3200 万美元。

Our approach to bond investment - treating it as an unusual sort of “business” with special advantages and disadvantages - may strike you as a bit quirky. However, we believe that many staggering errors by investors could have been avoided if they had viewed bond investment with a businessman’s perspective. For example, in 1946, 20-year AAA tax-exempt bonds traded at slightly below a 1% yield. In effect, the buyer of those bonds at that time bought a “business” that earned about 1% on “book value” (and that, moreover, could never earn a dime more than 1% on book), and paid 100 cents on the dollar for that abominable business.

换句话说，我们投资债券就好象把它当成一种特殊的企业投资，它具备有利的因素，也有不利的因素，然而我们认为，如果投资者从商人的角度看待债券投资，他们的许多惊人错误是可以避免的。例如，在 1946 年，20年期 AAA 级的免税债券以不到 1%的收益率交易，事实上买进这些债券的投资人相当于是投资一家资本回报率不足 1%的企业，而且，为账面价值回报率 ROE 永远超不过 1%的生意支付了 100%的账面价值。

If an investor had been business-minded enough to think in those terms - and that was the precise reality of the bargain struck - he would have laughed at the proposition and walked away. For, at the same time, businesses with excellent future prospects could have been bought at, or close to, book value while earning 10%, 12%, or 15% after tax on book. Probably no business in America changed hands in 1946 at book value that the buyer believed lacked the ability to earn more than 1% on book. But investors with bond-buying habits eagerly made economic commitments throughout the year on just that basis. Similar, although less extreme, conditions prevailed for the next two decades as bond investors happily signed up for twenty or thirty years on terms outrageously inadequate by business standards. (In what I think is by far the best book on investing ever written - “The Intelligent Investor”, by Ben Graham - the last section of the last chapter begins with, “Investment is most intelligent when it is most businesslike.” This section is called “A Final Word”, and it is appropriately titled.)

若这些投资人有一点商业头脑，面对这样的投资条件，他一定会大笑地摇头走开。因为与此同时，大量具有大好前景且每年可赚得税后 10%、12%甚至 15%的公司，却可能以接近帐面价值的价格买到。1946 年，美国可能没有一家公司以帐面价值过手，因为买家认为该账面价值没有能力赚取超过 1%的收益。但是，整个 1946 年，这些习惯买卖债券的投资人都以这样的基准进行着债券的买卖。类似的在接下来的 20年里，虽然情况没有当初那么夸张，债券投资人能持续地以从商业角度来看完全不合理的条件，买下长达 20-30年期的债券。在我认为是迄今为止写的最好的一本关于投资的书——Ben Graham 写的《聪明的投资者》，书中最后一章的最后一节说到，最聪明的投资是从商业的角度来看待投资，本节标题是“最后的话”，非常恰当。

We will emphasize again that there is unquestionably some risk in the WPPSS commitment. It is also the sort of risk that is difficult to evaluate. Were Charlie and I to deal with 50 similar evaluations over a lifetime, we would expect our judgment to prove reasonably satisfactory. But we do not get the chance to make 50 or even 5 such decisions in a single year. Even though our long-term results may turn out fine, in any given year we run a risk that we will look extraordinarily foolish. (That’s why all of these sentences say “Charlie and I”, or “we”.)

我们必须再次强调投资 WPPSS 无疑是具有一定风险的，且很难对风险加以具体评估，如果查理和我一生要处理 50 次类似的评估，我们希望我们的判断能够被证明是令人满意的。但我们根本没有机会在一年内做出 50 次甚至 5 次这样的决定。虽然长期累积下来的成绩应该会不错，但在任何一年中，我们都会冒着看起来非常愚蠢的风险。那也是为什么前面所有的句子开头是查理跟我或是我们的原因。

Most managers have very little incentive to make the intelligent-but-with-some-chance-of-looking-like-an-idiot decision. Their personal gain/loss ratio is all too obvious: if an unconventional decision works out well, they get a pat on the back and, if it works out poorly, they get a pink slip. (Failing conventionally is the route to go; as a group, lemmings may have a rotten image, but no individual lemming has ever received bad press.)

大多数管理层几乎没有动力做出明智但有可能看起来像白痴的决定。他们个人的得失利弊太明确不过了：如果一个非常规的决定成功了，上头可能只是表扬一下，但万一要是失败，却可能是要卷铺盖走人。特立独行的失败不被接纳，因循守旧的失败就是一条可行之路，就整个群体而言，旅鼠的形象可能很糟，但群体中却没有一只单独的旅鼠会受到责难。

Our equation is different. With 47% of Berkshire’s stock, Charlie and I don’t worry about being fired, and we receive our rewards as owners, not managers. Thus we behave with Berkshire’s money as we would with our own. That frequently leads us to unconventional behavior both in investments and general business management.

但我们的方式不同，拥有伯克希尔 47%的股份，查理跟我不怕被炒鱿鱼，我们是以老板而非伙计的身份来获得报酬，所以我们把伯克希尔的钱当作自己的钱一样看待，这常常使得我们在投资行为与管理风格上异于常规。

We remain unconventional in the degree to which we concentrate the investments of our insurance companies, including those in WPPSS bonds. This concentration makes sense only because our insurance business is conducted from a position of exceptional financial strength. For almost all other insurers, a comparable degree of concentration (or anything close to it) would be totally inappropriate. Their capital positions are not strong enough to withstand a big error, no matter how attractive an investment opportunity might appear when analyzed on the basis of probabilities.

我们不默守成规的作法还表现在保险资金集中投资的程度上，包括 WPPSS 债券投资，而这种专注集中是有道理的，这是基于我们具备特别雄厚的财务实力的基础上进行的。对其它保险公司来说，相同程度的集中持股可能是完全不合适的，因为它们的资金实力可能无法承受任何重大错误的发生，不管那个投资机会从概率的分析上是多么的吸引人。

With our financial strength we can own large blocks of a few securities that we have thought hard about and bought at attractive prices. (Billy Rose described the problem of over-diversification: “If you have a harem of forty women, you never get to know any of them very well.”) Over time our policy of concentration should produce superior results, though these will be tempered by our large size. When this policy produces a really bad year, as it must, at least you will know that our money was committed on the same basis as yours.

以我们的财务实力，那些我们经过深思熟虑的少数股票，我们可以以有吸引力的价格买下一大笔。Bill Rose这样描述过度多样化的问题：如果你的后宫有四十个女人，你永远都不会对她们中的任何一个非常了解。随着时间的推移，我们集中持股的策略终会显现出它的优势，虽然多少会受到越来越大的规模拖累。即使将来某一年度业绩表现得特别糟，至少你会知道我们的钱和你的钱是基于同样的基础投入的。

We made the major part of our WPPSS investment at different prices and under somewhat different factual circumstances than exist at present. If we decide to change our position, we will not inform shareholders until long after the change has been completed. (We may be buying or selling as you read this.) The buying and selling of securities is a competitive business, and even a modest amount of added competition on either side can cost us a great deal of money. Our WPPSS purchases illustrate this principle. From October, 1983 through June, 1984, we attempted to buy almost all the bonds that we could of Projects 1, 2, and 3. Yet we purchased less than 3% of the bonds outstanding. Had we faced even a few additional well-heeled investors, stimulated to buy because they knew we were, we could have ended up with a materially smaller amount of bonds, purchased at a materially higher price. (A couple of coat-tail riders easily could have cost us $5 million.) For this reason, we will not comment about our activities in securities - neither to the press, nor shareholders, nor to anyone else - unless legally required to do so.

我们投资 WPPSS 大部分是在不同的价格和与目前实际情况有所不同的时点下进行的。若我们决定要调整仓位，可能要在变动完全结束后很久才会知会各位。在你阅读本年报时，我们也可能正在买入或卖出。由于股票的买卖是属于竞争激烈的零和游戏，哪怕是买卖的任何一方竞争稍有增加都会使我们付出巨大的代价。我们投资的WPPSS 债券可作为范例，从 1983 年 10 月到 1984 年 6 月间，我们试着买进所有第一、二、三期的债券，但我们买到的流通债券也只有 3%。如果我们再碰到一个有钱的投资人，知道我们要大量买进而跟着进场，结果可能导致我们以更高的价格买到更少的债券，随便一个搭便车都可能让我们多花 500 万美金。基于这项理由，我们不会透露我们在股票市场上的活动，不论是对媒体还是对股东，甚至对任何人，除非法令上有特别要求。

One final observation regarding our WPPSS purchases: we dislike the purchase of most long-term bonds under most circumstances and have bought very few in recent years. That’s because bonds are as sound as a dollar - and we view the long-term outlook for dollars as dismal. We believe substantial inflation lies ahead, although we have no idea what the average rate will turn out to be. Furthermore, we think there is a small, but not insignificant, chance of runaway inflation.

最后我们对 WPPSS 债券的最后心得是：大部分情况下，我们不喜爱购买长期的债券。事实上近几年来也很少购买，那是因为债券就像美元一样稳固，而我们对于美元长期的前景看淡。我们认为未来会出现大幅通胀，尽管我们不知道平均利率会是多少。我们认为通胀失控的可能性虽然很小，但是影响不容小觑。

Such a possibility may seem absurd, considering the rate to which inflation has dropped. But we believe that present fiscal policy - featuring a huge deficit - is both extremely dangerous and difficult to reverse. (So far, most politicians in both parties have followed Charlie Brown’s advice: “No problem is so big that it can’t be run away from.”) Without a reversal, high rates of inflation may be delayed (perhaps for a long time), but will not be avoided. If high rates materialize, they bring with them the potential for a runaway upward spiral.

考量到目前通胀已经下降到不高的水平，这种可能性似乎是不可能的。我们认为以目前以巨额赤字为特征的财政政策相当危险且很难加以改善，到目前为止，两党的政治人物多听从 Charlie Brown 的建议：“没有什么问题是无法加以控制的。”但若不能加以改善，通胀或许暂时会延迟，但却无法完全避免。高利率一旦成为现实，就会失控一样加快速度向上飙涨。

While there is not much to choose between bonds and stocks (as a class) when annual inflation is in the 5%-10% range, runaway inflation is a different story. In that circumstance, a diversified stock portfolio would almost surely suffer an enormous loss in real value. But bonds already outstanding would suffer far more. Thus, we think an all-bond portfolio carries a small but unacceptable “wipe out” risk, and we require any purchase of long-term bonds to clear a special hurdle. Only when bond purchases appear decidedly superior to other business opportunities will we engage in them. Those occasions are likely to be few and far between.

当通胀维持在 5-10%之间，其实投资股票或债券并无太多分别，但失控的通胀可就完全是另外一回事了，在高利率时代，多元化的股票投资组合几乎肯定会遭受巨大的实际价值损失，未偿付债券却可能更惨，所以我们认为所有目前流通在外的债券组合事实上隐含着极大的风险，所以我们对于债券投资特别谨慎。只有当债券投资明显优于其他商业机会时，我们才会参与其中，而事实上这种情况少之又少。