巴菲特致股东的信（1989年）③报告收益来源

Sources of Reported Earnings

The table below shows the major sources of Berkshire's reported earnings. In this presentation, amortization of Goodwill and other major purchase-price accounting adjustments are not charged against the specific businesses to which they apply, but are instead aggregated and shown separately. This procedure lets you view the earnings of our businesses as they would have been reported had we not purchased them. I've explained in past reports why this form of presentation seems to us to be more useful to investors and managers than one utilizing generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which require purchase-price adjustments to be made on a business-by-business basis. The total net earnings we show in the table are, of course, identical to the GAAP total in our audited financial statements.

报告收益来源

下表列示伯克希尔报告收益的主要来源，在这张表中商誉的摊销与购买法会计调整数会从个别被投资公司分离出来，单独加总列示，之所以这样做是为了让旗下各业务的收益状况，不因我们的投资而有所影响，过去我一再地强调我们认为这样的表达方式，较之 GAAP 要求以个别企业基础做调整，不管是对投资者或是管理者来说，更有帮助，当然最后损益加总的数字仍然会与经审计的 GAAP 数字一致。

Further information about these businesses is given in the Business Segment section on pages 37-39, and in the Management's Discussion section on pages 40-44. In these sections you also will find our segment earnings reported on a GAAP basis. For information on Wesco's businesses, I urge you to read Charlie Munger's letter, which starts on page 54. In addition, we have reprinted on page 71 Charlie's May 30, 1989 letter to the U. S. League of Savings Institutions, which conveyed our disgust with its policies and our consequent decision to resign.

年报中还有企业个别部门的信息，有关 Wesco 公司的信息，我强烈建议大家可以看看查理·芒格所写的年报，里头包含查理在 1989 年 5 月写给美国储贷联盟的一封公开信，信中传达对于其推行政策的不满并做出辞去在其组织中的职位。

We refer you also to pages 45-51, where we have rearranged Berkshire's financial data into four segments. These correspond to the way Charlie and I think about the business and should help you calculate Berkshire's intrinsic value. Shown on these pages are balance sheets and earnings statements for: (1) our insurance operations, with their major investment positions itemized; (2) our manufacturing, publishing and retailing businesses, leaving aside certain non-operating assets and purchase-price accounting adjustments; (3) our subsidiaries engaged in finance-type operations, which are Mutual Savings and Scott Fetzer Financial; and (4) an all-other category that includes the non-operating assets (primarily marketable securities) held by the companies in segment (2), all purchase price accounting adjustments, and various assets and debts of the Wesco and Berkshire parent companies.

在后面我会提到重新将伯克希尔的部门分类为四大项，这是查理跟我认为可以帮助大家计算本公司内在价值的最好方式，以下的资产负债表与损益表就是依此分类表示：(1)保险业务，并将主要投资部位归类，(2)制造、出版与零售业务，扣除非经营性资产与购买法会计调整，(3)金融业务子公司，如互助储贷与斯科特费泽财务公司，(4)其它项目，包含前述非经营性资产(主要是有价证券投资)，购买法调整，还有 Wesco 与伯克希尔母公司一些其它的资产与债务。

If you combine the earnings and net worths of these four segments, you will derive totals matching those shown on our GAAP statements. However, I want to emphasize that this four-category presentation does not fall within the purview of our auditors, who in no way bless it.

如果你将这四个部门的收益与账面价值加总，会得到与经会计师依 GAAP 审计的数字一致，然而我还是必须强调这四类表述方式并未经过会计师的审计，我想他们还是选择不要看的好。

In addition to our reported earnings, we also benefit from significant earnings of investees that standard accounting rules do not permit us to report. On page 15, we list five major investees from which we received dividends in 1989 of about $45 million, after taxes. However, our share of the retained earnings of these investees totaled about $212 million last year, not counting large capital gains realized by GEICO and Coca-Cola. If this $212 million had been distributed to us, our own operating earnings, after the payment of additional taxes, would have been close to $500 million rather than the $300 million shown in the table.

除了报告收益外，实际上，我们还受惠于 GAAP 不能认列的收益，后面我列出的五家主要被投资公司在1989 年收到的税后现金股利收入合计是 4,500 万美元，然而若依照投资比例我们可以分得的税后收益却高达2.12 亿美元，这还不包含我们在 GEICO 保险与可口可乐身上所获得的资本利得，而若将这应得的 2.12 亿收益分给我们，则在扣除应付的所得税之后，公司报告的收益可能会大幅增加为 5 亿美元，而不是现在的 3 亿美元。

The question you must decide is whether these undistributed earnings are as valuable to us as those we report. We believe they are - and even think they may be more valuable. The reason for this a-bird-in-the-bush-may-be-worth-two-in-the-hand conclusion is that earnings retained by these investees will be deployed by talented, owner-oriented managers who sometimes have better uses for these funds in their own businesses than we would have in ours. I would not make such a generous assessment of most managements, but it is appropriate in these cases.

你必须决定的是，这些未分配的收益是否与我们帐上已经列示的收益具备同样的价值。我们相信他们是，甚至认为可能更有价值。之所以得出“一鸟在林胜于两鸟在手”这个结论是因为，与其把收益交到我们手中，还不如留给才华横溢且以股东利益为导向的经理人继续去运用发挥，通常我不会对一般的经理人有这么高的评价，但以这几家公司来说，的确是实至名归。

In our view, Berkshire's fundamental earning power is best measured by a "look-through" approach, in which we append our share of the operating earnings retained by our investees to our own reported operating earnings, excluding capital gains in both instances. For our intrinsic business value to grow at an average of 15% per year, our "look-through" earnings must grow at about the same pace. We'll need plenty of help from our present investees, and also need to add a new one from time to time, in order to reach this 15% goal.

我们认为，伯克希尔的基本盈利能力可以用透视收益的方法来衡量，也就是我们将被投资公司未分配给我们的收益加到报告的经营收益之上，这两种情况下都不包括资本利得。为了使我们的内在价值平均每年增长 15%，我们的透视收益也必须要以同等的速度增加，因此我们相当需要现有的被投资公司给予我们更多的支持，同时也需要时时增加新进的成员才有办法达到这 15%的目标。