巴菲特致股东的信（1990年）③透视收益

"Look-Through" Earnings

The term "earnings" has a precise ring to it. And when an earnings figure is accompanied by an unqualified auditor's certificate, a naive reader might think it comparable in certitude to pi, calculated to dozens of decimal places.

透视收益

收益这个名词有一个明确的定义，而当收益数字再加上会计师无保留意见的背书后，单纯的投资人可能就会以为它是像圆周率一样经过计算，可以到好几个小数点般精确。

In reality, however, earnings can be as pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them. Eventually truth will surface, but in the meantime a lot of money can change hands. Indeed, some important American fortunes have been created by the monetization of accounting mirages.

然而事实上，当公司收益报告是由骗子所主导时，收益可能像油泥一样地任人摆布，当然到最后真相一定会大白，但于此同时一大笔财富可能已经换手，确实许多美国财富传奇就是靠着这种会计数字假象所创造出来的。

Funny business in accounting is not new. For connoisseurs of chicanery, I have attached as Appendix A on page 22 a previously unpublished satire on accounting practices written by Ben Graham in 1936. Alas, excesses similar to those he then lampooned have many times since found their way into the financial statements of major American corporations and been duly certified by big-name auditors. Clearly, investors must always keep their guard up and use accounting numbers as a beginning, not an end, in their attempts to calculate true "economic earnings" accruing to them.

企业会计中的可笑勾当并不是件新鲜事，对于企业诈骗的鉴赏家，文末我特别附上本杰明·格雷厄姆在 1936年所写未经出版有关会计做帐的讽刺性文章。自此以后，我们可以发现这种格雷厄姆所描写的方法散见于各大美国企业财务报表中，而且全部都经过各大会计师事务所签证背书，所以对此投资人必须特别提高警戒。要了解在计算一家公司的实质的经济收益时，会计数字只不过是个出发点，而绝非是最后的结果。

Berkshire's own reported earnings are misleading in a different, but important, way: We have huge investments in companies ("investees") whose earnings far exceed their dividends and in which we record our share of earnings only to the extent of the dividends we receive. The extreme case is Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. Our 17% share of the company's earnings amounted to more than $83 million last year. Yet only about $530,000 ($600,000 of dividends it paid us less some $70,000 of tax) is counted in Berkshire's GAAP earnings. The residual $82 million-plus stayed with Cap Cities as retained earnings, which work for our benefit but go unrecorded on our books.

伯克希尔本身的收益在某些重要的方面也有所误导，首先我们主要的被投资公司其实际收益远高于后来发放的股利，而伯克希尔报告的收益也仅限于这些已发放的股利收入，最明显的例子就是大都会/ABC 公司，若依照我们持股 17%的比例，去年可分得的利润是 8,300 万美元，但伯克希尔依照 GAAP 所认列的投资收益却只有 53 万美元(亦即 60 万股利收入扣除 7 万美元的税负)，剩下 8,200 多万的收益则保留在该公司的帐上，虽然实际上对我们大有益处，但在我们公司的帐上却一点踪迹都没有。

Our perspective on such "forgotten-but-not-gone" earnings is simple: The way they are accounted for is of no importance, but their ownership and subsequent utilization is all-important. We care not whether the auditors hear a tree fall in the forest; we do care who owns the tree and what's next done with it.

我们对于这种被遗忘但却存在的收益的态度很简单，到底认不认列数字一点都不重要，最重要的是我们可以确定这些收益可以为我们所有且会被充分加以运用，我们不在乎听到会计师说森林中有一棵树被砍倒了，我们在乎的是这棵树是不是属于我们的，以及之后要如何来处理它。

When Coca-Cola uses retained earnings to repurchase its shares, the company increases our percentage ownership in what I regard to be the most valuable franchise in the world. (Coke also, of course, uses retained earnings in many other value-enhancing ways.) Instead of repurchasing stock, Coca-Cola could pay those funds to us in dividends, which we could then use to purchase more Coke shares. That would be a less efficient scenario: Because of taxes we would pay on dividend income, we would not be able to increase our proportionate ownership to the degree that Coke can, acting for us. If this less efficient procedure were followed, however, Berkshire would report far greater "earnings."

当可口可乐利用保留收益来买回自家股份时，该公司等于间接增加我们的持股比例，我们认为这家公司是全世界最有价值的特许经营权企业(当然可口可乐还将留存收益运用在其他很多加强公司收益的地方上)，除了买回股份，可口可乐也可以将这些资金以股利的方式退还给股东，然后我们同样可以利用这笔钱买进更多可口可乐的股票，只是后面这种做法比较没有效率，因为如此还要支付额外的所得税，使得最后所得到的持股比例比前面的方式少一点。然而讽刺的是，要是遵循这种效率较低的做法，伯克希尔的报告收益可能还会更好看。

I believe the best way to think about our earnings is in terms of "look-through" results, calculated as follows: Take $250 million, which is roughly our share of the 1990 operating earnings retained by our investees; subtract $30 million, for the incremental taxes we would have owed had that $250 million been paid to us in dividends; and add the remainder, $220 million, to our reported operating earnings of $371 million. Thus our 1990 "look-through earnings" were about $590 million.

我个人相信最好的方式是利用透视收益的方法来衡量伯克希尔的收益，在 1990 年我们占被投资公司未分配的经营收益约 2.5 亿美元，扣除 3,000 万的额外股利所得税，税后 2.2 亿美元加上报告收益 3.71 亿约 5.9 亿，大概就是我们经过透视的真正收益。

As I mentioned last year, we hope to have look-through earnings grow about 15% annually. In 1990 we substantially exceeded that rate but in 1991 we will fall far short of it. Our Gillette preferred has been called and we will convert it into common stock on April 1. This will reduce reported earnings by about $35 million annually and look-through earnings by a much smaller, but still significant, amount. Additionally, our media earnings - both direct and look-through - appear sure to decline. Whatever the results, we will post you annually on how we are doing on a look-through basis.

就像我去年曾经提到的，我希望我们的透视收益每年都能够增长 15%，在 1990 年我们确实大幅超越这个比率，但 1991 年结果将差很多。我们在吉列的可转换优先股投资已经被赎回，我们将在 4 月 1 日把它们转为普通股投资，虽然这将会使得我们每年的报告收益减少 3,500 万，透视收益也会跟着减少。另外，我们在媒体业务的报告收益和透视收益似乎也将会下滑。但不论如何，我们每年还是会向大家报告透视收益的计算结果。

"Look-Through" Earnings The term "earnings" has a precise ring to it. And when an earnings figure is accompanied by an unqualified auditor's certificate, a naive reader might think it comparable in certitude to pi, calculated to dozens of decimal places.

In reality, however, earnings can be as pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them. Eventually truth will surface, but in the meantime a lot of money can change hands. Indeed, some important American fortunes have been created by the monetization of accounting mirages.

"Look-Through" Earnings

The term "earnings" has a precise ring to it. And when an earnings figure is accompanied by an unqualified auditor's certificate, a naive reader might think it comparable in certitude to pi, calculated to dozens of decimal places.