巴菲特致股东的信（1990年）⑨救命！救命！

Help! Help!

Regular readers know that I shamelessly utilize the annual letter in an attempt to acquire businesses for Berkshire. And, as we constantly preach at the Buffalo News, advertising does work: Several businesses have knocked on our door because someone has read in these pages of our interest in making acquisitions. (Any good ad salesman will tell you that trying to sell something without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark.)

救命！救命！

熟悉的读者都知道，我经常利用年报不顾廉耻地替伯克希尔寻找合适的投资标的，此外我们也常常在布法罗报纸刊登广告征求投资标的，而如此的宣传做法确实也收到效果，有好几家企业收到我们相关的讯息后，敲门前来。任何好的业务销售人员都会告诉你不靠广告卖东西就好象是在黑夜里对于女孩眨眼一样没有用。

In Appendix B (on pages 26-27) I've reproduced the essence of a letter I wrote a few years back to the owner/manager of a desirable business. If you have no personal connection with a business that might be of interest to us but have a friend who does, perhaps you can pass this report along to him.

附录 B 是我回信给一位可能的卖方的摘要，若是你知道那家企业可能会是我们有兴趣的标的，同时你有认识的朋友在那家企业，欢迎你直接将这份资料送给他参考。

Here's the sort of business we are looking for:

(1) Large purchases (at least $10 million of after-tax earnings),

(2) Demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are "turnaround" situations),

(3) Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,

(4) Management in place (we can't supply it),

(5) Simple businesses (if there's lots of technology, we won't understand it),

(6) An offering price (we don't want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).

以下就是我们想要找的企业条件：

(1)巨额交易(每年税后收益至少有一千万美元)；

(2)持续稳定的获利能力(我们对有远景或具转机的公司没兴趣)；

(3)高股东回报率(并且甚少举债)；

(4)管理到位(我们无法提供)；

(5)简单的企业(若牵涉到太多高科技，我们弄不懂)；

(6)合理的价格(在价格不确定前，我们不希望浪费自己与对方太多时间)。

We will not engage in unfriendly takeovers. We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer - customarily within five minutes - as to whether we're interested. We prefer to buy for cash, but will consider issuing stock when we receive as much in intrinsic business value as we give.

我们不会进行敌意的并购，并承诺完全保密并尽快答复是否感兴趣(通常不超过五分钟)，我们倾向采现金交易，除非我们所换得的内在价值跟我们付出的一样多，否则不考虑发行股份。

Our favorite form of purchase is one fitting the Blumkin- Friedman-Heldman mold. In cases like these, the company's owner- managers wish to generate significant amounts of cash, sometimes for themselves, but often for their families or inactive shareholders. At the same time, these managers wish to remain significant owners who continue to run their companies just as they have in the past. We think we offer a particularly good fit for owners with such objectives. We invite potential sellers to check us out by contacting people with whom we have done business in the past.

我们最喜欢的交易对象之一是像 B 太太-Heldman 家族那样，公司经营者希望能马上有一大笔现金，不管是给自己、家人或是其它股东，最好这些经营者如往常一样能够继续留在公司，我想我们可以提供具有以上想法的经营者，一个满意的方式，我们也欢迎可能的卖方与那些过去与我们合作过的对象打听。

Charlie and I frequently get approached about acquisitions that don't come close to meeting our tests: We've found that if you advertise an interest in buying collies, a lot of people will call hoping to sell you their cocker spaniels. A line from a country song expresses our feeling about new ventures, turnarounds, or auction-like sales: "When the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."

另一方面查理跟我也常常接到一些不符合我们条件的询问，包括新创事业、转机股、拍卖案以及最常见的中介案。我们发现如果你登广告要买牧羊犬，结果却有一大堆人打电话来要卖你长耳猎犬，对于这类的事业，有首乡村歌曲其中的一句歌词最能描述我们的感觉，“若电话不响，你就知道那是我”。

Besides being interested in the purchase of businesses as described above, we are also interested in the negotiated purchase of large, but not controlling, blocks of stock comparable to those we hold in Capital Cities, Salomon, Gillette, USAir, and Champion. We are not interested, however, in receiving suggestions about purchases we might make in the general stock market.

除了以上买下整家公司的并购案外，我们也会考虑买进一大部分不具控制权的股份，就像我们在大都会、所罗门、吉列、全美航空与冠军国际这几个例子一样的公司，不过对于一般直接从股票市场上买进股份的建议，我们则一点兴趣都没有。