巴菲特致股东的信（1991年）⑤传媒业的变化与其估值

A Change in Media Economics and Some Valuation Math

In last year's report, I stated my opinion that the decline in the profitability of media companies reflected secular as well as cyclical factors. The events of 1991 have fortified that case: The economic strength of once-mighty media enterprises continues to erode as retailing patterns change and advertising and entertainment choices proliferate. In the business world, unfortunately, the rear-view mirror is always clearer than the windshield: A few years back no one linked to the media business - neither lenders, owners nor financial analysts - saw the economic deterioration that was in store for the industry. (But give me a few years and I'll probably convince myself that I did.)

传媒业的变化与其估值

在去年的报告中，我曾经表示媒体事业盈利能力衰退主要是反应景气的循环因素，但在 1991 年发生的情况则不是那么一回事，由于零售业态的转变加上广告与娱乐选择的多元化，以往曾经一度风光的媒体事业，其竞争力已受到严重的侵蚀，然而不幸的是，在商业世界中，从后照镜所看到的景象永远比挡风玻璃的还清楚。几年前几乎没有人，包含银行、股东与证券分析师在内，会不看好媒体事业的发展，(若是再多给我几年，我可能就能声称我已预见到了)。

The fact is that newspaper, television, and magazine properties have begun to resemble businesses more than franchises in their economic behavior. Let's take a quick look at the characteristics separating these two classes of enterprise, keeping in mind, however, that many operations fall in some middle ground and can best be described as weak franchises or strong businesses.

事实是，报纸、电视与杂志等产业在经济行为上，越来越像一般企业，而不是拥有特许经营权的企业。让我们快速地看一下特许事业与一般事业在特性上的不同，不过请记住，很多公司事实上是介于这两者之间，所以也可以将之形容为弱势的特许事业或强势的一般事业。

An economic franchise arises from a product or service that: (1) is needed or desired; (2) is thought by its customers to have no close substitute and; (3) is not subject to price regulation. The existence of all three conditions will be demonstrated by a company's ability to regularly price its product or service aggressively and thereby to earn high rates of return on capital. Moreover, franchises can tolerate mis-management. Inept managers may diminish a franchise's profitability, but they cannot inflict mortal damage.

经济上的特许经营权，来源于以下特定的产品或服务：(1)它是被需要或被渴望的；(2)被顾客认定为找不到其它类似的替代品；(3)不受价格上的管制。一家公司到底有没有具有以上三个特点，都将通过公司能不能够定期地对其提供的产品与服务主动调价，从而赚取更高的资本回报率表现出来。更重要的是，特许经营权比较能够容忍不当的管理，无能的经理人虽然会降低特许事业的盈利能力，但是并不会造成致命的伤害。

In contrast, "a business" earns exceptional profits only if it is the low-cost operator or if supply of its product or service is tight. Tightness in supply usually does not last long. With superior management, a company may maintain its status as a low-cost operator for a much longer time, but even then unceasingly faces the possibility of competitive attack. And a business, unlike a franchise, can be killed by poor management.

相比之下，一般事业想要获取高回报就只有当其是低成本经营者，或是当其所提供的产品或服务供需紧张之时，但是这种供给不足的情况通常维持不了多久，倒是通过卓越的管理，一家公司却可以长期维持低成本的营运，但即使是如此，还是会面临竞争对手持续不断的攻击。与特许事业不同的是，一般事业可能会因为管理不善而倒闭。

Until recently, media properties possessed the three characteristics of a franchise and consequently could both price aggressively and be managed loosely. Now, however, consumers looking for information and entertainment (their primary interest being the latter) enjoy greatly broadened choices as to where to find them. Unfortunately, demand can't expand in response to this new supply: 500 million American eyeballs and a 24-hour day are all that's available. The result is that competition has intensified, markets have fragmented, and the media industry has lost some - though far from all - of its franchise strength.

就在不久前，媒体产业还拥有特许事业这三项特质，因此还能够提高价格并容忍宽松的管理。不过现在的消费者不断地寻找不同的信息与娱乐来源，其可选择的范围也大大拓宽了。不幸的是，消费者的需求并不会随着供给的增加而变大，美国人的五亿只眼睛，一天 24 小时，就这么多，不可能再增加了。所以结果可想而知，竞争加剧，市场分裂，媒体产业因而丧失了部分原有的特许经营权。

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The industry's weakened franchise has an impact on its value that goes far beyond the immediate effect on earnings. For an understanding of this phenomenon, let's look at some much over-simplified, but relevant, math.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

媒体产业特性经营权减弱，对其长期价值的影响远远超过了对短期收益的冲击，为了让大家了解这种现象，让我们来看看稍微简化但却颇为相关的数字。

A few years ago the conventional wisdom held that a newspaper, television or magazine property would forever increase its earnings at 6% or so annually and would do so without the employment of additional capital, for the reason that depreciation charges would roughly match capital expenditures and working capital requirements would be minor. Therefore, reported earnings (before amortization of intangibles) were also freely-distributable earnings, which meant that ownership of a media property could be construed as akin to owning a perpetual annuity set to grow at 6% a year. Say, next, that a discount rate of 10% was used to determine the present value of that earnings stream. One could then calculate that it was appropriate to pay a whopping $25 million for a property with current after-tax earnings of $1 million. (This after-tax multiplier of 25 translates to a multiplier on pre-tax earnings of about 16.)

几年以前，传统观点都认为新闻、电视或是杂志产业的盈利，将永无止尽地以每年 6%左右的比率增长，而且可以完全不必依靠额外的资本，因为每年的折旧费用大致与资本支出相当，而所需的营运资金相当小，所以报告收益(在扣除无形资产摊销前)几乎等于可以自由分配的收益。也就是说，拥有一家媒体事业，类似于拥有每年增长6%的永续年金。若我们以 10%的折现率来计算现值的话，可以算出，为税后 100 万美元净利的产业支付 2500万美元是值得的(100/(10%-6%)=2500，25 倍税后市盈率，或 16 倍税前市盈率)。

Now change the assumption and posit that the $1 million represents "normal earning power" and that earnings will bob around this figure cyclically. A "bob-around" pattern is indeed the lot of most businesses, whose income stream grows only if their owners are willing to commit more capital (usually in the form of retained earnings). Under our revised assumption, $1 million of earnings, discounted by the same 10%, translates to a $10 million valuation. Thus a seemingly modest shift in assumptions reduces the property's valuation to 10 times after-tax earnings (or about 6 1/2 times pre-tax earnings).

现在改变假设条件，这家公司只拥有普通的盈利能力，其盈利周期性的围绕 100 万上下波动，这种波动模式实际是大部分企业的状况。而公司的盈利想要有所增长，股东就必须要投入更多的资本才行(通常是保留收益的方式)。根据改变后的假设，同样以 10%加以折现，大概可以达到 1,000 万美元的估值。结果可以看出，轻微的假设变动就使这家企业的价值大幅减少(100/(10%-0%)=1000，10 倍税后市盈率，或 6.5 倍税前市盈率)。

Dollars are dollars whether they are derived from the operation of media properties or of steel mills. What in the past caused buyers to value a dollar of earnings from media far higher than a dollar from steel was that the earnings of a media property were expected to constantly grow (without the business requiring much additional capital), whereas steel earnings clearly fell in the bob-around category. Now, however, expectations for media have moved toward the bob-around model. And, as our simplified example illustrates, valuations must change dramatically when expectations are revised.

现金就是现金，不管今天它是靠经营媒体事业或是钢铁工厂得来的都一样，而过去同样是一美元的盈利，大家对媒体事业的估值远高于钢铁工厂的原因是，媒体事业的收益预期会继续成长，且股东不需要再投入额外的资金，而钢铁业很明显属于打摆子的那类。不过现在，大家对于媒体事业的看法也逐渐转向为后者。而且正如我们刚刚简化示例所示，当预期被修正时，估值必然发生巨大变化。

We have a significant investment in media - both through our direct ownership of Buffalo News and our shareholdings in The Washington Post Company and Capital Cities/ABC - and the intrinsic value of this investment has declined materially because of the secular transformation that the industry is experiencing. (Cyclical factors have also hurt our current look-through earnings, but these factors do not reduce intrinsic value.) However, as our Business Principles on page 2-3 note, one of the rules by which we run Berkshire is that we do not sell businesses - or investee holdings that we have classified as permanent - simply because we see ways to use the money more advantageously elsewhere. (We did sell certain other media holdings sometime back, but these were relatively small.)

我们在媒体事业有相当大的投资，不管是完全拥有的布法罗新闻报，还是在华盛顿邮报与大都会/ABC 的股票投资，而这些媒体事业的价值因为前面所提到的产业所面临的业态转变而大幅滑落，(周期性因素也使得我们现在的透视收益大受影响，虽然还不致于让内在价值减少)。然而，就像是我们经营伯克希尔的企业原则所揭示的，我们不会只是因为还有其它更有利的资金用途，就随便将已被列为永恒的事业或主要投资出售，(当然之前我们也确实卖了一些媒体股，不过规模相对较小)。

The intrinsic value losses that we have suffered have been moderated because the Buffalo News, under Stan Lipsey's leadership, has done far better than most newspapers and because both Cap Cities and Washington Post are exceptionally well-managed. In particular, these companies stayed on the sidelines during the late 1980's period in which purchasers of media properties regularly paid irrational prices. Also, the debt of both Cap Cities and Washington Post is small and roughly offset by cash that they hold. As a result, the shrinkage in the value of their assets has not been accentuated by the effects of leverage. Among publicly-owned media companies, our two investees are about the only ones essentially free of debt. Most of the other companies, through a combination of the aggressive acquisition policies they pursued and shrinking earnings, find themselves with debt equal to five or more times their current net income.

还好我们的内在价值受到损害的情况尚属轻微，因为布法罗新闻报在 Stan Lipsey 的领导之下，表现远比其它报纸同业要来的优秀，另一方面大都会与华盛顿邮报的经营也都管理的很好，特别是在 1980 年代后期许多媒体公司以高价大举并购同业时，这些公司都只是做壁上观。此外，大都会与华盛顿邮报两家公司的负债也都很少，手上的现金就足以清偿所有的债务，因此，公司资产的缩水并没有因为杠杆而扩大，所以现在在所有主要的媒体公司中，大概就只有我们投资的这两家公司可以免于债务所苦，而大多数同业通过激进的并购，除了收益大幅缩水之外，还同时背负着至少相当于年度盈利能力五倍以上的债务。

The strong balance sheets and strong managements of Cap Cities and Washington Post leave us more comfortable with these investments than we would be with holdings in any other media companies. Moreover, most media properties continue to have far better economic characteristics than those possessed by the average American business. But gone are the days of bullet-proof franchises and cornucopian economics.

总而言之，大都会及华盛顿邮报超强的资产负债表与管理层，持有它们的股份使得我们比持有别家公司的股份感到更放心，而且就现阶段而言，媒体事业的经济特征仍然比其它一般美国企业要来的有竞争力，只是不再像过去那样拥有坚固的经济护城河和诱人的暴利了。

* * * * * * * * * * * * The industry's weakened franchise has an impact on its value that goes far beyond the immediate effect on earnings. For an understanding of this phenomenon, let's look at some much over-simplified, but relevant, math.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The industry's weakened franchise has an impact on its value that goes far beyond the immediate effect on earnings. For an understanding of this phenomenon, let's look at some much over-simplified, but relevant, math.