巴菲特致股东的信（1994年）⑨新鲜出炉的错误

Mistake Du Jour

Mistakes occur at the time of decision. We can only make our mistake-du-jour award, however, when the foolishness of the decision become obvious. By this measure, 1994 was a vintage year with keen competition for the gold medal. Here, I would like to tell you that the mistakes I will describe originated with Charlie. But whenever I try to explain things that way, my nose begins to grow.

新鲜出炉的错误

错误通常在做决策时就已经造成，不过我们只能将新鲜错误奖颁给那些显而易见的愚蠢决策。照这种标准，1994 年可算是竞争激烈的一年，在这里我必须特别指出以下大部分的错误都是查理造成的，不过每当我用这种方式解释时，我的鼻子就会跟着变长(意指撒谎)。

And the nominees are . . .

获得提名的有...

Late in 1993 I sold 10 million shares of Cap Cities at $63; at year-end 1994, the price was $85.25. (The difference is $222.5 million for those of you who wish to avoid the pain of calculating the damage yourself.) When we purchased the stock at $17.25 in 1986, I told you that I had previously sold our Cap Cities holdings at $4.30 per share during 1978-80, and added that I was at a loss to explain my earlier behavior. Now I've become a repeat offender. Maybe it's time to get a guardian appointed.

1993 年底，我以每股 63 美元卖出 1,000 万股大都会股份(参加股份回购计划)，不幸的是到了 1994 年底，该公司股价变成 85.25 美元，如果你心痛到不愿去算的话，我可以直接告诉各位我们损失了 2.225 亿美元的差价。而当我们在 1986 年以每股 17.25 美元(1 拆 10 后)买进该公司股份时，就曾经向各位报告，我之前曾在1978-1980 年间以每股 4.3 美元卖掉该公司股份，并强调对于个人这样的行为感到心痛。没想到现在我却又明知故犯，也许是时候找个监护人来好好监管我一下了。

Egregious as it is, the Cap Cities decision earns only a silver medal. Top honors go to a mistake I made five years ago that fully ripened in 1994: Our $358 million purchase of USAir preferred stock, on which the dividend was suspended in September. In the 1990 Annual Report I correctly described this deal as an "unforced error," meaning that I was neither pushed into the investment nor misled by anyone when making it. Rather, this was a case of sloppy analysis, a lapse that may have been caused by the fact that we were buying a senior security or by hubris. Whatever the reason, the mistake was large.

更不幸的是，大都会只能得到一个银牌，金牌荣誉要归于我在五年前就犯下的一项错误，但直到 1994 年才爆发出来：我们以 3.58 亿美元购买了全美航空优先股，去年 9 月，该公司宣布停止发放优先股股息。早在 1990年，我就很准确地形容这项交易属于非受迫性的失误，意思是说，没有人强迫我投资，同时也没有人误导我。相反，这是一个草率分析的案例，这一失误可能是因为我们购买的是一家高等级证券，或是因为自大傲慢。不论如何，这是一项重大的错误。

Before this purchase, I simply failed to focus on the problems that would inevitably beset a carrier whose costs were both high and extremely difficult to lower. In earlier years, these life-threatening costs posed few problems. Airlines were then protected from competition by regulation, and carriers could absorb high costs because they could pass them along by way of fares that were also high.

在做这项投资之前，我竟然没有把注意力放在一直为航空深深所苦、居高不下的成本问题之上。在早年这些危及生命的高成本还不致构成重大的威胁，因为当时航空业受到监管的保护免受竞争影响，航空业者可以将高额成本通过高票价转嫁给消费者。

When deregulation came along, it did not immediately change the picture: The capacity of low-cost carriers was so small that the high-cost lines could, in large part, maintain their existing fare structures. During this period, with the longer-term problems largely invisible but slowly metastasizing, the costs that were non-sustainable became further embedded.

在放松管制的初期，情况并没有立即改变：低成本航空公司的运力还很小，以至于高成本线路在很大程度上可以维持其现有的票价结构。不过随着业者无视长期问题任其发酵，毫无竞争力的高成本问题早已积重难返。

As the seat capacity of the low-cost operators expanded, their fares began to force the old-line, high-cost airlines to cut their own. The day of reckoning for these airlines could be delayed by infusions of capital (such as ours into USAir), but eventually a fundamental rule of economics prevailed: In an unregulated commodity business, a company must lower its costs to competitive levels or face extinction. This principle should have been obvious to your Chairman, but I missed it.

随着低成本营运业者座位容量的大幅扩增，超低的票价迫使那些高成本的老牌航空公司也不得不降价，然而额外资金的注入(比如我们在全美航空的那笔投资)延迟这些老牌航空公司正视问题的时机。最终基本的经济规则占了上风：在一个没有管制的商品标准化产业，一家公司要么通过降低成本增加竞争力，要么关门倒闭。这道理对于身为公司负责人的我，可说是再清楚也不过了，但是我竟然忽视了。

Seth Schofield, CEO of USAir, has worked diligently to correct the company's historical cost problems but, to date, has not managed to do so. In part, this is because he has had to deal with a moving target, the result of certain major carriers having obtained labor concessions and other carriers having benefitted from "fresh-start" costs that came out of bankruptcy proceedings. (As Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines, has said: "Bankruptcy court for airlines has become a health spa.") Additionally, it should be no surprise to anyone that those airline employees who contractually receive above-market salaries will resist any reduction in these as long as their checks continue to clear.

全美航空的总裁 Seth Schofield 一直致力于纠正公司历史成本问题，不过到目前为止，仍然未有改善。一部分的原因在于，他面对的是一个个不断变动的对手，某些航空业者幸运地取得劳资双方新协议，有些则受惠于破产法令的保护而有了一个全新出发的成本(1988 年洛克比空难，最大的泛美航空(Pan Am)于 1991 年破产)，就像西南航空的总裁 Herb Kelleher 所说的：破产法对于航空业者来说，就像进行了一次健康的 SPA。此外，对于那些在合约上受到保护得以获得高于市场水准薪资的劳工来说，只要他们发现自己的薪资支票仍能按时兑现，就会全力地抵制减薪的提议。

Despite this difficult situation, USAir may yet achieve the cost reductions it needs to maintain its viability long-term. But it is far from sure that will happen.

尽管面临目前的困境，全美航空还是有可能完成降低成本的任务，以维持长期继续生存的能力，不过到目前为止，还很难确定一定能够成功。

Accordingly, we wrote our USAir investment down to $89.5 million, 25 cents on the dollar at yearend 1994. This valuation reflects both a possibility that our preferred will have its value fully or largely restored and an opposite possibility that the stock will eventually become worthless. Whatever the outcome, we will heed a prime rule of investing: You don't have to make it back the way that you lost it.

因此，在 1994 年底，我们将全美航空帐面的投资金额减值为 8,950 万美元，当初 1 美元的投资仅剩下 25 美分。这样的举动反应出将来我们的优先股有可能完全或大部分地恢复其价值，也有可能到后来变得一文不值。不论最后的结果为何，我们必须谨记一项投资的基本原则：那就是你不必靠那些已失去的再赚回来。

The accounting effects of our USAir writedown are complicated. Under GAAP accounting, insurance companies are required to carry all stocks on their balance sheets at estimated market value. Therefore, at the end of last year's third quarter, we were carrying our USAir preferred at $89.5 million, or 25% of cost. In other words, our net worth was at that time reflecting a value for USAir that was far below our $358 million cost.

本次减计全美航空投资价值的会计影响有点复杂，根据 GAAP 会计原则的规定，保险公司在资产负债表上必须以市价列示所有股票，因此截至去年第三季末，我们在全美航空投资的帐面价值是 8,950 万美元，大概只有原始成本 3.58 亿美元的 25%，换句话说，在当时我们的账面价值就已反应了这项调整。

But in the fourth quarter, we concluded that the decline in value was, in accounting terms, "other than temporary," and that judgment required us to send the writedown of $269 million through our income statement. The amount will have no other fourth-quarter effect. That is, it will not reduce our net worth, because the diminution of value had already been reflected.

但在第四季度，我们认为从会计角度来看，价值下降并非属于暂时性的，所以我们必须将这笔减值金额反应在损益表之上。然而第四季度不会对于本公司的账面价值再造成任何的影响，因为减值在第三季便已体现了。

Charlie and I will not stand for reelection to USAir's board at the upcoming annual meeting. Should Seth wish to consult with us, however, we will be pleased to be of any help that we can.

在即将召开的全美航空年度股东会中，查理跟我决定不再续任董事，当然要是 Seth 总裁觉得有任何需要我们帮忙的地方，我们愿意提供任何咨询服务。