2014 年致股东信 —— 过去、现在与未来

In the Beginning

开端

On May 6, 1964, Berkshire Hathaway, then run by a man named Seabury Stanton, sent a letter to its shareholders offering to buy 225,000 shares of its stock for $11.375 per share. I had expected the letter; I was surprised by the price.

1964年5月6日，当时由西伯里·斯坦顿执掌的伯克希尔·哈撒韦致信股东，提出以每股11.375美元的价格回购22.5万股股票。我对这封信早有预料，但价格令我惊讶。

Berkshire then had 1,583,680 shares outstanding. About 7% of these were owned by Buffett Partnership Ltd. (“BPL”), an investing entity that I managed and in which I had virtually all of my net worth. Shortly before the tender offer was mailed, Stanton had asked me at what price BPL would sell its holdings. I answered $11.50, and he said, “Fine, we have a deal.” Then came Berkshire’s letter, offering an eighth of a point less. I bristled at Stanton’s behavior and didn’t tender.

当时伯克希尔共有1,583,680股流通股，其中约7%由巴菲特合伙有限公司（BPL）持有。BPL是我管理的投资实体，我几乎将全部身家都投在里面。在收购要约发出前不久，斯坦顿曾问我BPL愿意以什么价格出售所持股份。我回答11.50美元，他说：“好，成交。”随后伯克希尔的信来了，报价却少了1/8点。我对斯坦顿的做法感到气愤，没有接受要约。

That was a monumentally stupid decision.

那是一个极其愚蠢的决定。

Berkshire was then a northern textile manufacturer mired in a terrible business. The industry in which it operated was heading south, both metaphorically and physically. And Berkshire, for a variety of reasons, was unable to change course.

当时伯克希尔是一家深陷糟糕行业的北方纺织制造商。它所在的行业正在“南下”——无论从比喻意义上还是地理位置上都是如此。而且，由于多种原因，伯克希尔无法改变方向。

That was true even though the industry’s problems had long been widely understood. Berkshire’s own Board minutes of July 29, 1954, laid out the grim facts: “The textile industry in New England started going out of business forty years ago. During the war years this trend was stopped. The trend must continue until supply and demand have been balanced.”

尽管该行业的问题早已众所周知，但情况确实如此。伯克希尔董事会1954年7月29日的会议记录就陈述了严峻的事实：“新英格兰的纺织业四十年前就开始衰落。战争期间这一趋势暂时停止。但这一趋势必将持续，直到供需平衡。”

About a year after that board meeting, Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates and Hathaway Manufacturing – both with roots in the 19th Century – joined forces, taking the name we bear today. With its fourteen plants and 10,000 employees, the merged company became the giant of New England textiles. What the two managements viewed as a merger agreement, however, soon morphed into a suicide pact. During the seven years following the consolidation, Berkshire operated at an overall loss, and its net worth shrunk by 37%.

那次董事会会议大约一年后，伯克希尔精纺联合公司与哈撒韦制造公司——两家都起源于19世纪——合并，采用我们今天所用的名称。合并后的公司拥有14家工厂和10,000名员工，成为新英格兰纺织业的巨头。然而，两家管理层眼中的合并协议，很快就变成了自杀契约。合并后的七年里，伯克希尔整体亏损，净资产缩水了37%。

Meanwhile, the company closed nine plants, sometimes using the liquidation proceeds to repurchase shares. And that pattern caught my attention.

与此同时，公司关闭了九家工厂，有时用清算所得回购股票。这种模式引起了我的注意。

I purchased BPL’s first shares of Berkshire in December 1962, anticipating more closings and more repurchases. The stock was then selling for $7.50, a wide discount from per-share working capital of $10.25 and book value of $20.20. Buying the stock at that price was like picking up a discarded cigar butt that had one puff remaining in it. Though the stub might be ugly and soggy, the puff would be free. Once that momentary pleasure was enjoyed, however, no more could be expected.

1962年12月，我为BPL买入了第一批伯克希尔股票，预期会有更多关厂和回购。当时股价为7.50美元，相比每股营运资本10.25美元和每股账面价值20.20美元有巨大折扣。以这个价格买入股票，就像捡起一个被人扔掉的雪茄烟蒂，里面还剩一口烟。尽管烟蒂可能又丑又湿，但那口烟是免费的。然而，一旦享受了那片刻的愉悦，就不会再有更多了。

Berkshire thereafter stuck to the script: It soon closed another two plants, and in that May 1964 move, set out to repurchase shares with the shutdown proceeds. The price that Stanton offered was 50% above the cost of our original purchases. There it was – my free puff, just waiting for me, after which I could look elsewhere for other discarded butts.

此后伯克希尔按剧本行事：又很快关闭了两家工厂，并在1964年5月的行动中，打算用关厂所得回购股票。斯坦顿给出的价格，比我们最初买入的成本高出50%。那就是我的免费一口烟，正等着我，之后我可以去别处寻找其他被丢弃的烟蒂。

Instead, irritated by Stanton’s chiseling, I ignored his offer and began to aggressively buy more Berkshire shares.

然而，因为对斯坦顿的小动作感到恼火，我无视了他的要约，并开始 aggressively 买入更多伯克希尔股票。

By April 1965, BPL owned 392,633 shares (out of 1,017,547 then outstanding) and at an early-May board meeting we formally took control of the company. Through Seabury’s and my childish behavior – after all, what was an eighth of a point to either of us? – he lost his job, and I found myself with more than 25% of BPL’s capital invested in a terrible business about which I knew very little. I became the dog who caught the car.

到1965年4月，BPL持有392,633股（当时总流通股1,017,547股），在5月初的董事会会议上，我们正式掌控了公司。由于西伯里和我孩子气的行为——说到底，1/8点对我们俩算什么呢？——他丢了工作，而我发现自己把BPL超过25%的资本投入了一家糟糕的、我知之甚少的企业。我成了那条追到汽车的狗。

Because of Berkshire’s operating losses and share repurchases, its net worth at the end of fiscal 1964 had fallen to $22 million from $55 million at the time of the 1955 merger. The full $22 million was required by the textile operation: The company had no excess cash and owed its bank $2.5 million. (Berkshire’s 1964 annual report is reproduced on pages 130-142.)

由于伯克希尔的经营亏损和股票回购，其1964财年末的净资产已从1955年合并时的5500万美元降至2200万美元。这2200万美元全部被纺织业务占用：公司没有多余现金，还欠银行250万美元。（伯克希尔1964年年报在第130-142页重印。）

For a time I got lucky: Berkshire immediately enjoyed two years of good operating conditions. Better yet, its earnings in those years were free of income tax because it possessed a large loss carry-forward that had arisen from the disastrous results in earlier years.

有一段时间我运气不错：伯克希尔紧接着享受了两年良好的经营环境。更好的是，由于此前几年的灾难性业绩带来了巨额的累计亏损抵扣，那几年的收益无需缴纳所得税。

Then the honeymoon ended. During the 18 years following 1966, we struggled unremittingly with the textile business, all to no avail. But stubbornness – stupidity? – has its limits. In 1985, I finally threw in the towel and closed the operation.

然后蜜月结束了。在1966年之后的18年里，我们与纺织业务不懈斗争，但全都无济于事。不过，固执——还是愚蠢？——总有其限度。1985年，我终于认输，关闭了这项业务。

Undeterred by my first mistake of committing much of BPL’s resources to a dying business, I quickly compounded the error. Indeed, my second blunder was far more serious than the first, eventually becoming the most costly in my career.

第一次错误是将BPL的大部分资源投入一个垂死的行业，这并没有让我气馁，我很快又犯了更大的错误。事实上，我的第二个错误比第一个严重得多，最终成为我职业生涯中代价最高昂的。

Early in 1967, I had Berkshire pay $8.6 million to buy National Indemnity Company (“NICO”), a small but promising Omaha-based insurer. (A tiny sister company was also included in the deal.) Insurance was in my sweet spot: I understood and liked the industry.

1967年初，我让伯克希尔支付860万美元收购了国民赔偿公司（NICO），这是一家位于奥马哈、规模虽小但前景光明的保险公司。（交易中还包含一家很小的姊妹公司。）保险正合我的胃口：我理解并喜欢这个行业。

Jack Ringwalt, the owner of NICO, was a long-time friend who wanted to sell to me – me, personally. In no way was his offer intended for Berkshire. So why did I purchase NICO for Berkshire rather than for BPL? I’ve had 48 years to think about that question, and I’ve yet to come up with a good answer. I simply made a colossal mistake.

NICO的所有者杰克·林沃尔特是我的老朋友，他想把公司卖给我——我个人。他的出价绝不是针对伯克希尔的。那么，我为什么替伯克希尔而不是BPL买下NICO呢？我有48年的时间思考这个问题，但至今没有想出好的答案。我只是犯了一个巨大的错误。

If BPL had been the purchaser, my partners and I would have owned 100% of a fine business, destined to form the base for building the company Berkshire has become. Moreover, our growth would not have been impeded for nearly two decades by the unproductive funds imprisoned in the textile operation. Finally, our subsequent acquisitions would have been owned in their entirety by my partners and me rather than being 39%-owned by the legacy shareholders of Berkshire, to whom we had no obligation. Despite these facts staring me in the face, I opted to marry 100% of an excellent business (NICO) to a 61%-owned terrible business (Berkshire Hathaway), a decision that eventually diverted $100 billion or so from BPL partners to a collection of strangers.

如果购买方是BPL，我和我的合伙人将100%拥有一家优秀的企业，这家企业注定会成为伯克希尔日后发展的基础。而且，我们的增长就不会被困在纺织业务中的非生产性资金阻碍近二十年。最后，我们后续的收购将完全由我和我的合伙人拥有，而不是由伯克希尔的遗留股东持有39%——我们对他们没有任何义务。尽管这些事实就摆在我眼前，我还是选择了将100%的优秀企业（NICO）与61%拥有的糟糕企业（伯克希尔·哈撒韦）联姻，这个决定最终导致大约1000亿美元从BPL合伙人手中转移到了一群陌生人手中。

One more confession and then I’ll go on to more pleasant topics: Can you believe that in 1975 I bought Waumbec Mills, another New England textile company? Of course, the purchase price was a “bargain” based on the assets we received and the projected synergies with Berkshire’s existing textile business. Nevertheless – surprise, surprise – Waumbec was a disaster, with the mill having to be closed down not many years later.

再来一个坦白，然后我就转到更愉快的话题：你能相信吗，1975年我又买下了另一家新英格兰纺织公司——旺贝克纺织厂？当然，根据我们获得的资产以及与伯克希尔现有纺织业务的预期协同效应，收购价格确实是个“便宜货”。然而——没想到吧——旺贝克是个灾难，工厂没几年就被迫关闭了。

And now some good news: The northern textile industry is finally extinct. You need no longer panic if you hear that I’ve been spotted wandering around New England.

现在说点好消息：北方的纺织业终于灭绝了。如果你听说有人看到我在新英格兰闲逛，你也不必再恐慌了。

Charlie Straightens Me Out

查理帮我拨乱反正

My cigar-butt strategy worked very well while I was managing small sums. Indeed, the many dozens of free puffs I obtained in the 1950s made that decade by far the best of my life for both relative and absolute investment performance.

在我管理小规模资金时，我的雪茄烟蒂策略非常有效。事实上，我在1950年代获得的数十次免费一口烟，使得那十年无论从相对还是绝对投资业绩来看，都是我一生中最好的。

Even then, however, I made a few exceptions to cigar butts, the most important being GEICO. Thanks to a 1951 conversation I had with Lorimer Davidson, a wonderful man who later became CEO of the company, I learned that GEICO was a terrific business and promptly put 65% of my $9,800 net worth into its shares. Most of my gains in those early years, though, came from investments in mediocre companies that traded at bargain prices. Ben Graham had taught me that technique, and it worked.

即便如此，我也对雪茄烟蒂有过几次例外，最重要的就是GEICO。得益于1951年我与洛里默·戴维森的一次谈话——他是一位了不起的人，后来成为该公司的CEO——我了解到GEICO是一家出色的企业，并立即将我9800美元净资产的65%投入了它的股票。不过，我早年的大部分收益来自于投资那些以折扣价交易的平庸公司。本·格雷厄姆教给我那个方法，而且很有效。

But a major weakness in this approach gradually became apparent: Cigar-butt investing was scalable only to a point. With large sums, it would never work well.

但这种方法的一个主要弱点逐渐显现出来：雪茄烟蒂式投资只能在有限规模内有效。资金量一大，它就永远无法很好地发挥作用。

In addition, though marginal businesses purchased at cheap prices may be attractive as short-term investments, they are the wrong foundation on which to build a large and enduring enterprise. Selecting a marriage partner clearly requires more demanding criteria than does dating. (Berkshire, it should be noted, would have been a highly satisfactory “date”: If we had taken Seabury Stanton’s $11.375 offer for our shares, BPL’s weighted annual return on its Berkshire investment would have been about 40%.)

此外，尽管以低价购买的边缘企业作为短期投资可能具有吸引力，但它们不是构建一个庞大而持久企业的正确基础。选择结婚伴侣显然需要比约会更严格的标准。（需要注意的是，伯克希尔本应是一个非常令人满意的“约会对象”：如果我们接受了西伯里·斯坦顿每股11.375美元的报价，BPL在伯克希尔投资上的加权年回报率将达到约40%。）

It took Charlie Munger to break my cigar-butt habits and set the course for building a business that could combine huge size with satisfactory profits. Charlie had grown up a few hundred feet from where I now live and as a youth had worked, as did I, in my grandfather’s grocery store. Nevertheless, it was 1959 before I met Charlie, long after he had left Omaha to make Los Angeles his home. I was then 28 and he was 35. The Omaha doctor who introduced us predicted that we would hit it off – and we did.

是查理·芒格打破了我的雪茄烟蒂习惯，并指明了构建一家能够兼具庞大规模与满意利润的企业之路。查理在我现在住所几百英尺外长大，年轻时也曾像我爷爷的杂货店那样工作。尽管如此，我直到1959年才遇到查理，那时他早已离开奥马哈，定居洛杉矶。我当时28岁，他35岁。介绍我们认识的奥马哈医生预言我们会很合得来——我们确实如此。

If you’ve attended our annual meetings, you know Charlie has a wide-ranging brilliance, a prodigious memory, and some firm opinions. I’m not exactly wishy-washy myself, and we sometimes don’t agree. In 56 years, however, we’ve never had an argument. When we differ, Charlie usually ends the conversation by saying: “Warren, think it over and you’ll agree with me because you’re smart and I’m right.”

如果你参加过我们的年会，你就会知道查理才华横溢、记忆力惊人、观点坚定。我自己也不是含糊其辞的人，我们有时意见不一。然而，56年来我们从未有过争吵。当我们有分歧时，查理通常这样结束对话：“沃伦，你再想想，你会同意我的，因为你很聪明，而我是对的。”

What most of you do not know about Charlie is that architecture is among his passions. Though he began his career as a practicing lawyer (with his time billed at $15 per hour), Charlie made his first real money in his 30s by designing and building five apartment projects near Los Angeles. Concurrently, he designed the house that he lives in today – some 55 years later. (Like me, Charlie can’t be budged if he is happy in his surroundings.) In recent years, Charlie has designed large dorm complexes at Stanford and the University of Michigan and today, at age 91, is working on another major project.

你们中大多数人不了解查理的一点是，建筑是他的爱好之一。尽管他以执业律师开始职业生涯（每小时收费15美元），但查理在30多岁时通过设计和建造洛杉矶附近的五个公寓项目赚到了第一桶金。与此同时，他还设计了今天仍居住的房子——距今约55年。（和我一样，查理如果对周围环境感到满意，就不愿搬家。）近年来，查理为斯坦福大学和密歇根大学设计了大型宿舍综合体，如今91岁高龄的他还在进行另一个重大项目。

From my perspective, though, Charlie’s most important architectural feat was the design of today’s Berkshire. The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices.

不过，在我看来，查理最重要的建筑成就是设计了今天的伯克希尔。他给我的蓝图很简单：忘掉你所学过的以美妙价格买入普通企业；相反，要以合理的价格买入出色的企业。

Altering my behavior is not an easy task (ask my family). I had enjoyed reasonable success without Charlie’s input, so why should I listen to a lawyer who had never spent a day in business school (when – ahem – I had attended three). But Charlie never tired of repeating his maxims about business and investing to me, and his logic was irrefutable. Consequently, Berkshire has been built to Charlie’s blueprint. My role has been that of general contractor, with the CEOs of Berkshire’s subsidiaries doing the real work as sub-contractors.

改变我的行为并非易事（问问我的家人就知道了）。在没有查理的建议之前，我已经取得了相当不错的成功，那么我为什么要听一个从未在商学院待过一天（而我——咳咳——上过三个）的律师的话呢？但查理从不厌倦地向我重复他关于商业和投资的格言，而且他的逻辑无可辩驳。因此，伯克希尔是按照查理的蓝图构建的。我的角色是总承包商，伯克希尔子公司的CEO们作为分包商做实际工作。

The year 1972 was a turning point for Berkshire (though not without occasional backsliding on my part – remember my 1975 purchase of Waumbec). We had the opportunity then to buy See’s Candy for Blue Chip Stamps, a company in which Charlie, I and Berkshire had major stakes, and which was later merged into Berkshire.

1972年是伯克希尔的转折点（尽管我偶尔会倒退——还记得我1975年收购旺贝克）。那时我们有机会为蓝筹印花公司购买喜诗糖果，查理、我和伯克希尔都持有蓝筹印花公司的主要股份，该公司后来并入了伯克希尔。

See’s was a legendary West Coast manufacturer and retailer of boxed chocolates, then annually earning about $4 million pre-tax while utilizing only $8 million of net tangible assets. Moreover, the company had a huge asset that did not appear on its balance sheet: a broad and durable competitive advantage that gave it significant pricing power. That strength was virtually certain to give See’s major gains in earnings over time. Better yet, these would materialize with only minor amounts of incremental investment. In other words, See’s could be expected to gush cash for decades to come.

喜诗糖果是西海岸传奇的盒装巧克力制造商和零售商，当时每年税前盈利约400万美元，而仅使用了800万美元的有形净资产。此外，该公司还拥有一项未体现在资产负债表上的巨大资产：广泛而持久的竞争优势，赋予了它显著的定价能力。随着时间的推移，这种优势几乎肯定会为喜诗带来可观的收益增长。更好的是，这些增长只需要少量的增量投资就能实现。换句话说，喜诗糖果有望在未来几十年内源源不断地产生现金。

The family controlling See’s wanted $30 million for the business, and Charlie rightly said it was worth that much. But I didn’t want to pay more than $25 million and wasn’t all that enthusiastic even at that figure. (A price that was three times net tangible assets made me gulp.) My misguided caution could have scuttled a terrific purchase. But, luckily, the sellers decided to take our $25 million bid.

控制喜诗糖果的家族要价3000万美元，查理正确地说它值这个价。但我不想支付超过2500万美元，即使在这个价格上我也没那么热情。（三倍有形净资产的价格让我倒吸一口凉气。）我误入歧途的谨慎差点毁掉一笔绝佳的收购。但幸运的是，卖方决定接受我们2500万美元的出价。

To date, See’s has earned $1.9 billion pre-tax, with its growth having required added investment of only $40 million. See’s has thus been able to distribute huge sums that have helped Berkshire buy other businesses that, in turn, have themselves produced large distributable profits. (Envision rabbits breeding.) Additionally, through watching See’s in action, I gained a business education about the value of powerful brands that opened my eyes to many other profitable investments.

迄今为止，喜诗糖果已实现税前盈利19亿美元，而它的增长仅需要额外投资4000万美元。因此，喜诗能够分配出巨额资金，帮助伯克希尔购买其他企业，而这些企业本身又产生了大量可分配的利润。（想象兔子繁殖。）此外，通过观察喜诗的运作，我获得了关于强大品牌价值的商业教育，这让我睁眼看清楚了许多其他有利可图的投资。

Even with Charlie’s blueprint, I have made plenty of mistakes since Waumbec. The most gruesome was Dexter Shoe. When we purchased the company in 1993, it had a terrific record and in no way looked to me like a cigar butt. Its competitive strengths, however, were soon to evaporate because of foreign competition. And I simply didn’t see that coming.

即使有了查理的蓝图，自旺贝克之后我仍然犯了很多错误。最惨痛的是德克斯特鞋业。当我们在1993年收购这家公司时，它有着出色的记录，在我看来绝不是雪茄烟蒂。然而，由于外国竞争，它的竞争优势很快就消失了。而我完全没有预见到这一点。

Consequently, Berkshire paid $433 million for Dexter and, rather promptly, its value went to zero. GAAP accounting, however, doesn’t come close to recording the magnitude of my error. The fact is that I gave Berkshire stock to the sellers of Dexter rather than cash, and the shares I used for the purchase are now worth about $5.7 billion. As a financial disaster, this one deserves a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

结果是，伯克希尔为德克斯特支付了4.33亿美元，而它的价值很快归零。然而，GAAP会计准则远未记录下我错误的严重程度。事实是，我给了德克斯特的卖家伯克希尔的股票而不是现金，而我用于购买的那些股票现在价值约57亿美元。作为一场金融灾难，这一笔值得在吉尼斯世界纪录中占有一席之地。

Several of my subsequent errors also involved the use of Berkshire shares to purchase businesses whose earnings were destined to simply limp along. Mistakes of that kind are deadly. Trading shares of a wonderful business – which Berkshire most certainly is – for ownership of a so-so business irreparably destroys value.

我随后的一些错误也涉及使用伯克希尔的股票购买那些盈利注定只能蹒跚前行的企业。这种错误是致命的。用一家出色企业（伯克希尔无疑就是）的股票，去换取一家平庸企业的所有权，会不可挽回地摧毁价值。

We’ve also suffered financially when this mistake has been committed by companies whose shares Berkshire has owned (with the errors sometimes occurring while I was serving as a director). Too often CEOs seem blind to an elementary reality: The intrinsic value of the shares you give in an acquisition must not be greater than the intrinsic value of the business you receive.

当伯克希尔持股的公司犯下这一错误时，我们也在财务上遭受了损失（有时这些错误发生在我担任董事期间）。CEO们似乎常常对一个基本事实视而不见：你在收购中给出的股票的内在价值，绝不能大于你所收购企业的内在价值。

I’ve yet to see an investment banker quantify this all-important math when he is presenting a stock-for-stock deal to the board of a potential acquirer. Instead, the banker’s focus will be on describing “customary” premiums-to-market-price that are currently being paid for acquisitions – an absolutely asinine way to evaluate the attractiveness of an acquisition – or whether the deal will increase the acquirer’s earnings-per-share (which in itself should be far from determinative). In striving to achieve the desired per-share number, a panting CEO and his “helpers” will often conjure up fanciful “synergies.” (As a director of 19 companies over the years, I’ve never heard “dis-synergies” mentioned, though I’ve witnessed plenty of these once deals have closed.) Post mortems of acquisitions, in which reality is honestly compared to the original projections, are rare in American boardrooms. They should instead be standard practice.

我还从未见过一位投资银行家在向潜在收购方的董事会提交换股交易时，量化过这一至关重要的数学关系。相反，银行家的焦点总是放在描述目前收购交易中“惯例”的市价溢价——这是一种评估收购吸引力的绝对愚蠢的方式——或者这笔交易是否会提高收购方的每股收益（这本身远非决定性因素）。为了达到理想的每股收益数字，气喘吁吁的CEO和他的“助手们”常常编造出虚幻的“协同效应”。（多年来担任19家公司的董事，我从未听说过“反协同效应”，但一旦交易完成，我见过大量这样的例子。）在美国的董事会里，将现实与最初预测诚实地进行比较的收购后评估是很少见的。而这本应是标准做法。

I can promise you that long after I’m gone, Berkshire’s CEO and Board will carefully make intrinsic value calculations before issuing shares in any acquisitions. You can’t get rich trading a hundred-dollar bill for eight tens (even if your advisor has handed you an expensive “fairness” opinion endorsing that swap).

我可以向你保证，在我离开很久之后，伯克希尔的CEO和董事会也会在任何收购中发行股份之前，仔细进行内在价值计算。用一张百元美钞换八张十元钞票是发不了财的（即使你的顾问给了你一份昂贵的“公平性”意见书来认可这次交换）。

Overall, Berkshire’s acquisitions have worked out well – and very well in the case of a few large ones. So, too, have our investments in marketable securities. The latter are always valued on our balance sheet at their market prices so any gains – including those unrealized – are immediately reflected in our net worth. But the businesses we buy outright are never revalued upward on our balance sheet, even when we could sell them for many billions of dollars more than their carrying value. The unrecorded gains in the value of Berkshire’s subsidiaries have become huge, with these growing at a particularly fast pace in the last decade.

总体而言，伯克希尔的收购结果不错——其中几笔大型收购结果非常好。我们在有价证券上的投资也是如此。后者在我们的资产负债表上始终按市价估值，因此任何收益——包括未实现的——都会立即反映在我们的净资产中。但我们直接购买的企业，在资产负债表上永远不会被向上重估，即使我们可以以高于账面价值数十亿美元的价格出售它们。伯克希尔子公司价值中未记录的收益已经变得巨大，在过去十年中以特别快的速度增长。

Listening to Charlie has paid off.

听从查理的劝告已经得到了回报。

Berkshire Today

今天的伯克希尔

Berkshire is now a sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further.

伯克希尔现在是一个不断扩张的综合企业，并且还在不断尝试进一步扩张。

Conglomerates, it should be acknowledged, have a terrible reputation with investors. And they richly deserve it. Let me first explain why they are in the doghouse, and then I will go on to describe why the conglomerate form brings huge and enduring advantages to Berkshire.

应该承认，综合企业在投资者中名声很臭。而且它们完全罪有应得。让我先解释一下它们为什么失宠，然后再阐述为什么综合企业形式为伯克希尔带来了巨大而持久的优势。

Since I entered the business world, conglomerates have enjoyed several periods of extreme popularity, the silliest of which occurred in the late 1960s. The drill for conglomerate CEOs then was simple: By personality, promotion or dubious accounting – and often by all three – these managers drove a fledgling conglomerate’s stock to, say, 20 times earnings and then issued shares as fast as possible to acquire another business selling at ten-or-so times earnings. They immediately applied “pooling” accounting to the acquisition, which – with not a dime’s worth of change in the underlying businesses – automatically increased per-share earnings, and used the rise as proof of managerial genius. They next explained to investors that this sort of talent justified the maintenance, or even the enhancement, of the acquirer’s p/e multiple. And, finally, they promised to endlessly repeat this procedure and thereby create ever-increasing per-share earnings.

自从我进入商界以来，综合企业经历了几个极度风靡的时期，其中最愚蠢的当属1960年代末。当时综合企业CEO们的套路很简单：通过个人魅力、宣传或可疑的会计手段——通常是三者并用——这些管理者将一家羽翼未丰的综合企业的股票推高到，比如说，20倍市盈率，然后尽可能快地发行股票，收购另一家以10倍左右市盈率出售的企业。他们立即对收购采用“权益集合法”会计处理，这——在基础业务没有发生一美分变化的情况下——自动提高了每股收益，并以此作为管理天才的证据。然后他们向投资者解释说，这种才能证明了维持甚至提高收购方市盈率倍数的合理性。最后，他们承诺无限期地重复这一过程，从而创造出不断增长的每股收益。

Wall Street’s love affair with this hocus-pocus intensified as the 1960s rolled by. The Street’s denizens are always ready to suspend disbelief when dubious maneuvers are used to manufacture rising per-share earnings, particularly if these acrobatics produce mergers that generate huge fees for investment bankers. Auditors willingly sprinkled their holy water on the conglomerates’ accounting and sometimes even made suggestions as to how to further juice the numbers. For many, gushers of easy money washed away ethical sensitivities.

随着1960年代的推移，华尔街对这种花招的热爱愈发强烈。当可疑的操作被用来制造不断增长的每股收益时，华尔街的居民们总是准备暂停质疑，尤其是如果这些杂耍产生的合并能为投资银行家带来巨额费用的话。审计师们乐于将他们的圣水洒在综合企业的会计账目上，有时甚至就如何进一步美化数字提出建议。对许多人来说，轻松的金钱洪流冲走了道德的敏感。

Since the per-share earnings gains of an expanding conglomerate came from exploiting p/e differences, its CEO had to search for businesses selling at low multiples of earnings. These, of course, were characteristically mediocre businesses with poor long-term prospects. This incentive to bottom-fish usually led to a conglomerate’s collection of underlying businesses becoming more and more junky. That mattered little to investors: It was deal velocity and pooling accounting they looked to for increased earnings.

由于扩张中的综合企业的每股收益增长来自于利用市盈率差异，其CEO必须寻找以低市盈率出售的企业。当然，这些企业的特点是平庸，长期前景糟糕。这种抄底的动机通常导致综合企业所拥有的基础业务越来越垃圾。这对投资者来说无关紧要：他们指望的是交易速度和权益集合法会计来增加收益。

The resulting firestorm of merger activity was fanned by an adoring press. Companies such as ITT, Litton Industries, Gulf & Western, and LTV were lionized, and their CEOs became celebrities. (These once-famous conglomerates are now long gone. As Yogi Berra said, “Every Napoleon meets his Watergate.”)

由此产生的并购活动风暴受到追捧的媒体煽动。ITT、Litton Industries、Gulf & Western和LTV等公司被捧为英雄，它们的CEO成为名人。（这些曾经著名的综合企业如今早已消失。正如尤吉·贝拉所说：“每个拿破仑都会遇到他的水门事件。”）

Back then, accounting shenanigans of all sorts – many of them ridiculously transparent – were excused or overlooked. Indeed, having an accounting wizard at the helm of an expanding conglomerate was viewed as a huge plus: Shareholders in those instances could be sure that reported earnings would never disappoint, no matter how bad the operating realities of the business might become.

那时，各种会计把戏——其中许多荒唐地透明——都被原谅或忽视了。事实上，让一位会计巫师掌舵一家扩张中的综合企业被视为巨大的加分项：在这种情况下，股东们可以确信，无论企业的经营现实变得多么糟糕，报告的收益永远不会令人失望。

In the late 1960s, I attended a meeting at which an acquisitive CEO bragged of his “bold, imaginative accounting.” Most of the analysts listening responded with approving nods, seeing themselves as having found a manager whose forecasts were certain to be met, whatever the business results might be.

在1960年代末，我参加了一个会议，会上一位热衷于收购的CEO吹嘘他的“大胆、富有想象力的会计”。大多数听讲的分析师报以赞许的点头，认为自己找到了一位无论业务结果如何，其预测都必定会实现的管理者。

Eventually, however, the clock struck twelve, and everything turned to pumpkins and mice. Once again, it became evident that business models based on the serial issuances of overpriced shares – just like chain-letter models – most assuredly redistribute wealth, but in no way create it. Both phenomena, nevertheless, periodically blossom in our country – they are every promoter’s dream – though often they appear in a carefully-crafted disguise. The ending is always the same: Money flows from the gullible to the fraudster. And with stocks, unlike chain letters, the sums hijacked can be staggering.

然而，最终时钟敲响了十二点，一切都变成了南瓜和老鼠。再一次变得显而易见的是，基于连续发行高估股票的商业模式——就像连环信模式一样——确实能重新分配财富，但绝不可能创造财富。然而，这两种现象都会周期性在美国开花——它们是每一个推销员的梦想——尽管它们常常以精心伪装的形象出现。结局总是一样的：金钱从轻信者流向欺诈者。而就股票而言，与连环信不同，被劫持的金额可能令人震惊。

At both BPL and Berkshire, we have never invested in companies that are hell-bent on issuing shares. That behavior is one of the surest indicators of a promotion-minded management, weak accounting, a stock that is overpriced and – all too often – outright dishonesty.

无论是BPL还是伯克希尔，我们从未投资过那些一心想要发行股票的公司。这种行为是投机取巧的管理层、薄弱的会计、定价过高的股票以及——往往——彻头彻尾欺诈的最可靠指标之一。

So what do Charlie and I find so attractive about Berkshire’s conglomerate structure? To put the case simply: If the conglomerate form is used judiciously, it is an ideal structure for maximizing long-term capital growth.

那么查理和我认为伯克希尔的综合企业结构有什么吸引力呢？简单来说：如果审慎使用综合企业形式，它是最大化长期资本增长的理想结构。

One of the heralded virtues of capitalism is that it efficiently allocates funds. The argument is that markets will direct investment to promising businesses and deny it to those destined to wither. That is true: With all its excesses, market-driven allocation of capital is usually far superior to any alternative.

资本主义备受赞誉的优点之一是它能有效地配置资金。其论点是，市场会将投资引向有前途的企业，而拒绝那些注定要衰落的企业。这是真的：尽管有种种过度行为，市场驱动的资本配置通常远优于任何替代方案。

Nevertheless, there are often obstacles to the rational movement of capital. As those 1954 Berkshire minutes made clear, capital withdrawals within the textile industry that should have been obvious were delayed for decades because of the vain hopes and self-interest of managements. Indeed, I myself delayed abandoning our obsolete textile mills for far too long.

然而，理性的资本流动常常遇到障碍。正如1954年伯克希尔会议记录所表明的，纺织行业内本应显而易见的资本撤出，由于管理层的虚妄希望和自身利益而被拖延了数十年。事实上，我自己也将放弃我们过时的纺织厂拖延了太久。

A CEO with capital employed in a declining operation seldom elects to massively redeploy that capital into unrelated activities. A move of that kind would usually require that long-time associates be fired and mistakes be admitted. Moreover, it’s unlikely that CEO would be the manager you would wish to handle the redeployment job even if he or she was inclined to undertake it.

一个将资本投入衰退业务的CEO很少会选择将资本大规模重新配置到不相关的活动中。这种举动通常需要解雇长期合作的同事并承认错误。此外，即使这位CEO倾向于承担这项工作，他也不太可能是你希望处理重新配置工作的管理者。

At the shareholder level, taxes and frictional costs weigh heavily on individual investors when they attempt to reallocate capital among businesses and industries. Even tax-free institutional investors face major costs as they move capital because they usually need intermediaries to do this job. A lot of mouths with expensive tastes then clamor to be fed – among them investment bankers, accountants, consultants, lawyers and such capital-reallocators as leveraged buyout operators. Money-shufflers don’t come cheap.

在股东层面，当个人投资者试图在不同企业和行业之间重新配置资本时，税收和摩擦成本会给他们带来沉重负担。即使是免税的机构投资者在转移资本时也面临重大成本，因为他们通常需要中介来完成这项工作。然后许多口味昂贵的嘴巴会吵着要吃饭——其中包括投资银行家、会计师、顾问、律师以及诸如杠杆收购操作者之类的资本重新配置者。资金洗牌者可不便宜。

In contrast, a conglomerate such as Berkshire is perfectly positioned to allocate capital rationally and at minimal cost. Of course, form itself is no guarantee of success: We have made plenty of mistakes, and we will make more. Our structural advantages, however, are formidable.

相比之下，像伯克希尔这样的综合企业处于完美位置，能够以最低成本理性配置资本。当然，形式本身并不能保证成功：我们已经犯了很多错误，将来还会犯更多。然而，我们的结构性优势是强大的。

At Berkshire, we can – without incurring taxes or much in the way of other costs – move huge sums from businesses that have limited opportunities for incremental investment to other sectors with greater promise. Moreover, we are free of historical biases created by lifelong association with a given industry and are not subject to pressures from colleagues having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s important: If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.

在伯克希尔，我们可以——无需承担税收或其他方面的重大成本——将巨额资金从增量投资机会有限的企业转移到更有前景的其他领域。此外，我们不受因终身从事某一行业而产生的历史偏见的影响，也不受那些在维持现状方面有既得利益的同事的压力。这很重要：如果由马控制投资决策，就不会有汽车工业。

Another major advantage we possess is the ability to buy pieces of wonderful businesses – a.k.a. common stocks. That’s not a course of action open to most managements. Over our history, this strategic alternative has proved to be very helpful; a broad range of options always sharpens decision-making. The businesses we are offered by the stock market every day – in small pieces, to be sure – are often far more attractive than the businesses we are concurrently being offered in their entirety. Additionally, the gains we’ve realized from marketable securities have helped us make certain large acquisitions that would otherwise have been beyond our financial capabilities.

我们拥有的另一个主要优势是能够购买出色企业的一部分——也就是普通股。这不是大多数管理层可以采取的行动方式。在我们的历史中，这一战略选择被证明非常有用；广泛的选择总能提高决策质量。股票市场每天提供给我们的企业——当然是以小块的形式——往往比同时提供给我们的完整企业更具吸引力。此外，我们从有价证券中实现的收益帮助我们完成了某些大型收购，否则这些收购将超出我们的财务能力。

In effect, the world is Berkshire’s oyster – a world offering us a range of opportunities far beyond those realistically open to most companies. We are limited, of course, to businesses whose economic prospects we can evaluate. And that’s a serious limitation: Charlie and I have no idea what a great many companies will look like ten years from now. But that limitation is much smaller than that borne by an executive whose experience has been confined to a single industry. On top of that, we can profitably scale to a far larger size than the many businesses that are constrained by the limited potential of the single industry in which they operate.

实际上，世界是伯克希尔的牡蛎——这个世界为我们提供的机会范围远远超出大多数公司实际能够获得的。当然，我们仅限于那些我们能评估其经济前景的企业。这是一个严重的限制：查理和我不知道许多公司十年后会是什么样子。但这个限制远小于一个经验仅限于单一行业的高管所承受的限制。最重要的是，我们可以盈利地扩大到比许多受限于其所在单一行业有限潜力的企业大得多的规模。

I mentioned earlier that See’s Candy had produced huge earnings compared to its modest capital requirements. We would have loved, of course, to intelligently use those funds to expand our candy operation. But our many attempts to do so were largely futile. So, without incurring tax inefficiencies or frictional costs, we have used the excess funds generated by See’s to help purchase other businesses. If See’s had remained a stand-alone company, its earnings would have had to be distributed to investors to redeploy, sometimes after being heavily depleted by large taxes and, almost always, by significant frictional and agency costs.

我之前提到，喜诗糖果在适度的资本需求下产生了巨大的收益。当然，我们很希望明智地利用这些资金来扩大我们的糖果业务。但我们的许多尝试基本上都失败了。因此，在不产生税收低效或摩擦成本的情况下，我们利用喜诗产生的多余资金帮助购买了其他企业。如果喜诗仍然是一家独立公司，其收益将不得不分配给投资者重新配置，有时在因高额税收而严重损耗之后，而且几乎总是伴随着巨大的摩擦成本和代理成本。

Berkshire has one further advantage that has become increasingly important over the years: We are now the home of choice for the owners and managers of many outstanding businesses.

伯克希尔还有一个多年来变得日益重要的优势：我们现在是许多杰出企业的所有者和经理人首选的家园。

Families that own successful businesses have multiple options when they contemplate sale. Frequently, the best decision is to do nothing. There are worse things in life than having a prosperous business that one understands well. But sitting tight is seldom recommended by Wall Street. (Don’t ask the barber whether you need a haircut.)

拥有成功企业的家族在考虑出售时有多种选择。通常，最好的决定是什么也不做。生活中比拥有一家自己了解透彻的繁荣企业更糟糕的事情多的是。但按兵不动很少得到华尔街的推荐。（不要问理发师你是否需要理发。）

When one part of a family wishes to sell while others wish to continue, a public offering often makes sense. But, when owners wish to cash out entirely, they usually consider one of two paths.

当家族中的一部分人希望出售而其他人希望继续经营时，公开发行通常是有意义的。但是，当所有者希望完全套现时，他们通常会考虑两条路径中的一条。

The first is sale to a competitor who is salivating at the possibility of wringing “synergies” from the combining of the two companies. This buyer invariably contemplates getting rid of large numbers of the seller’s associates, the very people who have helped the owner build his business. A caring owner, however – and there are plenty of them – usually does not want to leave his long-time associates sadly singing the old country song: “She got the goldmine, I got the shaft.”

第一条是卖给一个竞争对手，对方正垂涎于从两家公司合并中榨取“协同效应”的可能性。这种买家无一例外地打算解雇卖方的大量员工，正是这些人帮助所有者建立了企业。然而，一个有爱心的所有者——而且这样的人很多——通常不想让自己的长期同事悲伤地唱起那首老乡村歌曲：“她得到了金矿，我得到了棍子。”

The second choice for sellers is the Wall Street buyer. For some years, these purchasers accurately called themselves “leveraged buyout firms.” When that term got a bad name in the early 1990s – remember RJR and Barbarians at the Gate? – these buyers hastily relabeled themselves “private-equity.”

卖方的第二个选择是华尔街买家。有几年，这些购买者准确地称自己为“杠杆收购公司”。当这个术语在1990年代初名声变坏时——还记得RJR和《门口的野蛮人》吗？——这些买家匆忙将自己重新命名为“私募股权”。

The name may have changed but that was all: Equity is dramatically reduced and debt is piled on in virtually all private-equity purchases. Indeed, the amount that a private-equity purchaser offers to the seller is in part determined by the buyer assessing the maximum amount of debt that can be placed on the acquired company.

名字可能变了，但仅此而已：在几乎所有的私募股权购买中，股权被大幅减少，债务被堆积起来。事实上，私募股权购买者向卖方提供的报价，部分取决于买方评估的可以在被收购公司上放置的最大债务额。

Later, if things go well and equity begins to build, leveraged buy-out shops will often seek to re-leverage with new borrowings. They then typically use part of the proceeds to pay a huge dividend that drives equity sharply downward, sometimes even to a negative figure.

之后，如果事情进展顺利，股权开始积累，杠杆收购公司通常会寻求通过新的借款进行再杠杆化。然后，他们通常会用部分收益支付巨额股息，使股权急剧下降，有时甚至变成负数。

In truth, “equity” is a dirty word for many private-equity buyers; what they love is debt. And, because debt is currently so inexpensive, these buyers can frequently pay top dollar. Later, the business will be resold, often to another leveraged buyer. In effect, the business becomes a piece of merchandise.

事实上，“股权”对许多私募股权买家来说是一个肮脏的词；他们喜欢的是债务。而且，由于当前债务如此便宜，这些买家常常能支付高价。之后，企业会被转售，通常是卖给另一个杠杆买家。实际上，企业变成了一件商品。

Berkshire offers a third choice to the business owner who wishes to sell: a permanent home, in which the company’s people and culture will be retained (though, occasionally, management changes will be needed). Beyond that, any business we acquire dramatically increases its financial strength and ability to grow. Its days of dealing with banks and Wall Street analysts are also forever ended.

伯克希尔为希望出售的企业所有者提供了第三种选择：一个永久的家，在这里公司的人员和文化将被保留（尽管偶尔需要更换管理层）。除此之外，我们收购的任何企业都将大幅增强其财务实力和增长能力。它与银行和华尔街分析师打交道的日子也永远结束了。

Some sellers don’t care about these matters. But, when sellers do, Berkshire does not have a lot of competition.

有些卖家不关心这些事。但是，当卖家关心时，伯克希尔没有太多竞争对手。

Sometimes pundits propose that Berkshire spin-off certain of its businesses. These suggestions make no sense. Our companies are worth more as part of Berkshire than as separate entities. One reason is our ability to move funds between businesses or into new ventures instantly and without tax. In addition, certain costs duplicate themselves, in full or part, if operations are separated. Here’s the most obvious example: Berkshire incurs nominal costs for its single board of directors; were our dozens of subsidiaries to be split off, the overall cost for directors would soar. So, too, would regulatory and administration expenditures.

有时权威人士建议伯克希尔分拆某些业务。这些建议毫无意义。我们的公司作为伯克希尔的一部分比作为独立实体更有价值。一个原因是我们能够立即且免税地在业务之间或向新企业转移资金。此外，如果业务分离，某些成本会全部或部分重复出现。最明显的例子：伯克希尔为其单一董事会承担名义上的成本；如果我们的几十家子公司被分拆出去，董事会的总成本将飙升。监管和行政支出也会如此。

Finally, there are sometimes important tax efficiencies for Subsidiary A because we own Subsidiary B. For example, certain tax credits that are available to our utilities are currently realizable only because we generate huge amounts of taxable income at other Berkshire operations. That gives Berkshire Hathaway Energy a major advantage over most public-utility companies in developing wind and solar projects.

最后，由于我们拥有子公司B，子公司A有时会获得重要的税收效率。例如，我们公用事业公司可获得的某些税收抵免，目前之所以能够实现，仅仅因为我们在伯克希尔的其他业务中产生了大量的应税收入。这使得伯克希尔·哈撒韦能源在开发风能和太阳能项目方面比大多数公用事业公司拥有巨大优势。

Investment bankers, being paid as they are for action, constantly urge acquirers to pay 20% to 50% premiums over market price for publicly-held businesses. The bankers tell the buyer that the premium is justified for “control value” and for the wonderful things that are going to happen once the acquirer’s CEO takes charge. (What acquisition-hungry manager will challenge that assertion?)

投资银行家们因其行动而获得报酬，他们不断敦促收购方以高于市价20%至50%的溢价收购上市公司。银行家告诉买方，这种溢价是合理的，因为“控制权价值”以及收购方CEO接手后将要发生的奇妙事情。（哪个渴望收购的经理会质疑这种说法？）

A few years later, bankers – bearing straight faces – again appear and just as earnestly urge spinning off the earlier acquisition in order to “unlock shareholder value.” Spin-offs, of course, strip the owning company of its purported “control value” without any compensating payment. The bankers explain that the spun-off company will flourish because its management will be more entrepreneurial, having been freed from the smothering bureaucracy of the parent company. (So much for that talented CEO we met earlier.)

几年后，银行家们——面无表情地——再次出现，同样热切地敦促分拆之前的收购，以“释放股东价值”。当然，分拆会使拥有公司失去其所谓的“控制权价值”，而没有任何补偿性支付。银行家解释说，分拆后的公司将蓬勃发展，因为其管理层将更具创业精神，从母公司的窒息官僚主义中解放出来。（我们之前遇到的那位才华横溢的CEO也不过如此。）

If the divesting company later wishes to reacquire the spun-off operation, it presumably would again be urged by its bankers to pay a hefty “control” premium for the privilege. (Mental “flexibility” of this sort by the banking fraternity has prompted the saying that fees too often lead to transactions rather than transactions leading to fees.)

如果剥离公司后来希望重新收购被分拆的业务，银行家们大概又会敦促其为这一特权支付高昂的“控制权”溢价。（银行界这种思维上的“灵活性”催生了一句谚语：费用往往导致交易，而不是交易产生费用。）

It’s possible, of course, that someday a spin-off or sale at Berkshire would be required by regulators. Berkshire carried out such a spin-off in 1979, when new regulations for bank holding companies forced us to divest a bank we owned in Rockford, Illinois.

当然，有一天监管机构可能会要求伯克希尔进行分拆或出售。伯克希尔在1979年进行过这样的分拆，当时针对银行控股公司的新法规迫使我们剥离了在伊利诺伊州罗克福德拥有的一家银行。

Voluntary spin-offs, though, make no sense for us: We would lose control value, capital-allocation flexibility and, in some cases, important tax advantages. The CEOs who brilliantly run our subsidiaries now would have difficulty in being as effective if running a spun-off operation, given the operating and financial advantages derived from Berkshire’s ownership. Moreover, the parent and the spun-off operations, once separated, would likely incur moderately greater costs than existed when they were combined.

然而，自愿分拆对我们毫无意义：我们将失去控制权价值、资本配置的灵活性，以及在某些情况下的重要税收优势。考虑到伯克希尔所有权带来的运营和财务优势，那些现在出色地管理我们子公司的CEO们，如果经营一家分拆后的企业，将难以同样有效。此外，母公司和被分拆的业务一旦分离，可能会产生比合并时略高的成本。

Before I depart the subject of spin-offs, let’s look at a lesson to be learned from a conglomerate mentioned earlier: LTV. I’ll summarize here, but those who enjoy a good financial story should read the piece about Jimmy Ling that ran in the October 1982 issue of D Magazine. Look it up on the Internet.

在我离开分拆这个话题之前，让我们看看从前面提到的综合企业LTV身上可以学到的教训。我在这里做一个总结，但那些喜欢精彩金融故事的人应该去读一读1982年10月《D杂志》上关于吉米·林的文章。在网上找找看。

Through a lot of corporate razzle-dazzle, Ling had taken LTV from sales of only $36 million in 1965 to number 14 on the Fortune 500 list just two years later. Ling, it should be noted, had never displayed any managerial skills. But Charlie told me long ago to never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. And Ling had no peer in that respect.

通过大量的公司花招，林将LTV从1965年只有3600万美元的销售额，在短短两年后就带到了《财富》500强第14位。应该指出的是，林从未展现出任何管理技能。但查理很久以前就告诉我，永远不要低估一个高估自己的人。而林在这方面无人能及。

Ling’s strategy, which he labeled “project redeployment,” was to buy a large company and then partially spin off its various divisions. In LTV’s 1966 annual report, he explained the magic that would follow: “Most importantly, acquisitions must meet the test of the 2 plus 2 equals 5 (or 6) formula.” The press, the public and Wall Street loved this sort of talk.

林把他称之为“项目重新部署”的策略，就是收购一家大公司，然后部分分拆其各个部门。在LTV 1966年的年报中，他解释了随之而来的魔力：“最重要的是，收购必须通过2加2等于5（或6）的公式的考验。”媒体、公众和华尔街都喜欢这种说法。

In 1967 Ling bought Wilson & Co., a huge meatpacker that also had interests in golf equipment and pharmaceuticals. Soon after, he split the parent into three businesses, Wilson & Co. (meatpacking), Wilson Sporting Goods and Wilson Pharmaceuticals, each of which was to be partially spun off. These companies quickly became known on Wall Street as Meatball, Golf Ball and Goof Ball.

1967年，林收购了Wilson & Co.，一家大型肉类加工企业，同时也涉足高尔夫设备和制药。不久之后，他将母公司拆分为三个业务：Wilson & Co.（肉类加工）、Wilson Sporting Goods和Wilson Pharmaceuticals，每个都将部分分拆。这些公司在华尔街很快被称为“肉丸”、“高尔夫球”和“蠢蛋”。

Soon thereafter, it became clear that, like Icarus, Ling had flown too close to the sun. By the early 1970s, Ling’s empire was melting, and he himself had been spun off from LTV . . . that is, fired.

此后不久，事情变得明朗起来，就像伊卡洛斯一样，林飞得离太阳太近了。到1970年代初，林的帝国正在瓦解，他本人也被LTV剥离出去……也就是说，被解雇了。

Periodically, financial markets will become divorced from reality – you can count on that. More Jimmy Lings will appear. They will look and sound authoritative. The press will hang on their every word. Bankers will fight for their business. What they are saying will recently have “worked.” Their early followers will be feeling very clever. Our suggestion: Whatever their line, never forget that 2+2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is --- zip up your wallet, take a vacation and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.

金融市场会周期性地脱离现实——你可以相信这一点。会有更多的吉米·林出现。他们看起来和听起来都很有权威。媒体会追捧他们的每一句话。银行家会争抢他们的业务。他们所说的话在近期会“奏效”。他们的早期追随者会觉得自己非常聪明。我们的建议是：无论他们怎么说，永远不要忘记2+2永远等于4。当有人告诉你这种数学有多过时时——拉上你的钱包拉链，去度个假，过几年再回来以便宜的价格买股票。

Today Berkshire possesses (1) an unmatched collection of businesses, most of them now enjoying favorable economic prospects; (2) a cadre of outstanding managers who, with few exceptions, are unusually devoted to both the subsidiary they operate and to Berkshire; (3) an extraordinary diversity of earnings, premier financial strength and oceans of liquidity that we will maintain under all circumstances; (4) a first-choice ranking among many owners and managers who are contemplating sale of their businesses and (5) in a point related to the preceding item, a culture, distinctive in many ways from that of most large companies, that we have worked 50 years to develop and that is now rock-solid.

今天的伯克希尔拥有：（1）无与伦比的企业集合，其中大部分目前享有良好的经济前景；（2）一批杰出的管理者，除极少数例外，他们都对自己经营的子公司和伯克希尔异常忠诚；（3）非凡的盈利多样性、一流的财务实力和我们将无论如何都保持的巨大流动性；（4）在众多考虑出售其业务的所有者和管理者中排名第一的选择；（5）与上一点相关的一种文化，这种文化在许多方面与大多数大公司不同，我们花了50年时间培育，如今坚如磐石。

These strengths provide us a wonderful foundation on which to build.

这些优势为我们提供了一个极好的基础，可以在此基础上继续建设。

The Next 50 Years at Berkshire

伯克希尔的未来50年

Now let’s take a look at the road ahead. Bear in mind that if I had attempted 50 years ago to gauge what was coming, certain of my predictions would have been far off the mark. With that warning, I will tell you what I would say to my family today if they asked me about Berkshire’s future.

现在让我们展望未来的道路。请记住，如果我在50年前试图预测未来会发生什么，我的某些预测会大错特错。带着这个警告，我将告诉你们，如果今天我的家人问我关于伯克希尔的未来，我会对他们说什么。

First and definitely foremost, I believe that the chance of permanent capital loss for patient Berkshire shareholders is as low as can be found among single-company investments. That’s because our per-share intrinsic business value is almost certain to advance over time.

首先也是最重要的一点，我相信，对于有耐心的伯克希尔股东来说，永久性资本损失的风险与单一公司投资中能找到的一样低。这是因为我们每股的内在商业价值几乎肯定会随着时间的推移而增长。

This cheery prediction comes, however, with an important caution: If an investor’s entry point into Berkshire stock is unusually high – at a price, say, approaching double book value, which Berkshire shares have occasionally reached – it may well be many years before the investor can realize a profit. In other words, a sound investment can morph into a rash speculation if it is bought at an elevated price. Berkshire is not exempt from this truth.

然而，这一乐观的预测附带一个重要警告：如果投资者买入伯克希尔股票的进入点异常高——比如说，价格接近账面价值的两倍，伯克希尔股票偶尔达到过这个水平——那么投资者可能需要很多年才能实现盈利。换句话说，一项稳健的投资如果在过高价格买入，可能会演变成鲁莽的投机。伯克希尔也不能豁免于这一真理。

Purchases of Berkshire that investors make at a price modestly above the level at which the company would repurchase its shares, however, should produce gains within a reasonable period of time. Berkshire’s directors will only authorize repurchases at a price they believe to be well below intrinsic value. (In our view, that is an essential criterion for repurchases that is often ignored by other managements.)

然而，如果投资者以略高于公司回购股票的价格水平买入伯克希尔，应该能在合理的时间内产生收益。伯克希尔的董事们只会在他们认为远低于内在价值的价格上授权回购。（在我们看来，这是一个经常被其他管理层忽视的回购基本标准。）

For those investors who plan to sell within a year or two after their purchase, I can offer no assurances, whatever the entry price. Movements of the general stock market during such abbreviated periods will likely be far more important in determining your results than the concomitant change in the intrinsic value of your Berkshire shares. As Ben Graham said many decades ago: “In the short-term the market is a voting machine; in the long-run it acts as a weighing machine.” Occasionally, the voting decisions of investors – amateurs and professionals alike – border on lunacy.

对于那些计划在购买后一两年内卖出的投资者，无论买入价格如何，我都无法提供任何保证。在如此短的时间内，整体股市的波动对决定你的回报的重要性，可能远远超过你的伯克希尔股票内在价值的变化。正如本·格雷厄姆几十年前所说：“短期看，市场是一台投票机；长期看，它是一台称重机。”偶尔，投资者的投票决定——无论是业余还是专业人士——近乎疯狂。

Since I know of no way to reliably predict market movements, I recommend that you purchase Berkshire shares only if you expect to hold them for at least five years. Those who seek short-term profits should look elsewhere.

由于我不知道有什么方法可以可靠地预测市场走势，我建议你只有在预期持有至少五年的情况下才购买伯克希尔股票。那些寻求短期利润的人应该去别处看看。

Another warning: Berkshire shares should not be purchased with borrowed money. There have been three times since 1965 when our stock has fallen about 50% from its high point. Someday, something close to this kind of drop will happen again, and no one knows when. Berkshire will almost certainly be a satisfactory holding for investors. But it could well be a disastrous choice for speculators employing leverage.

另一个警告：不应借钱购买伯克希尔股票。自1965年以来，我们的股票曾三次从高点下跌约50%。总有一天，类似幅度的下跌会再次发生，没有人知道何时。对投资者来说，伯克希尔几乎肯定会是一个令人满意的持股。但对于使用杠杆的投机者来说，它很可能是一个灾难性的选择。

I believe the chance of any event causing Berkshire to experience financial problems is essentially zero. We will always be prepared for the thousand-year flood; in fact, if it occurs we will be selling life jackets to the unprepared. Berkshire played an important role as a “first responder” during the 2008-2009 meltdown, and we have since more than doubled the strength of our balance sheet and our earnings potential. Your company is the Gibraltar of American business and will remain so.

我相信任何导致伯克希尔出现财务问题的事件发生的概率基本上为零。我们始终为千年一遇的洪水做好准备；事实上，如果它发生，我们会向未做准备的人出售救生衣。伯克希尔在2008-2009年的危机中扮演了“第一反应者”的重要角色，自那以后，我们的资产负债表实力和盈利潜力都增加了一倍多。你们的公司是美国商业界的直布罗陀，并将继续保持。

Financial staying power requires a company to maintain three strengths under all circumstances: (1) a large and reliable stream of earnings; (2) massive liquid assets and (3) no significant near-term cash requirements. Ignoring that last necessity is what usually leads companies to experience unexpected problems: Too often, CEOs of profitable companies feel they will always be able to refund maturing obligations, however large these are. In 2008-2009, many managements learned how perilous that mindset can be.

财务持久力要求公司在任何情况下都保持三项优势：（1）大量且可靠的盈利流；（2）巨额流动性资产；（3）没有重大的近期现金需求。忽视最后一项必要性通常是导致公司出现意外问题的原因：盈利公司的CEO们常常觉得他们总能偿还到期的债务，无论这些债务有多大。在2008-2009年，许多管理层认识到了这种心态有多么危险。

Here’s how we will always stand on the three essentials. First, our earnings stream is huge and comes from a vast array of businesses. Our shareholders now own many large companies that have durable competitive advantages, and we will acquire more of those in the future. Our diversification assures Berkshire’s continued profitability, even if a catastrophe causes insurance losses that far exceed any previously experienced.

以下是我们将如何始终立足于这三项基本要素。首先，我们的盈利流巨大，且来自广泛的企业。我们的股东现在拥有许多具有持久竞争优势的大公司，未来我们还将收购更多这样的公司。我们的多元化确保了伯克希尔的持续盈利能力，即使一场灾难造成的保险损失远超以往任何经验。

Next up is cash. At a healthy business, cash is sometimes thought of as something to be minimized – as an unproductive asset that acts as a drag on such markers as return on equity. Cash, though, is to a business as oxygen is to an individual: never thought about when it is present, the only thing in mind when it is absent.

接下来是现金。在健康的企业中，现金有时被认为是要最小化的东西——一种非生产性资产，会拖累诸如净资产收益率等指标。然而，现金之于企业，如同氧气之于个人：存在时从不被想起，缺失时唯一被想起的。

American business provided a case study of that in 2008. In September of that year, many long-prosperous companies suddenly wondered whether their checks would bounce in the days ahead. Overnight, their financial oxygen disappeared.

美国企业在2008年提供了一个案例研究。那年9月，许多长期繁荣的公司突然怀疑自己未来几天的支票是否会跳票。一夜之间，它们的财务氧气消失了。

At Berkshire, our “breathing” went uninterrupted. Indeed, in a three-week period spanning late September and early October, we supplied $15.6 billion of fresh money to American businesses.

在伯克希尔，我们的“呼吸”从未中断。事实上，在9月下旬到10月初的三周内，我们向美国企业提供了156亿美元的新资金。

We could do that because we always maintain at least $20 billion – and usually far more – in cash equivalents. And by that we mean U.S. Treasury bills, not other substitutes for cash that are claimed to deliver liquidity and actually do so, except when it is truly needed. When bills come due, only cash is legal tender. Don’t leave home without it.

我们能做到这一点，是因为我们始终持有至少200亿美元——通常远多于200亿美元——的现金等价物。我们指的是美国国债，而不是其他声称能提供流动性、也确实能提供——除非在真正需要时——的现金替代品。当账单到期时，只有现金是法定货币。出门别忘带它。

Finally – getting to our third point – we will never engage in operating or investment practices that can result in sudden demands for large sums. That means we will not expose Berkshire to short-term debt maturities of size nor enter into derivative contracts or other business arrangements that could require large collateral calls.

最后——谈到我们的第三点——我们永远不会从事可能导致突然需要大笔资金的经营或投资行为。这意味着我们不会让伯克希尔面临大规模的短期债务到期，也不会签订可能要求大量追加保证金的衍生品合约或其他商业安排。

Some years ago, we became a party to certain derivative contracts that we believed were significantly mispriced and that had only minor collateral requirements. These have proved to be quite profitable. Recently, however, newly-written derivative contracts have required full collateralization. And that ended our interest in derivatives, regardless of what profit potential they might offer. We have not, for some years, written these contracts, except for a few needed for operational purposes at our utility businesses.

几年前，我们签订了一些我们认为定价严重错误且保证金要求很小的衍生品合约。这些合约被证明相当有利可图。然而，最近新签订的衍生品合约要求全额抵押。这终结了我们对衍生品的兴趣，无论它们可能提供什么样的盈利潜力。我们已经好几年没有签订这些合约了，除了公用事业业务中需要的少数运营用途合约。

Moreover, we will not write insurance contracts that give policyholders the right to cash out at their option. Many life insurance products contain redemption features that make them susceptible to a “run” in times of extreme panic. Contracts of that sort, however, do not exist in the property-casualty world that we inhabit. If our premium volume should shrink, our float would decline – but only at a very slow pace.

此外，我们不会签发赋予投保人选择退保权利的保险合同。许多人寿保险产品包含赎回特征，使其在极度恐慌时期容易发生“挤兑”。然而，这类合同在我们所处的财产意外险世界中并不存在。如果我们的保费规模萎缩，我们的浮存金会下降——但速度非常缓慢。

The reason for our conservatism, which may impress some people as extreme, is that it is entirely predictable that people will occasionally panic, but not at all predictable when this will happen. Though practically all days are relatively uneventful, tomorrow is always uncertain. (I felt no special apprehension on December 6, 1941 or September 10, 2001.) And if you can’t predict what tomorrow will bring, you must be prepared for whatever it does.

我们这种可能让一些人觉得极端的保守主义的原因在于，人们偶尔会恐慌是完全可预测的，但何时发生则完全不可预测。尽管几乎所有的日子都相对平静，但明天总是充满不确定性。（我在1941年12月6日或2001年9月10日并没有感到特别的忧虑。）如果你无法预测明天会带来什么，那么你必须为明天可能带来的一切做好准备。

A CEO who is 64 and plans to retire at 65 may have his own special calculus in evaluating risks that have only a tiny chance of happening in a given year. He may, in fact, be “right” 99% of the time. Those odds, however, hold no appeal for us. We will never play financial Russian roulette with the funds you’ve entrusted to us, even if the metaphorical gun has 100 chambers and only one bullet. In our view, it is madness to risk losing what you need in pursuing what you simply desire.

一个64岁、计划在65岁退休的CEO，在评估某一年发生概率极小的风险时，可能有他自己特殊的计算方法。事实上，他可能在99%的情况下都是“对的”。然而，这种概率对我们没有吸引力。我们永远不会用你托付给我们的资金去玩金融俄罗斯轮盘赌，即使比喻中的枪有100个弹膛，只有一发子弹。在我们看来，为了追求你只是想要的东西而去冒险失去你需要的东西，是疯狂的。

Despite our conservatism, I think we will be able every year to build the underlying per-share earning power of Berkshire. That does not mean operating earnings will increase each year – far from it. The U.S. economy will ebb and flow – though mostly flow – and, when it weakens, so will our current earnings. But we will continue to achieve organic gains, make bolt-on acquisitions and enter new fields. I believe, therefore, that Berkshire will annually add to its underlying earning power.

尽管我们保守，但我认为我们每年都能提升伯克希尔的潜在每股盈利能力。这并不意味着营业收入每年都会增长——远非如此。美国经济会有起有落——尽管主要是涨——当它走弱时，我们的当期盈利也会走弱。但我们将继续实现内生增长，进行补强收购，并进入新领域。因此，我相信伯克希尔每年都会增加其潜在盈利能力。

In some years the gains will be substantial, and at other times they will be minor. Markets, competition, and chance will determine when opportunities come our way. Through it all, Berkshire will keep moving forward, powered by the array of solid businesses we now possess and the new companies we will purchase. In most years, moreover, our country’s economy will provide a strong tailwind for business. We are blessed to have the United States as our home field.

有些年份增长会很大，其他年份则较小。市场、竞争和机会将决定机遇何时降临。贯穿始终，伯克希尔将借助我们现在拥有的稳固企业阵列以及我们将收购的新公司，持续向前迈进。此外，在大多数年份，我们国家的经济将为商业提供强劲的顺风。我们很幸运能有美国作为我们的主场。

The bad news is that Berkshire’s long-term gains – measured by percentages, not by dollars – cannot be dramatic and will not come close to those achieved in the past 50 years. The numbers have become too big. I think Berkshire will outperform the average American company, but our advantage, if any, won’t be great.

坏消息是，伯克希尔的长期收益——以百分比衡量，而非美元金额——不可能惊人，也无法接近过去50年取得的成就。数字太庞大了。我认为伯克希尔的业绩会超过美国公司的平均水平，但我们的优势（如果有的话）不会很大。

Eventually – probably between ten and twenty years from now – Berkshire’s earnings and capital resources will reach a level that will not allow management to intelligently reinvest all of the company’s earnings. At that time our directors will need to determine whether the best method to distribute the excess earnings is through dividends, share repurchases or both. If Berkshire shares are selling below intrinsic business value, massive repurchases will almost certainly be the best choice. You can be comfortable that your directors will make the right decision.

最终——可能从现在起十到二十年后——伯克希尔的盈利和资本资源将达到一个水平，使管理层无法明智地将公司全部盈利进行再投资。届时，我们的董事需要确定分配多余盈利的最佳方式是股息、股票回购，还是两者兼用。如果伯克希尔股票的交易价格低于内在商业价值，大规模回购几乎肯定是最好的选择。你可以放心，你的董事们会做出正确的决定。

No company will be more shareholder-minded than Berkshire. For more than 30 years, we have annually reaffirmed our Shareholder Principles (see page 117), always leading off with: “Although our form is corporate, our attitude is partnership.” This covenant with you is etched in stone.

没有哪家公司会比伯克希尔更以股东为导向。三十多年来，我们每年都重申我们的股东原则（见第117页），总是以这句话开头：“虽然我们的形式是公司，但我们的态度是合伙。”这份与你的契约是刻在石头上的。

We have an extraordinarily knowledgeable and business-oriented board of directors ready to carry out that promise of partnership. None took the job for the money: In an arrangement almost non-existent elsewhere, our directors are paid only token fees. They receive their rewards instead through ownership of Berkshire shares and the satisfaction that comes from being good stewards of an important enterprise.

我们拥有一个非常知识渊博且以商业为导向的董事会，随时准备履行这一合伙承诺。没有人是为了钱而接受这份工作：在其他地方几乎不存在的安排中，我们的董事只领取象征性的费用。他们通过持有伯克希尔股票以及作为重要企业良好管理者的满足感来获得回报。

The shares that they and their families own – which, in many cases, are worth very substantial sums – were purchased in the market (rather than their materializing through options or grants). In addition, unlike almost all other sizable public companies, we carry no directors and officers liability insurance. At Berkshire, directors walk in your shoes.

他们及其家人持有的股票——在许多情况下价值非常可观——是从市场上购买的（而不是通过期权或赠予获得）。此外，与几乎所有其他大型上市公司不同，我们没有董事和高级职员责任保险。在伯克希尔，董事们与你的处境相同。

To further ensure continuation of our culture, I have suggested that my son, Howard, succeed me as a non-executive Chairman. My only reason for this wish is to make change easier if the wrong CEO should ever be employed and there occurs a need for the Chairman to move forcefully. I can assure you that this problem has a very low probability of arising at Berkshire – likely as low as at any public company. In my service on the boards of nineteen public companies, however, I’ve seen how hard it is to replace a mediocre CEO if that person is also Chairman. (The deed usually gets done, but almost always very late.)

为了进一步确保我们文化的延续，我建议由我的儿子霍华德接替我担任非执行董事长。我这一愿望的唯一理由是，如果万一聘用了错误的CEO，并且需要董事长采取有力行动时，能让变革更容易。我可以向你保证，这个问题在伯克希尔发生的概率非常低——可能和任何上市公司一样低。然而，在我担任过19家上市公司董事的经历中，我亲眼看到，如果一个平庸的CEO同时兼任董事长，替换他有多么困难。（事情通常最终会完成，但几乎总是非常迟。）

If elected, Howard will receive no pay and will spend no time at the job other than that required of all directors. He will simply be a safety valve to whom any director can go if he or she has concerns about the CEO and wishes to learn if other directors are expressing doubts as well. Should multiple directors be apprehensive, Howard’s chairmanship will allow the matter to be promptly and properly addressed.

如果当选，霍华德将不领取任何报酬，除了所有董事所需的投入外，他不会在这项工作上花费时间。他将只是一个安全阀，任何董事如果对CEO有疑虑，并希望了解其他董事是否也在表达怀疑，都可以去找他。如果多名董事感到担忧，霍华德的董事长职位将使此事能够得到及时和妥善的处理。

Choosing the right CEO is all-important and is a subject that commands much time at Berkshire board meetings. Managing Berkshire is primarily a job of capital allocation, coupled with the selection and retention of outstanding managers to captain our operating subsidiaries. Obviously, the job also requires the replacement of a subsidiary’s CEO when that is called for. These duties require Berkshire’s CEO to be a rational, calm and decisive individual who has a broad understanding of business and good insights into human behavior. It’s important as well that he knows his limits. (As Tom Watson, Sr. of IBM said, “I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots and I stay around those spots.”)

选择合适的CEO至关重要，这是一个在伯克希尔董事会会议上占用大量时间的议题。管理伯克希尔主要是一项资本配置的工作，加上选择和留住出色的经理人来领导我们的运营子公司。显然，这项工作还需要在必要时更换子公司的CEO。这些职责要求伯克希尔的CEO是一个理性、冷静、果断的人，对商业有广泛理解，对人类行为有深刻的洞察力。同样重要的是，他要知道自己的局限。（正如IBM的老汤姆·沃森所说：“我不是天才，但我在某些方面有智慧，并且我坚守在这些方面。”）

Character is crucial: A Berkshire CEO must be “all in” for the company, not for himself. (I’m using male pronouns to avoid awkward wording, but gender should never decide who becomes CEO.) He can’t help but earn money far in excess of any possible need for it. But it’s important that neither ego nor avarice motivate him to reach for pay matching his most lavishly-compensated peers, even if his achievements far exceed theirs. A CEO’s behavior has a huge impact on managers down the line: If it’s clear to them that shareholders’ interests are paramount to him, they will, with few exceptions, also embrace that way of thinking.

品格至关重要：伯克希尔的CEO必须“全身心投入”公司，而不是为自己。（我使用男性代词是为了避免尴尬的措辞，但性别绝不应决定谁成为CEO。）他必然会赚到远远超过任何可能的需要的钱。但重要的是，无论是自负还是贪婪，都不能促使他去追求与那些薪酬最丰厚的同行相匹配的报酬，即使他的成就远远超过他们。CEO的行为对下属管理者有着巨大影响：如果他们清楚股东的权益对他来说是至高无上的，那么除极少数例外，他们也会接受这种思维方式。

My successor will need one other particular strength: the ability to fight off the ABCs of business decay, which are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency. When these corporate cancers metastasize, even the strongest of companies can falter. The examples available to prove the point are legion, but to maintain friendships I will exhume only cases from the distant past.

我的继任者还需要另一项特殊能力：抵御商业衰败的ABC——傲慢、官僚主义和自满。当这些企业癌症扩散时，即使是最强大的公司也可能步履蹒跚。证明这一点的例子不胜枚举，但为了维护友谊，我只会从遥远的过去挖掘案例。

In their glory days, General Motors, IBM, Sears Roebuck and U.S. Steel sat atop huge industries. Their strengths seemed unassailable. But the destructive behavior I deplored above eventually led each of them to fall to depths that their CEOs and directors had not long before thought impossible. Their one-time financial strength and their historical earning power proved no defense.

在它们的鼎盛时期，通用汽车、IBM、西尔斯罗巴克和美国钢铁公司站在巨大产业的顶端。它们的力量似乎无懈可击。但我上面痛惜的破坏性行为最终导致它们每一个都跌入了不久之前它们的CEO和董事们认为不可能达到的深度。它们曾经的财务实力和历史盈利水平被证明不是防御。

Only a vigilant and determined CEO can ward off such debilitating forces as Berkshire grows ever larger. He must never forget Charlie’s plea: “Tell me where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” If our non-economic values were to be lost, much of Berkshire’s economic value would collapse as well. “Tone at the top” will be key to maintaining Berkshire’s special culture.

只有一位警惕而坚定的CEO才能在伯克希尔日益壮大的过程中抵御这些削弱力量。他绝不能忘记查理的恳求：“告诉我我会死在哪里，这样我就永远不会去那里。”如果我们非经济性的价值观丢失了，伯克希尔的大部分经济价值也会随之崩溃。“高层风气”将是维持伯克希尔特殊文化的关键。

Fortunately, the structure our future CEOs will need to be successful is firmly in place. The extraordinary delegation of authority now existing at Berkshire is the ideal antidote to bureaucracy. In an operating sense, Berkshire is not a giant company but rather a collection of large companies. At headquarters, we have never had a committee nor have we ever required our subsidiaries to submit budgets (though many use them as an important internal tool). We don’t have a legal office nor departments that other companies take for granted: human relations, public relations, investor relations, strategy, acquisitions, you name it.

幸运的是，我们未来CEO成功所需的结构已经牢固到位。伯克希尔目前存在的非凡授权是官僚主义的理想解药。从运营意义上说，伯克希尔不是一家巨型公司，而是一个大型公司的集合。在总部，我们从未设立过委员会，也从未要求我们的子公司提交预算（尽管许多子公司将预算作为重要的内部工具）。我们没有法律办公室，也没有其他公司认为理所当然的部门：人力资源、公共关系、投资者关系、战略、收购，等等。

We do, of course, have an active audit function; no sense being a damned fool. To an unusual degree, however, we trust our managers to run their operations with a keen sense of stewardship. After all, they were doing exactly that before we acquired their businesses. With only occasional exceptions, furthermore, our trust produces better results than would be achieved by streams of directives, endless reviews and layers of bureaucracy. Charlie and I try to interact with our managers in a manner consistent with what we would wish for, if the positions were reversed.

当然，我们确实有活跃的审计职能；没必要当个十足的傻瓜。然而，我们以不同寻常的程度信任我们的经理人，让他们以敏锐的管理意识运营其业务。毕竟，在我们收购他们的企业之前，他们正是这样做的。此外，除了极少数例外，我们的信任比大量的指令、无休止的审查和层层官僚能产生更好的结果。查理和我试图以我们希望的方式与我们的经理人互动——如果角色互换的话。

Our directors believe that our future CEOs should come from internal candidates whom the Berkshire board has grown to know well. Our directors also believe that an incoming CEO should be relatively young, so that he or she can have a long run in the job. Berkshire will operate best if its CEOs average well over ten years at the helm. (It’s hard to teach a new dog old tricks.) And they are not likely to retire at 65 either (or have you noticed?).

我们的董事认为，我们未来的CEO应该来自伯克希尔董事会已经深入了解的内部候选人。我们的董事还认为，继任CEO应该相对年轻，这样他或她才能在这个职位上长期任职。如果伯克希尔的CEO能平均掌舵十年以上，伯克希尔的运营效果就会最好。（很难教新狗老把戏。）而且他们也不太可能在65岁退休（你注意到了吗？）。

In both Berkshire’s business acquisitions and large, tailored investment moves, it is important that our counterparties be both familiar with and feel comfortable with Berkshire’s CEO. Developing confidence of that sort and cementing relationships takes time. The payoff, though, can be huge.

在伯克希尔的业务收购和大型定制化投资行动中，我们的交易对手既熟悉又信任伯克希尔的CEO，这一点很重要。建立这种信任并巩固关系需要时间。不过，回报可能是巨大的。

Both the board and I believe we now have the right person to succeed me as CEO – a successor ready to assume the job the day after I die or step down. In certain important respects, this person will do a better job than I am doing.

董事会和我都相信，我们现在有了合适的继任者来接替我担任CEO——一位准备在我去世或卸任的第二天就上任的继任者。在某些重要方面，这个人会比我做得更好。

Investments will always be of great importance to Berkshire and will be handled by several specialists. They will report to the CEO because their investment decisions, in a broad way, will need to be coordinated with Berkshire’s operating and acquisition programs. Overall, though, our investment managers will enjoy great autonomy. In this area, too, we are in fine shape for decades to come. Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, each of whom has spent several years on Berkshire’s investment team, are first-rate in all respects and can be of particular help to the CEO in evaluating acquisitions.

投资对伯克希尔始终至关重要，并将由几位专家负责。他们将向CEO汇报，因为他们的投资决策在广义上需要与伯克希尔的运营和收购计划相协调。不过，总的来说，我们的投资经理将享有很大的自主权。在这一领域，我们在未来几十年也处于良好状态。托德·库姆斯和特德·韦施勒，每个人都在伯克希尔的投资团队工作了好几年，他们在各方面都是一流的，并且可以在评估收购方面为CEO提供特别的帮助。

All told, Berkshire is ideally positioned for life after Charlie and I leave the scene. We have the right people in place – the right directors, managers and prospective successors to those managers. Our culture, furthermore, is embedded throughout their ranks. Our system is also regenerative. To a large degree, both good and bad cultures self-select to perpetuate themselves. For very good reasons, business owners and operating managers with values similar to ours will continue to be attracted to Berkshire as a one-of-a-kind and permanent home.

总而言之，伯克希尔处于理想位置，可以应对查理和我离开后的生活。我们已拥有合适的人选——合适的董事、经理以及这些经理的潜在继任者。此外，我们的文化已融入他们的队伍。我们的系统也是可再生的。在很大程度上，好文化和坏文化都会自我选择以延续自身。出于非常好的理由，价值观与我们相似的企业所有者和运营经理将继续被伯克希尔作为一个独特而永久的家园所吸引。

I would be remiss if I didn’t salute another key constituency that makes Berkshire special: our shareholders. Berkshire truly has an owner base unlike that of any other giant corporation. That fact was demonstrated in spades at last year’s annual meeting, where the shareholders were offered a proxy resolution:

如果我不向另一个使伯克希尔与众不同的关键群体致敬，那就是我的失职：我们的股东。伯克希尔真正拥有一个与其他任何巨型公司都不同的股东基础。这一事实在去年的年会上得到了充分展示，股东们收到了一项代理决议：

RESOLVED: Whereas the corporation has more money than it needs and since the owners unlike Warren are not multi billionaires, the board shall consider paying a meaningful annual dividend on the shares.

决议：鉴于公司拥有的资金超过了其需求，并且由于所有者不像沃伦那样是亿万富翁，董事会应考虑支付有意义的年度股息。

The sponsoring shareholder of that resolution never showed up at the meeting, so his motion was not officially proposed. Nevertheless, the proxy votes had been tallied, and they were enlightening.

该决议的发起股东从未出现在会议上，因此他的动议未被正式提出。尽管如此，代理投票已经统计完毕，结果很有启发性。

Not surprisingly, the A shares – owned by relatively few shareholders, each with a large economic interest – voted “no” on the dividend question by a margin of 89 to 1.

不出所料，A股——由相对较少的股东持有，每人拥有巨大的经济利益——以89比1的投票反对分红问题。

The remarkable vote was that of our B shareholders. They number in the hundreds of thousands – perhaps even totaling one million – and they voted 660,759,855 “no” and 13,927,026 “yes,” a ratio of about 47 to 1.

引人注目的是我们的B股股东的投票。他们人数多达数十万——甚至可能总计一百万——他们投了660,759,855票反对，13,927,026票赞成，比例约为47比1。

Our directors recommended a “no” vote but the company did not otherwise attempt to influence shareholders. Nevertheless, 98% of the shares voting said, in effect, “Don’t send us a dividend but instead reinvest all of the earnings.” To have our fellow owners – large and small – be so in sync with our managerial philosophy is both remarkable and rewarding.

我们的董事建议投“反对”票，但公司没有以其他方式试图影响股东。尽管如此，98%的投票股份实际上在说：“不要给我们派发股息，而是将所有收益进行再投资。”让我们的股东同人——无论大小——与我们的管理理念如此同步，既非凡又令人欣慰。

I am a lucky fellow to have you as partners.

有你们作为合伙人，我是一个幸运的人。