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编者按：中国投资者对巴菲特以及其经典的投资心得耳熟能详。但实际上，这个世界仍然有大量可以与巴菲特比肩的投资大师精心撰写的投资心得，但多以英文或者其他语言撰写，国内几乎没有介绍。格隆汇特意组织力量开始制作《精译求精系列》，力求将这些含金量十足的大师心得，呈现在广大会员眼前，体现他们的价值，为大家的投资，保驾护航。 本文的作者是美国知名对冲基金经理John Huber，最新发布的投资心得。文章主要讨论了“再投资性护城河和传统护城河的区别”。
TheReinvestment Moat 再投资护城河
Outstandingcompanies are often described as having a “moat”, a term popularized by WarrenBuffett where a durable competitive advantage enables a business to earn highreturns on capital for many years. These businesses are rare and form a smallgroup, however I bifurcate the group further into what I classify as “LegacyMoats” and “Reinvestment Moats”. I find that most businesses with a durablecompetitive advantage belong in the Legacy Moat bucket, meaning thecompanies earn strong returnson capital but do not have compelling opportunities to deploy incrementalcapital at similar rates.
杰出的公司经通常被认为有“护城河”。 “护城河”一词的普及归功于沃伦·巴菲特，意思是当一个企业拥有长期竞争优势时，它就能常年拥有较高的资本回报率。无论我对多少企业进行“传统护城河”和“再投资护城河”的分类，“再投资护城河”企业都少之又少。我发现很多拥有长期竞争优势的企业都属于“传统护城河”企业，这意味着这些企业的资本回报率较高，但并没有足够的机会用同样高的速率支配增量资本。
Thereis an even more elite category of quality businesses that I classify as havinga Reinvestment Moat. These businesses have all of the advantages of a LegacyMoat, but also have opportunitiesto deploy incremental capital at high rates. Businesses with longrunways of high-return investment opportunities can compound capital for longstretches, and a portfolio of these exceptional businesses is likely to produceyears of strong returns. It will take some work and a lot ofdiscipline to filter down to the true compounding machines, however I willoutline what factors to look for and how many of the “bargains” hide in plainsight.
一些高品质的精英企业拥有的是“再投资护城河”。这类企业拥有“传统护城河”的所有优势，除此之外，它们还有充足机会以高速率支配增量资本。长期拥有高回报投资机会的企业能让资本雪球越滚越大，它们的投资组合可能常年产生高回报。不过要想筛选出真正的复利工具并不是那么简单，我会列出一些寻找的依据，然后看看有哪些显而易见的“次品”藏了起来。
The“Legacy Moat”: “传统护城河”：
Businesseswith a Legacy Moat possess a solid competitive position that results in healthyprofits and strong returns on invested capital. In exceptional cases, a companywith a Legacy Moat employs no tangible capital and can modestly grow withoutrequiring additional capital. However because there are no reinvestment opportunities offeringthose same high returns, whatever cash the business generates needs to bedeployed elsewhere or shipped back to the owners.
有“传统护城河”的企业拥有稳固的竞争地位和稳健的收益回报。在特殊情况下，一个拥有“传统护城河”的公司并无有形资产可支配，它可以在不需要额外投资的前提下保持适度增长。但由于缺乏产生同样高回报的再投资机会，企业的盈利都会被分配出去，或是返还给股权人。
Thinkof a self-storage facility in a rural town with a high occupancy rate andlittle competition. This location may be generating $200,000 of annual freecash flow, a solid yield on the $1,000,000 of capital used to build thefacility. As long as they run a tight operation, and a competing storagefacility doesn’t open across the street, the owner can be reasonably assuredthat the earnings power will persist or modestly grow over time.
假设有一个位于乡镇的自动存储仓，它的租用率很高，但竞争率很低。存储仓每年可产生20万美金的现金流，而建仓所用资金为100万美金。只要紧密经营，且附近没有新仓竞争，经营者大可确定仓位会持续盈利，并且利润会逐步增长。
Butwhat does the owner do with the $200,000 that the operation generates eachyear? The town can’t really support another location, and nearby towns arealready serving the storage demand adequately. So maybe the owner invests it inanother private business, or puts it towards savings, or maybe buys a lakehouse. But wherever that capital goes, itlikely won’t be at the same 20% return earned on the initial facility.
经营者会把每年产生的20万美金用于何处呢？小镇没有别的地方可以建仓了，而且附近的镇子已经有了充足的仓位。所以该经营者会把钱投资到其它的私营企业里，或者直接存起来，再或者干脆买一栋房子。但是无论这笔现金流去什么地方，它都不太可能像原来一样拥有20%的回报率了。
Thissame dilemma applies to many larger businesses such as Hershey’s, Coca-Cola,McDonald’s or Proctor & Gamble. These four companies on average distributed82.4% of their 2015 net income out to shareholders as dividends. For thesecompanies that decision makes sense, they do not have enough attractivereinvestment opportunities to justify retaining the capital.
很多大企业，如好时、可口可乐、麦当劳、宝洁，都面临着相同的困境。2015年，这四家公司分发给股东的红利平均占其净利润的82.4%。对这些公司来说，这个决定是讲得通的，因为他们缺乏有吸引力的再投资机会来留住资本。
Eventhough these Legacy Moat businesses demonstrate high returns on investedcapital (ROIC), if you purchase their stock today and own it for ten years itis unlikely you as an investor will achieve exceptional returns. This is because their high ROICreflects returns on prior invested capital rather than incremental investedcapital. In other words, a 20% reported ROIC today is not worth as much toan investor if there are no more 20% ROIC opportunities available to direct theprofits. Equity ownership in these businessesends up resembling a high-yield bond with a coupon that should increase overtime. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, businesses like Proctor& Gamble and Hershey’s provide a steady yield and are excellent at preserving capital but not necessarilyfor creating wealth. If you are looking to compound your capital atunusually high rates, the focus needs to shift to identifying businesses thatalso possess a “Reinvestment Moat”.
虽然这些“传统护城河”企业有高资本回报率，但是如果你现在买入它们的股票，十年之后，作为投资者的你是不太可能得到高回报的。这是因为资本回报率反映的是之前投资资本的回报，而不是增量投资资本的回报。换而言之，对于投资者而言，如果没有更多回报率达20%的投资机会来产生利润，这20%的资本回报实际上并不值这么多。最终，这类企业的股东权益都跟利率逐年增长的高收益债券很像。这绝对没有什么不好的，像宝洁、好时这样的企业就在保持资本方面做得很好，但是在创造财富方面就欠缺了。如果你希望以极高的利率复合资本，那么你的关注点最好转移到寻找“再投资护城河”企业上。 The“Reinvestment Moat”: “再投资护城河”
Thereis a second group of companies that have all the benefits of a Legacy Moat, butalso have opportunities todeploy incremental capital at high rates because they have aReinvestment Moat. These companies have their current profits protected by aLegacy Moat, so the core earnings power should be maintained. But instead ofshipping the earnings back to the owner at the end of each year, the vastmajority of the capital will be retained and deployed into opportunities thatstand a high likelihood of producing high returns.
第二类公司拥有“传统护城河”公司所有的优势，除此之外，由于“再投资护城河”的存在，这类公司还拥有用高回报率进行增量投资的机会。“传统护城河”保护着这类公司的当前利润， 所以其核心盈利能力得以持续。但这类公司并不会在年末将收益返还给股东，相反，它们会将一大部分盈利再投入到可能产生高回报的投资机会中去。
Thinkof Wal-Mart in 1972. There were 51 locations open at the time and the overallbusiness generated a 52% pre-tax return on net tangible assets. Clearly theirearly stores were working, they dominated small towns with a differentiatedformat and a fanatical devotion to low prices. Within the 51 towns, I would betthat each store had a moat and Sam Walton could be reasonably assured theearnings power would hold steady or grow over time. Mr. Walton also had apretty simple job when it came to deploying the cash those stores generatedeach year. The clear path was to reinvest the earnings right back into openingmore Wal-Marts for as long as possible. Today there are over 11,000 Wal-Martlocations throughout the world and both sales and net income are up over 5,000x from1972 levels.
1972的沃尔玛就是这样。当时沃尔玛一共在51个地方开店，就其整体业务而言，沃尔玛的净有形资产的税前收益率为52%。很显然，沃尔玛在早期是盈利的，它用与众不同的经营模式和超低价格占领了小城镇市场。在那51个城镇里面，我敢肯定每家沃尔玛超市都有一个护城河，山姆·沃尔顿可以合理地认定沃尔玛的盈利能力可以持续稳健地增长。至于如何分配沃尔玛每年产生的现金，这对于沃尔顿先生来说就是小事一桩了。很显然，正确的做法是把盈利进行再投资，继续开更多的沃尔玛超市。现在沃尔玛在全世界一共开了1,1000家店，销售和净收入较1972年上涨了5000倍。
How ToIdentify a Reinvestment Moat: 如何分辨再投资护城河：
Whensearching for a Reinvestment Moat, I’m essentially looking for a business thatdefies capitalism. Isolated profits in a small market is one thing, butcontinuing to achieve high returns on incremental dollars for years should intheory not be attainable. As a business gets bigger, and the profits becomemore meaningful, it will attract more and more competition and returns shouldeventually compress. Instead I’m looking for a business that actually becomes stronger as it getsbigger. In my opinion there are two models that lend itself to thiskind of positive reinforcement cycle over time: companies with low cost production or scale advantages andcompanies with a two-sided networkeffect.
在搜索再投资护城河的时候，我其实是在寻找蔑视资本主义的企业。在一个小市场取得单比利润是一回事，但想持续多年取得增量资本的高回报来在理论上无法实现的。当企业规模越来越大、其利润变得更加有意义时，它会吸引越来越多的竞争，而收益最终会被压缩。相反，我想寻找的是随着规模扩大而变得更强大的企业。在我看来，适应这种积极的强化循环的企业模式有两种：有低生产成本和规模效应的企业，有双面网络效应的企业。
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