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问：投资决策中，如何使用账面价值？ Q: What do you think of the use of book values in making investment decisions? （备注：下面这两段话似乎是以别人的口吻转述的，所以语言结构是转述的，而且两段间的意思并不是非常连贯。） 在伯克希尔的投资决策中，账面价值实际上没有起到任何作用。他们（伯克希尔）对高回报率生意的追求，通常会导致其投资的公司具有较小的帐目价值。他还补充说，若管理的资金量较小，账面价值法可能会获得较好的应用效果， 就像格雷厄姆所管理的公司那样，该方法在类似格雷厄姆的从业者——像巴菲特的朋友Walter Schloss——身上也有非常好的效果。格雷厄姆在《聪明的投资者》一书中所阐述的三个最重要的理念是：1）投资者对市场应该采取什么样的态度；2）安全边际；以及3）把公司看成生意而不是股票。 Book value is virtually not a consideration in investment decision-making at Berkshire. Their pursuit of high return businesses usually leads to companies with minimal book values. He added that the book value approach could work well with small sums of money, like Graham had managed, and that the approach had worked well for Graham-type practitioners like Buffett’s friend Walter Schloss. The three most important concepts conveyed by Graham in “The Intelligent Investor” were the investor’s attitude toward the market, the “margin of safety”, and the practice of looking at companies as businesses, not stocks. 查理·芒格的观点是“预测股价不但不会带来什么好处，反而是有害的。通常情况下，提供预测的人往往会从实现这种预测上获得好处。他们的预测也经常可以得到“正确”的结果，但这种正确极具欺骗性。” 巴菲特补充说他们从来不在并购活动中对感兴趣的生意或股权进行预测。“首先考虑公司执行层或董事会要做的事情是否合理已经成为了一种惯例。” Munger proffered that “projections generally do more harm than good, and are usually prepared by persons who have some sort of an interest in the outcome of actions based on the projections. They often have a precision that’s deceptive.” Buffett added that they’ve never looked at a projection in connection with an equity or business that they’ve acquired. “It’s a ritual to justify doing what an executive or a board wanted to do in the first place.” Source: BRK Annual Meeting 1995 URL: http://www. Time: 1995 --------------------------------- 我们更喜欢在美国本土进行投资，但至少在五十年前，我就购买了第一只海外市场的股票，而且我们也曾经关注大量的海外有价证券。即便可口可乐总部设在阿姆斯特丹，也不会对我们的买入产生任何影响。 We have a bias toward investing in the U.S., but I bought my first stock outside the United States at least 50 years ago and we’ve looked at plenty of marketable securities overseas. It would make no difference to us if Coke was headquartered in Amsterdam. 那时候，还没有海外人士听说过我们。Eitan Wertheimer过来找我们，Iscar的收购活动使我们开始蜚声海外。是Eitan让我们逐渐为外国人所了解。[但巴菲特没有给出这个“逐渐为外国人所了解”的具体细节] But nobody outside the U.S. has heard of us. Eitan Wertheimer found us. The Iscar acquisition has contributed to our becoming better known. Eitan is going through a procedure to get us better known abroad. [Buffett did not give any details about this “procedure”.] 我在海外“推销”自己的效果不好。所以我们理应受到批评，因为我们没有使得自己[在海外]更广为人知。 I haven’t done a good selling job abroad. We could be fairly criticized for not doing enough to become better known [overseas]. 我们在德国买入了股票，还买入了韩国POSCO公司4%的股权——目前价值超过10亿美元。我能够想出目前持有的、6只海外股票的名字。我们不用在13F中上报这些公司，所以这些投资并不像国内投资那样需要公布出来。 We own stocks in Germany and 4% of POSCO, which is based in South Korea – it’s now worth over $1 billion. I can think of a half dozen investments [we currently have] outside the U.S. We don’t have to report them in our [SEC Form] 13F, so they don’t get picked up like our domestic investments. 在德国，当我们持有一家公司的股份达到3%时需要上报。所以，如果我们买入一家市值为100亿美元的公司时，一旦我们持股市值达到3亿时就需要公开。我和查理不喜欢这么做。这个规则阻止了我们将来买入德国公司，这实在是一个减分的规则。可以肯定地告诉大家，世界上的股票都在我们的视域范围内，同时我们也希望自己在各国公司的视域范围内。 We have to report our holdings in Germany once we reach 3% ownership. So if we buy a $10 billion [market-cap] company, that means once we buy $300 million worth we have to tell the world, and Charlie and I don’t like doing that. It screws up our future buying, so the 3% rule is a real minus. I can assure you that the entire world is on our radar screen and we hope to be on its radar screen. 芒格：很久以前，John Templeton就介入的日本市场，买入的股票也获得了30-40倍的收益。这种投资非常令人羡慕，但是你要知道，这一时期我们做得也不错。 Munger: John Templeton made a fortune being in Japan very early and stocks there went to 30-40x earnings. It was an admirable piece of investment, but you know, we did alright during the same period. Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2007 Tilson Notes URL: http://www. Time: 2007 问：如果你不接触管理层，不看年报，也不知道股价，只看财务报表，你会关注哪一项指标？ Q: If you can’t talk with management, and can’t read the annual report, and didn’t know the price, but could only look at the financial statements, what metric would you look at? 巴菲特：投资就是出让你现有资金的使用权，以期在将来得到更多的现金。我们先把价格放在一边。如果你要买一个农场，你会首先考虑这个农场的单位产量——此时你就是在关注资产本身。你会问自己：我是否对经营农场有足够的经验以至于通过其当前的经营状况所提供的有用信息可以预测其将来的财物状况？我就是根据你买农场的这种思路来买股票的。这些股票必须属于我熟悉的行业，如果我能够以内在价值40%的价格买入股票，我就具备了足够的安全边际。如果你不告诉生意的性质，报表能够告诉我的信息就非常有限。我们买入过很多有价证券，我们与其中多数公司的管理层没有见过面。我们只是依靠自己对生意的一般理解到报表中寻找我们感兴趣的东西。 WB: Investing is laying out money now to get more money later on. Let’s leave the market price out. If you were buying a farm, you would think about bushels per acre — you are looking to the asset itself. Ask yourself: do I understand enough about the business so that the financials will be able to tell me meaningful things that will help me to foresee the statements in the future? I have bought stocks the way you describe. They were in businesses I understood, and if I could buy at 40% of X, I’d be okay with the margin of safety. If you don’t tell me the nature of the business, financial statements won’t tell me much. We’ve bought many securities, and with most, we’ve never met management. We use our general understanding of business and look to specifics from financial statements. 芒格：有一个指标（——现金）深受欢迎，我们喜爱拥有大量现金的生意。与之相反，不喜欢拥有大量建筑设备的生意，忙碌了一年，你的利润却躺在院子里。我们会尽量避免涉足后面那类生意。我们更喜欢在年底能给我们开出支票的生意。 CM: One metric catches people. We prefer businesses that drown in cash. An example of a different business is construction equipment. You work hard all year and there is your profit sitting in the yard. We avoid businesses like that. We prefer those that can write us a check at the end of the year. 巴菲特：如果我们知道一套公寓的位置，我们就可以知道这套公寓的价值，我们也会知道拥有这套公寓的每月花费是多少。我买入过很多财务上出现困难的公司，但是有一些这类公司我是永远都不会买入，即使它们拥有世界上最优秀的管理团队，因为在一个“烂”行业里，优秀的管理团队并不能起多少作用。 WB: We could value an apartment if we knew where the apartment is, and we know the monthly checks. I have bought a lot of things off the financials. There is a lot I wouldn’t buy even if it had the best management in the world, as it doesn’t make much difference in a bad business. Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2008 Boodell Notes URL: http://www. Time: 2008 问：当你评估一桩生意时，你如何看待其成长性？ Q: How do you think about growth rates when you value businesses? 如果一桩生意的[长期]增长率高于折现率，从数学上讲，其价值是无限的。这就是由Durand在三十年前提出的圣彼得堡悖论。有些管理层就这么认识他们的公司。假设增长没有限制是非常危险——很多麻烦来源于此。预计超常的高速增长可以长期持续导致投资者损失大量的金钱。回头看看50年前的优秀企业，有多少能够长期保持10%的增长率？那些成长性企业，能达到15%增长率的更是凤毛麟角。我和查理都不愿意预测企业会长期高速增长。有时候我们可能是错的，这种错误也会带来损失，但是我们喜欢这种保守。 When the [long-term] growth rate is higher than the discount rate, then [mathematically] the value is infinity. This is the St. Petersburg Paradox, written about by Durand 30 years ago. [Click here for a copy of the original 1957 article. For more on this topic, I recommend Integrating the Outliers: Two Lessons from the St. Petersburg Paradox, by CSFB’s (now Legg Mason’s) Michael Mauboussin.].Some managements think this [that the value of their company is infinite]. It gets very dangerous to assume high growth rates to infinity – that’s where people get into a lot of trouble. The idea of projecting extremely high growth rates for a long period of time has cost investors an awful lot of money. Go look at top companies 50 years ago: how many have grown at 10% for a long time? And [those that have grown] 15% is very rarified. Charlie and I are rarely willing to project high growth rates. Maybe we’re wrong sometimes and that costs us, but we like to be conservative. [芒格：如果你使用的增长率过高，导致你得到的企业价值无限大，那么你应该采用一个更为现实的增长率数据。除此之外，你还能做什么呢？] [CM: If your growth rate is so high that you conclude the business has an infinite valuation, you have to use more realistic numbers. What else could anyone do?] Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2004 Tilson Notes URL: http://www. Time: 2004
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