1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)

Refer To：《1990-03-02 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》。

Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)

前二十五年的错误（精简版）

To quote Robert Benchley, “Having a dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.” Such are the shortcomings of experience. Nevertheless, it’s a good idea to review past mistakes before committing new ones. So let’s take a quick look at the last 25 years.

借用 Robert Benchley 的话：“养条狗会教会男孩忠诚、坚持，以及在躺下前要原地转三圈。”这正是经验的局限之处。尽管如此，在犯下新错误之前回顾旧错误仍是个好主意。那就让我们快速回望过去25年。

o My first mistake, of course, was in buying control of Berkshire. Though I knew its business - textile manufacturing - to be unpromising, I was enticed to buy because the price looked cheap. Stock purchases of that kind had proved reasonably rewarding in my early years, though by the time Berkshire came along in 1965 I was becoming aware that the strategy was not ideal.

o 我的第一个错误，当然，是买下 Berkshire 的控制权。尽管我知道它的业务——纺织制造——前景黯淡，但因为价格看起来便宜，我还是被诱惑去买入。早年我做过不少此类“便宜股”的买卖，也算颇有收获，不过到 1965 年遇到 Berkshire 时，我已逐渐意识到这并非理想策略。

If you buy a stock at a sufficiently low price, there will usually be some hiccup in the fortunes of the business that gives you a chance to unload at a decent profit, even though the long-term performance of the business may be terrible. I call this the “cigar butt” approach to investing. A cigar butt found on the street that has only one puff left in it may not offer much of a smoke, but the “bargain purchase” will make that puff all profit.

如果你以足够低的价格买入一只股票，通常公司运势总会出现一点“小插曲”，让你有机会体面地获利了结，尽管其长期表现可能很糟。我把这称为“烟蒂式”（cigar butt）的投资法。街边捡到一截只剩最后一口的雪茄，抽头并不大，但因为“便宜买来”，那一口就全是利润。

Unless you are a liquidator, that kind of approach to buying businesses is foolish. First, the original “bargain” price probably will not turn out to be such a steal after all. In a difficult business, no sooner is one problem solved than another surfaces - never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen. Second, any initial advantage you secure will be quickly eroded by the low return that the business earns. For example, if you buy a business for $8 million that can be sold or liquidated for $10 million and promptly take either course, you can realize a high return. But the investment will disappoint if the business is sold for $10 million in ten years and in the interim has annually earned and distributed only a few percent on cost. Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.

除非你是清算人，否则用这种方法买企业是愚蠢的。第一，最初“捡便宜”的价格，多半并没有你想的那么划算。在一个艰难的行业里，解决了一个问题，很快就会冒出另一个——厨房里从来不止一只蟑螂。第二，你获得的任何初始优势，都会被业务的低回报迅速侵蚀。举例说，如果你花 800 万美元买下一家企业，立刻卖掉或清算能得到 1,000 万美元，你会取得很高的回报。但若十年后才以 1,000 万美元卖掉，而这十年里每年只把成本的几个百分点作为分红或利润，那这笔投资就会让人失望。时间是优秀企业的朋友，是平庸企业的敌人。

You might think this principle is obvious, but I had to learn it the hard way - in fact, I had to learn it several times over. Shortly after purchasing Berkshire, I acquired a Baltimore department store, Hochschild Kohn, buying through a company called Diversified Retailing that later merged with Berkshire. I bought at a substantial discount from book value, the people were first-class, and the deal included some extras - unrecorded real estate values and a significant LIFO inventory cushion. How could I miss? So-o-o - three years later I was lucky to sell the business for about what I had paid. After ending our corporate marriage to Hochschild Kohn, I had memories like those of the husband in the country song, “My Wife Ran Away With My Best Friend and I Still Miss Him a Lot.”

你或许觉得这个道理显而易见，但我是吃了苦头才学会的——事实上，还是学了好几遍。买下 Berkshire 不久，我又通过一家名为 Diversified Retailing 的公司（后来并入 Berkshire）收购了巴尔的摩的百货公司 Hochschild Kohn。我以大幅低于账面价值的价格买入，团队一流，交易还附带一些“额外好处”——未入账的房地产价值和相当可观的 LIFO 库存缓冲。我怎么会失手呢？所—以—说——三年后我很幸运地以接近买入价把它卖掉了。与 Hochschild Kohn 结束“公司婚姻”后，我的回忆就像那首乡村歌曲里丈夫的心情：“My Wife Ran Away With My Best Friend and I Still Miss Him a Lot（我的妻子跟我最好的朋友跑了，而我仍深深想念他）。”

I could give you other personal examples of “bargain-purchase” folly but I’m sure you get the picture: It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price. Charlie understood this early; I was a slow learner. But now, when buying companies or common stocks, we look for first-class businesses accompanied by first-class managements.

我还能举出不少“便宜买入而犯傻”的亲身例子，但你大概已经懂了要点：以公道价买入一家优秀公司，远胜于以极佳价买入一家平庸公司。Charlie 很早就明白了这一点；而我学得慢一些。不过现在，无论收购整家公司还是买入普通股，我们都追求一流业务+一流管理的组合。

o That leads right into a related lesson: Good jockeys will do well on good horses, but not on broken-down nags. Both Berkshire’s textile business and Hochschild, Kohn had able and honest people running them. The same managers employed in a business with good economic characteristics would have achieved fine records. But they were never going to make any progress while running in quicksand.

o 这直接引出一个相关教训：再好的骑师也需要好马，烂马骑不出成绩。Berkshire 的纺织业务和 Hochschild, Kohn 的管理者都能干且正直。同样的管理者，如果被放到经济属性良好的业务里，会取得漂亮的战绩。但在“流沙”里奔跑，是不可能前进的。

I’ve said many times that when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. I just wish I hadn’t been so energetic in creating examples. My behavior has matched that admitted by Mae West: “I was Snow White, but I drifted.”

我多次说过：当一个以聪明著称的管理层去接手一个以糟糕经济性著称的业务时，保持“名声不变”的往往是业务的糟糕。我只希望自己别那么卖力地去“制造案例”。我的表现正如 Mae West 的那句自嘲：“I was Snow White, but I drifted.（我曾是白雪公主，但我走偏了。）”

o A further related lesson: Easy does it. After 25 years of buying and supervising a great variety of businesses, Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them. To the extent we have been successful, it is because we concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over rather than because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers.

o 还有一个相关教训：从易而行。经过25年对各类企业的收购与管理，Charlie 和我并没有学会如何解决困难的商业问题；我们学会的是如何回避它们。我们之所以能取得一定成功，是因为我们专注于寻找那些一英尺高、可以迈过去的栏杆，而不是企图练就七英尺栏杆也能一跃而过的本领。

The finding may seem unfair, but in both business and investments it is usually far more profitable to simply stick with the easy and obvious than it is to resolve the difficult. On occasion, tough problems must be tackled as was the case when we started our Sunday paper in Buffalo. In other instances, a great investment opportunity occurs when a marvelous business encounters a one-time huge, but solvable, problem as was the case many years back at both American Express and GEICO. Overall, however, we’ve done better by avoiding dragons than by slaying them.

这个结论听起来也许“不够体面”，但在商业与投资中，坚持做容易且显而易见的事，通常比解决难题更能赚钱。偶尔也必须直面硬仗，比如我们在 Buffalo 创办周日报的时候。另一些情况下，当一家出色的企业遭遇一次性但可解决的巨大问题时，会出现极佳的投资机会，多年前的 American Express 与 GEICO 便是例证。总体而言，避龙比屠龙更让我们受益。

第1段（Right Business）：（1）经济属性良好；（2）业务简单。

o My most surprising discovery: the overwhelming importance in business of an unseen force that we might call “the institutional imperative.” In business school, I was given no hint of the imperative’s existence and I did not intuitively understand it when I entered the business world. I thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so. Instead, rationality frequently wilts when the institutional imperative comes into play.

o 我最意外的发现：商业中有一种看不见的力量至关重要，我们可以称之为“制度性强制力（the institutional imperative）”。在商学院时，没人暗示过它的存在；刚踏入商业世界时，我也并未直觉地理解它。我曾以为体面、聪明且经验丰富的经理人会自然而然地做出理性决策。但随着时间推移，我发现并非如此：一旦制度性必然发挥作用，理性常常会枯萎。

For example: (1) As if governed by Newton’s First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

比如：（1）仿佛受牛顿第一定律支配，机构会抗拒改变其当前方向；（2）正如工作会膨胀以填满可用时间，公司项目或并购会自发出现以消耗可用资金；（3）领导者的任何业务“渴望”，哪怕愚蠢，其下属都会迅速拿出详尽的收益率与战略研究予以背书；（4）同业公司的行为——不论是扩张、并购、制定高管薪酬等——都会被盲目模仿。

Institutional dynamics, not venality or stupidity, set businesses on these courses, which are too often misguided. After making some expensive mistakes because I ignored the power of the imperative, I have tried to organize and manage Berkshire in ways that minimize its influence. Furthermore, Charlie and I have attempted to concentrate our investments in companies that appear alert to the problem.

让企业走上这些道路的，是制度动力学，而非贪婪或愚蠢——尽管这些道路往往被事实证明是误导。在因忽视这种力量而付出昂贵代价之后，我努力以尽量降低其影响的方式来组织和管理 Berkshire。此外，Charlie 和我也尝试将投资集中在那些对这一问题保持警觉的公司。

o After some other mistakes, I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire. As I noted before, this policy of itself will not ensure success: A second-class textile or department-store company won’t prosper simply because its managers are men that you would be pleased to see your daughter marry. However, an owner - or investor - can accomplish wonders if he manages to associate himself with such people in businesses that possess decent economic characteristics. Conversely, we do not wish to join with managers who lack admirable qualities, no matter how attractive the prospects of their business. We’ve never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person.

o 在犯过其他一些错误后，我学到：只与我喜欢、信任并敬重的人一起做生意。正如我之前强调的，这一原则本身并不能保证成功：一家二流的纺织或百货公司，并不会因为其经理人是“你乐于让女儿嫁给的人”就繁荣起来。然而，如果在经济属性尚可的业务里，所有者——或投资者——能与这样的人结伴，便能创造奇迹。反过来，无论某项业务前景多吸引人，我们都不愿与缺乏令人称道品质的经理人合作。与坏人做成好买卖，我们从未成功过。

第2段（Right People）：（1）“institutional imperative”，巴菲特的用词向来追求精准，这一段的最后一句“保持警觉”，暗示这种性格上的缺陷无解，唯一的办法是避开；（2）避开坏人，即使商业模式很好也不跟坏人合作。

o Some of my worst mistakes were not publicly visible. These were stock and business purchases whose virtues I understood and yet didn’t make. It’s no sin to miss a great opportunity outside one’s area of competence. But I have passed on a couple of really big purchases that were served up to me on a platter and that I was fully capable of understanding. For Berkshire’s shareholders, myself included, the cost of this thumb-sucking has been huge.

o 我一些最糟糕的错误，并不为公众所见。那些是我看得懂、也看到了优点却没有去做的股票与企业收购。错过自己能力圈以外的机会无可厚非；但我也错过过端到面前、且完全在我能力圈之内的极大机会。对 Berkshire 的股东（包括我自己）而言，这种犹豫不决的代价极其巨大。

o Our consistently-conservative financial policies may appear to have been a mistake, but in my view were not. In retrospect, it is clear that significantly higher, though still conventional, leverage ratios at Berkshire would have produced considerably better returns on equity than the 23.8% we have actually averaged. Even in 1965, perhaps we could have judged there to be a 99% probability that higher leverage would lead to nothing but good. Correspondingly, we might have seen only a 1% chance that some shock factor, external or internal, would cause a conventional debt ratio to produce a result falling somewhere between temporary anguish and default.

o 我们一贯保守的财务政策，看上去似乎是个错误，但在我看来并非如此。回头看，若在 Berkshire 采用更高但仍属常规的杠杆率，本可取得明显高于我们23.8%历史均值的股本回报。即便在1965年，我们或许也能判断：更高杠杆带来“只有好处”的概率达99%；相对应地，我们也会看到：受外部或内部冲击因素影响，即便是常规负债率也有1%的可能让结果落在“暂时痛苦与违约”之间的某处。

We wouldn’t have liked those 99:1 odds - and never will. A small chance of distress or disgrace cannot, in our view, be offset by a large chance of extra returns. If your actions are sensible, you are certain to get good results; in most such cases, leverage just moves things along faster. Charlie and I have never been in a big hurry: We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds - though we have learned to live with those also.

我们不喜欢99:1这样的赔率——将来也不会。我们认为，小概率的困境或羞辱，不能被高概率的额外回报所抵消。只要你的行动是理性的，结果自然会不错；在大多数这种情形中，杠杆只是加速器。Charlie 和我从不着急：我们更享受过程，胜过收益——尽管我们也学会了与后者愉快相处。

第3段（Margin of safety）：安全边际的本质是相信自己能赢，包括：（1）最糟糕的错误是错失而不是脑子进水，这是非常自信的表述；（2）杠杆上的保守，同样是自信。

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

We hope in another 25 years to report on the mistakes of the first 50. If we are around in 2015 to do that, you can count on this section occupying many more pages than it does here.

我们希望再过25年时，能够汇报“前五十年”的错误。若2015年我们仍在并写下这段篇章，你可以肯定：这一章节所占的篇幅会远多于当前这些页。

1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)

1990-03-02 Warren Buffett.Mistakes of the First Twenty-five Years (A Condensed Version)

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