1997-02-28 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders
To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:
Our gain in net worth during 1996 was $6.2 billion, or 36.1%. Per-share book value, however, grew by less, 31.8%, because the number of Berkshire shares increased: We issued stock in acquiring FlightSafety International and also sold new Class B shares.* Over the last 32 years (that is, since present management took over) per-share book value has grown from $19 to $19,011, or at a rate of 23.8% compounded annually.
1996 年我们的净资产增加了 62 亿美元，增幅 36.1%。但每股账面价值的增幅较低，为 31.8%，原因是伯克希尔的股份数量增加了：我们在收购 FlightSafety International 时发行了股票，同时也出售了新的 Class B 股份。* 过去 32 年（也就是现任管理层接手以来），每股账面价值从 19 美元增长到 19,011 美元，复合年增长率为 23.8%。
* Each Class B share has an economic interest equal to 1/30th of that possessed by a Class A share, which is the new designation for the only stock that Berkshire had outstanding before May 1996.Throughout this report, we state all per-share figures in terms of “Class A equivalents,” which are the sum of the Class A shares outstanding and 1/30th of the Class B shares outstanding.
每一股 Class B 股票的经济权益相当于一股 Class A 的 1/30；而 Class A 是对 1996 年 5 月之前伯克希尔唯一在外流通股票的“新命名”。在本报告中，我们所有“每股”数据都以“Class A 等值”口径表述，即：Class A 流通股数 +（Class B 流通股数的 1/30）。
For technical reasons, we have restated our 1995 financial statements, a matter that requires me to present one of my less-than-thrilling explanations of accounting arcana. I’ll make it brief.
出于技术性原因，我们对 1995 年财务报表做了重述。这件事迫使我又得做一次并不那么令人兴奋的会计“奥术”解释。我会尽量简短。
The restatement was required because GEICO became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire on January 2, 1996, whereas it was previously classified as an investment. From an economic viewpoint—taking into account major tax efficiencies and other benefits we gained—the value of the 51% of GEICO we owned at year-end 1995 increased significantly when we acquired the remaining 49% of the company two days later. Accounting rules applicable to this type of “step acquisition,” however, required us to write down the value of our 51% at the time we moved to 100%. That writedown—which also, of course, reduced book value—amounted to $478.4 million. As a result, we now carry our original 51% of GEICO at a value that is both lower than its market value at the time we purchased the remaining 49% of the company and lower than the value at which we carry that 49% itself.
之所以需要重述，是因为 GEICO 在 1996 年 1 月 2 日成为伯克希尔的全资子公司；而在此之前，它被归类为一项投资。从经济角度看——考虑到我们获得的重大税收效率和其他收益——我们在 1995 年底持有的 GEICO 51% 股权，在两天后收购剩余 49% 并实现 100% 控股时，其价值显著上升。然而，适用于这种“分步收购”（step acquisition）的会计规则要求：当我们从 51% 变为 100% 时，必须将原先 51% 的账面价值做减记。该减记（当然也会降低账面价值）金额为 4.784 亿美元。结果是：我们现在对最初那 51% 的 GEICO 持股入账价值，不仅低于我们在收购剩余 49% 时的市场价值，也低于我们对那 49% 本身的入账价值。
There is an offset, however, to the reduction in book value I have just described: Twice during 1996 we issued Berkshire shares at a premium to book value, first in May when we sold the B shares for cash and again in December when we used both A and B shares as part-payment for FlightSafety. In total, the three non-operational items affecting book value contributed less than one percentage point to our 31.8% per-share gain last year.
不过，前面所说账面价值的下降还有一个抵消因素：1996 年我们两次以高于账面价值的价格发行伯克希尔股票——第一次在 5 月以现金出售 B 股；第二次在 12 月，用 A 股和 B 股作为 FlightSafety 收购对价的一部分。总体来看，影响账面价值的三项“非经营性事项”，对去年每股账面价值 31.8% 的增长贡献还不到 1 个百分点。
I dwell on this rise in per-share book value because it roughly indicates our economic progress during the year. But, as Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman, and I have repeatedly told you, what counts at Berkshire is intrinsic value, not book value. The last time you got that message from us was in the Owner’s Manual, sent to you in June after we issued the Class B shares. In that manual, we not only defined certain key terms—such as intrinsic value— but also set forth our economic principles.
我之所以反复强调“每股账面价值”的上升，是因为它大体能反映我们这一年的经济进展。不过，正如 Charlie Munger（伯克希尔副董事长）和我反复对你们说过的：在 Berkshire，真正重要的是内在价值（intrinsic value），而不是账面价值。你们上一次从我们这里收到这一信息，是在我们发行 Class B shares 之后、于 6 月寄给你们的《Owner’s Manual》中。在那份手册里，我们不仅定义了一些关键术语——比如 intrinsic value——还阐明了我们的经济原则。
For many years, we have listed these principles in the front of our annual report, but in this report, on pages 58 to 67, we reproduce the entire Owner’s Manual. In this letter, we will occasionally refer to the manual so that we can avoid repeating certain definitions and explanations. For example, if you wish to brush up on “intrinsic value,” see pages 64 and 65.
多年以来，我们一直把这些原则列在年报的首页位置；但在本报告中，我们在第 58 至 67 页完整重印了《Owner’s Manual》。在这封信里，我们会不时引用该手册，以避免重复某些定义与解释。举例来说，如果你想复习一下 “intrinsic value”，请看第 64 和 65 页。
Last year, for the first time, we supplied you with a table that Charlie and I believe will help anyone trying to estimate Berkshire’s intrinsic value. In the updated version of that table, which follows, we trace two key indices of value. The first column lists our per-share ownership of investments (including cash and equivalents) and the second column shows our per-share earnings from Berkshire’s operating businesses before taxes and purchase-accounting adjustments but after all interest and corporate overhead expenses. The operating-earnings column excludes all dividends, interest and capital gains that we realized from the investments presented in the first column. In effect, the two columns show what Berkshire would have reported had it been broken into two parts.
去年我们第一次向你们提供了一张表格，Charlie 和我相信它能帮助任何试图估算 Berkshire 内在价值的人。在下面这张更新后的表格里，我们追踪了两个关键的价值指标。第一列列出我们“每股拥有的投资”（包括现金及等价物）；第二列展示 Berkshire 经营性业务“每股税前收益”（未计购买会计调整），但已扣除全部利息与总部管理费用。经营收益这一列不包含第一列那些投资所带来的股息、利息以及我们实现的资本利得。换句话说，这两列数据等于是展示：如果 Berkshire 被拆成两个部分，它会分别报告出怎样的结果。
As the table tells you, our investments per share increased in 1996 by 29.0% and our non-investment earnings grew by 63.2%. Our goal is to keep the numbers in both columns moving ahead at a reasonable (or, better yet, unreasonable) pace.
正如表格所示，1996 年我们“每股投资”（含现金及等价物）增加了 29.0%，而“非投资收益”（即经营性业务收益）增长了 63.2%。我们的目标，是让表格中两列数字都以合理的速度持续前进（或者更好，以“不合理”的速度前进）。
Our expectations, however, are tempered by two realities. First, our past rates of growth cannot be matched nor even approached: Berkshire’s equity capital is now large—in fact, fewer than ten businesses in America have capital larger— and an abundance of funds tends to dampen returns. Second, whatever our rate of progress, it will not be smooth: Year-to-year moves in the first column of the table above will be influenced in a major way by fluctuations in securities markets; the figures in the second column will be affected by wide swings in the profitability of our catastrophe-reinsurance business.
不过，我们的预期也会被两个现实所约束。第一，我们过去的增长速度不可能再现，甚至连接近都很难：Berkshire 的权益资本规模如今已非常庞大——事实上，美国资本规模比我们更大的企业不到十家——而资金过于充裕往往会压低回报。第二，无论我们的进展速度如何，都不可能平滑：上表第一列的年度变动会在很大程度上受证券市场波动影响；第二列的数字则会受到我们巨灾再保险业务盈利大幅起落的影响。
In the table, the donations made pursuant to our shareholder-designated contributions program are charged against the second column, though we view them as a shareholder benefit rather than as an expense. All other corporate expenses are also charged against the second column. These costs may be lower than those of any other large American corporation: Our after-tax headquarters expense amounts to less than two basis points (1/50th of 1%) measured against net worth. Even so, Charlie used to think this expense percentage outrageously high, blaming it on my use of Berkshire’s corporate jet, The Indefensible. But Charlie has recently experienced a “counter-revelation”: With our purchase of FlightSafety, whose major activity is the training of corporate pilots, he now rhapsodizes at the mere mention of jets.
在表格里，我们按“股东指定捐赠计划”所做的捐赠被计入第二列的扣减项，尽管我们把它们视为股东福利，而不是费用。其他所有公司层面的开支也都计入第二列。我们的这些成本可能比任何一家美国大型公司都更低：总部的税后费用，以净资产衡量，还不到 2 个基点（1/50 个百分点）。即便如此，Charlie 过去还觉得这个费用比例高得离谱，他把原因归咎于我使用 Berkshire 的公务机——The Indefensible。但 Charlie 最近出现了一个“反向顿悟”：随着我们收购了 FlightSafety（其主要业务是培训公司飞行员），他现在只要一听到“喷气式飞机”这个词就开始兴致勃勃。
Seriously, costs matter. For example, equity mutual funds incur corporate expenses—largely payments to the funds’ managers—that average about 100 basis points, a levy likely to cut the returns their investors earn by 10% or more over time. Charlie and I make no promises about Berkshire’s results. We do promise you, however, that virtually all of the gains Berkshire makes will end up with shareholders. We are here to make money with you, not off you.
说正经的，成本很重要。比如，股票型共同基金要承担公司费用——主要是支付给基金经理的费用——平均大约 100 个基点；这类“征收”长期下来很可能把投资者实际获得的回报削减 10% 或更多。Charlie 和我对 Berkshire 的业绩不做任何承诺。但我们可以向你们承诺的是：Berkshire 所取得的几乎所有收益，最终都会留给股东。我们在这里，是要与你们一起赚钱，而不是靠你们赚钱。
The Relationship of Intrinsic Value to Market Price
内在价值与市场价格的关系
In last year’s letter, with Berkshire shares selling at $36,000, I told you: (1) Berkshire’s gain in market value in recent years had outstripped its gain in intrinsic value, even though the latter gain had been highly satisfactory; (2) that kind of overperformance could not continue indefinitely; (3) Charlie and I did not at that moment consider Berkshire to be undervalued.
在去年的信中，当 Berkshire 股价在 36,000 美元附近交易时，我曾提醒你们三点：（1）近几年 Berkshire 的市值增长已经超过了内在价值的增长，尽管后者的增长本身已经令人非常满意；（2）这种“跑赢内在价值”的超额表现不可能无限期持续；（3）在当时那个时点，Charlie 和我并不认为 Berkshire 被低估。
Since I set down those cautions, Berkshire’s intrinsic value has increased very significantly—aided in a major way by a stunning performance at GEICO that I will tell you more about later—while the market price of our shares has changed little. This, of course, means that in 1996 Berkshire’s stock underperformed the business. Consequently, today’s price/value relationship is both much different from what it was a year ago and, as Charlie and I see it, more appropriate.
自我写下这些提醒以来，Berkshire 的内在价值大幅提升——其中一个重要推动力，是 GEICO 极其出色的表现，我稍后会进一步说明——而我们的股价却几乎没有变化。这当然意味着：在 1996 年，Berkshire 的股票表现落后于企业本身的经营进展。因此，今天的“价格/价值”关系，不仅与一年前大不相同，而且在 Charlie 和我看来，也更为恰当。
Over time, the aggregate gains made by Berkshire shareholders must of necessity match the business gains of the company. When the stock temporarily overperforms or underperforms the business, a limited number of shareholders—either sellers or buyers—receive outsized benefits at the expense of those they trade with. Generally, the sophisticated have an edge over the innocents in this game.
从长期看，Berkshire 股东总体获得的累计收益，必然要与公司经营所创造的收益相匹配。当股票在一段时间内暂时跑赢或跑输企业本身时，就会有一小部分股东——卖方或买方——在与他们交易的另一方的代价之上获得超额利益。一般而言，在这个游戏里，老练者通常会比“无辜者”占便宜。
Though our primary goal is to maximize the amount that our shareholders, in total, reap from their ownership of Berkshire, we wish also to minimize the benefits going to some shareholders at the expense of others. These are goals we would have were we managing a family partnership, and we believe they make equal sense for the manager of a public company. In a partnership, fairness requires that partnership interests be valued equitably when partners enter or exit; in a public company, fairness prevails when market price and intrinsic value are in sync. Obviously, they won’t always meet that ideal, but a manager—by his policies and communications—can do much to foster equity.
尽管我们的首要目标，是最大化 Berkshire 股东整体从持有中获得的回报，但我们也希望尽量减少“某些股东以牺牲其他股东为代价而获得的好处”。如果我们管理的是一个家族合伙企业，我们也会追求同样的目标；而我们认为，对于一家上市公司的管理者而言，这些目标同样合理。在合伙企业里，公平要求：当合伙人进入或退出时，合伙权益必须被公允定价；在上市公司里，当市场价格与内在价值保持一致时，公平就更容易实现。显然，这种理想状态不会总是成立，但管理者可以通过其政策与沟通方式，在很大程度上促进这种“公允”。
Of course, the longer a shareholder holds his shares, the more bearing Berkshire’s business results will have on his financial experience—and the less it will matter what premium or discount to intrinsic value prevails when he buys and sells his stock. That’s one reason we hope to attract owners with long-term horizons. Overall, I think we have succeeded in that pursuit. Berkshire probably ranks number one among large American corporations in the percentage of its shares held by owners with a long-term view.
当然，股东持有股票的时间越长，Berkshire 的经营结果对其财务体验的影响就越大——而他在买入与卖出时，股价相对内在价值是溢价还是折价的重要性就越小。这也是我们希望吸引长期持有者的原因之一。总体而言，我认为我们在这方面做得不错。就持股结构而言，Berkshire 在美国大型公司中，很可能在“由长期视角的所有者持有的股份比例”这一指标上排名第一。
Acquisitions of 1996
1996 年的收购
We made two acquisitions in 1996, both possessing exactly the qualities we seek—excellent business economics and an outstanding manager.
1996 年我们完成了两项收购，这两家企业都具备我们所追求的全部特质——出色的商业经济性，以及杰出的管理者。
The first acquisition was Kansas Bankers Surety (KBS), an insurance company whose name describes its specialty. The company, which does business in 22 states, has an extraordinary underwriting record, achieved through the efforts of Don Towle, an extraordinary manager. Don has developed first-hand relationships with hundreds of bankers and knows every detail of his operation. He thinks of himself as running a company that is “his,” an attitude we treasure at Berkshire. Because of its relatively small size, we placed KBS with Wesco, our 80%-owned subsidiary, which has wanted to expand its insurance operations.
第一项收购是 Kansas Bankers Surety（KBS），一家保险公司，名字就点明了它的专业领域。这家公司在 22 个州开展业务，拥有非同寻常的承保记录，而这主要得益于 Don Towle——一位同样非同寻常的管理者。Don 与数百位银行家建立了一手的直接关系，并且对自身运营的每个细节都了如指掌。他把自己当作在经营一家“属于他”的公司，这种心态正是我们在 Berkshire 极其珍视的。由于 KBS 规模相对较小，我们把它安排在 Wesco（我们持股 80% 的子公司）之下；Wesco 一直希望扩展其保险业务。
You might be interested in the carefully-crafted and sophisticated acquisition strategy that allowed Berkshire to nab this deal. Early in 1996 I was invited to the 40th birthday party of my nephew’s wife, Jane Rogers. My taste for social events being low, I immediately, and in my standard, gracious way, began to invent reasons for skipping the event. The party planners then countered brilliantly by offering me a seat next to a man I always enjoy, Jane’s dad, Roy Dinsdale—so I went.
你们也许会对 Berkshire “精心设计、极其老练”的收购策略感兴趣——正是它让我们拿下了这笔交易。1996 年初，我受邀参加我侄媳妇 Jane Rogers 的 40 岁生日派对。由于我对社交活动的兴趣一向不高，我立刻——并以我一贯“体面、周到”的方式——开始编造理由准备缺席。派对的筹办者随后出招漂亮：他们说会安排我坐在一个我总是很乐意相处的人旁边——Jane 的父亲 Roy Dinsdale——于是我就去了。
The party took place on January 26. Though the music was loud—Why must bands play as if they will be paid by the decibel?—I just managed to hear Roy say he’d come from a directors meeting at Kansas Bankers Surety, a company I’d always admired. I shouted back that he should let me know if it ever became available for purchase.
派对在 1 月 26 日举行。虽然音乐声震耳欲聋——为什么乐队总要演奏得像是按分贝收费？——我还是勉强听到 Roy 说，他刚从 Kansas Bankers Surety 的董事会议回来；那是一家我一直很欣赏的公司。我大声回喊，让他如果哪天公司愿意出售，一定要通知我。
On February 12, I got the following letter from Roy: “Dear Warren: Enclosed is the annual financial information on Kansas Bankers Surety. This is the company that we talked about at Janie’s party. If I can be of any further help, please let me know.” On February 13, I told Roy we would pay $75 million for the company—and before long we had a deal. I’m now scheming to get invited to Jane’s next party.
2 月 12 日，我收到了 Roy 的来信，内容如下：“Dear Warren: Enclosed is the annual financial information on Kansas Bankers Surety. This is the company that we talked about at Janie’s party. If I can be of any further help, please let me know.” 2 月 13 日，我告诉 Roy：我们愿意为这家公司支付 7,500 万美元——不久之后，交易就谈成了。现在我正在盘算着，怎么才能被邀请参加 Jane 的下一次派对。
Our other acquisition in 1996—FlightSafety International, the world’s leader in the training of pilots—was far larger, at about $1.5 billion, but had an equally serendipitous origin. The heroes of this story are first, Richard Sercer, a Tucson aviation consultant, and second, his wife, Alma Murphy, an ophthalmology graduate of Harvard Medical School, who in 1990 wore down her husband’s reluctance and got him to buy Berkshire stock. Since then, the two have attended all our Annual Meetings, but I didn’t get to know them personally.
我们在 1996 年的另一项收购——FlightSafety International，全球领先的飞行员培训机构——规模要大得多，约 15 亿美元，但其起源同样带有“机缘巧合”的色彩。这个故事里的英雄首先是 Richard Sercer，一位来自 Tucson 的航空顾问；其次是他的妻子 Alma Murphy——Harvard Medical School 的眼科毕业生——她在 1990 年磨掉了丈夫的犹豫，促使他买入了 Berkshire 股票。此后，这对夫妇参加了我们所有的 Annual Meetings，但我一直没有与他们建立个人层面的熟识关系。
Fortunately, Richard had also been a long-time shareholder of FlightSafety, and it occurred to him last year that the two companies would make a good fit. He knew our acquisition criteria, and he thought that Al Ueltschi, FlightSafety’s 79-year-old CEO, might want to make a deal that would both give him a home for his company and a security in payment that he would feel comfortable owning throughout his lifetime. So in July, Richard wrote Bob Denham, CEO of Salomon Inc, suggesting that he explore the possibility of a merger.
幸好，Richard 也是 FlightSafety 的长期股东。去年他想到：这两家公司会是很好的组合。他了解我们的收购标准，并且认为 FlightSafety 79 岁的 CEO——Al Ueltschi——或许愿意做一笔交易：既能为他的公司找到一个“归宿”，又能在收购对价中拿到一种证券，让他在余生都能安心持有。因此在 7 月，Richard 写信给 Salomon Inc 的 CEO Bob Denham，建议他去探讨并购的可能性。
Bob took it from there, and on September 18, Al and I met in New York. I had long been familiar with FlightSafety’s business, and in about 60 seconds I knew that Al was exactly our kind of manager. A month later, we had a contract. Because Charlie and I wished to minimize the issuance of Berkshire shares, the transaction we structured gave FlightSafety shareholders a choice of cash or stock but carried terms that encouraged those who were tax-indifferent to take cash. This nudge led to about 51% of FlightSafety’s shares being exchanged for cash, 41% for Berkshire A and 8% for Berkshire B.
Bob 接手推进此事。9 月 18 日，Al 和我在纽约见面。我早就熟悉 FlightSafety 的业务，而在大约 60 秒内我就确定：Al 正是我们喜欢的那类管理者。一个月后，我们就签了合同。由于 Charlie 和我希望尽量减少发行 Berkshire 股票，我们设计的交易结构让 FlightSafety 股东可以选择现金或股票，但条款上会鼓励那些对税负不敏感的人选择现金。这个“小小的引导”使得约 51% 的 FlightSafety 股份以现金交换，41% 换成 Berkshire A，8% 换成 Berkshire B。
Al has had a lifelong love affair with aviation and actually piloted Charles Lindbergh. After a barnstorming career in the 1930s, he began working for Juan Trippe, Pan Am’s legendary chief. In 1951, while still at Pan Am, Al founded FlightSafety, subsequently building it into a simulator manufacturer and a worldwide trainer of pilots (single-engine, helicopter, jet and marine). The company operates in 41 locations, outfitted with 175 simulators of planes ranging from the very small, such as Cessna 210s, to Boeing 747s. Simulators are not cheap—they can cost as much as $19 million —so this business, unlike many of our operations, is capital intensive. About half of the company’s revenues are derived from the training of corporate pilots, with most of the balance coming from airlines and the military.
Al 一生都痴迷航空，甚至还亲自给 Charles Lindbergh 当过飞行员。经历了 1930 年代的特技飞行（barnstorming）生涯后，他开始为 Pan Am 的传奇掌门 Juan Trippe 工作。1951 年，Al 仍在 Pan Am 任职期间创办了 FlightSafety，随后把它打造为一家模拟器制造商，并发展成全球性的飞行员培训机构（涵盖单发飞机、直升机、喷气机以及海事领域）。公司在 41 个地点运营，配备 175 台模拟器，所模拟的机型从很小的机型（例如 Cessna 210）一直到 Boeing 747。模拟器并不便宜——单台成本最高可达 1,900 万美元——因此与我们很多业务不同，这是一门资本密集型生意。公司大约一半收入来自企业飞行员培训，其余大部分来自航空公司和军方。
Al may be 79, but he looks and acts about 55. He will run operations just as he has in the past: We never fool with success. I have told him that though we don’t believe in splitting Berkshire stock, we will split his age 2-for-1 when he hits 100.
Al 虽然 79 岁，但看起来、做事风格都像 55 岁。他会一如既往地负责运营：我们从不去“折腾”已经成功的做法。我告诉他：虽然我们不相信拆分 Berkshire 股票，但等他到了 100 岁，我们会把他的年龄做一次 2-for-1 拆分。
An observer might conclude from our hiring practices that Charlie and I were traumatized early in life by an EEOC bulletin on age discrimination. The real explanation, however, is self-interest: It’s difficult to teach a new dog old tricks. The many Berkshire managers who are past 70 hit home runs today at the same pace that long ago gave them reputations as young slugging sensations. Therefore, to get a job with us, just employ the tactic of the 76-year-old who persuaded a dazzling beauty of 25 to marry him. “How did you ever get her to accept?” asked his envious contemporaries. The comeback: “I told her I was 86.”
旁观者或许会从我们的用人偏好得出结论：Charlie 和我年轻时可能被某份关于年龄歧视的 EEOC 公告吓出心理阴影。但真正的原因其实是出于自利：想教一只新狗学会老把戏很难。伯克希尔许多超过 70 岁的经理人，如今仍以当年让他们在年轻时就“名声大噪”的同样节奏持续打出本垒打。因此，想在我们这里得到一份工作，只需要使用那位 76 岁老人追到 25 岁绝色佳人并与之结婚的策略。那些嫉妒的同龄人问他：“你怎么让她答应的？”他的回击是：“我告诉她我 86 岁。”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
And now we pause for our usual commercial: If you own a large business with good economic characteristics and wish to become associated with an exceptional collection of businesses having similar characteristics, Berkshire may well be the home you seek. Our requirements are set forth on page 21. If your company meets them—and if I fail to make the next birthday party you attend—give me a call.
现在照例插播一段“商业广告”：如果你拥有一家经济特性良好的大型企业，并希望与一组同样具备类似特性的卓越企业建立关联，那么 Berkshire 很可能就是你在寻找的归宿。我们的要求列在第 21 页。如果你的公司符合这些要求——而且我又恰好错过了你下一次参加的生日派对——那就给我打个电话。
Insurance Operations—Overview
保险业务概览
Our insurance business was terrific in 1996. In both primary insurance, where GEICO is our main unit, and in our “super-cat” reinsurance business, results were outstanding.
1996 年我们的保险业务表现极为出色。无论是以 GEICO 为主的原保险业务，还是我们的“super-cat”（超级巨灾）再保险业务，结果都非常优秀。
As we’ve explained in past reports, what counts in our insurance business is, first, the amount of “float” we generate and, second, its cost to us. These are matters that are important for you to understand because float is a major component of Berkshire’s intrinsic value that is not reflected in book value.
正如我们在以往的报告中解释过的，在保险业务里真正关键的有两点：第一，我们产生了多少“float”（浮存金）；第二，浮存金的成本是多少。这些是你们必须理解的，因为 float 是 Berkshire 内在价值的重要组成部分，但它并不会体现在账面价值里。
直接面对消费者的保险业务特点是分散，缺点是容易受到政策的干扰。
To begin with, float is money we hold but don’t own. In an insurance operation, float arises because premiums are received before losses are paid. Secondly, the premiums that an insurer takes in typically do not cover the losses and expenses it eventually must pay. That leaves it running an “underwriting loss,” which is the cost of float. An insurance business has value if its cost of float over time is less than the cost the company would otherwise incur to obtain funds. But the business is an albatross if the cost of its float is higher than market rates for money.
首先，float 是我们持有但并不拥有的钱。在保险业务中，float 产生于这样的机制：保费先收进来，而赔付要在之后才支付。其次，保险公司收取的保费通常并不足以覆盖最终必须支付的赔款与费用。于是保险公司就会出现“underwriting loss”（承保亏损），而这正是 float 的成本。只有当一家保险业务长期的 float 成本低于公司通过其他方式获取资金所需承担的成本时，这家保险业务才具有价值；反之，如果 float 的成本高于资金的市场利率，这项业务就会成为公司沉重的负担（albatross）。
As the numbers in the following table show, Berkshire’s insurance business has been a huge winner. For the table, we have calculated our float— which we generate in large amounts relative to our premium volume—by adding loss reserves, loss adjustment reserves, funds held under reinsurance assumed and unearned premium reserves, and then subtracting agents’ balances, prepaid acquisition costs, prepaid taxes and deferred charges applicable to assumed reinsurance. Our cost of float is determined by our underwriting loss or profit. In those years when we have had an underwriting profit, such as the last four, our cost of float has been negative. In effect, we have been paid for holding money.
如下表所示的数字证明，Berkshire 的保险业务一直是一项巨大的胜利。为了制作该表，我们按如下方法计算 float——相对于保费规模，我们能够产生大量的 float：将未决赔款准备金（loss reserves）、赔款调整准备金（loss adjustment reserves）、分入再保险项下持有资金（funds held under reinsurance assumed）和未到期保费准备金（unearned premium reserves）相加，然后减去代理人余额（agents’ balances）、预付取得成本（prepaid acquisition costs）、预付税款（prepaid taxes）以及适用于分入再保险的递延费用（deferred charges applicable to assumed reinsurance）。我们的 float 成本由承保亏损或承保利润决定。在那些我们实现承保利润的年份——比如最近四年——我们的 float 成本为负。实际上，我们等于是因“替别人持有资金”而获得报酬。
Since 1967, when we entered the insurance business, our float has grown at an annual compounded rate of 22.3%. In more years than not, our cost of funds has been less than nothing. This access to “free” money has boosted Berkshire’s performance in a major way. Moreover, our acquisition of GEICO materially increases the probability that we can continue to obtain “free” funds in increasing amounts.
自 1967 年我们进入保险业以来，我们的 float 一直以 22.3% 的复合年增长率增长。在更多的年份里，我们的资金成本不仅不高，甚至“低于零”。这种获得“免费”资金的能力，在很大程度上推动了 Berkshire 的业绩表现。此外，我们收购 GEICO 实质性地提高了这样一种概率：我们能够持续以不断增长的规模获取“免费”资金。
Super-Cat Insurance
超级巨灾保险
As in the past three years, we once again stress that the good results we are reporting for Berkshire stem in part from our super-cat business having a lucky year. In this operation, we sell policies that insurance and reinsurance companies buy to protect themselves from the effects of mega-catastrophes. Since truly major catastrophes are rare occurrences, our super-cat business can be expected to show large profits in most years—and to record a huge loss occasionally. In other words, the attractiveness of our super-cat business will take a great many years to measure. What you must understand, however, is that a truly terrible year in the super-cat business is not a possibility—it’s a certainty. The only question is when it will come.
和过去三年一样，我们再次强调：Berkshire 所报告的良好业绩，部分原因在于我们的 super-cat 业务在这一年“运气不错”。在这项业务中，我们出售保单给保险公司与再保险公司，帮助它们对冲超级巨灾（mega-catastrophes）带来的冲击。由于真正重大的灾难事件并不常见，我们的 super-cat 业务在大多数年份预期会取得可观利润——但偶尔会出现一次巨额亏损。换句话说，这项业务的吸引力，需要用很多年才能衡量清楚。但你们必须理解：在 super-cat 业务中，真正糟糕的一年不是“可能发生”，而是“必然发生”。唯一的不确定是：它会在什么时候到来。
I emphasize this lugubrious point because I would not want you to panic and sell your Berkshire stock upon hearing that some large catastrophe had cost us a significant amount. If you would tend to react that way, you should not own Berkshire shares now, just as you should entirely avoid owning stocks if a crashing market would lead you to panic and sell. Selling fine businesses on “scary” news is usually a bad decision. (Robert Woodruff, the business genius who built Coca-Cola over many decades and who owned a huge position in the company, was once asked when it might be a good time to sell Coke stock. Woodruff had a simple answer: “I don’t know. I’ve never sold any.”)
我之所以强调这个沉重的点，是因为我不希望你们在听到某场巨大灾难让我们损失惨重之后，就恐慌性地抛售 Berkshire 股票。如果你倾向于那样反应，那你现在就不应该持有 Berkshire 的股票；就像如果市场暴跌会让你恐慌抛售，你就应该完全避免持有股票一样。因为在“吓人的消息”下抛售优秀企业，通常是个坏决定。（曾有人问 Robert Woodruff——这位用几十年时间打造 Coca-Cola 的商业天才、并在公司持有巨大仓位——什么时候可能是卖出 Coke 股票的好时机。Woodruff 的回答很简单：“我不知道。我从未卖过任何一股。”）
In our super-cat operation, our customers are insurers that are exposed to major earnings volatility and that wish to reduce it. The product we sell— for what we hope is an appropriate price— is our willingness to shift that volatility to our own books. Gyrations in Berkshire’s earnings don’t bother us in the least: Charlie and I would much rather earn a lumpy 15% over time than a smooth 12%. (After all, our earnings swing wildly on a daily and weekly basis—why should we demand that smoothness accompany each orbit that the earth makes of the sun?) We are most comfortable with that thinking, however, when we have shareholder/partners who can also accept volatility, and that’s why we regularly repeat our cautions.
在我们的 super-cat 业务里，客户是那些利润波动很大、希望降低波动的保险公司。我们出售的产品——我们希望以合适的价格——是：愿意把这类波动转移到我们自己的账面上。Berkshire 盈利的起伏对我们毫无困扰：Charlie 和我宁愿长期赚一个“颠簸的”15%，也不愿意赚一个“平滑的”12%。（毕竟，我们的财富每天、每周都在剧烈波动——那我们为什么要要求：地球每绕太阳一圈，我们的报表也得“平滑”一次呢？）不过，当我们拥有同样能接受波动的股东/合伙人时，我们会对这种思维方式更为安心，这也正是我们反复强调风险提示的原因。
We took on some major super-cat exposures during 1996. At mid-year we wrote a contract with Allstate that covers Florida hurricanes, and though there are no definitive records that would allow us to prove this point, we believe that to have then been the largest single catastrophe risk ever assumed by one company for its own account. Later in the year, however, we wrote a policy for the California Earthquake Authority that goes into effect on April 1, 1997, and that exposes us to a loss more than twice that possible under the Florida contract. Again we retained all the risk for our own account. Large as these coverages are, Berkshire’s after-tax “worst-case” loss from a true mega-catastrophe is probably no more than $600 million, which is less than 3% of our book value and 1.5% of our market value. To gain some perspective on this exposure, look at the table on page 2 and note the much greater volatility that security markets have delivered us.
1996 年我们承担了一些重大 super-cat 风险敞口。年中，我们与 Allstate 签订了一份覆盖 Florida 飓风风险的合同。虽然没有权威记录能让我们证明这一点，但我们相信：这在当时可能是单一公司为自身账户承保的最大一笔单项巨灾风险。随后在年内，我们又为 California Earthquake Authority 承保了一份保单，自 1997 年 4 月 1 日生效；这份保单使我们面临的潜在损失，超过 Florida 合同可能损失的两倍。同样，我们把全部风险都留在自有账户中。尽管这些承保额度很大，但如果发生真正的超级巨灾事件，Berkshire 税后“最坏情形”的损失大概不超过 6 亿美元；这相当于我们账面价值的不到 3%，以及市值的 1.5%。要正确理解这类风险敞口，请看第 2 页的表格，并注意证券市场带给我们的波动远远更大。
In the super-cat business, we have three major competitive advantages. First, the parties buying reinsurance from us know that we both can and will pay under the most adverse of circumstances. Were a truly cataclysmic disaster to occur, it is not impossible that a financial panic would quickly follow. If that happened, there could well be respected reinsurers that would have difficulty paying at just the moment that their clients faced extraordinary needs. Indeed, one reason we never “lay off” part of the risks we insure is that we have reservations about our ability to collect from others when disaster strikes. When it’s Berkshire promising, insureds know with certainty that they can collect promptly.
在 super-cat 业务中，我们有三项主要竞争优势。第一，向我们购买再保险的一方知道：在最不利的情况下，我们既有能力也有意愿履约赔付。若发生真正灾难性的事件，金融恐慌随后迅速出现并非不可能。如果那样，某些声誉良好的再保险公司，可能恰恰在其客户需求极端迫切之时，却面临赔付困难。事实上，我们之所以从不把已承保风险的一部分“转分”出去（lay off），原因之一正是：当灾难发生时，我们对能否从其他机构顺利回收赔款心存疑虑。而当承诺来自 Berkshire，被保险人就能确定：他们可以迅速、足额地拿到赔付。
Our second advantage—somewhat related—is subtle but important. After a mega-catastrophe, insurers might well find it difficult to obtain reinsurance even though their need for coverage would then be particularly great. At such a time, Berkshire would without question have very substantial capacity available—but it will naturally be our long-standing clients that have first call on it. That business reality has made major insurers and reinsurers throughout the world realize the desirability of doing business with us. Indeed, we are currently getting sizable “stand-by” fees from reinsurers that are simply nailing down their ability to get coverage from us should the market tighten.
我们的第二项优势——与第一点多少相关——更为微妙，但很重要。超级巨灾发生后，保险公司可能会发现很难再买到再保险；而此时它们对保障的需求反而会特别强烈。在这种时刻，Berkshire 毫无疑问仍会拥有非常充足的承保能力——但自然，最先获得这部分能力的，会是我们长期合作的客户。这一商业现实使全球的主要保险公司与再保险公司都意识到：与我们建立业务关系是有价值的。事实上，我们目前正从一些再保险公司那里收取可观的“备用费”（stand-by fees），它们这么做只是为了锁定：一旦市场收紧，它们能够从我们这里获得保障的权利。
Our final competitive advantage is that we can provide dollar coverages of a size neither matched nor approached elsewhere in the industry. Insurers looking for huge covers know that a single call to Berkshire will produce a firm and immediate offering.
我们的第三项竞争优势是：我们能够提供的承保额度规模，是业内其他公司既无法匹配，也无法接近的。需要超大额度保障的保险公司明白：只要给 Berkshire 打一个电话，就能得到明确且即时的报价。
A few facts about our exposure to California earthquakes—our largest risk—seem in order. The Northridge quake of 1994 laid homeowners’ losses on insurers that greatly exceeded what computer models had told them to expect. Yet the intensity of that quake was mild compared to the “worst-case” possibility for California. Understandably, insurers became—ahem—shaken and started contemplating a retreat from writing earthquake coverage into their homeowners’ policies.
关于我们在 California 地震方面的风险敞口——这是我们最大的风险——有几点事实值得交代。1994 年的 Northridge 地震，使得房主损失最终落到保险公司身上的金额，大幅超过了电脑模型此前告诉他们应当预期的水平。然而，与 California “最坏情形”的可能性相比，那次地震的强度其实还算温和。可以理解的是，保险公司随即变得——嗯——“心有余震”，开始考虑退出：不再在房主保单中承保地震风险。
In a thoughtful response, Chuck Quackenbush, California’s insurance commissioner, designed a new residential earthquake policy to be written by a state-sponsored insurer, The California Earthquake Authority. This entity, which went into operation on December 1, 1996, needed large layers of reinsurance—and that’s where we came in. Berkshire’s layer of approximately $1 billion will be called upon if the Authority’s aggregate losses in the period ending March 31, 2001 exceed about $5 billion. (The press originally reported larger figures, but these would have applied only if all California insurers had entered into the arrangement; instead only 72% signed up.)
在一次深思熟虑的回应中，California 的保险监管官 Chuck Quackenbush 设计了一种新的居民地震保单，由一家州政府支持的保险机构——The California Earthquake Authority——来承保。该机构于 1996 年 12 月 1 日开始运作，需要分层配置大额再保险——这正是我们介入的地方。Berkshire 承担了约 10 亿美元的责任层：在截至 2001 年 3 月 31 日的期间内，如果 Authority 的累计损失超过约 50 亿美元，我们这一层就会被触发。（媒体最初报道的数字更大，但那只有在 California 所有保险公司都加入该安排时才适用；实际上只有 72% 的公司签署加入。）
So what are the true odds of our having to make a payout during the policy’s term? We don’t know—nor do we think computer models will help us, since we believe the precision they project is a chimera. In fact, such models can lull decision-makers into a false sense of security and thereby increase their chances of making a really huge mistake. We’ve already seen such debacles in both insurance and investments. Witness “portfolio insurance,” whose destructive effects in the 1987 market crash led one wag to observe that it was the computers that should have been jumping out of windows.
那么，在保单期限内我们真正需要赔付的概率到底有多大？我们不知道——而且我们也不认为电脑模型能帮上忙，因为我们认为它们所展示的精确度是一种“海市蜃楼”（chimera）。事实上，这类模型可能让决策者产生虚假的安全感，从而提高他们犯下巨大错误的概率。我们在保险和投资两个领域都见过这类惨剧。比如所谓的“portfolio insurance”，它在 1987 年市场崩盘中的破坏性影响，曾让人打趣说：那次该跳楼的其实是电脑。
Even if perfection in assessing risks is unattainable, insurers can underwrite sensibly. After all, you need not know a man’s precise age to know that he is old enough to vote nor know his exact weight to recognize his need to diet. In insurance, it is essential to remember that virtually all surprises are unpleasant, and with that in mind we try to price our super-cat exposures so that about 90% of total premiums end up being eventually paid out in losses and expenses. Over time, we will find out how smart our pricing has been, but that will not be quickly. The super-cat business is just like the investment business in that it often takes a long time to find out whether you knew what you were doing.
即便我们无法完美评估风险，保险公司仍然可以理性承保。毕竟，你不需要知道一个人的精确年龄就能判断他是否已到投票年龄，也不需要知道他的准确体重才能看出他该减肥了。在保险业务中，必须牢记：几乎所有“意外”都不是好消息。基于这一点，我们努力为 super-cat 风险定价，使得总保费中大约 90% 最终会以损失与费用的形式支付出去。随着时间推移，我们会知道自己的定价有多聪明，但这不会很快发生。super-cat 业务与投资业务极其相似：你往往需要很长时间才能知道自己当初到底懂不懂自己在做什么。
What I can state with certainty, however, is that we have the best person in the world to run our super-cat business: Ajit Jain, whose value to Berkshire is simply enormous. In the reinsurance field, disastrous propositions abound. I know that because I personally embraced all too many of these in the 1970s and also because GEICO has a large runoff portfolio made up of foolish contracts written in the early-1980s, able though its then-management was. Ajit, I can assure you, won’t make mistakes of this type.
但有一点我可以确定地说：我们拥有全球最适合负责 super-cat 业务的人——Ajit Jain；他对 Berkshire 的价值大到难以言表。在再保险领域，灾难性的交易提案比比皆是。我之所以这么说，一方面是因为我在 1970 年代亲自拥抱过太多这类“坏主意”；另一方面是因为 GEICO 也有一个规模很大的“runoff”（存量退出）组合，其中包含了早 1980 年代签下的许多愚蠢合同——尽管当时的管理层很能干。我可以向你们保证：Ajit 绝不会犯这类错误。
I have mentioned that a mega-catastrophe might cause a catastrophe in the financial markets, a possibility that is unlikely but not far-fetched. Were the catastrophe a quake in California of sufficient magnitude to tap our coverage, we would almost certainly be damaged in other ways as well. For example, See’s, Wells Fargo and Freddie Mac could be hit hard. All in all, though, we can handle this aggregation of exposures.
我曾提到，一场超级巨灾可能会在金融市场引发“另一场灾难”；这种情况概率不高，但也并非天方夜谭。假如灾难是一场足以触发我们承保层的 California 大地震，那么我们几乎肯定也会在其他方面受到冲击。例如，See’s、Wells Fargo 和 Freddie Mac 可能会遭受重创。尽管如此，综合来看，我们能够承受这些风险敞口的叠加。
In this respect, as in others, we try to “reverse engineer” our future at Berkshire, bearing in mind Charlie’s dictum: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” (Inverting really works: Try singing country western songs backwards and you will quickly regain your house, your car and your wife.) If we can’t tolerate a possible consequence, remote though it may be, we steer clear of planting its seeds. That is why we don’t borrow big amounts and why we make sure that our super-cat business losses, large though the maximums may sound, will not put a major dent in Berkshire’s intrinsic value.
在这一点上，就像在其他方面一样，我们会尝试对 Berkshire 的未来进行“逆向工程”（reverse engineer），并牢记 Charlie 的箴言：“我只想知道我会死在哪里，这样我就永远不去那儿。”（倒过来确实有效：试着把乡村西部歌曲倒着唱，你很快就能把房子、车子和妻子都找回来。）如果某个潜在后果是我们无法承受的——即便它发生的概率很低——我们也会避开“种下它的种子”。这就是为什么我们不进行大规模借贷，也为什么我们会确保：尽管 super-cat 业务的最大损失听起来很吓人，但它不会对 Berkshire 的内在价值造成重大打击。
Insurance—GEICO and Other Primary Operations
保险业务——GEICO 与其他原保险业务
When we moved to total ownership of GEICO early last year, our expectations were high—and they are all being exceeded. That is true from both a business and personal perspective: GEICO’s operating chief, Tony Nicely, is a superb business manager and a delight to work with. Under almost any conditions, GEICO would be an exceptionally valuable asset. With Tony at the helm, it is reaching levels of performance that the organization would only a few years ago have thought impossible.
去年年初我们实现对 GEICO 的全资控股时，我们的预期很高——而现在这些预期都在被不断超越。无论从业务角度还是个人合作角度都是如此：GEICO 的运营负责人 Tony Nicely 是一位卓越的经营管理者，也是一位合作起来令人愉快的人。在几乎任何环境下，GEICO 都会是一项异常有价值的资产；而在 Tony 的掌舵之下，它正在达到一种表现水平——就在几年前，GEICO 组织内部都会认为这是不可能的。
There’s nothing esoteric about GEICO’s success: The company’s competitive strength flows directly from its position as a low-cost operator. Low costs permit low prices, and low prices attract and retain good policyholders. The final segment of a virtuous circle is drawn when policyholders recommend us to their friends. GEICO gets more than one million referrals annually and these produce more than half of our new business, an advantage that gives us enormous savings in acquisition expenses—and that makes our costs still lower.
GEICO 的成功并没有什么玄学：公司的竞争力直接源自其“低成本运营者”的定位。低成本意味着可以定低价；低价可以吸引并留住优质保单客户；而良性循环的最后一环，是保单客户把我们推荐给朋友。GEICO 每年获得超过一百万个转介绍，而这些转介绍带来了我们超过一半的新业务——这项优势为我们节省了巨额的获客费用，并进一步把我们的成本压得更低。
This formula worked in spades for GEICO in 1996: Its voluntary auto policy count grew 10%. During the previous 20 years, the company’s best-ever growth for a year had been 8%, a rate achieved only once. Better yet, the growth in voluntary policies accelerated during the year, led by major gains in the nonstandard market, which has been an underdeveloped area at GEICO. I focus here on voluntary policies because the involuntary business we get from assigned risk pools and the like is unprofitable. Growth in that sector is most unwelcome.
这套公式在 1996 年让 GEICO 大获成功：其自愿车险（voluntary auto）保单数量增长了 10%。在此前 20 年里，公司年度增速的历史最高值也只有 8%，而且只出现过一次。更好的是，自愿保单的增长在年内还在加速，其中一个重要推动力来自非标准市场（nonstandard market）的显著增长——这一直是 GEICO 相对欠开发的领域。我之所以聚焦自愿保单，是因为我们从“指定风险池”（assigned risk pools）等渠道获得的非自愿业务是亏损的；这个板块的增长最不受欢迎。
GEICO’s growth would mean nothing if it did not produce reasonable underwriting profits. Here, too, the news is good: Last year we hit our underwriting targets and then some. Our goal, however, is not to widen our profit margin but rather to enlarge the price advantage we offer customers. Given that strategy, we believe that 1997’s growth will easily top that of last year.
如果 GEICO 的增长不能带来合理的承保利润，那这种增长就毫无意义。在这方面，消息同样很好：去年我们不仅实现了承保目标，而且还超额完成。不过，我们的目标并不是扩大利润率，而是扩大我们给予客户的价格优势。基于这一策略，我们相信 1997 年的增长将会轻松超过去年。
We expect new competitors to enter the direct-response market, and some of our existing competitors are likely to expand geographically. Nonetheless, the economies of scale we enjoy should allow us to maintain or even widen the protective moat surrounding our economic castle. We do best on costs in geographical areas in which we enjoy high market penetration. As our policy count grows, concurrently delivering gains in penetration, we expect to drive costs materially lower. GEICO’s sustainable cost advantage is what attracted me to the company way back in 1951, when the entire business was valued at $7 million. It is also why I felt Berkshire should pay $2.3 billion last year for the 49% of the company that we didn’t then own.
我们预计会有新的竞争者进入直销（direct-response）市场，同时，一些现有竞争者也可能在地域上扩张。尽管如此，我们所享有的规模经济应当使我们能够维持，甚至进一步加宽环绕我们“经济城堡”的护城河。我们在那些市场渗透率较高的地区，成本表现最好。随着保单数量增长并同步带来渗透率提升，我们预计成本会显著下降。GEICO 可持续的成本优势，正是我早在 1951 年就被这家公司吸引的原因——那时整个企业的估值只有 700 万美元。这也正是我为什么认为 Berkshire 去年应该为我们当时尚未拥有的 49% 股权支付 23 亿美元的原因。
Maximizing the results of a wonderful business requires management and focus. Lucky for us, we have in Tony a superb manager whose business focus never wavers. Wanting also to get the entire GEICO organization concentrating as he does, we needed a compensation plan that was itself sharply focused—and immediately after our purchase, we put one in.
要把一家杰出企业的结果最大化，需要管理与专注。对我们来说很幸运：Tony 是一位出色的管理者，他的业务专注力从不动摇。为了让整个 GEICO 组织像他一样集中精力，我们需要一套同样高度聚焦的薪酬方案——并且在我们完成收购后不久就把它落地了。
Today, the bonuses received by dozens of top executives, starting with Tony, are based upon only two key variables: (1) growth in voluntary auto policies and (2) underwriting profitability on “seasoned” auto business (meaning policies that have been on the books for more than one year). In addition, we use the same yardsticks to calculate the annual contribution to the company’s profit-sharing plan. Everyone at GEICO knows what counts.
如今，从 Tony 开始的几十位高管所获得的奖金，只取决于两个关键变量：（1）自愿车险（voluntary auto）保单增长；（2）“成熟”车险业务（seasoned auto，即在账超过一年的保单）的承保盈利能力。此外，我们也用同样的衡量指标来计算公司利润分享计划（profit-sharing plan）的年度贡献。GEICO 的每个人都知道什么才是关键。
The GEICO plan exemplifies Berkshire’s incentive compensation principles: Goals should be (1) tailored to the economics of the specific operating business; (2) simple in character so that the degree to which they are being realized can be easily measured; and (3) directly related to the daily activities of plan participants. As a corollary, we shun “lottery ticket” arrangements, such as options on Berkshire shares, whose ultimate value—which could range from zero to huge—is totally out of the control of the person whose behavior we would like to affect. In our view, a system that produces quixotic payoffs will not only be wasteful for owners but may actually discourage the focused behavior we value in managers.
GEICO 的方案体现了 Berkshire 的激励薪酬原则：目标应当（1）与具体经营业务的经济特性相匹配；（2）在特征上足够简单，使达成程度能够被轻易衡量；（3）与计划参与者的日常活动直接相关。作为推论，我们会回避“彩票式”的安排，比如对 Berkshire 股票的期权——其最终价值（可能从零到巨大不等）完全不受我们希望影响其行为的那个人所控制。在我们看来，产生“唐吉诃德式”支付结果的体系，不仅会让所有者付出不必要的浪费，甚至可能反过来抑制我们在管理者身上所重视的那种聚焦行为。
聚焦从头到尾都是最重要的因素。
Every quarter, all 9,000 GEICO associates can see the results that determine our profit-sharing plan contribution. In 1996, they enjoyed the experience because the plan literally went off the chart that had been constructed at the start of the year. Even I knew the answer to that problem: Enlarge the chart. Ultimately, the results called for a record contribution of 16.9% ($40 million), compared to a five-year average of less than 10% for the comparable plans previously in effect. Furthermore, at Berkshire, we never greet good work by raising the bar. If GEICO’s performance continues to improve, we will happily keep on making larger charts.
每个季度，全部 9,000 名 GEICO 员工都能看到决定我们利润分享计划（profit-sharing plan）缴款的业绩结果。1996 年，他们享受了这种体验，因为这个计划的结果“直接突破了年初做好的那张图表”。连我都知道怎么解决这个问题：把图表画大。最终的结果要求做出创纪录的缴款——16.9%（4,000 万美元）；相比之下，过去类似计划在生效期间的五年平均水平还不到 10%。而且在 Berkshire，我们从不会用“提高门槛”来回应干得好。只要 GEICO 的表现持续改善，我们就会很乐意继续画更大的图表。
Lou Simpson continues to manage GEICO’s money in an outstanding manner: Last year, the equities in his portfolio outdid the S&P 500 by 6.2 percentage points. In Lou’s part of GEICO’s operation, we again tie compensation to performance—but to investment performance over a four-year period, not to underwriting results nor to the performance of GEICO as a whole. We think it foolish for an insurance company to pay bonuses that are tied to overall corporate results when great work on one side of the business—underwriting or investment—could conceivably be completely neutralized by bad work on the other. If you bat .350 at Berkshire, you can be sure you will get paid commensurately even if the rest of the team bats .200. In Lou and Tony, however, we are lucky to have Hall-of-Famers in both key positions.
Lou Simpson 继续以极为出色的方式管理 GEICO 的资金：去年，他投资组合中的股票表现比 S&P 500 高出 6.2 个百分点。在 Lou 负责的 GEICO 投资业务部分，我们同样把薪酬与业绩绑定——但绑定的是四年期的投资业绩，而不是承保结果，也不是 GEICO 整体表现。我们认为，保险公司如果把奖金与整体公司业绩绑定，是很愚蠢的：因为业务的一端（承保或投资）即便做得再好，也可能被另一端的糟糕表现完全抵消。在 Berkshire，如果你能打出 .350 的打击率（bat .350），即便全队其他人只有 .200，你也可以确信自己会拿到与表现相称的回报。不过在 Lou 和 Tony 这两位身上，我们很幸运——关键岗位上，两位都是名人堂级别（Hall-of-Famers）的选手。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Though they are, of course, smaller than GEICO, our other primary insurance operations turned in equally stunning results last year. National Indemnity’s traditional business had a combined ratio of 74.2 and, as usual, developed a large amount of float compared to premium volume. Over the last three years, this segment of our business, run by Don Wurster, has had an average combined ratio of 83.0. Our homestate operation, managed by Rod Eldred, recorded a combined ratio of 87.1 even though it absorbed the expenses of expanding to new states. Rod’s three-year combined ratio is an amazing 83.2.
当然，我们其他原保险业务规模都比 GEICO 小，但去年交出的成绩同样令人震撼。National Indemnity 的传统业务综合赔付率（combined ratio）为 74.2，并且像往常一样，相对于保费规模产生了大量 float。过去三年里，这个由 Don Wurster 管理的业务板块，平均 combined ratio 为 83.0。我们的 homestate 业务由 Rod Eldred 管理，尽管承担了向新州扩张的费用，仍录得 87.1 的 combined ratio；Rod 的三年平均 combined ratio 令人惊叹，为 83.2。
Berkshire’s workers’ compensation business, run out of California by Brad Kinstler, has now moved into six other states and, despite the costs of that expansion, again achieved an excellent underwriting profit. Finally, John Kizer, at Central States Indemnity, set new records for premium volume while generating good earnings from underwriting. In aggregate, our smaller insurance operations (now including Kansas Bankers Surety) have an underwriting record virtually unmatched in the industry. Don, Rod, Brad and John have all created significant value for Berkshire, and we believe there is more to come.
Berkshire 的工伤保险（workers’ compensation）业务由 Brad Kinstler 在 California 负责，如今已扩展到另外六个州；尽管扩张带来成本，仍再次实现了优秀的承保利润。最后，Central States Indemnity 的 John Kizer 在创下保费规模新纪录的同时，也取得了良好的承保盈利。综合来看，我们规模较小的保险业务（现已包括 Kansas Bankers Surety）在承保纪录上几乎是行业中无可匹敌的。Don、Rod、Brad 和 John 都为 Berkshire 创造了显著价值，我们相信未来还有更多价值会被释放出来。
Taxes
税收
In 1961, President Kennedy said that we should ask not what our country can do for us, but rather ask what we can do for our country. Last year we decided to give his suggestion a try—and who says it never hurts to ask? We were told to mail $860 million in income taxes to the U.S. Treasury.
1961 年，President Kennedy 说，我们不应当问国家能为我们做什么，而应当问我们能为国家做什么。去年我们决定试着采纳他的建议——而且谁说“问一问”从来没有好处？结果我们被告知：请把 8.60 亿美元的所得税寄给 U.S. Treasury。
Here’s a little perspective on that figure: If an equal amount had been paid by only 2,000 other taxpayers, the government would have had a balanced budget in 1996 without needing a dime of taxes—income or Social Security or what have you—from any other American. Berkshire shareholders can truly say, “I gave at the office.”
给你们一点量级上的参照：如果只有另外 2,000 位纳税人也各自缴纳同样数额，那么政府在 1996 年就可以实现预算平衡，而不需要从任何其他美国人那里再收一分钱的税——无论是所得税、Social Security 税，还是其他任何税种。Berkshire 股东完全可以说：“我已经在办公室交过了。”（I gave at the office.）
Charlie and I believe that large tax payments by Berkshire are entirely fitting. The contribution we thus make to society’s well-being is at most only proportional to its contribution to ours. Berkshire prospers in America as it would nowhere else.
Charlie 和我认为，Berkshire 缴纳大额税款是完全恰当的。我们因此对社会福祉所做的贡献，充其量也只是与社会对我们的贡献成比例而已。Berkshire 在 America 的繁荣程度，是在其他任何地方都无法实现的。
Sources of Reported Earnings
已披露收益的来源
The table that follows shows the main sources of Berkshire’s reported earnings. In this presentation, purchase-accounting adjustments are not assigned to the specific businesses to which they apply, but are instead aggregated and shown separately. This procedure lets you view the earnings of our businesses as they would have been reported had we not purchased them. For the reasons discussed on pages 65 and 66, this form of presentation seems to us to be more useful to investors and managers than one utilizing generally-accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which require purchase-premiums to be charged off business-by-business. The total earnings we show in the table are, of course, identical to the GAAP total in our audited financial statements.
下表展示了 Berkshire 已披露收益的主要来源。在该呈现方式中，purchase-accounting adjustments 并不分摊到其所对应的具体业务上，而是汇总后单独列示。这样处理可以让你看到：如果我们没有收购这些业务，它们的收益本来会以何种方式被报告出来。基于第 65 和 66 页所讨论的原因，我们认为这种呈现方式对投资者与管理者而言，比采用 GAAP（后者要求将收购溢价按业务逐项摊销/冲减）更有用。当然，我们在表格中展示的总收益，与经审计财务报表中的 GAAP 总额完全一致。
In this section last year, I discussed three businesses that reported a decline in earnings—Buffalo News, Shoe Group and World Book. All, I’m happy to say, recorded gains in 1996.
在去年的这一部分里，我谈到了三家收益下滑的企业——Buffalo News、Shoe Group 和 World Book。让我高兴的是，它们在 1996 年都实现了收益增长。
World Book, however, did not find it easy: Despite the operation’s new status as the only direct-seller of encyclopedias in the country (Encyclopedia Britannica exited the field last year), its unit volume fell. Additionally, World Book spent heavily on a new CD-ROM product that began to take in revenues only in early 1997, when it was launched in association with IBM. In the face of these factors, earnings would have evaporated had World Book not revamped distribution methods and cut overhead at headquarters, thereby dramatically reducing its fixed costs. Overall, the company has gone a long way toward assuring its long-term viability in both the print and electronic marketplaces.
不过，World Book 的日子并不轻松：尽管它在业内取得了一个新地位——成为全国唯一的百科全书直销商（Encyclopedia Britannica 去年退出了这一领域）——其销量仍然下滑。此外，World Book 在一款新 CD-ROM 产品上投入了大量费用，而该产品直到 1997 年初、与 IBM 联合推出后才开始带来收入。在这些因素面前，如果 World Book 没有改造分销方式并削减总部管理开支，从而显著降低固定成本，那么公司的利润早就会被吞噬殆尽。总体而言，公司在确保其在纸质与电子两个市场的长期生存能力方面，已经取得了长足进展。
Our only disappointment last year was in jewelry: Borsheim’s did fine, but Helzberg’s suffered a material decline in earnings. Its expense levels had been geared to a sizable increase in same-store sales, consistent with the gains achieved in recent years. When sales were instead flat, profit margins fell. Jeff Comment, CEO of Helzberg’s, is addressing the expense problem in a decisive manner, and the company’s earnings should improve in 1997.
我们去年唯一的失望来自珠宝业务：Borsheim’s 表现不错，但 Helzberg’s 的收益却出现了显著下滑。它的费用水平原本是按“同店销售额大幅增长”来配置的，这与近几年取得的增长相一致；但当销售额实际只是持平时，利润率就被挤压下来了。Helzberg’s 的 CEO Jeff Comment 正以果断方式处理费用问题，公司在 1997 年的收益应当会改善。
Overall, our operating businesses continue to perform exceptionally, far outdoing their industry norms. For this, Charlie and I thank our managers. If you should see any of them at the Annual Meeting, add your thanks as well.
总体来说，我们的经营性业务依旧表现卓越，远远超出各自行业的常态水平。为此，Charlie 和我要感谢我们的经理人。如果你们在 Annual Meeting 上遇到他们，也请代我们向他们致谢。
More information about our various businesses is given on pages 36-46, where you will also find our segment earnings reported on a GAAP basis. In addition, on pages 51-57, we have rearranged Berkshire’s financial data into four segments on a non-GAAP basis, a presentation that corresponds to the way Charlie and I think about the company. Our intent is to supply you with the financial information that we would wish you to give us if our positions were reversed.
关于我们各项业务的更多信息见第 36-46 页，你们也会在那部分看到按 GAAP 口径披露的分部收益。此外，在第 51-57 页，我们把 Berkshire 的财务数据按非 GAAP 口径重新整理为四个业务板块，这种呈现方式与 Charlie 和我思考公司时的方式一致。我们的意图是：向你们提供这样一套财务信息——假如我们的角色互换，我们也希望你们能用同样的方式提供给我们。
“Look-Through” Earnings
“透视”（Look-Through）收益
Reported earnings are a poor measure of economic progress at Berkshire, in part because the numbers shown in the table presented earlier include only the dividends we receive from investees—though these dividends typically represent only a small fraction of the earnings attributable to our ownership. Not that we mind this division of money, since on balance we regard the undistributed earnings of investees as more valuable to us than the portion paid out. The reason is simple: Our investees often have the opportunity to reinvest earnings at high rates of return. So why should we want them paid out?
已披露收益（reported earnings）并不能很好地衡量 Berkshire 的经济进展，部分原因在于：前面那张表里的数字只包含我们从被投资公司收到的股息——而这些股息通常只占“按持股比例归属于我们”的收益的一小部分。我们并不介意这种资金分配方式，因为总体而言，我们认为：被投资公司未分配的收益（undistributed earnings）对我们更有价值，而不是把其中一部分分红给我们。原因很简单：我们的被投资公司往往有机会以很高的回报率再投资其收益。既然如此，我们为什么要它们把钱分出来？
To depict something closer to economic reality at Berkshire than reported earnings, though, we employ the concept of “look-through” earnings. As we calculate these, they consist of: (1) the operating earnings reported in the previous section, plus; (2) our share of the retained operating earnings of major investees that, under GAAP accounting, are not reflected in our profits, less; (3) an allowance for the tax that would be paid by Berkshire if these retained earnings of investees had instead been distributed to us. When tabulating “operating earnings” here, we exclude purchase-accounting adjustments as well as capital gains and other major non-recurring items.
为了更贴近 Berkshire 的经济现实，而不是停留在已披露收益层面，我们采用“look-through earnings”（透视收益）的概念。按我们的计算口径，它由三部分组成：（1）上一节所报告的经营性收益（operating earnings），加上；（2）我们按持股比例享有的、主要被投资公司所留存的经营性收益——这些收益按 GAAP 并不会体现在我们的利润中——再减去；（3）一项税负扣减：假设这些被投资公司的留存收益不是留存而是分配给我们，Berkshire 本应为此支付的税。这里在统计“operating earnings”时，我们剔除 purchase-accounting adjustments（购买会计调整），也剔除资本利得以及其他重大一次性项目。
The following table sets forth our 1996 look-through earnings, though I warn you that the figures can be no more than approximate, since they are based on a number of judgment calls. (The dividends paid to us by these investees have been included in the operating earnings itemized on page 12, mostly under “Insurance Group: Net Investment Income.”)
下表列示了我们 1996 年的透视收益。不过我先提醒你们：这些数字最多只能算是近似值，因为其中包含了若干需要做判断取舍的假设。（这些被投资公司支付给我们的股息，已经计入第 12 页所分项列示的经营性收益中，主要体现在“Insurance Group: Net Investment Income”一项。）
Common Stock Investments
普通股投资
Below we present our common stock investments. Those with a market value of more than $500 million are itemized.
下面我们列示了我们的普通股投资。其中，市值超过 5 亿美元的持仓会被逐项列出。
Our portfolio shows little change: We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.
我们的投资组合几乎没有变化：我们继续发现，打呼噜的时候赚得比忙活的时候更多。
Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior. Neither we nor most business managers would dream of feverishly trading highly-profitable subsidiaries because a small move in the Federal Reserve’s discount rate was predicted or because some Wall Street pundit had reversed his views on the market. Why, then, should we behave differently with our minority positions in wonderful businesses? The art of investing in public companies successfully is little different from the art of successfully acquiring subsidiaries. In each case you simply want to acquire, at a sensible price, a business with excellent economics and able, honest management. Thereafter, you need only monitor whether these qualities are being preserved.
“不作为”在我们看来是一种聪明的行为。无论是我们，还是大多数企业管理者，都不会因为有人预测 Federal Reserve 的贴现率会小幅变动，或因为某个 Wall Street 评论员又改口了，就去紧张兮兮地频繁买卖那些盈利能力极强的子公司。那么，我们为什么要在持有优秀企业的少数股权时表现得不一样呢？成功投资上市公司的艺术，与成功收购子公司的艺术几乎没有区别：在两种情形下，你都只是想以合理价格买入一家经济特性优秀、管理层有能力且诚实的企业。此后，你只需要持续观察这些关键特质是否被保持住即可。
When carried out capably, an investment strategy of that type will often result in its practitioner owning a few securities that will come to represent a very large portion of his portfolio. This investor would get a similar result if he followed a policy of purchasing an interest in, say, 20% of the future earnings of a number of outstanding college basketball stars. A handful of these would go on to achieve NBA stardom, and the investor’s take from them would soon dominate his royalty stream. To suggest that this investor should sell off portions of his most successful investments simply because they have come to dominate his portfolio is akin to suggesting that the Bulls trade Michael Jordan because he has become so important to the team.
当这种投资策略被有能力地执行时，常常会导致一个结果：投资者最终会持有少数几只证券，而它们会逐渐占据投资组合中非常大的比重。你可以把这类结果类比为：如果一个投资者采取的策略是，购买若干位出色的大学篮球明星未来收益的 20% 权益，那么其中少数几位会最终成为 NBA 的超级巨星，而投资者从他们那里获得的收入很快就会主导其“版税现金流”。因此，若有人建议这个投资者仅仅因为最成功的投资占比过高，就应该卖掉一部分，这就好比建议 Chicago Bulls 把 Michael Jordan 交易走，只因为他对球队变得太重要了。
In studying the investments we have made in both subsidiary companies and common stocks, you will see that we favor businesses and industries unlikely to experience major change. The reason for that is simple: Making either type of purchase, we are searching for operations that we believe are virtually certain to possess enormous competitive strength ten or twenty years from now. A fast-changing industry environment may offer the chance for huge wins, but it precludes the certainty we seek.
在研究我们对全资子公司与普通股所做的投资时，你会发现我们偏好那些不太可能发生重大变化的企业与行业。原因很简单：无论是收购子公司，还是买入股票，我们都在寻找这样一种经营体——我们相信它在 10 年或 20 年后几乎必然仍将拥有极强的竞争实力。行业环境变化过快也许提供“赢很大”的机会，但它排除了我们所追求的那种确定性。
I should emphasize that, as citizens, Charlie and I welcome change: Fresh ideas, new products, innovative processes and the like cause our country’s standard of living to rise, and that’s clearly good. As investors, however, our reaction to a fermenting industry is much like our attitude toward space exploration: We applaud the endeavor but prefer to skip the ride.
我需要强调的是：作为公民，Charlie 和我欢迎变化。新想法、新产品、创新流程等等会推动国家生活水平上升，这显然是好事。但作为投资者，我们对“正在发酵的行业”的态度，颇像我们对太空探索的态度：我们为这一事业喝彩，但更愿意跳过这趟旅程。
Obviously all businesses change to some extent. Today, See’s is different in many ways from what it was in 1972 when we bought it: It offers a different assortment of candy, employs different machinery and sells through different distribution channels. But the reasons why people today buy boxed chocolates, and why they buy them from us rather than from someone else, are virtually unchanged from what they were in the 1920s when the See family was building the business. Moreover, these motivations are not likely to change over the next 20 years, or even 50.
当然，所有企业在某种程度上都会变化。今天的 See’s 在许多方面已经不同于我们 1972 年买下它时：它提供的糖果组合不同，使用的机器不同，通过不同的渠道进行销售。但人们今天为什么会买盒装巧克力，以及为什么会从我们这里买而不是从别人那里买——这些根本原因，几乎和 1920 年代 See 家族打造这门生意时一模一样。而且，这些动机在未来 20 年，甚至 50 年里，都不太可能改变。
We look for similar predictability in marketable securities. Take Coca-Cola: The zeal and imagination with which Coke products are sold has burgeoned under Roberto Goizueta, who has done an absolutely incredible job in creating value for his shareholders. Aided by Don Keough and Doug Ivester, Roberto has rethought and improved every aspect of the company. But the fundamentals of the business—the qualities that underlie Coke’s competitive dominance and stunning economics—have remained constant through the years.
我们在可交易证券上也寻找类似的可预测性。以 Coca-Cola 为例：在 Roberto Goizueta 的领导下，Coke 产品的销售热情与想象力大幅提升；他为股东创造价值的工作堪称不可思议。在 Don Keough 与 Doug Ivester 的协助下，Roberto 重新思考并改进了公司运作的每一个方面。但这门生意的基本面——构成 Coke 竞争主导地位与惊人经济回报的那些要素——多年来始终如一。
I was recently studying the 1896 report of Coke (and you think that you are behind in your reading!). At that time Coke, though it was already the leading soft drink, had been around for only a decade. But its blueprint for the next 100 years was already drawn. Reporting sales of $148,000 that year, Asa Candler, the company’s president, said: “We have not lagged in our efforts to go into all the world teaching that Coca-Cola is the article, par excellence, for the health and good feeling of all people.” Though “health” may have been a reach, I love the fact that Coke still relies on Candler’s basic theme today—a century later. Candler went on to say, just as Roberto could now, “No article of like character has ever so firmly entrenched itself in public favor.” Sales of syrup that year, incidentally, were 116,492 gallons versus about 3.2 billion in 1996.
我最近在读 Coke 1896 年的年度报告（你以为你读得慢，其实我更慢！）。当时 Coke 虽然已是领先的软饮品牌，但成立还只有十年。然而，它未来 100 年的蓝图当时就已经画好。那一年公司报告销售额 148,000 美元，公司总裁 Asa Candler 说：“我们在向全世界宣传可口可乐是对于所有人的健康与良好感觉而言首屈一指的产品这件事上从未懈怠。” 尽管把“health”挂在嘴边也许有些夸张，但我喜欢这样一个事实：一个世纪之后，Coke 依然在沿用 Candler 的这个基本主题。Candler 还接着说了一句——Roberto 今天同样可以这么说——“没有哪篇同类作品能像这篇那样如此牢固地赢得公众的青睐。” 顺便一提，当年糖浆销量为 116,492 加仑，而 1996 年约为 32 亿加仑。
I can’t resist one more Candler quote: “Beginning this year about March 1st . . . we employed ten traveling salesmen by means of which, with systematic correspondence from the office, we covered almost the territory of the Union.” That’s my kind of sales force.
我忍不住还想再引用一句 Candler 的话：“从今年大约三月一日开始……我们雇用了十名巡回推销员，通过他们并辅以办公室的系统性函件，我们几乎覆盖了整个联邦的领土。” 这才是我喜欢的销售队伍。
Companies such as Coca-Cola and Gillette might well be labeled “The Inevitables.” Forecasters may differ a bit in their predictions of exactly how much soft drink or shaving-equipment business these companies will be doing in ten or twenty years. Nor is our talk of inevitability meant to play down the vital work that these companies must continue to carry out, in such areas as manufacturing, distribution, packaging and product innovation. In the end, however, no sensible observer—not even these companies’ most vigorous competitors, assuming they are assessing the matter honestly—questions that Coke and Gillette will dominate their fields worldwide for an investment lifetime. Indeed, their dominance will probably strengthen. Both companies have significantly expanded their already huge shares of market during the past ten years, and all signs point to their repeating that performance in the next decade.
像 Coca-Cola 和 Gillette 这样的公司，很可能可以被称作“The Inevitables”（“必然者”）。预测者也许会在细节上有所分歧，比如这些公司在 10 年或 20 年后到底会卖出多少软饮料或剃须用品。我们谈“必然性”，也并不是要淡化这些公司必须持续做好工作的事实——例如在制造、分销、包装以及产品创新等方面。归根结底，没有任何理性的观察者——甚至包括这些公司最强劲的竞争对手（假设他们诚实评估）——会怀疑 Coke 和 Gillette 在一个投资者的持有周期里仍将全球主导各自领域。事实上，它们的主导地位很可能还会加强。过去十年，两家公司在本已极高的市场份额基础上又显著扩张，而所有迹象都表明：它们在未来十年会重复这种表现。
Inevitables的定义，后来的说法是：have an enduring “moat”。
Obviously many companies in high-tech businesses or embryonic industries will grow much faster in percentage terms than will The Inevitables. But I would rather be certain of a good result than hopeful of a great one.
当然，很多身处高科技行业或新兴行业（embryonic industries）的公司，在增长率上很可能会远快于这些“必然者”。但我宁愿确定地得到一个不错的结果，也不愿只是希望得到一个伟大的结果。
Of course, Charlie and I can identify only a few Inevitables, even after a lifetime of looking for them. Leadership alone provides no certainties: Witness the shocks some years back at General Motors, IBM and Sears, all of which had enjoyed long periods of seeming invincibility. Though some industries or lines of business exhibit characteristics that endow leaders with virtually insurmountable advantages, and that tend to establish Survival of the Fattest as almost a natural law, most do not. Thus, for every Inevitable, there are dozens of Impostors, companies now riding high but vulnerable to competitive attacks. Considering what it takes to be an Inevitable, Charlie and I recognize that we will never be able to come up with a Nifty Fifty or even a Twinkling Twenty. To the Inevitables in our portfolio, therefore, we add a few “Highly Probables.”
当然，即便 Charlie 和我用一生去寻找，我们也只能识别出少数几个“必然者”。仅有领先地位并不能带来确定性：看看多年前 General Motors、IBM 和 Sears 所遭遇的冲击就知道了，它们都曾长期显得不可战胜。确实，有些行业或业务线具有某些特征，能够赋予行业龙头几乎不可逾越的优势，并使“Survival of the Fattest”（“胖者生存”）几乎成为一种自然法则；但多数行业并非如此。因此，每出现一个“必然者”，就会有几十个“冒牌货”（Impostors）：它们眼下风光无限，却容易受到竞争攻击。考虑到要成为“必然者”所需具备的条件，Charlie 和我也清楚：我们永远不可能凑出一套 Nifty Fifty（漂亮五十）甚至 Twinkling Twenty（闪耀二十）。因此，在我们的投资组合里，除了这些“必然者”，我们还会加入少数几个“Highly Probables”（“高度大概率者”）。
You can, of course, pay too much for even the best of businesses. The overpayment risk surfaces periodically and, in our opinion, may now be quite high for the purchasers of virtually all stocks, The Inevitables included. Investors making purchases in an overheated market need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid.
当然，即便是最好的企业，你也可能买得太贵。过度支付的风险会周期性出现；而在我们看来，对几乎所有股票的购买者而言——包括那些 “The Inevitables”——眼下这种风险可能相当高。在一个过热的市场里做买入的投资者必须意识到：即便是一家卓越公司，也常常需要很长时间，其内在价值才能追上你所支付的价格。
A far more serious problem occurs when the management of a great company gets sidetracked and neglects its wonderful base business while purchasing other businesses that are so-so or worse. When that happens, the suffering of investors is often prolonged. Unfortunately, that is precisely what transpired years ago at both Coke and Gillette. (Would you believe that a few decades back they were growing shrimp at Coke and exploring for oil at Gillette?) Loss of focus is what most worries Charlie and me when we contemplate investing in businesses that in general look outstanding. All too often, we’ve seen value stagnate in the presence of hubris or of boredom that caused the attention of managers to wander. That’s not going to happen again at Coke and Gillette, however—not given their current and prospective managements.
但更严重的问题，是一家伟大公司的管理层被带偏了方向：在收购一些平庸甚至更差的业务时，忽视了原本极其出色的核心业务。一旦发生这种情况，投资者所遭受的痛苦往往会被拉得很长。不幸的是，多年前 Coke 和 Gillette 都曾经出现过这种情况。（你敢相信吗？几十年前 Coke 居然在养虾，而 Gillette 居然在勘探石油。）当 Charlie 和我考虑投资那些看起来总体很优秀的企业时，最令我们担忧的就是“失去聚焦”。我们见过太多次：在傲慢或无聊的驱使下，管理者的注意力游离，导致价值在原地踏步。不过，Coke 与 Gillette 不会再重演这种情况——至少在它们当前与未来的管理层配置之下不会。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Let me add a few thoughts about your own investments. Most investors, both institutional and individual, will find that the best way to own common stocks is through an index fund that charges minimal fees. Those following this path are sure to beat the net results (after fees and expenses) delivered by the great majority of investment professionals.
我再补充几句关于你们自身投资的想法。大多数投资者——无论是机构还是个人——都会发现：拥有普通股的最佳方式，是通过费用极低的指数基金。走这条路的人，几乎可以确定会跑赢绝大多数投资专业人士所交付的净回报（扣除费用与支出之后的回报）。
Should you choose, however, to construct your own portfolio, there are a few thoughts worth remembering. Intelligent investing is not complex, though that is far from saying that it is easy. What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word “selected”: You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.
不过，如果你选择构建自己的投资组合，有几点值得牢记。聪明的投资并不复杂，但这并不意味着它容易。投资者需要具备的，是能够正确评估“被选中的”企业。注意“被选中的”这个词：你不必精通每一家公司，甚至不必精通很多家公司。你只需要能评估那些处在你能力圈（circle of competence）之内的公司即可。这个能力圈的大小并不重要；但清楚地知道它的边界，至关重要。
To invest successfully, you need not understand beta, efficient markets, modern portfolio theory, option pricing or emerging markets. You may, in fact, be better off knowing nothing of these. That, of course, is not the prevailing view at most business schools, whose finance curriculum tends to be dominated by such subjects. In our view, though, investment students need only two well-taught courses—How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Market Prices.
要想投资成功，你不必理解 beta、有效市场、现代投资组合理论、期权定价或新兴市场。事实上，你也许在对这些一无所知的情况下反而更占便宜。当然，这并不是大多数商学院的主流观点；它们的金融课程往往被上述主题所主导。但在我们看来，投资学生只需要两门教得足够好的课程——《如何给企业估值》（How to Value a Business）与《如何看待市场价格》（How to Think About Market Prices）。
Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten and twenty years from now. Over time, you will find only a few companies that meet these standards—so when you see one that qualifies, you should buy a meaningful amount of stock. You must also resist the temptation to stray from your guidelines: If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value.
作为投资者，你的目标应当很简单：以理性的价格，买入一家容易理解的企业的一部分权益，并且几乎可以确定这家企业在 5 年、10 年、20 年后的盈利水平会显著高于今天。随着时间推移，你只会找到少数符合这些标准的公司——因此，当你遇到一家具备条件的公司时，你应该买入“有分量”的股票数量。你也必须抵制偏离这些准则的诱惑：如果你不愿意持有一只股票 10 年，那就连 10 分钟都不要考虑持有它。把一组企业组合在一起，使其整体盈利随时间稳步上行，那么这组企业的市场价值也会随之上行。
Though it’s seldom recognized, this is the exact approach that has produced gains for Berkshire shareholders: Our look-through earnings have grown at a good clip over the years, and our stock price has risen correspondingly. Had those gains in earnings not materialized, there would have been little increase in Berkshire’s value.
尽管很少有人意识到，这正是 Berkshire 股东获得收益的确切方法：多年来，我们的“透视收益”（look-through earnings）以不错的速度增长，而我们的股价也相应上升。如果这种盈利增长没有发生，Berkshire 的价值就不会有多少提升。
The greatly enlarged earnings base we now enjoy will inevitably cause our future gains to lag those of the past. We will continue, however, to push in the directions we always have. We will try to build earnings by running our present businesses well—a job made easy because of the extraordinary talents of our operating managers—and by purchasing other businesses, in whole or in part, that are not likely to be roiled by change and that possess important competitive advantages.
我们如今拥有的大幅扩张的盈利基数，将不可避免地导致未来的增幅落后于过去。尽管如此，我们仍会继续沿着一贯的方向推进：我们会通过把现有业务经营好来提升盈利——这项工作之所以相对容易，是因为我们拥有一批才华卓越的经营经理人——同时也会通过收购（全部或部分）其他企业来扩大盈利，这些企业不太可能被变化所搅动，并且拥有重要的竞争优势。
USAir
When Richard Branson, the wealthy owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, was asked how to become a millionaire, he had a quick answer: “There’s really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.” Unwilling to accept Branson’s proposition on faith, your Chairman decided in 1989 to test it by investing $358 million in a 9.25% preferred stock of USAir.
当 Richard Branson——Virgin Atlantic Airways 的富有老板——被问到如何成为百万富翁时，他迅速回答：“这事没什么难的。先从亿万富翁开始，然后买一家航空公司。”不愿仅凭 Branson 的说法就照单全收，你们的 Chairman 在 1989 年决定亲自做个验证：他用 3.58 亿美元投资了 USAir 的一只 9.25% 优先股。
I liked and admired Ed Colodny, the company’s then-CEO, and I still do. But my analysis of USAir’s business was both superficial and wrong. I was so beguiled by the company’s long history of profitable operations, and by the protection that ownership of a senior security seemingly offered me, that I overlooked the crucial point: USAir’s revenues would increasingly feel the effects of an unregulated, fiercely-competitive market whereas its cost structure was a holdover from the days when regulation protected profits. These costs, if left unchecked, portended disaster, however reassuring the airline’s past record might be. (If history supplied all of the answers, the Forbes 400 would consist of librarians.)
我喜欢并敬佩当时的 CEO Ed Colodny，现在依然如此。但我对 USAir 业务的分析既肤浅又错误。我被这家公司长期盈利的历史所迷惑，也被“持有一项优先级更高的证券似乎能提供保护”这一点所迷惑，从而忽略了关键问题：USAir 的收入将越来越多地受到一个放松监管、竞争极其激烈的市场的冲击，而它的成本结构却仍是监管时代的遗留产物——当年监管保护了利润。这些成本如果不加控制，就预示着灾难的到来，不管过去的记录看起来多么令人安心。（如果历史能提供所有答案，那么 Forbes 400 里就会全是图书管理员。）
To rationalize its costs, however, USAir needed major improvements in its labor contracts—and that’s something most airlines have found it extraordinarily difficult to get, short of credibly threatening, or actually entering, bankruptcy. USAir was to be no exception. Immediately after we purchased our preferred stock, the imbalance between the company’s costs and revenues began to grow explosively. In the 1990-1994 period, USAir lost an aggregate of $2.4 billion, a performance that totally wiped out the book equity of its common stock.
然而，要让成本结构回归合理，USAir 必须在劳工合同上做出重大改进——而这件事对大多数航空公司而言都极其困难，除非它们能可信地威胁破产，甚至真的进入破产程序。USAir 也不例外。我们买入优先股之后不久，公司成本与收入之间的不平衡就开始爆炸式扩大。在 1990—1994 年期间，USAir 累计亏损 24 亿美元，这种表现把其普通股的账面权益彻底抹平。
For much of this period, the company paid us our preferred dividends, but in 1994 payment was suspended. A bit later, with the situation looking particularly gloomy, we wrote down our investment by 75%, to $89.5 million. Thereafter, during much of 1995, I offered to sell our shares at 50% of face value. Fortunately, I was unsuccessful.
在这段时期的大部分时间里，公司仍向我们支付了优先股股息，但在 1994 年支付被暂停。稍后，当形势看起来格外黯淡时，我们把这项投资的账面价值减记了 75%，降到 8,950 万美元。此后，在 1995 年的大部分时间里，我都提出愿意按票面价值的 50% 出售我们的股份。幸好，我没有卖成。
Mixed in with my many mistakes at USAir was one thing I got right: Making our investment, we wrote into the preferred contract a somewhat unusual provision stipulating that “penalty dividends”—to run five percentage points over the prime rate—would be accrued on any arrearages. This meant that when our 9.25% dividend was omitted for two years, the unpaid amounts compounded at rates ranging between 13.25% and 14%.
在我对 USAir 的诸多错误之中，有一件事我做对了：在进行这笔投资时，我们在优先股合同里写入了一条相当不寻常的条款，规定对任何拖欠款项都要计提“penalty dividends”（惩罚性股息）——其利率比 prime rate（最优惠贷款利率）高出 5 个百分点。这意味着，当我们 9.25% 的股息连续两年被暂停时，未支付的金额会以 13.25% 到 14% 的利率复利增长。
Facing this penalty provision, USAir had every incentive to pay arrearages just as promptly as it could. And in the second half of 1996, when USAir turned profitable, it indeed began to pay, giving us $47.9 million. We owe Stephen Wolf, the company’s CEO, a huge thank-you for extracting a performance from the airline that permitted this payment. Even so, USAir’s performance has recently been helped significantly by an industry tailwind that may be cyclical in nature. The company still has basic cost problems that must be solved.
在这种惩罚性条款面前，USAir 有强烈动机尽快补缴拖欠款项。而在 1996 年下半年，当 USAir 转为盈利后，它确实开始补缴，向我们支付了 4,790 万美元。我们要对公司 CEO Stephen Wolf 表达由衷的感谢——他让这家航空公司交出足以支持这笔支付的业绩。即便如此，USAir 最近的表现也在很大程度上受益于行业的顺风，这种顺风可能具有周期性特征。公司仍然存在必须解决的基础性成本问题。
In any event, the prices of USAir’s publicly-traded securities tell us that our preferred stock is now probably worth its par value of $358 million, give or take a little. In addition, we have over the years collected an aggregate of $240.5 million in dividends (including $30 million received in 1997).
无论如何，USAir 公开交易证券的市场价格告诉我们：我们的优先股现在大概已经值其 3.58 亿美元的票面价值，上下会有些偏差。此外，多年来我们累计收到了 2.405 亿美元的股息（其中包括 1997 年收到的 3,000 万美元）。
Early in 1996, before any accrued dividends had been paid, I tried once more to unload our holdings—this time for about $335 million. You’re lucky: I again failed in my attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
1996 年初，在任何累计股息尚未支付之前，我又一次试图把我们的持仓卖掉——这次报价大约 3.35 亿美元。你们算走运：我又一次没能成功，从而没能在“胜利的边缘”把失败硬拽出来。
In another context, a friend once asked me: “If you’re so rich, why aren’t you smart?” After reviewing my sorry performance with USAir, you may conclude he had a point.
在另一个场合，一位朋友曾问我：“既然你这么有钱，为什么还不聪明？”回头看看我在 USAir 上那惨不忍睹的表现，你们也许会觉得他说得有点道理。
Financings
融资安排
We wrote four checks to Salomon Brothers last year and in each case were delighted with the work for which we were paying. I’ve already described one transaction: the FlightSafety purchase in which Salomon was the initiating investment banker. In a second deal, the firm placed a small debt offering for our finance subsidiary.
去年我们给 Salomon Brothers 开了四张支票，每一次都对自己所付费得到的工作非常满意。我已经描述过其中一笔交易：收购 FlightSafety，Salomon 在其中担任发起方的投资银行。在第二笔交易中，该公司为我们的一家金融子公司承做了一笔小规模的债务发行。
Additionally, we made two good-sized offerings through Salomon, both with interesting aspects. The first was our sale in May of 517,500 shares of Class B Common, which generated net proceeds of $565 million. As I have told you before, we made this sale in response to the threatened creation of unit trusts that would have marketed themselves as Berkshire look-alikes. In the process, they would have used our past, and definitely nonrepeatable, record to entice naive small investors and would have charged these innocents high fees and commissions.
此外，我们还通过 Salomon 做了两笔规模不小的发行，而且都颇有意思。第一笔是我们在 5 月出售 517,500 股 Class B Common，净募集资金 5.65 亿美元。正如我之前告诉过你们的，我们之所以出售这些股份，是为了应对一项威胁：有人打算设立 unit trusts，并把自己包装成 Berkshire 的“仿制品”来营销。在这个过程中，他们会利用我们过去（而且绝对不可重复）的业绩记录，去诱骗天真散户投资者，并向这些“无辜者”收取高额费用与佣金。
I think it would have been quite easy for such trusts to have sold many billions of dollars worth of units, and I also believe that early marketing successes by these trusts would have led to the formation of others. (In the securities business, whatever can be sold will be sold.) The trusts would have meanwhile indiscriminately poured the proceeds of their offerings into a supply of Berkshire shares that is fixed and limited. The likely result: a speculative bubble in our stock. For at least a time, the price jump would have been self-validating, in that it would have pulled new waves of naive and impressionable investors into the trusts and set off still more buying of Berkshire shares.
我认为，这类 trusts 原本很容易卖出数十亿美元的单位份额；我也相信，只要它们早期营销成功，就会引来更多同类产品的出现。（在证券行业里，凡是能卖的东西，最终都会被卖出去。）与此同时，这些 trusts 会把募集来的资金不加选择地投入到 Berkshire 股票上——而 Berkshire 的股票供给是固定且有限的。很可能的结果是：我们的股票出现投机泡沫。至少在一段时间里，股价上涨会产生“自我验证”的效果：它会把新一波天真且容易受影响的投资者吸引进这些 trusts，从而触发更多对 Berkshire 股票的买入。
Some Berkshire shareholders choosing to exit might have found that outcome ideal, since they could have profited at the expense of the buyers entering with false hopes. Continuing shareholders, however, would have suffered once reality set in, for at that point Berkshire would have been burdened with both hundreds of thousands of unhappy, indirect owners (trustholders, that is) and a stained reputation.
对于某些选择退出的 Berkshire 股东而言，这种结果也许堪称理想，因为他们可以在买方带着虚假希望入场时从中获利。但对继续持有的股东而言，一旦现实回归，反而会遭受损害：那时 Berkshire 不仅会背负成百上千、心怀不满的“间接所有者”（也就是这些 trust 的持有人），还会背上一块名誉污点。
Our issuance of the B shares not only arrested the sale of the trusts, but provided a low-cost way for people to invest in Berkshire if they still wished to after hearing the warnings we issued. To blunt the enthusiasm that brokers normally have for pushing new issues—because that’s where the money is—we arranged for our offering to carry a commission of only 1.5%, the lowest payoff that we have ever seen in a common stock underwriting. Additionally, we made the amount of the offering open-ended, thereby repelling the typical IPO buyer who looks for a short-term price spurt arising from a combination of hype and scarcity.
我们发行 B 股不仅阻止了那些 trusts 的发行，也为那些在听完我们发出的警告之后仍希望投资 Berkshire 的人，提供了一种低成本的方式。为了削弱经纪商通常对推销新股发行的热情——因为那是他们赚钱的地方——我们把这次发行的承销佣金设定为仅 1.5%，这是我所见过普通股承销中最低的回报。此外，我们把发行规模设为“开放式”，从而吓退了那种典型 IPO 买家：他们指望借助“炒作 + 稀缺”带来的短期冲高获利。
Overall, we tried to make sure that the B stock would be purchased only by investors with a long-term perspective. Those efforts were generally successful: Trading volume in the B shares immediately following the offering—a rough index of “flipping”—was far below the norm for a new issue. In the end we added about 40,000 shareholders, most of whom we believe both understand what they own and share our time horizons.
总体而言，我们努力确保 B 股只会被具有长期视角的投资者买入。事实证明，这些努力基本成功：发行后不久 B 股的交易量——这是衡量“倒手”（flipping）的粗略指标——远低于新股发行的通常水平。最终我们增加了大约 40,000 名股东；我们相信其中大多数既理解自己拥有什么，也与我们分享同样的时间视野。
Salomon could not have performed better in the handling of this unusual transaction. Its investment bankers understood perfectly what we were trying to achieve and tailored every aspect of the offering to meet these objectives. The firm would have made far more money—perhaps ten times as much—if our offering had been standard in its make-up. But the investment bankers involved made no attempt to tweak the specifics in that direction. Instead they came up with ideas that were counter to Salomon’s financial interest but that made it much more certain Berkshire’s goals would be reached. Terry Fitzgerald captained this effort, and we thank him for the job that he did.
Salomon 在处理这笔非同寻常的交易时，表现无可挑剔。它的投行团队完全理解我们想要达到的目标，并把发行的每一个环节都量身定制来满足这些目标。如果我们的发行结构按惯例设计，Salomon 本可以赚到更多的钱——也许是现在的十倍。但相关投行人员没有试图把细节往那个方向“拧”过去。相反，他们提出了一些与 Salomon 自身经济利益相违背、却能更大概率实现 Berkshire 目标的建议。Terry Fitzgerald 领导了这项工作，我们感谢他所做的贡献。
Given that background, it won’t surprise you to learn that we again went to Terry when we decided late in the year to sell an issue of Berkshire notes that can be exchanged for a portion of the Salomon shares that we hold. In this instance, once again, Salomon did an absolutely first-class job, selling $500 million principal amount of five-year notes for $447.1 million. Each $1,000 note is exchangeable into 17.65 shares and is callable in three years at accreted value. Counting the original issue discount and a 1% coupon, the securities will provide a yield of 3% to maturity for holders who do not exchange them for Salomon stock. But it seems quite likely that the notes will be exchanged before their maturity. If that happens, our interest cost will be about 1.1% for the period prior to exchange.
基于上述背景，你们不会惊讶地得知：当我们在年底决定发行一批 Berkshire notes，并允许其兑换为我们持有的部分 Salomon 股票时，我们再次找到了 Terry。在这一次交易中，Salomon 再次交出了一流的成绩：它以 4.471 亿美元的价格，售出了本金 5 亿美元、期限五年的票据。每张 1,000 美元票据可兑换 17.65 股，并且在三年后可按递增后的价值被赎回（callable）。若持有人不将其兑换为 Salomon 股票，那么考虑到原始发行折价（original issue discount）与 1% 的票息，这些证券到期收益率约为 3%。但这些票据很可能会在到期前被兑换。如果真是如此，那么在兑换发生之前，我们的利息成本大约为 1.1%。
In recent years, it has been written that Charlie and I are unhappy about all investment-banking fees. That’s dead wrong. We have paid a great many fees over the last 30 years—beginning with the check we wrote to Charlie Heider upon our purchase of National Indemnity in 1967—and we are delighted to make payments that are commensurate with performance. In the case of the 1996 transactions at Salomon Brothers, we more than got our money’s worth.
近年来，有人写道 Charlie 和我不喜欢所有投行业务费用。这完全错误。过去 30 年里我们支付过大量费用——从 1967 年收购 National Indemnity 时写给 Charlie Heider 的那张支票开始——只要支付与表现相匹配，我们就很乐意。在 Salomon Brothers 参与的 1996 年这些交易中，我们获得的回报远远超过了所支付的费用。
Miscellaneous
杂项
Though it was a close decision, Charlie and I have decided to enter the 20th Century. Accordingly, we are going to put future quarterly and annual reports of Berkshire on the Internet, where they can be accessed via http://www.berkshirehathaway.com. We will always “post” these reports on a Saturday so that anyone interested will have ample time to digest the information before trading begins. Our publishing schedule for the next 12 months is May 17, 1997, August 16, 1997, November 15, 1997, and March 14, 1998. We will also post any press releases that we issue.
虽然这是一个很接近的决定，但 Charlie 和我还是决定迈入 20th Century。因此，我们将把 Berkshire 未来的季度报告与年度报告发布到 Internet 上，大家可以通过 http://www.berkshirehathaway.com访问。我们会始终选择在周六“发布”（post）这些报告，这样任何感兴趣的人都能在交易开始前有充足时间消化信息。未来 12 个月的发布时间表为：1997 年 5 月 17 日、1997 年 8 月 16 日、1997 年 11 月 15 日、以及 1998 年 3 月 14 日。我们也会发布我们所出具的任何新闻稿（press releases）。
At some point, we may stop mailing our quarterly reports and simply post these on the Internet. This move would eliminate significant costs. Also, we have a large number of “street name” holders and have found that the distribution of our quarterlies to them is highly erratic: Some holders receive their mailings weeks later than others.
在某个时候，我们可能会停止邮寄季度报告，而改为仅在 Internet 上发布。这样做可以节省一笔可观的成本。此外，我们有大量“street name”持有人，并且发现季度报告发给他们的分发情况非常不稳定：有些持有人比其他人晚了好几周才收到邮件。
The drawback to Internet-only distribution is that many of our shareholders lack computers. Most of these holders, however, could easily obtain printouts at work or through friends. Please let me know if you prefer that we continue mailing quarterlies. We want your input—starting with whether you even read these reports—and at a minimum will make no change in 1997. Also, we will definitely keep delivering the annual report in its present form in addition to publishing it on the Internet.
仅用 Internet 分发的缺点在于：很多股东并没有电脑。不过，这些持有人大多数也可以很方便地在工作单位打印，或通过朋友获取打印件。如果你更希望我们继续邮寄季度报告，请告诉我。我们希望听到你们的意见——首先是你是否甚至会阅读这些报告——并且至少在 1997 年我们不会做任何改变。此外，我们会明确继续以现有形式寄送年度报告，同时也会把它发布到 Internet 上。
* * * * * * * * * * * *
About 97.2% of all eligible shares participated in Berkshire’s 1996 shareholder-designated contributions program. Contributions made were $13.3 million, and 3,910 charities were recipients. A full description of the shareholder-designated contributions program appears on pages 48-49.
在 1996 年的 Berkshire 股东指定捐赠计划中，符合条件的股份里约有 97.2% 参与了该计划。实际捐赠金额为 1,330 万美元，共有 3,910 家慈善机构获得捐赠。关于该计划的完整说明见第 48-49 页。
Every year a few shareholders miss out on the program because they don’t have their shares registered in their own names on the prescribed record date or because they fail to get the designation form back to us within the 60-day period allowed. This is distressing to Charlie and me. But if replies are received late, we have to reject them because we can’t make exceptions for some shareholders while refusing to make them for others.
每年都会有少数股东错过该计划，原因要么是：在规定的登记日，他们的股份没有以本人名义登记；要么是：他们没有在允许的 60 天期限内把指定表格寄回给我们。这让 Charlie 和我很沮丧。但如果回函逾期，我们必须拒绝，因为我们不可能对一些股东破例，同时又对另一些股东不破例。
To participate in future programs, you must own Class A shares that are registered in the name of the actual owner, not the nominee name of a broker, bank or depository. Shares not so registered on August 31, 1997, will be ineligible for the 1997 program. When you get the form, return it promptly so that it does not get put aside or forgotten.
若要参加未来的计划，你必须持有以实际所有人名义登记的 Class A shares，而不是以经纪商、银行或托管机构的代持名义（nominee name）登记的股份。若股份在 1997 年 8 月 31 日仍未按上述方式登记，那么将不具备 1997 年计划的资格。收到表格后，请及时寄回，以免被搁置或遗忘。
The Annual Meeting
年度股东大会
Our capitalist’s version of Woodstock -the Berkshire Annual Meeting-will be held on Monday, May 5. Charlie and I thoroughly enjoy this event, and we hope that you come. We will start at 9:30 a.m., break for about 15 minutes at noon (food will be available—but at a price, of course), and then continue talking to hard-core attendees until at least 3:30. Last year we had representatives from all 50 states, as well as Australia, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The annual meeting is a time for owners to get their business-related questions answered, and therefore Charlie and I will stay on stage until we start getting punchy. (When that happens, I hope you notice a change.)
我们这场资本主义版本的 Woodstock——Berkshire Annual Meeting——将于 5 月 5 日（周一）举行。Charlie 和我非常享受这个活动，也希望你们前来参加。我们将于上午 9:30 开始，中午休息约 15 分钟（会提供食物——当然，要付费），然后继续与“硬核”与会者交流，至少到下午 3:30。去年我们迎来了来自美国全部 50 个州的代表，以及 Australia、Greece、Israel、Portugal、Singapore、Sweden、Switzerland 和 the United Kingdom 的股东。年度大会是所有者获得与业务相关问题答案的时刻，因此 Charlie 和我会一直在台上，直到我们开始变得“晕乎乎”（punchy）为止。（到那时，我希望你能注意到变化。）
Last year we had attendance of 5,000 and strained the capacity of the Holiday Convention Centre, even though we spread out over three rooms. This year, our new Class B shares have caused a doubling of our stockholder count, and we are therefore moving the meeting to the Aksarben Coliseum, which holds about 10,000 and also has a huge parking lot. The doors will open for the meeting at 7:00 a.m., and at 8:30 we will—upon popular demand—show a new Berkshire movie produced by Marc Hamburg, our CFO. (In this company, no one gets by with doing only a single job.)
去年我们有 5,000 人到场，尽管我们把活动分散在三个房间里，Holiday Convention Centre 的承载能力仍被逼到了极限。今年，我们新发行的 Class B shares 使股东数量翻了一倍，因此我们把会场转移到 Aksarben Coliseum。这里可容纳约 10,000 人，并且拥有巨大的停车场。会场大门将于早上 7:00 开放；8:30 我们将——应大众要求——播放一部新的 Berkshire 电影，由我们的 CFO Marc Hamburg 制作。（在这家公司，没有人可以只做一份工作就“混过去”。）
Overcoming our legendary repugnance for activities even faintly commercial, we will also have an abundant array of Berkshire products for sale in the halls outside the meeting room. Last year we broke all records, selling 1,270 pounds of See’s candy, 1,143 pairs of Dexter shoes, $29,000 of World Books and related publications, and 700 sets of knives manufactured by our Quikut subsidiary. Additionally, many shareholders made inquiries about GEICO auto policies. If you would like to investigate possible insurance savings, bring your present policy to the meeting. We estimate that about 40% of our shareholders can save money by insuring with us. (We’d like to say 100%, but the insurance business doesn’t work that way: Because insurers differ in their underwriting judgments, some of our shareholders are currently paying rates that are lower than GEICO’s.)
尽管我们对哪怕稍微带点商业气息的活动一向“闻之色变”，我们还是会在会场外的走廊里摆出种类丰富的 Berkshire 产品供大家购买。去年我们打破了所有记录：卖出了 1,270 磅 See’s 糖果、1,143 双 Dexter 鞋、29,000 美元的 World Book 及相关出版物，以及 700 套由我们 Quikut 子公司生产的刀具。此外，不少股东还咨询了 GEICO 的车险保单。如果你希望评估可能节省的保险费用，请把你当前的保单带到大会现场。我们估计大约 40% 的股东通过在我们这里投保能够省钱。（我们当然希望说 100%，但保险业不是这么运作的：因为不同保险公司在承保判断上存在差异，所以我们的一些股东目前支付的费率确实比 GEICO 更低。）
An attachment to the proxy material enclosed with this report explains how you can obtain the card you will need for admission to the meeting. We expect a large crowd, so get both plane and hotel reservations promptly. American Express (800-799-6634) will be happy to help you with arrangements. As usual, we will have buses servicing the larger hotels to take you to and from the meeting, and also to take you to Nebraska Furniture Mart, Borsheim’s and the airport after it is over.
随本报告附上的 proxy 材料中有一份附件，说明如何获取入场所需的卡片。我们预计人会很多，因此请尽快预订机票与酒店。American Express（800-799-6634）将很乐意帮助你做相关安排。照例，我们会安排巴士往返于较大型的酒店与会场之间，并在大会结束后提供前往 Nebraska Furniture Mart、Borsheim’s 以及机场的交通服务。
NFM’s main store, located on a 75-acre site about a mile from Aksarben, is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays, and noon to 6 p.m. on Sundays. Come by and say hello to “Mrs. B” (Rose Blumkin). She’s 103 now and sometimes operates with an oxygen mask that is attached to a tank on her cart. But if you try to keep pace with her, it will be you who needs oxygen. NFM did about $265 million of business last year—a record for a single-location home furnishings operation—and you’ll see why once you check out its merchandise and prices.
NFM 的主店位于一块 75 英亩的地块上，距离 Aksarben 约一英里。营业时间为：工作日 10 a.m. 到 9 p.m.；周六 10 a.m. 到 6 p.m.；周日中午到 6 p.m.。欢迎过来和“Mrs. B”（Rose Blumkin）打个招呼。她现在 103 岁了，有时会戴着连接在购物车氧气瓶上的氧气面罩。但如果你试着跟上她的步伐，最后需要吸氧的恐怕会是你。NFM 去年做了约 2.65 亿美元的生意——这是单一地点家居用品经营体的纪录——你只要看看它的商品与价格，就会明白原因。
Borsheim’s normally is closed on Sunday but will be open for shareholders from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on May 4th. Last year on “Shareholder Sunday” we broke every Borsheim’s record in terms of tickets, dollar volume and, no doubt, attendees per square inch. Because we expect a capacity crowd this year as well, all shareholders attending on Sunday must bring their admission cards. Shareholders who prefer a somewhat less frenzied experience will get the same special treatment on Saturday, when the store is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., or on Monday between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. Come by at any time this year and let Susan Jacques, Borsheim’s CEO, and her skilled associates perform a painless walletectomy on you.
Borsheim’s 通常周日休息，但将于 5 月 4 日为股东特别开放，时间为上午 10 点到下午 6 点。去年在“股东周日”（Shareholder Sunday），我们在收银小票数量、销售额——以及毫无疑问的“每平方英寸到场人数”上——打破了 Borsheim’s 的所有纪录。鉴于今年我们也预计会爆满，凡在周日到店的股东都必须携带入场卡。希望体验不那么“疯狂”的股东，同样可以在周六（上午 10 点至下午 5:30）或周一（上午 10 点至晚上 8 点）来店里享受同样的特殊待遇。今年无论你什么时候来，都欢迎让 Borsheim’s 的 CEO Susan Jacques 和她能干的同事们，给你做一次毫无痛感的“掏钱包手术”（walletectomy）。
My favorite steakhouse, Gorat’s, was sold out last year on the weekend of the annual meeting, even though it added an additional seating at 4 p.m. on Sunday. You can make reservations beginning on April 1st (but not earlier) by calling 402-551-3733. I will be at Gorat’s on Sunday after Borsheim’s, having my usual rare T-bone and double order of hashbrowns. I can also recommend—this is the standard fare when Debbie Bosanek, my invaluable assistant, and I go to lunch—the hot roast beef sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. Mention Debbie’s name and you will be given an extra boat of gravy.
我最喜欢的牛排馆 Gorat’s 去年在年会周末座无虚席，尽管他们还在周日增加了一场下午 4 点的加座。你可以从 4 月 1 日开始（但不能更早）打电话 402-551-3733 订位。我会在周日逛完 Borsheim’s 后去 Gorat’s，点我常吃的“全熟偏生”的 T-bone（rare T-bone）和双份土豆丝饼（double order of hashbrowns）。我也推荐另一道——这也是我那位不可或缺的助理 Debbie Bosanek 和我去吃午饭时的标准搭配——热烤牛肉三明治，配土豆泥和肉汁。你只要提 Debbie 的名字，他们会额外给你一船肉汁（extra boat of gravy）。
The Omaha Royals and Indianapolis Indians will play baseball on Saturday evening, May 3rd, at Rosenblatt Stadium. Pitching in my normal rotation—one throw a year—I will start.
Omaha Royals 和 Indianapolis Indians 将在 5 月 3 日（周六）晚，于 Rosenblatt Stadium 进行棒球比赛。按照我一贯的“轮换出场频率”（一年投一次），这次我将担任先发投手。
Though Rosenblatt is normal in appearance, it is anything but: The field sits on a unique geological structure that occasionally emits short gravitational waves causing even the most smoothly-delivered pitch to sink violently. I have been the victim of this weird phenomenon several times in the past but am hoping for benign conditions this year. There will be lots of opportunities for photos at the ball game, but you will need incredibly fast reflexes to snap my fast ball en route to the plate.
Rosenblatt 球场外观看起来很普通，但它绝不普通：球场坐落在一种独特的地质结构之上，会不时释放短促的引力波，导致即便投得再平稳的球也会突然猛烈下沉。我过去多次成为这种怪现象的受害者，但希望今年条件会温和一些。比赛现场会有很多拍照机会，但你需要极其敏捷的反应，才能在我的快速球飞向本垒的途中把它拍下来。
Our proxy statement includes information about obtaining tickets to the game. We will also provide an information packet listing restaurants that will be open on Sunday night and describing various things that you can do in Omaha on the weekend. The entire gang at Berkshire looks forward to seeing you.
我们的 proxy statement 里包含了获取比赛门票的信息。我们也会提供一份信息包，列出周日晚上仍会营业的餐厅，并介绍年会周末你在 Omaha 可以做的各种事情。Berkshire 的全体同仁都期待与你们见面。
February 28, 1997
Warren E. Buffett
Chairman of the Board
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