I.H.111.Right Business.Warren Buffett.Private Equity
不是这个行业的人不想做好，而是所面对的客户自己不想做好，乌央央的白痴不想思考，这跟电视肥皂剧很像，不是导演、编剧不想做出好的产品，而是观众打心里想看烂片，大众在面对金钱和现实时下意识的想要关闭自己的大脑。
1、《1964-07-08 Warren Buffett's Letters to Limited Partners》
These figures continue to show that the most highly paid and respected investment management has difficulty matching the performance of an unmanaged index of blue chip stocks. The results of these companies in some ways resemble the activity of a duck sitting on a pond. When the water (the market) rises, the duck rises; when it falls, back goes the duck. SPCA or no SPCA, I think the duck can only take the credit (or blame) for his own activities. The rise and fall of the lake is hardly something for him to quack about. The water level has been of great importance to B.P.L’s performance as the table on page one indicates. However, we have also occasionally flapped our wings.
大基金费用高昂、地位尊崇，道指是无人管理的一揽子蓝筹股，但是我们从这些数据中可以看出来，大基金始终跟不上指数。基金就像漂在池塘上的鸭子。水（市场）涨起来时，鸭子跟着往上涨；水（市场）落下去时，鸭子跟着往下落。不管有没有动物保护协会，鸭子的功劳大小，都要看他自己的表现，不能对池塘水位的涨跌呱呱乱叫。如上表所示，水位对巴菲特合伙基金的业绩有很大影响，不过我们一直在扑腾翅膀。
2、《2001-04-28 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
30. Promotion, not performance, is Wall Street’s biggest money maker
促销，而不是绩效，是华尔街最大的赚钱工具
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, most smart people, unfortunately, in Wall Street figure that they can make a lot more money a lot easier just by, one way or another, you know, getting an override on other people’s money or delivering services in some way that people —
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，不幸的是，华尔街上大多数聪明人认为，通过某种方式，对他人的资金抽取分成，或者提供一些所谓的服务，他们可以更轻松地赚到更多的钱。
And the monetization of hope and greed, you know, is a way to make a huge amount of money. And right now, it’s very — just take hedge funds.
将人们的希望和贪婪变现，是一种赚取巨额利润的方式。现在的对冲基金就是一个很好的例子。
I mean, it’s — I’ve had calls from a couple of friends in the last month that don’t know anything about investing money. They’ve been unsuccessful and everything else.
我最近一个月接到了几个朋友的电话，他们根本不懂投资，之前做什么都失败了。
And, you know, one of them called me the other day and said, “Well, I’m forming a small hedge fund.” A hundred and twenty-five million he was talking about.
其中一个人前几天打电话给我，说他要成立一个“小型对冲基金”，规模是1.25亿美元。
Like, the thought that since it was only 125 million, maybe we ought to put in 10 million or something of the sort.
好像因为“只是1.25亿”，我们就应该投1000万进去之类的。
I mean, if you looked at this fellow’s Schedule D on his 1040 for the last 20 years, you know, you’d think he ought to be mowing lawns. (Laughter)
如果你看一下这位朋友过去20年报税单上的资本利得申报，你会觉得他还不如去给人剪草坪。（笑声）
But he may get his 125 million. I mean, you know, it’s just astounding to me how willing people are, during a bull market, just to toss money around, because, you know, they think it’s easy.
但他可能真的会筹到这1.25亿。令人震惊的是，在牛市中，人们总是愿意随意撒钱，因为他们觉得赚钱很容易。
And of course, that’s what they felt about internet stocks a few years ago. They’ll think it about something else next year, too.
当然，几年前他们对互联网股票也是这么想的。明年，他们还会把这种想法寄托在别的东西上。
But the biggest money made, you know, in Wall Street in recent years, has not been made by great performance, but it’s been made by great promotion, basically.
不过，近年来，华尔街赚到的最大一笔钱，基本上不是靠出色的业绩，而是靠出色的推销。
Charlie, do you have anything?
查理，你怎么看？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I would state it even more strongly. I think the current scene is obscene.
查理·芒格：嗯，我会说得更直接一些。我认为当前的情形简直是丑陋不堪。
I think there’s too much mania. There’s too much chasing after easy money. There’s too much misleading sales material about investments.
现在的市场充斥着过度的狂热，过度追逐轻松赚快钱的心态，过多关于投资的误导性推销材料。
There’s too much on the television emphasizing speculation in stocks.
电视上过多地宣传股票投机行为。
3、《2004-05-01 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
58. Hedge funds are a fad with huge fees
对冲基金是一种收取高额费用的时尚潮流
WARREN BUFFETT: Number 11, please.
沃伦·巴菲特：请给我 11 号。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, I’m Manuel Fernandez, from Mexico City, Mexico. And I want to thank you for your valuable lessons on how to be good partners, you — and for exporting some good ideas and principles to the world for free.
观众成员：下午好，我是曼努埃尔·费尔南德斯，来自墨西哥墨西哥城。我想感谢您关于如何成为好伙伴的宝贵课程，以及您免费向世界传播的一些好想法和原则。
My simple question is, do you think it makes sense for individual investors to invest a part of their capital in hedge funds, or a fund of hedge funds, somewhat like the $600 million investment Berkshire made in Value Capital?
我的简单问题是，您认为个人投资者将部分资本投资于对冲基金或对冲基金组合是否有意义，有点像伯克希尔在 Value Capital 中投资的 6 亿美元？
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I would say that people that are now investing in hedge funds, in aggregate, are going to be disappointed.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我会说，现在投资对冲基金的人，总体上会感到失望。
You don’t get smarter because you’re running something called a hedge fund, or something called private equity, or something, you know, called anything — an LBO fund.
你不会因为经营一个叫做对冲基金的东西，或者叫做私募股权的东西，或者任何其他名称的东西——比如杠杆收购基金——而变得更聪明。
But what you do gain periodically is the ability to merchandise those things. I mean, there are fads in Wall Street, and Wall Street will sell what it can sell, just remember that. You know, that may be as good as what the fellow quoted up in the upper levels there.
但你会定期获得推销这些东西的能力。我的意思是，华尔街有潮流，华尔街会出售它能出售的产品，记住这一点。你知道，那可能和上面那位引用的家伙一样好。
And the hedge fund right now is in the midst of a fad. It’s distinguished not by the ability to make more money. It’s distinguished by the extraordinary amount of fees that are collected.
目前，对冲基金正处于一种潮流之中。它的特点不是赚钱的能力，而是收取的费用数量异常之多。
And believe me, if the world on $600 billion of money, is paying 2 percent fees, and a percentage of the profits, and the losers go out of existence, and the winners continue for a while, and take money off the table, it is not going to be a great experience, in aggregate, for investors.
相信我，如果全球有6000亿美元的资金支付2%的费用，再加上利润分成，失败者会消失，赢家会继续一段时间并从中抽取资金，那么整体上，投资者的体验不会很好。
Obviously, there are a few smart, honest people out there running funds, and they can — they will do quite well. But if you buy them across the board, in my view, you’re going to get a bad result.
显然，确实有一些聪明、诚实的人在管理基金，他们会做得不错。但如果你从整体上投资这些基金，在我看来，你会得到一个糟糕的结果。
Charlie? 查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, why would you want to invest with a guy whose basic thought process runs something like this, “If a second layer of fees on top of a first layer of substantial fees is good for an investor, then a third layer of fees must be better yet?” (Laughter)
查理·芒格：是的，为什么你会想投资于一个人的思维方式是这样的：“如果在第一层大量费用上再加第二层费用对投资者有好处，那么第三层费用一定更好？”（笑声）
Why would you invest with somebody with a proposition like that?
你为什么要投资给提出那种建议的人？
WARREN BUFFETT: It — just the idea of taking two percent, you know, plus percentages on top of that, that reflects — you know, it may be what the traffic can bear, you know, Collis P. Huntington style, but that reflects an attitude toward people that we tend to regard as partners, investors — I just think it’s a basically unfair type of arrangement.
沃伦·巴菲特：仅仅是收取 2% 的费用，然后在上面加上百分比，这反映了——你知道，这可能是市场所能承受的，你知道，柯利斯·P·亨廷顿式的，但这反映了一种对我们倾向于作为合作伙伴、投资者看待的人的态度——我只是认为这是一种从根本上不公平的安排。
And I don’t like getting in — in general, I think it’s a mistake to get in with people who propose unfair arrangements.
而且我不喜欢参与——总的来说，我认为与提出不公平安排的人合作是一个错误。
You know, in effect they’re getting — probably getting four times standard fees to begin with. And then on top of that, they say we want part of the action. And I would guess in many of those cases, that they don’t have all of their own money in the fund themselves. Maybe they have a substantial sum outside.
你知道，实际上他们一开始可能就获得了四倍的标准费用。而且在此基础上，他们还说我们想要分一杯羹。我猜在很多情况下，他们自己并没有把所有的钱都投入到基金中。也许他们在外面有一大笔钱。
Charlie and I both run — ran — partnerships in the ’60s, and ‘50s with me, and into the ’70s with him, that would generally be classified as hedge funds. They had the compensation arrangement somewhat similar, although not like they are now. And we did some —
查理和我都在 60 年代经营——过去经营——合伙企业，我是在 50 年代，他是在 70 年代，这些合伙企业通常被归类为对冲基金。它们的补偿安排有些相似，尽管不像现在这样。而且我们做了一些——
They had some similarities, but I don’t think we had quite the attitude toward the people who were trying to — that were asking to join us — that the present managers have. It’s —
他们有一些相似之处，但我认为我们对那些想要加入我们的人——那些请求加入我们的人——的态度并不像现在的管理者那样。它是——
As Charlie said, the fund-to-funds type stuff, I mean, it’s really sort of unbelievable just piling on layer after layer on costs. It doesn’t make the companies that are underlying these stocks they buy any better. I mean, it —
正如查理所说，基金中的基金类型的东西，我的意思是，这真的是在成本上层层叠加，令人难以置信。这并不会让他们购买的这些股票背后的公司变得更好。我的意思是，它——
And believe me, people don’t become a genius just because you walk into some office, and it says “hedge funds” on the door. I mean they are — what they may be very good at is marketing. In fact, if they’re good at marketing, they don’t have to be good at anything else.
相信我，人们不会因为你走进某个办公室，门上写着“对冲基金”就变成天才。我的意思是，他们可能非常擅长的是营销。事实上，如果他们擅长营销，他们不需要擅长其他任何事情。
4、《2006-05-06 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
51. “A strategic buyer is some guy that pays too much”
“战略买家就是那个出价过高的人”
WARREN BUFFETT: Number 4?
沃伦·巴菲特：第四名？
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. My name is Andy Von Dorn (PH), and I’m here from Omaha.
观众成员：你好。我的名字是安迪·冯·多恩（PH），我来自奥马哈。
I’m currently employed by Oriental Trading Company, and they just announced that they were putting themselves up for sale.
我目前受雇于Oriental Trading Company，他们刚刚宣布要出售公司。
I was just wondering if Berkshire would have any interest in a company like Oriental Trading Company as an acquisition.
我只是想知道伯克希尔是否会对像Oriental Trading Company这样的公司有收购兴趣。
WARREN BUFFETT: That’s interesting, and I didn’t know they put themselves up for sale. But I looked at it — whenever it was — four or five years ago when Terry Watanabe sold it.
沃伦·巴菲特：这很有趣，我不知道他们把自己挂牌出售。但我查看过——不管是什么时候——大约四五年前，当时Terry Watanabe卖掉了它。
And I haven’t really followed it since then, but just from listening to what you say — and I have no knowledge of it at all — but it sounds to me as if some private group bought it and now they’re reselling it.
从那以后我就没有真正关注过，但仅仅从听你说的话来看——我对此完全不了解——但在我看来，好像是某个私募基金买下了它，现在他们正在转售。
And we get approached on that sort of thing all the time, where a financial group has bought the business and then wants to resell it fairly quickly. And they almost — well, they invariably, I would say — auction the business.
我们经常遇到这种情况，一个金融集团收购了企业，然后希望相当快地转售它。而且他们几乎——我可以说是总是——拍卖这个企业。
They seek what they call a strategic buyer. A strategic buyer is some guy that pays too much. (Laughter) Because — you know, and he wants to justify it, so he says it’s strategic. I mean, I have never understood being a strategic buyer.
他们寻找他们所谓的战略买家。战略买家就是一个出价过高的人。（笑声）因为——你知道，他想为此辩解，所以他说这是战略性的。我的意思是，我从来没有理解过成为一个战略买家。
Every time somebody calls me up and says, you know, “We think, maybe, you’re the logical strategic buyer for that,” you know, I hang up faster than Charlie would. (Laughter)
每次有人打电话给我，说，“我们认为，也许你是那个合适的战略买家，”我挂电话的速度比查理还快。（笑声）
The — and I’m not talking to the specifics of this one at all because I really don’t know on Oriental Trading.
我对这个具体情况不了解，所以我不谈论东方贸易。
But the idea that we’re going to find a business to buy from some guy who, from the moment he bought it a few years ago, has been thinking, “How do I get out of this thing?”
但是，我们要从一个几年前买下这家企业后就一直在想“我该如何摆脱这个东西？”的人那里找到一个可以购买的企业，这种想法是不现实的。
You know, “What do I do to make it earn — have those figures for a couple years look a certain way so that I can get the maximum amount in a couple years?” You know, that — we’re just not going to make any attractive buys there. We won’t trust the figures.
你知道，“我该怎么做才能让它盈利——让那些数字在几年内看起来某种方式，以便我能在几年内获得最大收益？”你知道，那——我们在那里不会做任何有吸引力的购买。我们不会相信这些数字。
You know, we — it just — it’s — what we like is a business that — where the guy before was running with the idea of running it a hundred years, and taking care of the business in every way possible and was not contemplating sale, but, for one reason or another, finally needs to monetize the company.
你知道，我们——这只是——我们喜欢的生意是——前任经营者以经营一百年的理念来管理，并尽一切可能照顾业务，并没有考虑出售，但由于某种原因，最终需要将公司货币化。
We won’t — we will not get any sensible buys, really, from the resellers.
我们不会——我们真的不会从转售商那里得到任何合理的购买。
Some of the — it’s amazing to me what’s going on. Some of these things, literally, you know, Fund A is selling to Fund B to Fund C.
有些事情——对我来说，正在发生的事情真是令人惊讶。其中一些事情，实际上，你知道，基金 A 卖给基金 B，再卖给基金 C。
I mean, I’ve seen some that have changed hands three or four times. They’re just marking them up, and everybody’s getting two — they’re getting 20 percent of the profit so they mark it up.
我的意思是，我见过一些已经转手三四次的。他们只是加价，每个人都拿到两成——他们拿到 20%的利润，所以他们加价。
And probably Fund C or Fund D may be owned by the same pension funds that own Fund A, except that everybody’s just taking a big 20 percent slice out of it every time they move it from one place to another.
而且可能基金 C 或基金 D 由拥有基金 A 的同一养老金基金持有，只是每次从一个地方转移到另一个地方时，每个人都从中抽取了 20% 的大份额。
We’re not buyers of anything the financial buyers have been in in recent — you know, and currently own.
我们不购买金融买家最近参与并目前拥有的任何东西。
Charlie? 查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: In the 1930s there was a stretch when certain kinds of real estate — when with certain kinds of real estate — you could borrow more against the real estate than you could sell it for.
查理·芒格：在 20 世纪 30 年代，有一段时间某些类型的房地产——对于某些类型的房地产——你可以借到的金额比你能卖出的价格还要高。
And I think that’s happened in some of these private equity deals, and it’s weird. It’s weird. This is not our field. (Laughter)
我认为这在一些私募股权交易中发生了，这很奇怪。这很奇怪。这不是我们的领域。（笑声）
5、《2007-05-05 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
5. Buffett sees no private equity “bubble” about to burst
巴菲特认为没有即将破裂的私募股权“泡沫”
WARREN BUFFETT: Let’s get a map here. Here we are. We will start with area 1, which I think is over here, and there we are and we have a questioner.
沃伦·巴菲特：让我们拿一张地图。我们在这里。我们将从第一区域开始，我想是在这里，然后我们有一位提问者。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Kevin Truitt (PH) from Chicago, Illinois.
观众成员：早上好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我的名字是凯文·特鲁伊特（音），来自伊利诺伊州芝加哥。
Thank you both for, again, hosting this “Woodstock for Capitalists” for your shareholders and fellow capitalists. I have two questions. My first question is for both Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger.
再次感谢你们两位为股东和其他资本家举办这个“资本家的伍德斯托克”。我有两个问题。我的第一个问题是给巴菲特先生和芒格先生的。
WARREN BUFFETT: I don’t like to interrupt you, but we’re only letting everybody do one question, so pick whichever one you feel the strongest about getting an answer for, please.
沃伦·巴菲特：我不想打断你，但我们只让每个人提一个问题，所以请挑选你最想得到答案的那个问题。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: OK. First, given the ocean of equity money that is out there — private equity money — that is out there today chasing deals, and with the quality of the deals continually diminishing as the quantity of good deals continues to go down, and given the fact that these private equity funds are getting their equity portion of the money from pension funds and college endowments and using very high levels of borrowed money from the banks, this has the look, feel, and smell of a bubble that is about to burst and is likely to end badly for many of the deal-makers and the investors.
观众成员：好的。首先，鉴于如今市场上有大量的股权资金——私人股权资金——在追逐交易，而随着优质交易数量的减少，交易质量也在不断下降，并且考虑到这些私人股权基金从养老金和大学捐赠基金中获取股权部分的资金，并使用银行提供的非常高水平的借款，这看起来、感觉起来、闻起来都像是一个即将破裂的泡沫，可能会对许多交易者和投资者造成不良后果。
What events, in your opinion, could cause this bubble to burst, and how do you think this is likely to all end?
在你看来，哪些事件可能导致这个泡沫破裂，你认为这可能会如何结束？
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, as you were reading off that list, we are competing with those people, so I started to cry as you — (laughs) — explained the difficulty we have in finding things to buy.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，当你读到那份名单时，我们正在与那些人竞争，所以当你解释我们在寻找购买东西时遇到的困难时，我开始哭了（笑）。
The nature of the private equity activity is such that it really isn’t a bubble that bursts.
私募股权活动的性质决定了它实际上不是一个会破裂的泡沫。
Because if you’re running a large private equity fund and you lock up $20 billion for five or longer years and you buy businesses which are not priced daily, as a practical matter, the plug will not — even if you do a poor job, it’s going to take many years before the score is put up on the score board, and it takes many years, in most cases, for people to get out of the private equity fund even if they wished to earlier.
因为如果你在运营一个大型私募股权基金，并且将 200 亿美元锁定五年或更长时间，并购买那些不每日定价的企业，实际上，即使你做得不好，也需要很多年才能在记分板上显示出成绩，并且在大多数情况下，即使人们希望提前退出，也需要很多年才能从私募股权基金中退出。
So it does not — it’s not like a lot of leverage can lead to in-marketable securities or something there. And the investors can’t leave and the scorecard is lacking for a long time.
所以这并不是——这不像大量杠杆会导致不可销售的证券或类似的情况。而且投资者无法退出，评分卡长期以来一直缺乏。
What will slow down the activity — or what could slow down the activity — is if yields on junk bonds became much higher than yields on high-grade bonds.
什么会减缓这种活动——或者说，什么可能会减缓这种活动——是如果垃圾债券的收益率比高等级债券的收益率高得多。
Right now the spread between yields on junk bonds and high-grade bonds is down to a very low level, and history has shown that periodically that spread widens quite dramatically.
目前，垃圾债券和高等级债券收益率之间的利差已降至非常低的水平，而历史表明，这种利差会周期性地显著扩大。
That will slow down the deals, but it won’t cause the investors to get their money back.
这会减缓交易进程，但不会导致投资者收回他们的钱。
There’s one other aspect, of course, that — of this frenzied activity, you might say, in private equity is that if you have a $20 billion fund and you’re getting a 2 percent fee on it or $400 million a year, which seems like chump change to those that are managing them but sounds like real money in Omaha — if you’re getting 400 million a year from that $20 billion fund, you can’t start another fund with a straight face until you get that money pretty well invested.
当然，这种疯狂活动的另一个方面是，如果你有一个 200 亿美元的基金，并从中获得 2%的费用，即每年 4 亿美元，这对管理它们的人来说似乎是小钱，但在奥马哈听起来像是真正的钱——如果你每年从那个 200 亿美元的基金中获得 4 亿美元，你就不能在没有把这笔钱很好地投资之前，面不改色地开始另一个基金。
It’s very hard to go back to your investors and say, well, I’ve got 18 billion uninvested and I’d like you to give me money for another fund.
很难回到你的投资者面前说，我有 180 亿未投资的资金，我希望你能给我另一只基金的钱。
So there’s a great compulsion to invest very quickly because it’s the way to get another fund and another bunch of fees coming in.
所以有一种强烈的动力去非常迅速地投资，因为这是获取另一个基金和一堆费用的方式。
And those are not competitors for businesses that Charlie and I are going to be particularly effective in competing with.
那些企业并不是查理和我会特别有效地与之竞争的竞争对手。
I mean, they — we are going to own anything we buy forever. The math has to make sense to us. We’re not given to optimistic assumptions, and we don’t get paid based on activity.
我的意思是，他们——我们买的任何东西都将永远属于我们。数学必须对我们有意义。我们不会做乐观的假设，我们的报酬也不是基于活动。
But I think it will be quite some time before — it’s likely to be quite some time — before disillusionment sets in and the money quits flowing to these people that are promoting these. And whether they can continue to make deals will depend on whether people will give them lots of financing at what I would regard as quite low rates.
但我认为，直到——很可能会有相当长的一段时间——幻灭感才会出现，资金才会停止流向那些推广这些的人。而他们能否继续做交易，将取决于人们是否会以我认为相当低的利率为他们提供大量融资。
Charlie? 查理？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. It can continue to go on a long time after you’re in a state of total revulsion.
查理·芒格：是的。在你完全厌恶之后，它还可以继续很长时间。
WARREN BUFFETT: The voice of optimism has spoken. (Laughter.)
沃伦·巴菲特：乐观的声音已经发出。（笑声。）
6、《2015-02-27 Berkshire - Past Present and Future》
The second choice for sellers is the Wall Street buyer. For some years, these purchasers accurately called themselves “leveraged buyout firms.” When that term got a bad name in the early 1990s -- remember RJR and Barbarians at the Gate? -- these buyers hastily relabeled themselves “private-equity.”
第二种选择是，出售给华尔街买家。多年来，确切的说这种收购方自称为"杠杆收购公司"。当这词汇在1990年代获得了恶名，还记得RJR收购案和门口的野蛮人吗？这些买家匆忙地将自己改称为"私募股权"。
The name may have changed but that was all: Equity is dramatically reduced and debt is piled on in virtually all private-equity purchases. Indeed, the amount that a private-equity purchaser offers to the seller is in part determined by the buyer assessing the maximum amount of debt that can be placed on the acquired company.
名字可能已经改变，但本质不变：几乎所有的私募股权收购案中，股权比例大幅减少，债务大幅提高。实际上，私募股权购买方向卖方提供的报价，部分取决于买方对被收购公司所能承受的债务上限的评估。
这个评价跟商业房产的特点是一样的。
Later, if things go well and equity begins to build, leveraged buy-out shops will often seek to re-leverage with new borrowings. They then typically use part of the proceeds to pay a huge dividend that drives equity sharply downward, sometimes even to a negative figure.
接着，如果事情进展顺利(债务下降)，股权比例开始回升，杠杆收购机构往往会寻求利用新的借贷来进行再杠杆化。然后他们通常会将部分收益用于支付巨额的债务利息，使得股东权益大幅度减少，有时甚至是负值。
In truth, “equity” is a dirty word for many private-equity buyers; what they love is debt. And, because debt is currently so inexpensive, these buyers can frequently pay top dollar. Later, the business will be resold, often to another leveraged buyer. In effect, the business becomes a piece of merchandise.
事实上，对于许多私募股权买方来说，"股权"是一个讨厌的词汇；他们喜爱的是债务。而且因为目前债务成本如此低廉，这些买方往往愿意支付最高价。接着公司将被转售，通常是卖给另外一个杠杠收购方。实际上公司变成了一件可交易的商品。
喜欢用别人的钱做生意的都缺少自信，缺少安全感，都想着尽可能快的弄到钱。
。。。
Before I depart the subject of spin-offs, let’s look at a lesson to be learned from a conglomerate mentioned earlier: LTV. I’ll summarize here, but those who enjoy a good financial story should read the piece about Jimmy Ling that ran in the October 1982 issue of D Magazine. Look it up on the Internet.
在我离开分拆话题以前，让我们先来看一个从前面提到的LTV企业集团中学到的教训。我将在这儿做总结，但那些喜好金融故事的人应当阅读在1982年10月D-Magazine上发表的有关JimmyLing的文章(网址如下：https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/october/jim-ling/)。
Through a lot of corporate razzle-dazzle, Ling had taken LTV from sales of only $36 million in 1965 to number 14 on the Fortune 500 list just two years later. Ling, it should be noted, had never displayed any managerial skills. But Charlie told me long ago to never underestimate the man who overestimates himself. And Ling had no peer in that respect.
经过一系列眼花缭乱的公司运作，Ling将LTV公司从1965年仅仅3600万美元销售额，提升到了两年后的世界500强第14名。应该指出的是，Ling从未表现出任何的管理技能。但是查理很久以前告诉我说，永远不要低估那些高估自己的人。Ling在这方面是无人能比的。
Ling’s strategy, which he labeled “project redeployment,” was to buy a large company and then partially spin off its various divisions. In LTV’s 1966 annual report, he explained the magic that would follow: “Most importantly, acquisitions must meet the test of the 2 plus 2 equals 5 (or 6) formula.” The press, the public and Wall Street loved this sort of talk.
Ling的策略，他称之为"项目重新部署"(Project Touchdown)，也就是买入一家大公司，然后部分分拆其各个部门。在LTV的1966年度报告，他解释了接下来将要发生的魔法："最重要的是，收购一定要满足2＋2＝5(或6)的公式检验"。媒体，公众和华尔街喜欢这类的讲话。
In 1967 Ling bought Wilson & Co., a huge meatpacker that also had interests in golf equipment and pharmaceuticals. Soon after, he split the parent into three businesses, Wilson & Co. (meatpacking), Wilson Sporting Goods and Wilson Pharmaceuticals, each of which was to be partially spun off. These companies quickly became known on Wall Street as Meatball, Golf Ball and Goof Ball.
在1967年，Ling收购了一家大型肉类加工企业威尔逊公司(Wilson&Co.)，这家公司也有高尔夫设备和药业业务。很快地，他将母公司拆分为三家公司，Wilson肉加工公司(Wilson&Co.),Wilson体育用品公司(Wilson Sporting Goods)和Wilson制药公司(Wilson Pharmaceuticals)，这三家公司都将被部分地分拆独立。这些公司很快被华尔街称为肉球Meatball，高尔夫球Golfball，傻球Goofball。
Soon thereafter, it became clear that, like Icarus, Ling had flown too close to the sun. By the early 1970s, Ling’s empire was melting, and he himself had been spun off from LTV... that is, fired.
不久后，很清楚的是，就像希腊神话的Icarus一样，Ling飞得太靠近太阳了。在1970年代初期，Ling的帝国开始瓦解，他自己也被从LTV中分拆出来，也就是被解雇了。
Periodically, financial markets will become divorced from reality -- you can count on that. More Jimmy Lings will appear. They will look and sound authoritative. The press will hang on their every word. Bankers will fight for their business. What they are saying will recently have “worked.” Their early followers will be feeling very clever. Our suggestion: Whatever their line, never forget that 2+2 will always equal 4. And when someone tells you how old-fashioned that math is --- zip up your wallet, take a vacation and come back in a few years to buy stocks at cheap prices.
金融市场会周期性的脱离现实，你大可以相信这一点。更多的JimmyLing们将会出现。他们看起来和听起来都很权威。媒体将紧盯着他们说的每一个字。银行家们将为他们的生意而战。他们近期说的话将"发挥作用"。他们早期的跟随者将会觉得自己非常明智。我们的建议是：不论他们说什么，永远不要忘记2＋2永远等于4。当有人告诉你这个数学公式如何落伍时，拉上钱包拉链去度假，几年后回来以便宜的价格购买股票。
7、《2017-05-06 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》
30. Berkshire’s buying advantage: “There just isn’t anyone else”
伯克希尔的购买优势：“没有其他人可以比”
WARREN BUFFETT: Well, we’ll go to Station 8.
沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，我们去第 8 站。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Warren and Charlie. My name’s Vicky Wei. I’m an M.B.A. student from the Wharton School of Business.
观众成员：嗨，沃伦和查理。我叫维基·韦。我是沃顿商学院的 MBA 学生。
This is my first time to be in the first — in the annual meeting. I’m really excited about it. Thanks for having us here. My —
这是我第一次参加年度会议。我对此感到非常兴奋。感谢你们让我们在这里。我的——
WARREN BUFFETT: Thanks for coming.
沃伦·巴菲特：谢谢你们的到来。
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is, where do you want to go fishing for the next three to five years? Which sectors are you most bullish on, and which sectors are you most bearish on? Thank you.
观众成员：我的问题是，您希望在接下来的三到五年里去哪里钓鱼？您对哪些行业最看好，哪些行业最看衰？谢谢。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Charlie and I do not really discuss sectors much. Nor do we let the macro environment or thoughts about it enter into our decisions.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。查理和我并不太讨论行业。我们也不让宏观环境或对它的想法影响我们的决策。
We’re really opportunistic. And we — we, obviously, are looking at all kinds of businesses all the time. I mean, it’s a hobby with us, almost — probably more with me than Charlie.
我们真的很机会主义。显然，我们一直在关注各种业务。我是说，这对我们来说几乎是一种爱好——可能对我来说比查理更强烈。
But we’re hoping we get a call, and we’ve got a bunch of filters.
但我们希望能接到电话，我们有一堆过滤器。
And I would say this is true of both of us. We probably know in the first five minutes or less whether something is likely to — or has a reasonable chance of happening.
我想这对我们俩都是如此。我们可能在头五分钟内就知道某件事情是否可能发生——或者发生的可能性有多大。
And it’s just going to go through there, and it’s going to — first question is, “Can we really ever know enough about this to come to a decision?” You know, and that knocks out a whole bunch of things.
这将会经过那里，首先的问题是：“我们真的能知道足够的信息来做出决定吗？”你知道，这就排除了很多事情。
And there’s a few. And then if it makes it through there, there’s a pretty good — reasonable chance we’re going to — we may do something. But it’s not sector specific. It —
还有一些。如果它能通过那里，那么我们有相当不错的机会 — 我们可能会采取一些行动。但这并不是特定于某个行业的。它 —
We do love the companies, obviously, with the moats around the product long — where consumer behavior can be, perhaps, predicted further out. But I would say it’s getting harder to — for us, anyway — to anticipate consumer behavior than we might’ve thought 20 or 30 years ago. I think that it’s just a tougher game now.
我们确实喜欢那些产品周围有护城河的公司——在这些公司中，消费者行为可能会被更长远地预测。但我想说，对于我们来说，预测消费者行为变得比 20 或 30 年前想象的要困难得多。我认为现在的游戏就是更艰难了。
But we’ll measure it and we’ll look at it in terms of returns on present capital, returns on prospective capital. We may have — we can —
但我们会对其进行测量，并从现有资本的回报和未来资本的回报来考虑。我们可能会——我们可以——
A lot of people give you some signals as to what kind of people they are, even in talking in the first five minutes, and whether you’re likely to actually have a satisfactory arrangement with them over time. So a lot of things go on fast, but it —
很多人在前五分钟的交谈中就会给你一些信号，告诉你他们是什么样的人，以及你们是否有可能在一段时间内达成令人满意的安排。因此，很多事情发展得很快，但它——
We know the kind of sectors we kind of like to — or the type of business we’d kind of like to end up in. But we don’t really say, “We’re going to go after companies in this field, or that field, or another field.”
我们知道我们喜欢的行业类型——或者说我们希望最终进入的业务类型。但我们并不真的说：“我们要去追求这个领域、那个领域或其他领域的公司。”
Charlie, you want to? 查理，你想要吗？
CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Some of our subsidiaries do little bolt-on acquisitions that make sense, and that’s going on all the time. And, of course we like it when —
查理·芒格：是的。我们的一些子公司进行一些小的附加收购，这些收购是有意义的，这种情况一直在发生。当然，我们喜欢这样的情况——
But I would say the general field of buying whole companies, it’s gotten very competitive. There’s a huge industry of doing these leveraged buyouts. That’s what I still call them.
但我想说，整体收购公司的领域变得非常竞争激烈。进行这些杠杆收购的行业非常庞大。我仍然称它们为杠杆收购。
The people who do them think that’s a — kind of a bad marker, so they say they do private equity. You know, it’s like (inaudible) a janitor call himself the chief of engineering or something. (Laughter) And —
进行这些操作的人认为这个术语不好，所以他们称之为私募股权。就像清洁工称自己为首席工程师一样。（笑）
But at any rate, the people who do the leveraged buyouts, they can finance practically anything in about a week or so through shadow banking. And they can pay very high prices and get very good terms and so on.
但无论如何，进行杠杆收购的人可以通过影子银行在大约一周内融资几乎任何东西。他们可以支付非常高的价格并获得非常好的条款等等。
So, it’s very, very hard to buy businesses. And we’ve done well, because there’s a certain small group of people that don’t want to sell to private equity. And they love the business so much that they don’t want it just dressed up for resale.
所以，收购企业是非常非常困难的。我们做得很好，因为有一小部分人不想把企业卖给私募股权投资公司。他们非常热爱自己的业务，不希望它只是为了转售而被包装。
WARREN BUFFETT: We had a guy some years ago, came to see me, and he was 61 at the time. And he said, “Look, I’ve got a fine business. I got all the money I can possibly need.” But he said, “There’s only one thing that worries me when I drive to work.”
沃伦·巴菲特：几年前，有一个人来见我，当时他 61 岁。他说：“听着，我有一门很好的生意。我有我可能需要的所有钱。”但他说：“当我开车去上班时，只有一件事让我担心。”
Actually, there’s more than one guy’s told me that that’s used the same term.
实际上，有不止一个人告诉我，他们使用了同样的术语。
He said, “There’s only one thing that bothers me when I go to work. You know, if something happens to me today, my wife’s left.
他说，“有一件事让我去上班时感到不安。如果今天发生什么事，我的妻子会留下来。
“You know, I’ve seen these cases where executives in the company try to buy them out cheap or they sell to a competitor and all the people —”
“我见过这些情况，公司的高管试图以低价买下它，或者他们卖给竞争对手，然后所有的人——”
He says, “I don’t want to leave her with the business. I want to decide where it goes, but I want to keep running it, and I love it.”
他说：“我不想把生意留给她。我想决定它的发展方向，但我想继续经营它，我热爱这个。”
有可能实现长期利益最大化。
And he said, “I thought about selling it to a competitor, but if I sell it to a competitor, you know, their CFO’s going to become the CFO of the new company, and there, you know, on down the line.
他说，“我考虑过卖给一个竞争对手，但如果我卖给竞争对手，你知道，他们的 CFO 会成为新公司的 CFO，其他人也是如此。”
“And all these people who helped me build the business, you know, they’re — a lot of them are going to get dumped. And I’ll walk away with a ton of money, and some of them will lose their job.” He said, “I don’t want to do that.”
“所有这些帮助我建立业务的人，你知道，他们——很多人会被抛弃。我会带着一大笔钱离开，而他们中的一些人会失去工作。”他说，“我不想那样做。”
And he says, “I can sell it to a leveraged buyout firm, who would prefer to call themselves private equity, but they’re going to leverage it to the hilt and they’re going to resell it. And they’re going to dress it up some, but in the end, it’s not going to be in the same place. I don’t know where it’s going to go.”
他说：“我可以把它卖给一家杠杆收购公司，他们更喜欢称自己为私募股权，但他们会将其杠杆化到极限，然后再转售。他们会稍微包装一下，但最终，它不会在同一个地方。我不知道它会去哪里。”
He said, “I don’t want to do that.” So he said, “It isn’t because you’re so special.” He says, “There just isn’t anyone else.” (Laughter)
他说：“我不想那样做。”于是他说：“这不是因为你特别。”他说：“只是没有其他人。”（笑声）
And if you’re ever proposing to a potential spouse, don’t use that line, you know. (Laughter)
如果你有一天向潜在的配偶求婚，别用那句话，你知道的。（笑声）
But that’s what he told me. I took it well, and we made a deal.
但这就是他告诉我的。我接受得很好，我们达成了协议。
So, logically, unless somebody had that attitude, we should lose in this market. I mean, you can borrow so much money so cheap. And we’re looking at the money as pretty much all equity capital.
所以，从逻辑上讲，除非有人持这种态度，否则我们在这个市场上应该会失利。我的意思是，你可以以如此低廉的价格借到这么多钱。而我们将这笔钱视为几乎全部的股本。
And we are not competitive with somebody that’s going to have a very significant portion of the purchase price carried in debt, maybe averaging, you know, 4 percent or something.
我们无法与那些用大量债务融资的购买者竞争，可能平均利率为4%或更高
CHARLIE MUNGER: And he won’t take the losses if it goes down. He gets part of the profit if it goes up.
查理·芒格：如果股价下跌，他不会承担损失。如果股价上涨，他会获得部分利润。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, his calculus is just so different than ours. And he’s got the money to make the deal.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，他的计算方式与我们完全不同。而且他有足够的资金来达成交易。
So, if all you care about is getting the highest price for your business, you know, we are not a good call.
所以，如果你唯一关心的是为你的生意获得最高价格，那么我们就不是一个好的选择。
And we will get some calls in any event. And we can offer something that — wouldn’t call it unique, but it’s unusual.
无论如何，我们会接到一些电话。我们可以提供一些——虽然不能称之为独特，但确实是不同寻常的东西。
The person that sold us that business and a couple of others that have — actually it’s almost, word for word, the same thing they say. They are all happy with the sale they made, very happy.
卖给我们那项业务的人以及其他几个人——实际上，他们说的几乎是逐字相同的内容。他们对自己所做的交易都很满意，非常满意。
And, you know, they are — they have lots and lots and lots of money, and they’re doing what they love doing, which is still running the business. And they know that they made a decision that will leave their family and the people who work with them all their lives in the best possible position.
而且，你知道，他们有很多很多很多的钱，他们在做他们热爱的事情，也就是继续经营业务。他们知道，他们做出了一个决定，这个决定将使他们的家人和与他们一起工作的人在一生中处于最佳状态。
And that’s — in their equation, they have done what’s best. But that is not the equation of many people, and it certainly isn’t the equation of somebody who buys and borrows every dime they can with the idea of reselling it after they, you know, maybe dress up the accounting and do some other things.
而这就是——在他们的方程式中，他们做了最好的选择。但这并不是许多人的方程式，当然也不是那些用尽所有资金进行购买和借贷，想着在稍后可能美化账目并做其他事情再转售的人。
And — but there — when the disparity gets so wide between what a heavily debt-financed purchase will bring as against an equity-type purchase, it gets to be tougher. There’s just no question about it. And it’ll stay that way.
当杠杆融资的购买与股本型购买之间的差距如此之大时，情况变得更难。这一点毫无疑问。而且这种情况会持续下去。
CHARLIE MUNGER: But it’s been tough for a long time, and we’ve bought some good businesses.
查理·芒格：但这已经很艰难很长时间了，我们还是买到了一些很好的公司。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。是的。
34. Most financial advisors don’t deserve their fees
大多数理财顾问不配收取他们的费用
WARREN BUFFETT: OK, Carol?
沃伦·巴菲特：好吧，卡罗尔？
CAROL LOOMIS: This question comes from Steve Haverstroll (PH) of Connecticut.
卡罗尔·卢米斯：这个问题来自康涅狄格州的史蒂夫·哈弗斯特罗尔（PH）。
“Warren, you have made it very clear in your annual letter that you think the hedge fund compensation scheme of ‘2 and 20’ generally does not work well for the fund’s investors.
“沃伦，你在年报中已经非常明确地表示，你认为对冲基金那种‘2和20’的补偿模式通常对基金的投资者并不利。
“And in the past, you have questioned whether investors should pay, quote, ‘financial helpers,’ unquote, as much as they can. But financial helpers can create tremendous value for those they help.
“而且过去，你曾质疑投资者是否应该支付所谓‘财务帮手’（引号表示）的高额费用。但财务帮手确实能为他们所帮助的人创造巨大的价值。
“Take Charlie Munger, for instance. In nearly every annual letter and on the movie this morning, you describe how valuable Charlie’s advice and counsel has been to you and, in turn, to the incredible rise in Berkshire’s value over time.
“以查理·芒格为例。在几乎每一封年报中以及今天早上的影片中，你都描述了查理的建议和忠告对你来说有多么宝贵，并反过来推动了伯克希尔价值的惊人增长。
“Given that, would you be willing to pay the industry standard, quote ‘financial helper’ fee of one percent on assets to Charlie? Or would you perhaps even consider ‘2 and 20’ for him? What is your judgment about this matter?”
“鉴于此，你是否愿意支付给查理行业标准的‘财务帮手’费用——资产的1%？还是你甚至考虑为他采用‘2和20’的收费模式？你对此怎么看？”
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. (Laughter)
沃伦·巴菲特：是的。（笑声）
Well, I’ve said in the annual report that I’ve known maybe a dozen people in my life — and I said there are undoubtedly hundreds or maybe thousands out there.
好吧，我在年报中曾说过，我这一生可能只认识十几个人——而我也说过，实际上无疑有数百甚至数千人存在。
But I’ve said that I’ve known, personally, a dozen where I would have predicted or did predict — in a fair number of those 12 cases — I did predict that the person involved would do better than average in investing over a long period of time.
但我曾说过，就我个人而言，有十几个人，我预测或者确实预测过——在这十几个人中相当多的案例——我预测他们在长期投资中会表现得优于平均水平。
And obviously, Charlie is one of those people. So would I pay him? Sure. But would I take financial advisors as a group and pay them one percent with the idea that they would deliver results to me that were better than the S&P 500 by one percent, and thereby leave me breaking even against what I could have done on my own? You know, there’s very few.
而显然，查理就是其中之一。那么我会付钱给他吗？当然。但我会把所有理财顾问作为一个整体，支付他们1%的费用，指望他们为我创造比标普500高出1%的回报，从而让我与自己操作的收益持平吗？你知道，这样的人非常少。
So it’s just not a good question to ask whether, you know, I’d pay Charlie one percent. That’s like asking, you know, whether I’d have paid Babe Ruth, you know, 100,000 or whatever it was to come over from the Red Sox to the Yankees. I mean, sure I would have, but there weren’t very many people I would have paid 100,000 to in 1919, or whatever it was, to come over to the Yankees.
所以，问我是否会支付给查理1%的费用并不是个好问题。这就像问我是否会支付10万美元（或者当时的其他数字）让贝比·鲁斯从红袜队转投洋基队。我的意思是，当然我会这么做，但在1919年（或者当时的其他年份），我愿意为此支付10万美元的人实在不多。
And so, the — it’s a fascinating situation, because the problem isn’t that the advisors are going to do so terrible. It’s just that you have an option available that doesn’t cost you anything that is going to do better than they are, in aggregate.
因此，这是一种引人入胜的情况，因为问题不在于这些顾问的表现会有多糟，而在于你有一个不花你一分钱就能整体上比他们表现更好的选择。
And it — it’s an interesting question. I mean, if you hire an obstetrician, assuming you need one, they’re going to do a better job of delivering the baby than, you know, if the spouse comes in to do it, or if they just pick somebody up off the street.
而这——这是个有趣的问题。我的意思是，如果你雇用一位产科医生，假设你需要的话，他们在接生方面会比让你的配偶来做或者从街上随便找个人来做要好得多。
And if you go to a dentist, if you hire a plumber, in all of the professions, there is value added by the professionals as a group, compared to doing it yourself or just randomly picking laymen.
而且，如果你去看牙医，或者雇一位水管工，在所有这些专业中，专业人士作为一个整体所带来的附加价值总比你自己动手或随便找个外行来做要高。
In the investment world, it isn’t true. I mean, they, the active group, the people that are professionals, in aggregate, are not, cannot do better than the aggregate of the people who just sit tight.
在投资领域，这并不成立。我的意思是，那些活跃的专业人士总体上并不能，也不可能比那些只是静观其变的人整体表现得更好。
折腾只是增加成本。
And if you say, “Well, in the active group there’s some person that’s terrific,” I will agree with you. But the passive people can’t all pick that person. And they wouldn’t — they don’t know how to identify them. So I —
如果你说，“好吧，在活跃的群体中有某个人非常出色，”我会同意你的观点。但那些被动的投资者并不能全部选出那个出色的人。而且他们也不会——因为他们不知道如何去识别那个人。所以我——
CHARLIE MUNGER: It’s even worse than that. The (inaudible) — the expert who’s really good, when he gets more and more money in, he suffers just terrible performance problems.
查理·芒格：情况甚至更糟。那个（听不清）——真正出色的专家，当他管理的资金越来越多时，就会出现非常糟糕的业绩问题。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Yeah.
沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，嗯。
CHARLIE MUNGER: And so you’ll find the person who has a long career at “2 and 20,” and if you analyze it, net, all the people who’ve lost money because some of the early people have had a good record but more money coming in later and they lose it.
查理·芒格：于是你会发现，那些长期采用“2和20”模式的人，如果你进行净分析，会发现所有亏钱的人都是因为最初表现不错的人，后来随着资金不断增加而亏损的。
So, the investing world is just, it’s a morass of wrong incentives, crazy reporting, and I’d say a fair amount of delusion.
所以，投资界简直是一团乱麻，充斥着错误的激励机制、疯狂的报告，我敢说还有相当多的自欺欺人。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, if you asked me whether I — those 12 people I picked would do better than the S&P working with a hundred billion dollars, I would answer that probably none of them would. I mean, they — that would not be their prospective performance.
沃伦·巴菲特：是的，如果你问我，那我挑选的那12个人是否能在管理一百亿美元时跑赢标普500，我会回答可能没有一个人能做到。我的意思是，他们——那并不会是他们预期的表现。
They’re not, but when I was talking of them, I — you know, or referencing them — and when they actually worked in practice, they dealt, generally, with pretty moderate sums. And as the sums grew, their relative advantage diminished.
确实不是，但当我谈论他们时，或者引用他们时，他们在实际操作中通常处理的是相当适中的金额。而随着资金规模的增大，他们的相对优势就会减弱。
It — I mean, it’s so obvious from history. The example I used in the report — I mean, the guy who made the bet with me, and incidentally all kinds of people didn’t make the bet with me because they knew better than to make the bet with me.
这——我的意思是，从历史上看这是如此明显。我在报告中举的例子——也就是与我打赌的那个人，而且顺便提一下，各种各样的人之所以没有与我打赌，是因为他们知道不该与我打赌。
You know, there were hundreds, at least a couple hundred underlying hedge funds. These guys were incented to do well. The fund of fund manager was incented to pick the best ones he could pick. The guy who made the bet with me was incented to pick the best fund of funds.
你知道，底层的对冲基金至少有几百家。这些人都有动力去做得好。基金中的基金经理也有动力挑选出他能挑选的最好的基金。与我打赌的那个人也有动力挑选出最好的基金中的基金。
You know, and tons of money, and just in with those five funds, a lot of money went to pay managers for what was subnormal performance over a long period of time. And it can’t be anything but that.
你知道，而且投入了大量资金，仅仅在那五只基金中，就有很多钱被用来支付那些长期表现低于正常水平的基金经理。而这只能如此。
And it’s an interesting — you know, it’s an interesting profession when you have tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people, who are compensated based on selling something that, in aggregate, can’t be true: superior performance. So —
而且这真是一个有趣的行业——当你有成千上万，甚至上十万的人，他们的报酬是基于出售一种总体上不可能实现的东西：卓越表现。那么——
But it’ll continue, and the best salespeople will tend to attract the most money. And because it’s such a big game, people will make huge sums of money, you know, far beyond what they’re going to make in medicine or you name it. I mean, you know, repairing the country’s infrastructure, I think.
但这种情况会继续存在，而最优秀的销售人员往往能吸引最多的资金。而且由于这是一个如此巨大的游戏，人们会赚取巨额资金，你知道，这远远超过他们在医疗领域或者其他任何领域能赚到的，我是说，比如修缮国家基础设施之类的，我想。
医药行业是不是也在出售总体上不可能实现的东西？欺骗和夸大比实际工作更容易赚到钱，因为面对的客户是乌央央的白痴。
I mean, the big money — huge money — is in selling people the idea that you can do something magical for them.
我的意思是，巨额资金——庞大资金——来自于向人们兜售这样一个观念：你可以为他们创造奇迹。
And if you have — if you even have a billion-dollar fund, you know, and get two percent of it — for terrible performance, you make — that’s $20 million.
而且如果你拥有——即使你有一个十亿美元的基金，并且收取其中的2%——对于糟糕的表现，你也能赚到——那就是2000万美元。
In any other field, you know, it would just blow your mind. But people get so used to it, you know, in the Wall — in the field of investment that it just sort of passes along. And $10 billion, I mean, $200 million fees?
在任何其他领域，这简直会让人难以置信。但人们已经习惯了，在华尔街——在投资领域，这种现象就这样普遍存在。而10亿美元，我是说，2亿美元的费用？
We’ve got two guys in the office, you know, that are managing $11 billion. Well, no they’re not. I’m sorry. Yeah, they’re managing 20 billion, you know, between the two of them, 21 billion maybe.
我们办公室里有两个家伙，你知道，他们管理着110亿美元。哦，不，他们不是。抱歉。是的，他们管理着200亿美元，两个人合计大概210亿美元吧。
And, you know, we pay them a million dollars a year, plus the amount by which they beat the S&P. They have to actually do something to get contingent compensation, which is much more reasonable than the 20 percent.
而且，你知道，我们每年给他们支付100万美元，再加上他们超越标普指数的部分。他们必须真正有所作为才能获得或有报酬，这比20%的比例要合理得多。
But how many hedge fund managers in the last 40 years have said, “I only want to get paid if I do something for you?” You know, “Unless I actually deliver something beyond what you can get yourself, you know, I don’t want to get paid.” It just doesn’t happen.
但是在过去40年中，有多少对冲基金经理曾说过，“只有当我为你做出一些事情时，我才希望得到报酬？”你知道，“除非我能真正提供超出你自己能够获得的东西，否则我不想拿钱。”这种情况根本没有发生过。
And, you know, it get back — it’s get back — it gets back to that line that I’ve used, but when I asked a guy, you know, “How can you, in good conscience, charge ‘2 and 20?’” And he said, “Because I can’t get 3 and 30.” You know — (Laughter)
而且，你知道，这又回到了我曾经提过的话题，当我问一个人，“凭良心，你怎么能收取‘2和20’的费用？”他说，“因为我拿不到‘3和30’。”你知道——（笑声）
Any more, Charlie? Or have we used up our —
还有吗，查理？还是我们已经用完了——
CHARLIE MUNGER: I think you’ve beaten up on them enough.
查理·芒格：我觉得你已经对他们痛批够了。
WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, well. (Laughter)
沃伦·巴菲特：是啊，好吧。（笑声）
8、《2024-11-04 Why $11 Trillion in Assets Isn’t Enough for BlackRock’s Larry Fink》
Firms such as Blackstone, Apollo Global Management and KKR manage just a fraction of BlackRock’s $11.5 trillion in assets. Yet those rivals command market values that are in the ballpark of BlackRock’s, which is around $150 billion.
像 Blackstone、Apollo Global Management和KKR这样的公司管理的资产仅是贝莱德 11.5 万亿美元资产的一小部分。然而，这些竞争对手的市值与贝莱德的相当，约为 1500 亿美元。
The reason: Private-market funds can charge more than BlackRock gets for much of its plain-vanilla, index-based funds. And the market rewards that.
原因：私人市场基金的收费可以超过贝莱德的大部分普通指数基金。市场对此给予了回报。
Over the past one, three and five years, shares of Blackstone, Apollo and KKR have handily outperformed those of BlackRock. To change that, Fink is taking an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach, largely through acquisitions.
在过去的一年、三年和五年中，黑石、阿波罗和 KKR 的股票表现远远优于贝莱德。为了改变这一点，芬克采取了“如果你打不过他们，就加入他们”的策略，主要通过收购来实现。
9、《2024-11-18 AI Investments Are Booming, but Venture-Firm Profits Are at a Historic Low》
In September, Sequoia Capital bought $861 million of its own shares in payments company Stripe held by a set of funds it launched over a decade ago. This allowed investors in the older funds to earn a profit, while Sequoia is holding the shares through a newer set of funds. Sequoia first backed Stripe in 2010.
今年九月，红杉资本从其十多年前设立的一组基金中购买了价值 8.61 亿美元的支付公司 Stripe 的自有股份。这使得老基金的投资者获得了利润，而红杉则通过一组新的基金持有这些股份。红杉在 2010 年首次支持 Stripe。
10、《2024-11-25 Federal Prosecutors Charge Star Bond Investor Ken Leech With Fraud》
Federal prosecutors on Monday charged longtime bond investor Ken Leech with fraud, alleging he cherry-picked a series of trades to favor some clients while shifting losses to others.
联邦检察官周一指控长期债券投资者 Ken Leech 犯有欺诈罪，指控称他挑选了一系列交易以偏袒某些客户，同时将损失转移给其他客户。
Leech, the former chief investment officer and star trader at Franklin Templeton BEN 3.46%increase; green up pointing triangle subsidiary Western Asset Management, allegedly assigned over $600 million in gains to favored clients and $600 million in losses to others, according to an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court Monday.
根据周一在曼哈顿联邦法院解封的起诉书，富兰克林邓普顿 BEN 3.46%increase; green up pointing triangle子公司 Western Asset Management 的前首席投资官和明星交易员 Leech 据称将超过 6 亿美元的收益分配给了受宠客户，而将 6 亿美元的损失分配给了其他客户。
11、《2024-12-06 IPOs Are So Passé. Here’s How Employees Are Getting Rich Now.》
This shift is changing what it means to be a private company, rekindling fears about how well the public markets are working and sparking debates about who is knowledgeable enough to buy private stocks where there is limited liquidity and information. The tender offer is helping these companies stay private even longer. The number of so-called unicorns—private companies valued at $1 billion or more—has shot up to around 1,250, from 47 a decade ago, according to CB Insights.
这种转变正在改变作为一家私营公司的意义，重新引发了对公共市场运作良好的担忧，并引发了关于谁有足够的知识购买流动性和信息有限的私人股票的辩论。要约收购正在帮助这些公司保持更长时间的私营状态。根据 CB Insights 的数据，所谓的独角兽——估值达到 10 亿美元或以上的私营公司——的数量已经从十年前的 47 家飙升至大约 1,250 家。
U.S. companies have raised $31 billion in traditional IPOs this year, well below the 10-year average, according to data from Dealogic. The IPO market went cold in late 2021, when the Fed signaled it would start raising rates, and has been slow to bounce back.
根据 Dealogic 的数据，美国公司今年通过传统 IPO 筹集了 310 亿美元，远低于 10 年平均水平。IPO 市场在 2021 年底变冷，当时美联储表示将开始加息，并且恢复缓慢。
The average private company is older and worth more than ever before. The median IPO company is 10 years old, up from 6 in 2000, according to data from researcher Jay Ritter at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.
平均私营公司比以往任何时候都更老、更有价值。根据佛罗里达大学沃灵顿商学院研究员杰伊·里特的数据，中位数 IPO 公司的年龄为 10 年，而 2000 年为 6 年。
Stakes in pre-IPO startups are considered riskier than buying publicly traded stocks because they have looser disclosure rules and can be harder, if not impossible, to sell at a moment’s notice. That has led regulators and lawmakers to restrict these stocks to investors with a large enough incomes or bank account. A group of lawmakers have proposed legislation that would allow any investor who passes an exam to buy private securities.
在首次公开募股前的初创公司中持有股份被认为比购买公开交易的股票风险更大，因为它们的披露规则较为宽松，并且在短时间内出售可能更难，甚至不可能。这导致监管机构和立法者将这些股票限制在收入或银行账户足够大的投资者手中。一群立法者提出了一项立法，允许任何通过考试的投资者购买私人证券。
12、《2025-01-18 The Year That Hedge Funds Got Their Mojo Back》
Hedge funds are having a moment. Will it last?
对冲基金正迎来高光时刻。这会持续吗？
In a year when everything seemed to go up, the industry generated some of its strongest, and most consistent, returns in a decade. The big question for investors: Was 2024 a turning point, or will the recent trend of so-so—and sometimes dismal—returns quickly reassert itself?
在一切似乎都在上涨的一年里，该行业创造了十年来最强劲、最稳定的一些回报。投资者面临的重大问题是：2024 年是一个转折点，还是最近平平甚至有时糟糕的回报趋势会迅速重现？
On average, hedge funds gained 10.7% after fees last year, according to an index from PivotalPath tracking more than 1,100 funds. That was the best year since 2020, when they made 11.4% amid pandemic-fueled volatility. Before that, the last time the industry saw double-digit gains was 2013.
根据 PivotalPath 追踪超过 1,100 只基金的指数显示，去年对冲基金在扣除费用后平均收益为 10.7%。这是自 2020 年以来的最佳年份，当时由于疫情引发的波动，他们获得了 11.4%的收益。在此之前，该行业上一次实现两位数增长是在 2013 年。
It is a welcome showing for an industry that has faced growing competition for investor dollars from areas such as private credit, plus criticism for charging high fees while often delivering middling returns. Even with last year’s strong outturn, the hedge-fund industry still delivered less than half of the S&P 500’s 25% total return, including dividends.
对于一个面临来自私人信贷等领域的投资者资金竞争加剧的行业来说，这是一个受欢迎的表现，同时也因收取高额费用而常常只提供中等回报而受到批评。即使去年表现强劲，对冲基金行业的回报仍不到标普 500 指数 25%总回报（包括股息）的一半。
相当于在夜场里卖酒水，因为有小姐的贴身服务，同样的酒水就是要卖的贵一点。
Hedge-fund firms say they aren’t simply trying to beat indexes. Instead, they focus on making money no matter if broader markets rise or fall. Their appeal to big investors, such as pension funds and endowments, is that they try to protect money during downturns and generate returns that aren’t correlated to investors’ other holdings.
对冲基金公司表示，他们并不仅仅是试图击败指数。相反，他们专注于赚钱，无论大盘是上涨还是下跌。它们对大型投资者（如养老基金和捐赠基金）的吸引力在于，它们试图在经济低迷时期保护资金，并产生与投资者其他持股不相关的回报。
13、《2025-01-19 Hedge-Fund Fees Eat Up Half of Clients’ Profits》
Hedge-fund investors often gripe about high fees. A new report puts the problem in sharp relief.
对冲基金投资者经常抱怨高昂的费用。一份新的报告更清晰地揭示了这一问题。
Just over half of the industry’s total gross performance was eaten away by fees over the past two decades, according to LCH Investments. That compares to about 30% between 1969 and the early 2000s, said the company, which manages and advises on investments in hedge funds on behalf of investment firm Edmond de Rothschild and other investors.
据LCH Investments的数据，在过去二十年里，对冲基金行业总毛收益的一半以上被费用侵蚀。该公司指出，而在1969年至2000年代初，这一比例约为30%。LCH为投资公司Edmond de Rothschild及其他投资者管理和提供对冲基金投资建议。
“This increase in the proportion of gross gains being paid away in fees is clearly not to the advantage of investors,” said Rick Sopher, chairman of LCH.
“毛收益中用于支付费用的比例上升显然不利于投资者。”LCH董事长里克·索弗表示。
Viewed another way, hedge funds have earned $3.72 trillion since the late 1960s—and kept nearly $1.8 trillion of that in fees.
换个角度来看，自上世纪60年代末以来，对冲基金获得了3.72万亿美元的收益，其中近1.8万亿美元以费用形式被保留下来。
The worsening ratio of fees to gains reflects how hedge-fund returns have moderated in recent years, while fees, especially fixed management charges, have crept higher. Many firms take a management fee of 2% of assets, plus a performance fee equating to 20% of fund profits. Some outfits, including behemoth “multimanager” firms such as Citadel, charge much more.
费用与收益比率的恶化反映了近年来对冲基金回报的放缓，而费用，尤其是固定管理费，却在逐步上升。许多公司收取相当于资产规模2%的管理费，以及相当于基金利润20%的业绩提成。一些机构，包括Citadel等庞大的“多经理”公司，收费标准更高。
A shakeout in the private-equity industry is forcing firms to adapt or get left behind.
私募股权行业的洗牌迫使各公司不得不适应变化，否则将被淘汰。
The landscape of successful firms is increasingly divided between behemoths with several business lines such as Blackstone BX 2.72%increase; green up pointing triangle and Apollo Global Management and top performers that have focused on their roots of buying and selling companies for a profit. Firms that fall in the middle—those that are big, but not big enough, or whose returns are good but not great—are finding it difficult to raise money.
成功企业的格局正日益分化为两类：一类是如黑石（Blackstone）和阿波罗全球管理（Apollo Global Management）等拥有多个业务线的巨头；另一类是专注于以买卖企业获利这一根基而表现优异的公司。而处于中间地带的公司——那些规模大但不够大，或回报不错但不算卓越的企业——正发现筹资变得异常困难。
The growing list of firms that have struggled to raise money, delayed fundraising or settled for a smaller fund includes American Securities, Onex, Huron Capital and Vestar Capital Partners, according to people familiar with the matter.
据知情人士透露，那些筹资困难、推迟募资或仅满足于较小基金的公司名单不断增加，其中包括American Securities、Onex、Huron Capital和Vestar Capital Partners。
Anxiety among managers is running high as the forces that powered the industry’s growth fade. Institutional investors have maxed out on private equity, and higher interest rates are making it harder to raise money and profitably sell companies that were purchased when rates were lower. Firms are now fretting over whether to branch out into new business lines, sell themselves or be an acquirer, go public or court individual investors.
随着推动行业增长的力量逐渐消退，管理者的焦虑情绪日益高涨。机构投资者对私募股权的投资已经饱和，而较高的利率使得筹资及盈利性出售在低利率时期收购的公司变得更加困难。如今，各公司正担忧是否应拓展新业务线、自主出售或转为收购者、上市或吸引散户投资者。
“Whenever you’re in a market where the pace of change is accelerating, people are going to be asking: How are we doing?” said John Maldonado, managing partner of private-equity firm Advent International. “The one thing that’s definitely true is you have to have a plan.”
“只要你处在一个变革加速的市场中，人们就会不断问：我们做得如何？”私募股权公司Advent International的管理合伙人John Maldonado说道，“唯一肯定的事实是，你必须有一个计划。”
Advent, which manages about $95 billion in assets, last year completed a monthslong internal review that helped the firm decide to remain a partnership focused on private equity.
管理约950亿美元资产的Advent去年完成了一项长达数月的内部审查，这使公司决定继续作为一家专注于私募股权的合伙企业运营。
Meanwhile, the big are getting bigger by raking in money from insurance companies and individual investors. The top six private-markets managers—Apollo, Blackstone, Ares Management, KKR, Carlyle and Brookfield Asset Management—were responsible for nearly 60% of the industry’s total fundraising in the first three quarters of 2024, according to company filings and data compiled by Preqin. The figure is up from about 20% in 2019 and includes areas such as credit and infrastructure.
与此同时，大型公司正通过从保险公司和个人投资者那里吸金而变得更加强大。根据公司文件和Preqin汇编的数据，2024年前三季度，前六大私募市场管理者——阿波罗（Apollo）、黑石（Blackstone）、Ares Management、KKR、凯雷（Carlyle）和Brookfield资产管理——占据了行业总募资额的近60%，这一比例较2019年的约20%有了显著提升，并涵盖了信贷和基础设施等领域。
Fueling further angst: a pair of $12 billion deals BlackRock announced last year for infrastructure firm GIP and private-credit manager HPS. After years of trying to bulk up organically in private markets, the asset-management giant’s move to do it through M&A signaled a belief that the industry is changing quickly.
进一步激发焦虑的是，去年黑石集团宣布了两笔各价值120亿美元的交易，分别针对基础设施公司GIP和私人信贷管理公司HPS。经过多年的自然增长尝试后，这家资产管理巨头通过并购来扩展业务，表明了其对行业正在迅速变化的信念。
A depressed fundraising environment
募资环境低迷
The number of private-equity firms grew over the past few decades as pension funds, endowments and other institutional investors ramped up their exposure to private markets.
过去几十年中，随着养老基金、捐赠基金及其他机构投资者不断加大对私募市场的投入，私募股权公司的数量不断增加。
Now private markets account for 11.5% of portfolios globally, according to data from asset-manager Aviva Investors. Those institutional investors are no longer looking for more.
据资产管理公司Aviva Investors的数据，目前私募市场占全球投资组合的11.5%。这些机构投资者已经不再寻求更多的私募敞口。
Private-equity firms are also sitting on more than $3 trillion worth of companies that were bought at the peak of the market in 2021 when interest rates were lower, according to Bain & Co. They are holding on to them because they don’t want to accept lower valuations. As a result, money hasn’t been returned to investors.
根据Bain & Co的数据，私募股权公司手中还持有价值超过3万亿美元的公司，这些公司是在2021年利率较低时市场高峰期收购的。它们之所以持有这些公司，是因为不愿接受较低的估值，导致资金未能回流给投资者。
Private-equity fundraising will be depressed at least until those deals are cleared.
至少在这些交易完成之前，私募股权募资将持续低迷。
Clayton Dubilier & Rice is among those finding success in remaining a pure-play buyout shop. Its strong performance and focus, with only one big fund, have allowed it to take share among institutional investors.
Clayton Dubilier & Rice是那些成功保持纯粹买断业务的公司之一。其强劲的表现和专注（仅依靠一个大型基金）使其在机构投资者中赢得了市场份额。
The firm finished raising a $26 billion fund in 2023, up from $16 billion for its previous one. To help get there, CD&R more than doubled its head count in recent years, according to people close to the firm. Long known for investing in industrial and consumer companies, it has expanded into healthcare, technology and financial services and has tried to deepen its expertise in each sector.
该公司在2023年完成了260亿美元基金的募资，而此前的基金为160亿美元。据接近该公司的消息人士透露，为了实现这一目标，CD&R近年来将员工数量增加了一倍以上。长期以来，该公司以投资工业和消费品企业著称，如今已扩展至医疗、科技和金融服务领域，并努力在每个行业中深化其专业知识。
New pools of money
新资金池
Big players aren’t immune to the pressures facing the private-equity industry, but they are finding new pools of money to manage.
大型玩家也无法免疫于私募股权行业面临的压力，但他们正在找到可管理的新资金池。
Blackstone, for instance, has said its next big private-equity fund will be smaller than its last. Blackstone’s credit businesses, on the other hand, took in over $100 billion in 2024, driven in large part by deals to manage insurance-company assets and offerings aimed at individuals. All told, the firm raised $28 billion from individuals last year, nearly double what it raised the prior year.
例如，黑石曾表示其下一只大型私募基金规模将小于上一只。而另一方面，黑石的信贷业务在2024年吸纳了超过1000亿美元的资金，这在很大程度上得益于管理保险公司资产和面向个人的产品交易。总体来看，该公司去年从个人投资者那里募资280亿美元，几乎是前一年的两倍。
垃圾和垃圾总是相互吸引，不能“吃自己饭”的喜欢聚在一起。
Other firms that want to reach these pools of capital need the resources that come with scale. That is fueling a recent spate of M&A, with firms tying the knot with bigger players such as BlackRock, Blue Owl or Franklin Templeton.
其他希望进入这些资金池的公司需要规模带来的资源优势。这推动了近期一波并购浪潮，许多公司与黑石、Blue Owl或富兰克林邓普顿等大型玩家联姻。
General Atlantic is among those branching out. The firm was a pioneer in growth investing, which typically involves taking a significant minority stake in a fast-growing business. It determined about five years ago that investors wanted to work with firms that could offer them a range of options to meet a variety of needs, says Chief Executive Bill Ford.
General Atlantic是那些扩展业务的公司之一。该公司在成长型投资领域处于先驱地位，这通常涉及在快速成长的企业中取得显著的少数股权。首席执行官Bill Ford表示，大约五年前，他们就发现投资者希望与能够提供多种选择以满足不同需求的公司合作。
In 2020, General Atlantic launched a private-credit fund through a partnership with a firm run by Tripp Smith, who had co-founded GSO before selling it to Blackstone. In 2022, General Atlantic struck a deal to buy Smith’s firm.
2020年，General Atlantic与Tripp Smith运营的一家公司合作推出了一只私人信贷基金，Tripp Smith曾共同创立GSO，后将其出售给黑石。2022年，General Atlantic达成协议收购了Smith的公司。
Last year, it bought infrastructure firm Actis. General Atlantic now manages about $100 billion and has a plan to more than double that by 2030, including by managing money through a partnership with insurance company MetLife.
去年，该公司收购了基础设施公司Actis。General Atlantic目前管理着约1000亿美元资产，并计划到2030年将这一数字增加一倍以上，其中包括通过与保险公司MetLife的合作进行资金管理。
Big Four
四大
Last month, I compared the big multimanager multistrategy hedge funds to investment banks. The argument I made is that the big multistrategy funds are not exactly “hedge funds” in the traditional sense — that is, investment vehicles that raise money from limited partners, make investments, and give the limited partners the performance of the investments minus fees. Instead, they are more like investment banks: They raise money from the LPs, use the money to do trades, and use the profits from those trades to pay their employees, giving what is left over to the LPs. You can tell because traditionally hedge funds charged fees like “2% of assets and 20% of returns,” while the big multistrategy funds — often called “platforms” or “pod shops” — charge fees like “we will deduct whatever it costs us to run our fund, mostly employee pay, from what we give you.” These are called “pass-through fees.”
上个月，我将大型多经理、多策略对冲基金与投资银行进行了比较。我提出的观点是，这些大型多策略基金并非传统意义上的“对冲基金”——即从有限合伙人那里募集资金，进行投资，并将投资表现扣除费用后返还给有限合伙人的投资工具。相反，它们更像投资银行：它们从有限合伙人那里募集资金，用这些资金进行交易，再用交易所得利润支付员工薪酬，然后将剩余部分返还给有限合伙人。你可以从收费模式看出这一点：传统对冲基金通常收取“资产规模的 2%加收益的 20%”这样的费用，而大型多策略基金（通常被称为“平台”或“团队型基金”）则采用“我们会从返还给你的资金中扣除运营基金的所有成本，主要是员工薪酬”的收费模式。这种收费模式被称为“转嫁费用”。
I got some objections to this comparison. One objection is: If you invest in the stock of an investment bank, you are making a bet on the bank’s franchise value. If the bank has a good track record of making money for shareholders, the stock goes up.3 At a multistrategy hedge fund, the limited partners don’t get that. If the fund has a great track record of making money for LPs, it’s not like the LPs can sell their stakes in the fund at a premium. It’s more likely that they’ll get cashed out at par, as the fund returns capital and moves toward the great ideal of becoming a family office.
我对这种比较有一些异议。其中一个异议是：如果你投资一家投资银行的股票，你是在押注该银行的品牌价值。如果该银行有良好的为股东赚钱的历史记录，股价就会上涨。而在多策略对冲基金中，有限合伙人并不会得到这种好处。如果基金有出色的为有限合伙人赚钱的历史记录，有限合伙人并不能以溢价出售他们在基金中的份额。更可能的情况是，他们会以面值被赎回，因为基金会返还资本，并逐渐向成为家族办公室的理想目标迈进。
That’s a little odd, no? There is a lot of demand for those LP stakes; they kind of ought to trade at a premium. Here’s a fun Business Insider story about the growing dominance of the “big four” multistrategy funds — Millennium, Citadel, Point72, and Balyasny — that features this statistic:
这有点奇怪，不是吗？这些有限合伙权益的需求很大；它们本应以溢价交易。以下是《商业内幕》一篇有趣的报道，讲述了“四大”多策略基金（Millennium、Citadel、Point72 和 Balyasny）日益增强的主导地位，其中提到了这样一个统计数据
Point72 and Citadel have returned capital to investors, and Millennium can command a five-year lockup period for new money, a term length previously unheard of in the hedge fund world. One allocator told BI that Point72, the $39 billion firm run by the billionaire New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, had a $9 billion waitlist — which is more capital than firms like Eisler and Walleye manage.
Point72 和 Citadel 已向投资者返还资金，而 Millennium 则能对新资金要求五年锁定期，这在对冲基金领域此前闻所未闻。一位资金配置者告诉 BI，由亿万富翁、纽约大都会队老板史蒂夫·科恩管理的规模达 390 亿美元的 Point72 公司，其候补资金规模已达 90 亿美元，这一数额超过了 Eisler 和 Walleye 等公司管理的资金规模。
The demand to invest with Point72 — to give Point72 your money and take back whatever Point72 wants to give you, net of whatever fees it wants to charge — is greater than the supply; surely some aspiring investors would pay 110 cents on the dollar (to existing investors) to get off the waitlist, if only they were allowed to.
投资者希望将资金投入 Point72，即便意味着由 Point72 决定返还多少资金，并扣除其自行设定的费用，这种需求已超过供应；如果允许的话，一些渴望投资的人肯定愿意以每美元 110 美分的价格（支付给现有投资者）来摆脱等待名单。
Anyway the whole article is interesting, and fits with the thesis that the multistrategy platforms are institutional successors to investment banks:
无论如何，整篇文章都很有趣，并且符合多策略平台正逐渐成为投资银行机构继任者这一论点：
Goldman Sachs' prime brokerage desk, using regulatory filings, estimated in July that 53 multistrategy firms employed a total of 18,600 people. More than 71% of them worked for one of the big four, leaving the 49 other funds with a combined head count smaller than Millennium's. …
根据监管文件，高盛的主经纪业务部门在 7 月份估计，53 家多策略公司共雇佣了 18,600 人。其中超过 71%的员工效力于四大公司之一，其余 49 家基金的员工总数加起来还不及 Millennium 一家。
"They're becoming more and more like investment banks to an extent," said one platform founder with less than $10 billion in total assets. Others in the industry likened Citadel in particular to pre-IPO Goldman Sachs — a comparison Ken Griffin would most likely welcome, given his laudatory comments about the firm.
“一定程度上，他们越来越像投资银行了，”一位管理资产总额不到 100 亿美元的平台创始人表示。业内其他人士尤其将 Citadel 比作上市前的高盛（Goldman Sachs）——鉴于肯·格里芬（Ken Griffin）曾对该公司赞誉有加，他很可能乐于接受这种比较。
There is also a suggestion that the big platforms are qualitatively different from other hedge funds, that they are offering a different product entirely, and that if you can’t get into their funds you will choose, not some other hedge fund, but a different asset class:
还有一种观点认为，这些大型平台与其他对冲基金在本质上有所不同，它们提供的是一种完全不同的产品，如果你无法进入它们的基金，你将不会选择其他对冲基金，而是选择另一种资产类别：
A different allocator compared the concentration of capital in the four largest firms to passive investing, in which all the assets flow to Vanguard, BlackRock, or State Street.
另一位资产配置者将资本集中于四家最大公司的情况与被动投资进行了比较，即所有资产都流向先锋集团、贝莱德或道富集团。
"For people who can't get into the top guys, they're saying they'll just invest in some other structure or asset class instead," this person said, pointing to private credit as a landing spot for some of this capital.
“对于那些无法进入顶级基金的人来说，他们表示会转而投资其他结构或资产类别，”这位人士说道，并指出私人信贷成为了部分资金的去处。
And: 以及：
A February report from JPMorgan's capital advisory team said hedge funds with assets between $500 million and $5 billion had net outflows of $21.5 billion in the past two years, while firms with assets greater than $5 billion hauled in $12.2 billion in net new money. …
摩根大通资本顾问团队 2 月份的一份报告称，过去两年间，资产规模在 5 亿美元至 50 亿美元之间的对冲基金净流出 215 亿美元，而资产规模超过 50 亿美元的公司则净流入了 122 亿美元的新资金。
"If you're going to compete with Citadel and Millennium in their own backyard, you're already dead," one person who's building out their multistrategy offering told BI.
“一位正在建立自己多策略业务的人士告诉 BI：‘如果你打算在 Citadel 和 Millennium 的主场与他们竞争，那你已经输了。’”
They added, "Do you have a right to exist — or are you on borrowed time because you raised money when all multistrats could raise money?"
他们补充道：“你是否有生存的权利，还是说你只是因为在所有多策略基金都能筹到资金的时候筹到了钱，而在苟延残喘？”
I sometimes argue that the essential thing that gives a hedge fund the right to exist is that it raises money when the raising is good, not that it makes good trades, but I appreciate the self-reflection here.
我有时会认为，对冲基金存在的根本理由在于它在融资环境良好时筹集资金，而非进行成功的交易，但我欣赏这里的自我反思。
It is getting easier to invest in high-risk, high-reward private companies.
投资高风险、高回报的私营公司越来越容易。
Now, all it takes is $5,000 to buy a stake in a firm like artificial intelligence platform Glean or crypto exchange Kraken. EquityZen and Forge Global, which are marketplaces for trading shares of private companies, are lowering the minimum investment from tens of thousands of dollars, the companies said.
现在，购买人工智能平台 Glean 或加密货币交易所 Kraken 等公司的股份只需 5,000 美元。EquityZen 和 Forge Global 是交易私营公司股票的市场平台，这两家公司表示，它们正在将最低投资额从数万美元降低。
The two marketplaces are also launching a partnership Tuesday with Yahoo Finance, in which they share their data on roughly 100 pre-IPO companies on the website.
周二，这两个市场还与雅虎财经建立了合作关系，双方将在雅虎财经网站上共享约 100 家上市前公司的数据。
This is the investment industry’s latest play to put nonpublic companies in the hands of individual investors. Until recently, investing in private companies was the domain of institutional investors and ultrawealthy with the capital and connections to participate in fundraising rounds. Those often require seven-figure minimum investments and decadelong lockups.
这是投资业将非上市公司交到个人投资者手中的最新举措。直到最近，投资私营公司还是机构投资者和拥有资金和关系参与筹款的超级富豪的天下。这通常需要七位数的最低投资额和长达十年的锁定期。
Private-equity firms also are trying to attract some of the estimated $30 trillion held by U.S. individual investors.
私募股权公司也在努力吸引美国个人投资者持有的约 30 万亿美元资金。
Many nonpublic companies grow faster than publicly listed ones, which can mean higher returns. They also have limited transparency and less liquidity. They can have less stringent financial reporting requirements.
许多非上市公司比上市公司发展更快，这意味着更高的回报。它们的透明度也有限，流动性较低。它们对财务报告的要求可能不那么严格。
They are “secretive and opaque,” said Jeff Hooke, a senior lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School, a critic of private markets.
约翰-霍普金斯大学凯里商学院高级讲师杰夫-胡克（Jeff Hooke）是私营市场的批评者，他说，私营市场 "神秘而不透明"。
How it works
工作原理
Employees and early investors in startups are often looking to cash out, but they can’t just turn around and sell their shares into an open market. Firms like EquityZen and Forge have built marketplaces that find individual investors to buy these shares.
初创企业的员工和早期投资者往往希望套现，但他们又不能转身就把股份卖给公开市场。EquityZen 和 Forge 等公司建立了市场平台，寻找个人投资者购买这些股份。
The shares are often illiquid, and individual investors often expect to quickly trade in and out of investments. To address this, companies like EquityZen and Forge have created single-company funds that investors can buy into at smaller amounts.
这些股票通常流动性较差，个人投资者通常希望能快速进出投资。为解决这一问题，EquityZen 和 Forge 等公司创建了单一公司基金，投资者可以以较小的金额购买。
Still, the process isn’t as seamless as trading ETFs on apps like Robinhood. Trades can take days to finalize, and buyers are generally required to hold their stake for a minimum of six months. Forge and EquityZen charge commissions between 2% and 5% on each transaction.
不过，这个过程并不像在 Robinhood 等应用程序上交易 ETF 那样天衣无缝。交易可能需要几天时间才能完成，而且买方通常需要持有至少六个月的股份。Forge 和 EquityZen 对每笔交易收取 2% 至 5% 的佣金。
Most data on how valuable private companies are is incomplete because it relies on fundraising data that can be years old. Forge says it has compiled bid-ask data from across its platform to calculate a daily price that reflects what firms are actually worth.
大多数有关私营公司价值的数据都不完整，因为这些数据依赖的是多年前的筹资数据。Forge 表示，它已汇编了整个平台的买卖数据，以计算出反映公司实际价值的每日价格。
For example, Forge recently valued CoreWeave at $29 billion despite the company’s recent pre-IPO filings signaling a valuation north of $30 billion.
例如，Forge 最近对 CoreWeave 的估值为 290 亿美元，尽管该公司最近提交的首次公开募股前文件显示其估值在 300 亿美元以上。
Originally, Forge sold this data as part of a subscription. Chief Executive Kelly Rodriques said partnering with Yahoo to put some of it in front of the website’s 100 million users adds more value to private markets than keeping it behind its own paywall.
最初，Forge 将这些数据作为订阅的一部分出售。公司首席执行官凯利-罗德里格斯（Kelly Rodriques）表示，与雅虎合作，将部分数据提供给雅虎网站的 1 亿用户，比将这些数据保留在自己的付费墙后面更能为私人市场带来价值。
“We’re at a tipping point right now,” he said. “Increased participation leads to greater liquidity.”
"我们现在正处于一个临界点，"他说。"参与度的提高会带来更大的流动性"。
The companies declined to comment on the financial structure of the partnership.
两家公司拒绝就合作的财务结构发表评论。
Opportunity versus suitability
机会与适用性
As companies remain private for longer in the moribund IPO market, more investors are worried about leaving potential returns on the table. The average company goes public today at 10.7 years old, compared with 6.9 years in 2015, according to Morningstar.
随着公司在奄奄一息的首次公开募股（IPO）市场中保持私有化的时间越来越长，越来越多的投资者担心会错失潜在回报。晨星公司（Morningstar）的数据显示，如今公司上市的平均年龄为 10.7 年，而 2015 年仅为 6.9 年。
“A lot of the risk-return opportunity has been pushed into the private markets,” said Christian Chan, chief investment officer of AssetMark, a technology platform for independent financial advisers."
独立财务顾问技术平台 AssetMark 的首席投资官 Christian Chan 说："许多风险回报机会都被推向了私人市场。
Investing in private markets isn’t always what it is cracked up to be. Private-equity investments underperformed public markets last year for the third time in four years, according to a McKinsey report.
在私募市场投资并不总是尽如人意。麦肯锡的一份报告显示，去年私募股权投资的业绩四年来第三次低于公开市场。
Investors must be “accredited” to participate in private-market deals such as through EquityZen and Forge, per Securities and Exchange Commission requirements. That means earning $200,000 annually (or $300,000 for couples) or having a net worth over $1 million, excluding a primary residence. Those thresholds haven’t changed since the 1980s, so today roughly one in five U.S. households qualifies—up from 1.8% in 1983, according to an SEC report.
根据美国证券交易委员会的要求，投资者必须获得 "认可"，才能通过 EquityZen 和 Forge 等公司参与私人市场交易。这意味着年收入要达到 20 万美元（夫妻双方为 30 万美元），或净资产超过 100 万美元（不包括主要住所）。根据美国证券交易委员会的一份报告，这些门槛自 20 世纪 80 年代以来一直未变，因此如今大约每五个美国家庭中就有一个符合条件，而 1983 年仅为 1.8%。
Though the $5,000 minimum investment represents a new low for a stake in private companies, EquityZen Chief Executive Atish Davda said he would like to see it go even lower—but not too low.
尽管 5,000 美元的最低投资额创下了私人公司股权投资的新低，但 EquityZen 首席执行官阿蒂什-达夫达（Atish Davda）表示，他希望投资额能更低一些，但也不会太低。
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should,” he said. “If I only have $50 to invest, am I better off taking my $50 and going on FanDuel or something?” he added, referring to the sports-betting company."
他说："你可以这样做，但并不意味着你应该这样做。"他补充说，"如果我只有 50 美元可以投资，我是不是最好拿着这 50 美元去上 FanDuel 或其他什么网站？
Write to Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com写信给 Imani Moise，电子邮件：imani.moise@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
更正和补充
EquityZen and Forge Global are lowering their investment minimums to $5,000, the companies said. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the lowered minimums were part of a planned announcement on Tuesday. (Corrected on March 25.)
EquityZen 和 Forge Global 两家公司表示，将把最低投资额降至 5,000 美元。本文早先的一个版本错误地指出，降低最低投资额是计划于周二发布的公告的一部分。(已于 3 月 25 日更正）。
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