I.H.28.Warren Buffett.Conglomerate Structure

100%控股子公司的股息是免税的，同时也能通过总部（有见识的所有者）消除大量管理上的噪音。

1、《1999-05-03 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

77. Creating value for subsidiaries by leaving them alone

通过“放手”来为子公司创造价值

WARREN BUFFETT: Zone 2.

沃伦·巴菲特：第二区域。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good afternoon, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. I’m Patrick Wolff, formerly from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and soon to be from the San Francisco area.

听众：下午好，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我是帕特里克·沃尔夫，之前来自马萨诸塞州的剑桥，不久后将搬到旧金山地区。

Like many people around the world who want to learn about business, I’ve read all of your letters to the shareholders. And like many people here in this room, I was so impressed that I bought a piece of the company.

像世界上许多想学习商业的人一样，我阅读了您写给股东的所有信件。而且像这里许多人一样，我非常感动，于是买下了公司的一部分股份。

But I must admit that, in studying Berkshire Hathaway, there’s one element that I didn’t quite understand, and I’d love it if you could please explain it. And that is the following.

但我必须承认，在研究伯克希尔哈撒韦时，有一个方面我不太理解，我希望您能解释一下。这个问题是：

How does Berkshire Hathaway add value to the various wholly-owned companies in the manufacturing services and retail division?

伯克希尔哈撒韦如何为制造业、服务业和零售业部门的全资子公司增加价值？

And the reason I ask this question is, as you yourself said earlier this morning, it’s very difficult in a negotiated purchase agreement to buy a company for anything other than what it’s truly worth.

我之所以问这个问题，是因为您今天早上提到，在谈判收购协议中，以公司实际价值以外的价格收购一家企业是非常困难的。

So if Berkshire Hathaway is going to create value by buying such fantastic companies as the Nebraska Furniture Mart, or See’s Candies, or any of the other fantastic businesses we have, there must be some way in which Berkshire Hathaway adds to that value. Could you please explain how we do that?

因此，如果伯克希尔哈撒韦通过收购像内布拉斯加家具商场或See’s糖果这样的优秀公司来创造价值，那一定有某种方式可以增加这些公司的价值。您能解释一下我们是如何做到的吗？

WARREN BUFFETT: In certain specific cases, the case of General Re being the most recent example, we actually laid out in the proxy material why we thought there was at least a reasonable chance that the ownership by Berkshire would add value.

沃伦·巴菲特：在某些具体情况下，比如最近的通用再保险（General Re）案例，我们确实在股东代理材料中列出了为什么我们认为伯克希尔的拥有权有可能增加价值的理由。

And we got into various reasons about the ability to use the float, and tax advantages, and the ability to move faster around the world, and that sort of thing. So we’ve actually spelled that out in that case.

我们谈到了各种理由，比如利用浮存金的能力、税收优势，以及在全球范围内更快行动的能力等等。在那个案例中，我们实际上已经详细说明了这些。

I think in the case of something like Executive Jet, you might well figure that there are some reasons why association with Berkshire would put Executive Jet on the map and in the minds of people who could afford to buy fractional ownerships of planes, faster than might otherwise be the case.

以Executive Jet为例，你可能会认为，与伯克希尔的关联能更快地让Executive Jet在市场上有名气，并在那些能够负担飞机部分所有权的人的心目中建立起形象。

But usually the situation — so there are specific cases where we bring something to the party. But the biggest thing we bring to the party on a generalized basis is what I spelled out a little bit in the annual report this year in talking about GEICO.

但通常情况下——虽然在某些具体情况下我们确实带来了一些额外的价值——但我们在普遍意义上带来的最大优势是我在今年的年报中谈到GEICO时提到的一点。

We enable terrific managers to spend, in many cases, to spend a greater percentage of their time and energies on what they do best, and what they like to do best, and what is the most productive for owners than would be the case without our ownership.

我们让优秀的管理者能够在许多情况下将更多的时间和精力花在他们最擅长、最喜欢、并且对股东最有生产力的事情上，而不是在没有我们持有权的情况下所面对的其他事务。

In other words, we give them a very rational owner who expects them to spend all of their time focused on what counts for the business and eliminates the distractions that often come with running a business, particularly a publicly-owned business.

换句话说，我们为他们提供了一位非常理性的所有者，这位所有者希望他们把所有时间都集中在对企业真正重要的事情上，并消除了运营企业（特别是上市公司）时经常会遇到的干扰。

一定程度上消除噪音。

I would guess that the CEOs of most public companies waste a third of their time, at least, in all kinds of things they do that really don’t add a thing to the business — in many cases subtract, because they’re trying to please various constituencies and waste their time with them, that take the company backwards.

我猜测，大多数上市公司的CEO至少浪费了三分之一的时间在各种对企业毫无贡献的事情上——在许多情况下，这些事情反而会拖累公司，因为他们试图取悦各种利益相关者，并在这些事情上浪费时间。

But we eliminate all of that. So, we simply can create an ownership — we think we can create the best ownership environment, frankly, that can exist — other than maybe owning it a hundred percent yourself — for any business.

但我们消除了所有这些干扰。我们认为，我们可以为任何企业创造一个所有权环境——坦白说，这是除了完全自己拥有企业之外，能够存在的最佳所有权环境。

And that happens to also go along with how we like to lead our lives, because we don’t want to run around and attend a lot of meetings and do all of these things that people do. And that’s — that can be a significant plus.

这也正好符合我们想要的生活方式，因为我们不想东奔西跑地参加许多会议，也不想做其他人通常做的那些事。这可以说是一个显著的优势。

I think that GEICO has probably grown a fair amount faster as a subsidiary of Berkshire than it would have if it had remained an independent company, although it was a hell of an independent company and would have continued to be one.

我认为，GEICO作为伯克希尔的子公司，可能比作为一家独立公司时增长得更快，尽管它是一家非常优秀的独立公司，并且本来也会继续如此。

But I think billions and billions of dollars will be added to the value of GEICO, over and above what would have happened if it had remained a public company. Not because, as I put in the report —

但我认为，与其作为上市公司相比，GEICO的价值将额外增加数十亿美元。这并不是因为我们教给了他们什么——

Now we haven’t taught the management one thing about the classification of insurance risk, or how to run better ads, or anything of the sort. We’ve just let them spend a hundred percent of their time focused on what counts. And that is a rare occurrence in American business.

我们没有教管理层任何关于保险风险分类的知识，也没有教他们如何制作更好的广告或类似的东西。我们只是让他们将100%的时间集中在重要的事情上。这在美国商业中是很少见的。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. Just not having a vast headquarters staff to tell the subsidiaries what to do — that helps most of the kind of subsidiaries that we buy. They are not looking for a lot of people looking over their shoulder from headquarters, and a lot of unnecessary flights back and forth, and so on.

查理·芒格：是的，不设立庞大的总部来指挥子公司如何运作——这一点对我们收购的大多数子公司来说是有帮助的。这些子公司并不希望总部派大量人手来监视他们的工作，也不希望有许多不必要的来回飞行等干扰。

So, I would say most of what we do, or at least a great part of what we do, is just not interfere in a counterproductive way. And that non-interference has enormous value, at least with the kind of managers and the kind of businesses that have joined us.

因此，我认为我们所做的大部分事情，或者至少很大一部分事情，就是避免以反生产力的方式干预。而这种不干预的方式至少对我们加入的这些管理者和企业有着巨大的价值。

WARREN BUFFETT: And a great many — you have to see it to believe it — but in a great many corporate operations, the importance of a large group of people is tied to how much they meddle in the affairs of other people who are out there doing the work.

沃伦·巴菲特：你得亲眼见到才会相信，在许多企业运营中，一个庞大的团队的存在重要性往往与他们干涉那些真正从事工作的人事务的程度相关。

And, you know, we stay out of the way. And we’re appreciative owners and we’re knowledgeable owners. We know when somebody has done a good job and we know when they’ve done a good job when industry conditions are terribly tough.

而我们会避开干扰。我们是感激的所有者，也是有见识的所有者。我们知道什么时候有人做得很好，即使在行业环境非常困难的情况下，我们也知道他们表现优异。

So, we can look at our shoe operations, for example. And, you know, they are in tough industry conditions now. We’ve got some absolutely terrific people. And we are knowledgeable enough about that, so we don’t go simply by a bunch of figures and make a determination whether people are doing the right thing.

比如，我们可以看我们的鞋业运营。你知道，现在这个行业环境很困难。但我们有一些非常出色的人才。我们对此了解得足够深刻，所以我们不会仅仅依据一些数字来判断他们是否在做正确的事情。

So, we’ve got — we’re knowledgeable owners and we have no one whose job at headquarters is to go around and tell our managers how to run their human relations departments, or how to run their legal departments, or a dozen other things.

我们是有见识的所有者，而且在总部没有人专职到处跑，告诉我们的管理者如何管理他们的人力资源部门，或如何管理他们的法律部门，或者其他十几个方面的事务。

And not only do people have more time to work on the productive things, but I think they probably actually appreciate the fact that they’re left alone.

这不仅让他们有更多的时间专注于生产性的事务，而且我认为他们可能实际上也很感激被放手管理这一事实。

So, I think you even get more than the proportional amount of effort out of them than would be indicated simply by the amount of time you free up, because I think you get even an added enthusiasm for the job.

因此，我认为你从他们身上获得的努力不仅仅是时间释放的直接比例，因为我认为你还会获得一种额外的工作热情。

And I think having people in a large organization that truly are enthusiastic about what they’re doing, that doesn’t happen all the time. But I think it does happen to a pretty good degree at Berkshire.

我认为，让一个大型组织中的人真正对自己的工作充满热情，这并不是随时都能发生的事情。但我认为在伯克希尔，这种情况发生的程度相当高。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: No more.

查理·芒格：没有更多要补充的了。

2、《2015-02-27 Berkshire - Past Present and Future》

At the shareholder level, taxes and frictional costs weigh heavily on individual investors when they attempt to reallocate capital among businesses and industries. Even tax-free institutional investors face major costs as they move capital because they usually need intermediaries to do this job. A lot of mouths with expensive tastes then clamor to be fed -- among them investment bankers, accountants, consultants, lawyers and such capital-reallocators as leveraged buyout operators. Money-shufflers don’t come cheap.

在股东的层面，当个人投资者试图在企业和行业之间重新分配资本时，税收和摩擦成本会给他们带来沉重的负担。即使免税的机构投资者在转换资本时也面临比较大的成本，因为他们通常需要中介机构去完成这个工作。此时，无数张昂贵的嘴需要被养活——其中包括投资银行家，会计师，咨询师，律师以及资本配置运营商比如杠杆收购者。资本的重新洗牌可一点也不便宜。

In contrast, a conglomerate such as Berkshire is perfectly positioned to allocate capital rationally and at minimal cost. Of course, form itself is no guarantee of success: We have made plenty of mistakes, and we will make more. Our structural advantages, however, are formidable.

相比之下，像伯克希尔这样的企业集团完全有能力以最低的成本，合理地配置资本。当然，企业形式本身并不能保证会成功：我们犯了无数错误，并且还会犯更多。然而，我们的结构性优势是非常强大的。

At Berkshire, we can -- without incurring taxes or much in the way of other costs -- move huge sums from businesses that have limited opportunities for incremental investment to other sectors with greater promise. Moreover, we are free of historical biases created by lifelong association with a given industry and are not subject to pressures from colleagues having a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s important: If horses had controlled investment decisions, there would have been no auto industry.

在伯克希尔，我们能够在不产生税负或者其他成本的情况下，将巨额资本，从增量投资机会有限的业务中，转移到其他有更大前景的业务中。另外，我们不会因与特定行业的终身联系而产生历史偏见，也不会遭受维护现状符合其既得利益的同伴的压力。这一点很重要：如果马儿控制了投资决策，那么就不会有汽车行业了。

Another major advantage we possess is the ability to buy pieces of wonderful businesses -- a.k.a. common stocks. That’s not a course of action open to most managements. Over our history, this strategic alternative has proved to be very helpful; a broad range of options always sharpens decision-making. The businesses we are offered by the stock market every day -- in small pieces, to be sure -- are often far more attractive than the businesses we are concurrently being offered in their entirety. Additionally, the gains we’ve realized from marketable securities have helped us make certain large acquisitions that would otherwise have been beyond our financial capabilities.

我们拥有的另一个主要优势是，购买好生意的一部分(普通股)的能力。这不是大多数管理层可以采取的活动。在我们的历史中，这种策略选择已被证明是非常有益的；广泛的选择总是使得决策更加明智。股票市场每天给予我们的企业报价(当然只是一小部分)，往往比我们整体收购的报价更具吸引力。此外，我们从股市上实现的收益，帮助我们进行了许多大型收购，否则这些收购将会超出我们的财务能力。

需要强大的安全感，能有效排除心理上的干扰，通过大量阅读比较各种机会成本，巴菲特评价是客观的，“That’s not a course of action open to most managements.”，也是大多数管理层不能承认的事实。

In effect, the world is Berkshire’s oyster -- a world offering us a range of opportunities far beyond those realistically open to most companies. We are limited, of course, to businesses whose economic prospects we can evaluate. And that’s a serious limitation: Charlie and I have no idea what a great many companies will look like ten years from now. But that limitation is much smaller than that borne by an executive whose experience has been confined to a single industry. On top of that, we can profitably scale to a far larger size than the many businesses that are constrained by the limited potential of the single industry in which they operate.

实际上世界是属于伯克希尔的——这个世界提供给我们范围广泛的机会，远远超出大多数企业实际面临的机会。当然，我们仅限于那些我们能够评估其经济前景的企业。这是一个重要的限制：很多企业查理和我都不知道十年后将会如何。但是这种限制远远小于，一位经验仅限于单一领域的高管所承受的限制。除此之外，我们可以有利可图的持续扩大规模，远远超过许多企业，这些企业普遍受到其所在单一行业潜力有限的制约。

I mentioned earlier that See’s Candy had produced huge earnings compared to its modest capital requirements. We would have loved, of course, to intelligently use those funds to expand our candy operation. But our many attempts to do so were largely futile. So, without incurring tax inefficiencies or frictional costs, we have used the excess funds generated by See’s to help purchase other businesses. If See’s had remained a stand-alone company, its earnings would have had to be distributed to investors to redeploy, sometimes after being heavily depleted by large taxes and, almost always, by significant frictional and agency costs.

我前面提到，相比于它适度的资本需求，喜诗糖果产出了大量现金收益。当然，我们很乐意明智地使用那些资本，去扩大我们的糖果业务。但是我们多次扩张的尝试基本上都是徒劳的。所以，在不产生无效税负或摩擦成本的情况下，我们将喜诗糖果产出的多余资金用于收购其他业务。如果喜诗糖果仍然是一家独立的公司，它的巨额收益将不得不分配给投资者以重新配置，有时在巨额税收以后，几乎总是被巨大的摩擦和代理人成本耗尽。

在美国100%控股的企业有股息扣除的政策（Dividends Received Deduction，简称DRD），不需要缴税联邦相关的所得税。

3、《2021-05-01 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

42. Successful acquisitions naturally become a bigger part of the business

成功的收购自然会成为业务的更大部分。

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Asher Haft in Brooklyn, who says — Asher’s been a shareholder since 2006. Says that he appreciates your honestly and candidness when it comes to explaining costly errors you made.

贝基·奎克：这个问题来自布鲁克林的阿舍·哈夫，他说——阿舍自 2006 年以来一直是股东。他表示，他很欣赏您在解释您所犯的昂贵错误时的诚实和坦率。

“In this year’s chairman letter, you discussed that you made a mistake in 2016 when calculating Precision Castpart’s average amount of future earnings, which resulted in Berkshire overpaying to acquire it.

在今年的董事长信中，您提到您在 2016 年计算 Precision Castpart 未来收益的平均金额时犯了一个错误，这导致伯克希尔在收购时支付了过高的价格。

“It appears that Precision’s earnings declined substantially in 2020 because of the pandemic and the effect of airline and travel industry. What calculations could you have made in 2016 that might have altered your decision to acquire it? And secondly, are the problems Precision is currently facing larger than the pandemic?

“看起来，Precision 的收益在 2020 年因疫情以及航空和旅游行业的影响大幅下降。你在 2016 年可以做出哪些计算，可能会改变你收购它的决定？其次，Precision 目前面临的问题是否比疫情更严重？”

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, Berkshire didn’t make the mistake, I made the mistake, incidentally. (Laughs)

沃伦·巴菲特：嗯，伯克希尔没有犯错，我犯了错，顺便说一下。（笑）

No, any time we look at buying a business, we’re evaluating the competitive strengths of the business, the price we have to pay, the management we get and everything.

不，每当我们考虑购买一家公司时，我们都会评估该公司的竞争优势、我们需要支付的价格、我们获得的管理层以及所有其他因素。

And we didn’t make a mistake on the management. But in terms of the earning power, on average, and, you know — when Boeing has troubles with the Max, well, that’s a probability.

我们在管理上没有犯错。但就盈利能力而言，平均来看，你知道——当波音在 Max 上遇到问题时，这就是一种概率。

I mean, any time, any customers of big — I mean, all kinds of things can happen.

我意思是，任何时候，任何大客户——我的意思是，各种事情都可能发生。

And we have seen some of those things happen. And therefore, I paid too much, in relation to average earnings. It’s a terrific company. And, you know, it’s — I’m happy with the management and everything, and —

我们已经看到一些事情发生。因此，我支付的价格相对于平均收入来说太高了。这是一家很棒的公司。而且，你知道，我对管理层和一切都很满意，——

But GE doesn’t need as many engines as we thought they would need. (Laughs)

但通用电气并不需要我们想象中那么多发动机。（笑）

And they get into the power business, and a variety of things. And we knew they were in the businesses. But we did not think those businesses would necessarily be in something close to a depression when other businesses are — that we bought end up, sometimes, doing better than we think.

他们进入了电力行业和各种其他业务。我们知道他们在这些行业。但我们并不认为这些行业在其他行业接近衰退时会如此——我们购买的某些业务有时表现得比我们想象的要好。

But we’ll continue making mistakes. I mean — and I shouldn’t say we will — I will.

但我们会继续犯错误。我是说——我不应该说我们会——我会。

But even these other —

但即使是这些其他——

CHARLIE MUNGER: The rest of us will help. (Laughter)

查理·芒格：我们其他人会帮忙。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: And we’ll — you know, we’ve got some wonderful deals, and some terrible deals.

沃伦·巴菲特：我们有一些很棒的交易，也有一些糟糕的交易。

And the nice thing about it is — as I pointed out, this doesn’t really apply in the case of Precision, precisely — but when we’re disappointed in a business, it usually becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of our business, just by the nature of things, because it isn’t going anyplace.

而这件事的好处在于——正如我所指出的，这在精确度的情况下并不适用——但当我们对一项业务感到失望时，它通常会逐渐成为我们业务中越来越小的百分比，这就是事物的本质，因为它没有任何进展。

And when we get a successful business, like a GEICO or something of the sort — GEICO’s doing — they’re doing 15 times as much business as when we bought control in 19 — they become a proportionally much more important part of our mix.

当我们获得一个成功的业务，比如 GEICO 或类似的公司——GEICO 的业务——他们的业务量是我们在 19 年收购控制权时的 15 倍——他们在我们的组合中变得相对更重要。

So, you really get, through just natural forces, you get more of your money in the things that have developed more favorably than you thought. You actually end up getting a greater concentration in the ones that work out.

所以，通过自然力量，你实际上会在那些发展得比你想象中更有利的事物上获得更多的收益。你最终会在那些成功的项目上获得更大的集中度。

通过控股的方式，把资金投向那些效率更高的企业，只有控股才能这么做。

It’s not like — as Charlie would say, it’s not like having children. I mean — (Laughs)

这并不像——正如查理所说，这并不像有孩子。我是说——（笑）

The one that — the bad ones cause you more problems. (Laughs)

坏的那些会给你带来更多问题。（笑）

But the — in this — in the children of businesses, the small ones kind of — by the way, we started with three businesses, Charlie and I. And Berkshire was textiles, Diversified Retailing was a department store, and trading stamps were Blue Chip’s business. And those were the three companies we put together. And all three of the original businesses failed.

但是在这方面，孩子们的企业，小企业有点——顺便说一下，我们是从三家企业开始的，查理和我。伯克希尔是纺织业，多元化零售是百货商店，交易邮票是蓝筹公司的业务。这三家公司是我们组合在一起的。而且这三家原始企业都失败了。

Which sort of gets me, in terms of the people that are worried about, don’t we know that coal is going to be phased out over time? (Laughs)

这让我有点困惑，关于那些担心的人，我们难道不知道煤炭会逐渐被淘汰吗？（笑）

Of course, we know coal’s going to be — you know, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to be phased out over time. I mean that —

当然，我们知道煤炭会被淘汰——你知道的，但这并不意味着我们会随着时间的推移而被取代。我的意思是——

Every business has some things to think about, about that way.

每个企业都有一些事情需要考虑，关于那种方式。

I.H.28.Warren Buffett.Conglomerate Structure

I.H.28.Warren Buffett.Conglomerate Structure

1、《1999-05-03 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

2、《2015-02-27 Berkshire - Past Present and Future》

3、《2021-05-01 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

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