I.H.36.Warren Buffett.Buy companies or stock?

1、《1998-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

50. If forced to choose, we’d keep the operating businesses

如果必须选择，我们会保留运营型业务

WARREN BUFFETT: Area six, please.

沃伦·巴菲特：请第6区。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, my name is David Oosterbaan. I’m from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

观众提问者：你好，我叫大卫·乌斯特班，来自密歇根州卡拉马祖。

This is a hypothetical question about Berkshire. It’s going to take a little imagination, I think.

这是一个关于伯克希尔的假设性问题。我想这需要一些想象力。

The scenario is as follows, that the U.S. Justice Department makes a ruling that Berkshire must split into two parts immediately. You and Mr. Munger must decide which part to keep.

假设的情景是，美国司法部裁定伯克希尔必须立即分拆为两部分。您和芒格先生必须决定保留哪一部分。

You can either choose your marketable securities, Coke, Gillette, Disney, et cetera, or you can choose your insurance and private businesses. Which one do you choose and why?

您可以选择您的可交易证券部分，如可口可乐、吉列、迪士尼等，或者选择保险和私营企业部分。您会选择哪一个？为什么？

WARREN BUFFETT: Well, that’s an easy question for me. I would choose the operating businesses anytime, because it’s more fun.

沃伦·巴菲特：对我来说，这是一个简单的问题。我会选择运营型业务，因为这更有趣。

And I have a good time out of the investments too, but I like being involved with real people, in terms of the businesses where they’re a cohesive unit that can grow over time, and —

虽然我也从投资中获得了很多乐趣，但我更喜欢与实际运营的人们互动，这些企业是一个能够随着时间增长的凝聚力单元，而且——

You know, I wished we owned all of Disney or Coca-Cola or Gillette, but we aren’t going to. So if I had to give up one or the other, I’d give up the marketable securities.

你知道，我希望我们拥有迪士尼、可口可乐或吉列的全部股份，但那是不可能的。所以，如果我必须放弃其中一个，我会放弃可交易证券。

But it’s not going to happen, so we’re going to be happy in both arenas, and I look forward to being in both arenas for the rest of my life.

但这不会发生，所以我们会在这两个领域都感到满意，我期待在余生中继续参与这两个领域。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I’ll be in a hell of a fix if I am not in the same arena. (Laughter)

查理·芒格：嗯，如果我不在同一个领域，我会陷入极大的困境。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: We’d both be in a hell of a fix.

沃伦·巴菲特：我们俩都会陷入困境。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, yeah.

查理·芒格：是的，是的。

2、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

16. We never sell a business and rarely sell a stock

我们从不出售企业，极少出售股票

WARREN BUFFETT: OK, we’ll go to 6.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，我们到第6区。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I’m Mark Chere (PH) from Hong Kong.

观众提问：我是马克·切雷（音），来自香港。

And Mr. Buffett, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. The first one is how many insurance companies does Berkshire Hathaway own?

巴菲特先生，我想问您几个问题。第一个问题是伯克希尔哈撒韦拥有多少家保险公司？

WARREN BUFFETT: Let me —

沃伦·巴菲特：让我——

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I can’t figure out the total.

观众提问：我算不出总数。

WARREN BUFFETT: Let me answer that and then you go on to your second one.

沃伦·巴菲特：让我先回答这个问题，然后你可以问第二个。

We have a great number of companies because, in many cases, a given strategy or a given operation operates through multiple companies.

我们拥有大量公司，因为在许多情况下，一项特定的战略或业务通过多个公司运营。

The company we announced the purchase of the other day is really one business, but it has three companies.

我们前几天宣布收购的一家公司实际上是一项业务，但它由三家公司组成。

I wouldn’t be surprised — I’ve never looked at the number — but it wouldn’t surprise me if we have 20 insurance companies or something. Maybe 25 or 30, who knows?

我从未去具体统计过，但如果我们拥有大约20家保险公司，或者可能是25到30家，我不会感到惊讶，谁知道呢？

We have about nine or 10 basic insurance operations for which a given management has responsibility, but there’s a lot of state laws applicable to insurance companies and different regulations.

我们大约有九到十项基本的保险业务，每项业务由一个特定的管理团队负责，但保险公司受到许多州法律和不同法规的约束。

It’s often advantageous to have a number of companies operating under one management to achieve one operational goal.

让多家公司在同一管理团队下运作，以实现一个运营目标，通常是有利的。

The big operations are General Re, and GEICO, and the National Indemnity reinsurance operation run by Ajit [Jain].

主要业务包括通用再保险（General Re）、GEICO，以及由阿吉特·贾因（Ajit Jain）负责的国家赔偿再保险业务。

And then we have a group of about five different operations that are all very decent businesses, but are not as big as the three I mentioned. Go ahead.

此外，我们还有大约五项不同的业务，它们都非常不错，但规模没有前面提到的三项业务大。继续问吧。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. Yeah, my main question is this. Much has been written by you, and a lot more by other people, about your criteria, or the criteria you use when you make a purchase of a company, either in full or in part.

观众提问：谢谢。我的主要问题是这样的：关于您购买一家公司的标准，无论是全部收购还是部分收购，您自己写过不少，其他人写的更多。

But almost nothing has been written by you, at any rate as far as I can tell, on your criteria for selling a company that you have already — you have previously purchased.

但据我所知，您几乎没写过关于出售您已收购公司的标准。

And I wonder if you could outline the criteria you might apply today to a sale of a company, and whether you would go — well, the simplest way to put it is this: Would you agree with Philip Fisher, who said there were two reasons to sell a company — or a stock?

我想知道，您是否可以概述一下您今天可能会应用的出售公司标准，以及您是否同意菲利普·费雪的观点——他认为出售公司或股票有两个理由？

One was when you’d discovered you’ve made a mistake in your analysis and the company was not what you thought it was.

第一个是，当您发现自己在分析中犯了错误，公司并不是您原本以为的那样。

And the second when — was when the — something within the company had changed, the management had changed or so on, so it no longer met your original criteria.

第二个是，当公司内部发生变化，比如管理层发生变化，导致公司不再符合您的原始标准时。

Would you — are those the principles that you apply or would you say there are different ones or others? Thank you.

您是否应用这些原则？或者您认为有其他不同的原则？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: I’m glad you brought up Phil Fisher, because he is a terrific mind and investor. He’s probably in his 90s now, and — but his —

沃伦·巴菲特：我很高兴你提到了菲利普·费雪，因为他是一位了不起的思想家和投资者。他现在可能已经90多岁了，不过他的——

A couple of books he wrote in the early ’60s are classics and I advise everybody here who’s really interested in investments to read those two books from the earlier ’60s.

他在60年代初写的几本书是经典之作。我建议这里所有真正对投资感兴趣的人都去读一读他那几本60年代的书。

And he’s a nice man. I went out to — 40 years ago, I dropped into his office in San Francisco, a tiny office. And he was kind enough to spend some time with me. And I’m a huge admirer of his.

他是个很好的人。40年前，我曾拜访过他位于旧金山的小办公室。他很友善地抽出时间与我交流。我非常钦佩他。

The criteria that we use for selling a business that we own control of are articulated in the annual report, under the ground rules.

我们出售控股企业的标准在年度报告的“基本规则”部分中有明确说明。

So in terms of businesses that we own, we have set forth — and I direct you there — we’ve written those same ground rules every year since 1983. And actually, we had those in our head for decades before that.

对于我们控股的企业，我们已经在年度报告中明确列出标准——我建议你去看看。从1983年以来，每年我们都在报告中重申这些基本规则。事实上，在此之前，这些规则已经存在于我们的脑海中几十年了。

And we have this quirk, which you should understand, and we want our shareholders to understand it, that even though we got offered a price that was far above its economic value, as we might calculate it going in — but if we got offered a price for that for a business that we have now, we have no interest in selling it.

我们有一个特性，你需要理解，我们也希望我们的股东理解：即使有人出价远远高于我们计算的经济价值，但如果这是针对我们目前拥有的企业的报价，我们也没有兴趣出售它。

You know, we just — we don’t break off the relationships that we develop simply because we get offered a fancy price for something. And we’ve had a chance to do that sometimes.

你知道，我们不会仅仅因为收到一个高价报价就中断我们建立的关系。有时我们确实有这样的机会，但我们没有这么做。

That may help us, actually, in acquiring businesses, because both of the companies that I’ve committed to buy in the last few weeks, both of them are very concerned about whether they have found a permanent home or not.

实际上，这种做法可能对我们收购企业有所帮助，因为过去几周我承诺收购的两家公司，都非常关心它们是否找到了一个永久的归属。

And people who build their businesses lovingly over 30, or 40, or 50 years, frequently care about that. A lot of people don’t care about that.

那些用心经营企业30年、40年甚至50年的人，通常会关心这个问题。当然，也有许多人不在乎这些。

And that’s one of the things we evaluate when buying a business. We look at the owner, and we say, “Do you love the — ” in effect, we ask ourselves, “Does he love the business or does he love the money?”

这也是我们在收购企业时评估的一个方面。我们会观察企业主，并问自己：“他更爱企业还是更爱钱？”

Nothing wrong with liking the money. In fact, we’d be a little disappointed if most of them didn’t like the money. But in terms of whether the primacy is loving the money or loving the business, that’s very important to us.

喜欢钱没有错。实际上，如果大多数人不喜欢钱，我们会有点失望。但他们究竟是更爱钱还是更爱企业，这对我们来说非常重要。

And when we find somebody that loves their business — and likes the money — but loves their business, we are a very, very desirable home for them, because we’re just about the only people that they can deal with, of size, where we can commit that they are going to be part of this operation, really, forever, and be able to deliver on that promise.

当我们遇到那些热爱自己的企业——同时也喜欢钱，但更热爱企业的人时，我们是一个非常理想的归属地。因为我们几乎是他们唯一可以合作的大型企业，我们能够承诺，他们的公司会永久地成为我们运营的一部分，并且我们能够兑现这一承诺。

要求对方不参与拍卖，那么要求别人做到的事自己也要做到。

I tell sellers that the only person that can double-cross them is me. I can double-cross them. But there’s never going to be a takeover of Berkshire. There’s never going to be a management consultant come in and say, “I think you’d better do this.”

我告诉卖家，唯一可能让他们失望的人是我。我可能让他们失望。但伯克希尔永远不会被收购，也永远不会有管理顾问进来说：“我认为你应该这么做。”

There’s never going to be a response to Wall Street saying, “Why aren’t you a pure play on this or that and therefore you ought to spin this off the—?” None of that’s going to happen.

也不会回应华尔街的要求，比如说：“为什么你们不专注于某个领域，因此你们应该剥离这个业务——？”这些都不会发生。

And we can tell them, with a hundred percent assuredness, that for a very long time — that if they make a decision to come with Berkshire, they — that decision will be the final decision as to where their company resides.

我们可以百分之百地向他们保证，如果他们选择加入伯克希尔，这将是他们公司归属的最终决定，并且会持续很长时间。

So, unless those couple conditions, which are extremely unusual, that are described in the ground rules prevail, we will not be selling operating businesses, even though someone might offer us far more than, logically, they’re worth.

因此，除非出现“基本规则”中描述的极其罕见的条件，否则我们不会出售经营中的企业，即使有人愿意出价远高于其逻辑价值。

The question about stocks is, we’re not quite with Phil Fisher on that, but we’re very close. We love buying stocks where we think the businesses are so solid, have such economic advantage, that we can essentially ride with them forever.

关于股票的问题，我们的观点与菲利普·费雪的看法不完全一致，但非常接近。我们喜欢购买那些业务稳固、经济优势明显的股票，这样我们基本上可以永久持有。

But you’ve heard me talk about newspapers earlier today. We would have thought newspapers — 20, 25 years ago, I think Charlie and I probably thought a daily newspaper, you know, in a single newspaper town — which practically all are — is probably about the solidest investment you could find.

不过，你们今天早些时候听我谈过报纸。20或25年前，查理和我可能认为，在一个只有一份日报的城市——几乎所有城市都是这样——日报可能是你能找到的最稳固的投资之一。

We might have thought a network TV-affiliated station was about as solid as you could find. And they were very solid.

我们可能会认为一家隶属于电视网络的电视台是你能找到的最稳固的投资之一。它们确实非常稳固。

But events have, over the last 20 or 25 years, have certainly changed that to some degree and maybe to a very, very big degree.

但过去20或25年的变化在某种程度上，甚至可能在很大程度上改变了这一点。

So we will occasionally reevaluate the economic characteristics that we see 10 years out from the ones that we saw 10 years ago and maybe come to a somewhat different conclusion.

因此，我们偶尔会重新评估我们对未来10年的经济特征的看法，与10年前的看法相比，可能会得出略有不同的结论。

The first 20 years of investing for me — or maybe more — my decision to sell almost always was based on the fact that I found something else I was dying to buy.

在我最初20年的投资生涯中——也许更长——我决定出售的理由几乎总是因为我发现了另一个迫不及待想买的东西。

I mean, I sold stocks at — you know, at three times earnings to buy stocks at two times earnings 45 years ago, because I was always running out of money. Now, I run out of ideas. I’ve got a lot of money but no ideas, and — (Laughter)

我的意思是，比如在45年前，我以三倍市盈率卖掉股票，然后用这些钱买入两倍市盈率的股票，因为那时我总是缺钱。现在，我缺乏的是想法。我有很多钱，但没有想法——（笑声）

You know, I’d — I’m not sure which is better. What do you think, Charlie? (Laughter)

你知道，我不确定哪种情况更好。你怎么看，查理？（笑声）

CHARLIE MUNGER: I think you were way better off when you had 50 years ahead of you — (laughter) — and less money.

查理·芒格：我认为，当你还有50年的时间可以期待，而手头钱少一些时，你的情况要好得多——（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: I still think I have 50 years ahead of me, Charlie. (Laughter)**

沃伦·巴菲特：查理，我仍然认为我还有50年的时间。（笑声）

You want to elaborate any more on selling?

你想进一步谈谈关于出售的问题吗？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah. We almost never sell an operating business. And when it does happen, it’s usually because we’ve got some trouble we can’t fix.

查理·芒格：是的。我们几乎从不出售经营中的企业。而当这种情况发生时，通常是因为我们遇到了无法解决的问题。

61. Berkshire is not a “fund”

伯克希尔不是一家“基金”

WARREN BUFFETT: Number 4.

沃伦·巴菲特：第四位。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, my name is Joel. I’m an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia. Just — I have two questions.

观众提问者：你好，我叫乔尔，是弗吉尼亚大学的本科生。我有两个问题。

My first question is, how important do you think the structure of your fund is to its long-term success?

第一个问题是，您认为基金的结构对其长期成功有多重要？

And by that, I mean, in the last couple weeks, some other legendary investors, like Julian Robertson, Stanley Druckenmiller, have been forced to either close or restructure their funds as a result of a kind of vicious cycle of underperformance and subsequent redemptions and then even worse performance.

我的意思是，最近几周，一些传奇投资者，比如朱利安·罗伯逊和斯坦利·德鲁肯米勒，被迫关闭或重组他们的基金。这是由于一种恶性循环：业绩不佳，随后投资者赎回，导致业绩进一步恶化。

Do you think that the structure of your fund, as a publicly-traded company, as opposed to a private partnership, like Tiger and Quantum, has protected your business from a similar fate?

您是否认为，您的基金作为一家上市公司，而非像老虎基金和量子基金那样的私人合伙企业，这种结构保护了您的业务免于类似的命运？

Or phrased a different way, do you think that, if Tiger or Quantum were structured the way that Berkshire Hathaway is, that they might still be in business in the same way today?

或者换一种问法，如果老虎基金或量子基金的结构与伯克希尔哈撒韦相同，您认为它们今天是否还能以类似的方式运营？

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we don’t consider ourselves in remotely the same business as Tiger. I mean, they are managing a securities operation. And we aren’t doing anything like what they do.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们认为自己与老虎基金的业务完全不同。我是说，他们在管理证券业务，而我们并没有做任何类似的事情。

Thirty years ago, when I had the partnership, it was much more along their lines, although still far from what they do. But it was structured much more like what they did.

三十年前，当我经营合伙企业时，我们的模式与他们的业务更加相似，尽管仍与他们现在的操作方式有很大区别。但当时的结构更接近他们的模式。

And I — and, although we had bought control of businesses and all that, we were functioning much more — or, focusing much more on securities.

虽然当时我们已经购买了一些企业的控股权，但我们的运作模式还是更侧重于证券投资。

We don’t care whether we own a stock or a bond. We will over the next 20 years. But that’s not what we’re about.

我们并不在意是否持有股票或债券，未来20年也不会在意。但这并不是我们的核心业务。

We’re not a fund. We are an operating business that generates a lot of capital and uses that to buy other businesses in whole or part.

我们不是一家基金。我们是一家运营企业，通过运作产生大量资本，并用这些资本收购全部或部分其他企业的股份。

And we prefer in whole. But we sometimes do it in part.

我们更喜欢全资收购，但有时也会部分持股。

But I would — I don’t consider — which is a reason why I don’t consider book value that important, although it — it’s got the importance I attributed to it earlier.

因此，我并不认为账面价值特别重要，尽管它在某种程度上有它的重要性。

But, we could easily have 90 percent of the value of Berkshire, ten years from now, be represented by businesses that we own and 10 percent by securities. Or we could very easily have 60 or 70 percent represented by securities, depending on how markets develop.

十年后，伯克希尔的价值可能有90%由我们拥有的企业构成，而10%由证券构成；也可能60%到70%是由证券构成，这取决于市场的发展。

I hope it develops in the former way. But I’m perfectly willing to go the other way, too. But it just has no relationship to the kind of funds you talk about.

我希望是前一种情况，但我也完全愿意接受后一种情况。这与您提到的基金类型没有任何关系。

We are structured poorly, from a tax standpoint, compared to those fellows, and compared to what I used to have in the ’60s.

从税收角度看，我们的结构不如那些人好，也不如我在60年代的结构优越。

But that’s, you know, that’s a decision we made. And we’re stuck with it, more or less.

但这是我们自己做的决定，我们或多或少要接受这一点。

It’s not a great tax structure, if you’re going to own securities. But we may not own that many securities over time.

如果打算持有大量证券，这不是一个理想的税收结构。但从长期来看，我们可能不会持有那么多证券。

Charlie?

查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I do think that the people in the relative performance game, who are trying to attract so-called hot money, are living in a totally different world from ours.

查理·芒格：我确实认为，那些参与相对业绩竞争、试图吸引所谓“热钱”的人，生活在一个与我们完全不同的世界。

I mean, Soros, in the end, was not willing to have a lot of people make a lot of money in high-tech stocks and not be part of that game. And they got killed.

比如索罗斯，最终他不愿意在高科技股上让别人赚很多钱却自己不参与这个游戏，结果被严重拖累了。

We’re perfectly willing to let something we don’t understand very well rage on while a lot of other people make a lot of money we don’t.

我们完全愿意让那些我们不太理解的事情继续进行，哪怕别人因此赚了很多钱，而我们没有参与。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we — it’s just not a securities operation that we have. We own a lot of securities at present. And we’ll probably own a lot five or 10 years from now. But it’s not what Berkshire is necessarily about.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我们不是一家证券公司。我们目前确实持有很多证券，五到十年后可能仍会持有不少。但这并不是伯克希尔的核心业务。

Ideally, you know, I would love it if we could move all the money in securities into businesses that we liked. But that’s — that isn’t going to happen, in all probability.

理想情况下，我当然希望我们能把所有证券投资转移到我们喜欢的企业上。但这在很大程度上是不可能实现的。

It’s too tough, because we can’t find multi-billion-dollar businesses to buy right and left. We find a few. But they tend to be small.

这太难了，因为我们无法轻易找到数十亿美元规模的企业进行收购。我们确实找到了一些，但它们往往规模较小。

3、《2014-05-03 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

42. Buy companies or stock?

买公司还是股票？

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Station 11.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的。站点 11。

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger. My name is Dev Contessaria (PH) and I’m a fund manager from Philadelphia.

观众成员：嗨，巴菲特先生和芒格先生。我叫德夫·孔特萨里亚（PH），我是来自费城的基金经理。

You’ve touched on some of this already today, but I wanted to ask, if you could expand on how you think about comparing investment opportunity.

您今天已经触及了一些内容，但我想请您进一步阐述一下您如何比较投资机会。

In the past, you haven’t been afraid to make a single position a large portion of your portfolio, such as Coca-Cola.

在过去，你并不害怕将单一头寸占据你投资组合的很大一部分，比如可口可乐。

So when there is a chance to buy more of your favorite names, as in 2008 and early 2009, how did the case of buying more of companies like Coca-Cola or even a Moody’s, which had dropped from 75 to 15, as examples, compare with other things that you actually did?

过去，您并不害怕将单一头寸占据您投资组合的很大部分，比如可口可乐。所以，当有机会购买您最喜欢的股票时，比如在2008年和2009年初，您是如何将购买可口可乐或甚至穆迪（股价从75跌到15）的案例与其他实际采取的行动进行比较的？

Could Berkshire have achieved its historical returns with a more simple, concentrated portfolio of your favorite names with positive characteristics such as durable competitive advantage, pricing power, strong organic growth, et cetera, versus the larger, more complex collection of businesses which exist today? Thank you.

伯克希尔是否可以通过一个更简单、集中在您最喜欢的具备积极特征（如持久的竞争优势、定价权、强劲的有机增长等）的投资组合，实现其历史上的回报，而不是现在这样更大、更复杂的业务组合？谢谢。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. Well, depends which favorite name we might have hit harder back in the 2008 and 2009 period.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的。这要看我们在 2008 年和 2009 年期间可能更重视哪个最喜欢的名字。

In the first instance, I spent a considerable part of our cash reserves too early, looking back, too early in the 2009 panic. The bottom of that was reached early in March in 2009, and that bottom was quite a bit lower than September and October of 2008 when we spent 16 or so billion.

首先，回顾过去，我在2009年恐慌期间，实际上花费了相当一部分现金储备，回想起来，这是太早了。2009年3月初是底部，当时的底部价格远低于2008年9月和10月我们花费约160亿美元的时候。

Now, we were committed to finance Mars for 6.6 billion, and that commitment had been made many months earlier, so we didn’t really have much choice in terms of the timing of that.

当时我们确实承诺以66亿美元融资Mars，这项承诺几个月前就已经做出，所以在时间上我们并没有太多选择。

But we did fine on the expenditures we made during that period, but obviously we didn’t do as well, remotely as well, as if we’d kept all of the powder dry and then just spent it all at once at the bottom.

但我们在那段时间的支出上表现得很好，但显然我们没有做到那么好，远不如如果我们把所有的资金都保持干燥，然后在最低点一次性花掉。

But we’ve never really figured out how to do that, and we won’t figure out how to do that.

但我们从来没有真正弄明白如何做到这一点，而且我们也不会弄明白如何做到这一点。

So, the timing could have been improved dramatically. On the other hand, as late as the late fall of October of 2009, when the economy was still in the dumps, really in the dumps, you know, we were able to buy BNSF, which will be an enormous part of our future.

所以，时机本可以大大改善。另一方面，直到 2009 年 10 月的深秋，当经济仍然处于低谷时，我们能够收购 BNSF，这将是我们未来的重要组成部分。

So, overall we did reasonably well going through that period. But looking back, the most money would have been made just by buying a bundle of stocks.

总体来说，我们在那段时间表现得相当不错。但回头看，最赚钱的方式就是购买一揽子股票。

When we were buying Harley Davidson bonds at 15, looking back we should have been buying the stock. But that’ll always be the case.

当我们以 15%的价格购买哈雷·戴维森债券时，回想起来我们应该购买股票。但这总是如此。

买入债券和买入美国的说法有些不一致。

Overall, we would love the idea — what really we want to do at our present size and scope, and with the objectives we’ve got for our shareholders, is we want to buy big businesses with good management at reasonable prices and then try to build them over time.

总体而言，我们非常喜欢这个想法——我们目前的规模和范围，以及我们为股东设定的目标，实际上是希望以合理的价格收购管理良大的企业，然后努力在时间的推移中发展它们。

I mean, when we start 2014, we’ve got a really good group of businesses, some of them very big. Those businesses will earn more over time, and then the — what we’re trying to do is add onto them and make sure we don’t issue any shares in the process. So it’s not a complicated process.

我的意思是，当我们开始 2014 年时，我们有一组非常好的企业，其中一些非常大。这些企业会随着时间的推移赚更多的钱，然后我们要做的是在此基础上增加，并确保在这个过程中不发行任何股票。所以这不是一个复杂的过程。

And looking back we’ll always be able to do it better than we’ve done it. That’s just the nature of things. But I don’t — I feel the game is still a very viable one, and will be for some time. It won’t be forever, it can’t be forever. But it’s still got some juice left in it. Charlie?

回顾过去，我们总能做得比以前更好。这就是事物的本质。但我不——我觉得这个游戏仍然是一个非常可行的选择，并且在一段时间内会继续如此。它不会永远如此，也不可能永远如此。但它仍然有一些潜力。查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, what’s happened, of course, is the private businesses that we control have gotten to be a bigger and bigger percentage of the thing. For a great many of the early years we had more in common stocks than the total value of the company. And so we were — it was like a big portfolio of common stocks and a lot of businesses thrown in as extras.

查理·芒格：当然，发生的事情是我们控制的私人企业在其中所占的比例越来越大。在很多早期的年份，我们在普通股上的投资超过了公司的总价值。因此，我们就像是一个大型的普通股投资组合，里面还额外包含了很多企业。

And now, of course, the private companies are worth way more than the stocks. And, I would guess that that will continue, wouldn’t you Warren?

现在，当然，私营公司的价值远远超过股票。我想，这种情况会继续下去，你不觉得吗，沃伦？

WARREN BUFFETT: Sure, it’ll continue. And the difference is when we’re right about stocks, it shows up in market value and in net worth.

沃伦·巴菲特：当然，这将继续下去。区别在于，当我们对股票做出正确的判断时，它会在市值和净资产中体现出来。

When we’re right about businesses, it shows up in future earning power, which you can see, but it doesn’t jump out at you the same way changes in stock values do. So it’s a different sort of buildup of value, and one is somewhat easier to see than the other.

当我们对企业的判断正确时，这会体现在未来的盈利能力上，你可以看到这一点，但它并不像股票价值的变化那样显而易见。因此，这是一种不同的价值积累方式，其中一种比另一种更容易被察觉。

But the other is more enduring and does not require going from flower to flower. And they’re both fine, but we’ve moved into phase two. Say that’s fair, Charlie?

但另一个更持久，不需要从一朵花到另一朵花。它们都是好的，但我们已经进入第二阶段。这样说公平吗，查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, well, if you’re just investing moderate amounts of capital in the middle of some panic, you take the bottom tick, it’s a very attractive price. But no significant volume of the shares could have been purchased at that price.

查理·芒格：是的，如果你在某种恐慌中只是投资适量的资本，你会在最低点买入，那是一个非常有吸引力的价格。但在那个价格上并没有大量的股票可以购买。

And so when we buy these businesses, we can get huge chunks of money into things. And now if we’d wanted to go much heavier into Moody’s, we couldn’t have bought that much anyway.

所以当我们购买这些企业时，我们可以将大量资金投入其中。如果我们想要更大规模地投资穆迪，我们也无法购买那么多。

WARREN BUFFETT: No, no. 沃伦·巴菲特：不，不。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, so, we are sort of forced by our own past success, more into these bigger positions represented by the private companies.

查理·芒格：是的，所以，我们在某种程度上被自己过去的成功所迫，更加倾向于这些由私营公司代表的大型投资。

But really, that’s in the advantage of all of us, I think.

但我认为，这实际上对我们所有人都有好处。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah. 沃伦·巴菲特：是的。

CHARLIE MUNGER: I love it when we buy transmission lines in Alberta. I don’t think anything horrible is going happen to Alberta. And nor do I think transmissions —

查理·芒格：我喜欢我们在阿尔伯塔购买输电线路。我不认为阿尔伯塔会发生什么可怕的事情。我也不认为输电——

WARREN BUFFETT: If it does, we won’t know it.

沃伦·巴菲特：如果这样，我们就不知道了。

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yeah, right, right. (Laughter)

查理·芒格：是的，对，对。（笑声）

And — no, I think we’ve adapted pretty well to changes in our circumstances.

而且——不，我认为我们已经很好地适应了环境的变化。

And that, again, is part of life. I mean, since change is inevitable, how well you adapt to it is terribly important. And I would say the changes that many of you have watched in Berkshire over the years have been very much in our interest, and then there may be future changes that are just as desirable.

这再次是生活的一部分。我的意思是，既然变化是不可避免的，你适应变化的能力是非常重要的。我想说，许多人在伯克希尔多年来所看到的变化对我们来说非常有利，未来可能还有同样令人向往的变化。

WARREN BUFFETT: We bought a fair amount of Wells Fargo, for example, really over the last few years. And because the economy came back, really, the most money, if you were buying at the bottom, came from buying the banks of lesser quality because they — their weaknesses drove them down even further in price, and they needed a good economy to come back.

沃伦·巴菲特：例如，我们在过去几年购买了相当多的富国银行。由于经济复苏，实际上，如果你在低点买入，获得的最多收益来自于购买质量较差的银行，因为它们的弱点使得价格进一步下跌，而它们需要良好的经济才能复苏。

But they were kind of like a marginal copper producer or something, that you make more money if copper goes up, not if you buy the best copper company but, usually, if you buy the worst one, because it — they have the highest marginal cost, but that gives it the biggest kick on profits.

但他们有点像一个边际铜生产商，如果铜价上涨，你会赚更多的钱，而不是买最好的铜公司，而通常是买最差的那一个，因为它们的边际成本最高，但这会给利润带来最大的提升。

To some extent that’s been true, for example, the banks. But we felt 100 percent comfortable buying Wells Fargo, and we might have felt 50 percent comfortable buying some others and so we went where we were comfortable.

在某种程度上，这确实是这样，例如银行。但我们对购买富国银行感到百分之百的放心，而对购买其他一些银行可能只感到百分之五十的放心，因此我们选择了让我们感到舒适的地方。

Looking back, you can say we should have just bought them all. And in fact, bought the ones that had had the worst record going into 2008 or ’09, because they had the greatest recovery possible, simply because they’d fallen so far. Andrew?

回头看，您可以说我们应该买下所有银行。事实上，购买那些在2008或2009年表现最差的银行，因为它们具有最大的复苏潜力，正是因为它们跌得最深。Andrew？

I.H.36.Warren Buffett.Buy companies or stock?

I.H.36.Warren Buffett.Buy companies or stock?

1、《1998-05-04 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

2、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

3、《2014-05-03 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

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