I.H.42.Warren Buffett.Retailing is a tough business

1、《1996-03-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

It was Nebraska Furniture Mart's Irv Blumkin who did the walking around in the case of R.C. Willey, long the leading home furnishings business in Utah. Over the years, Irv had told me about the strengths of that company. And he had also told Bill Child, CEO of R.C. Willey, how pleased the Blumkin family had been with its Berkshire relationship. So in early 1995, Bill mentioned to Irv that for estate tax and diversification reasons, he and the other owners of R.C. Willey might be interested in selling.

收购犹他州最大家具店R.C.Willey，这次换做是内布拉斯加家具店的艾文·布鲁姆金(Irv Blumkin)做走动式并购，多年以来，Irv一直向我提及这家公司所拥有的竞争力，而他也不断地告诉R.C.Willey的CEO比尔·蔡德(Bill Child)，Blumkin家族与伯克希尔的合作关系是多么地令人愉快，终于到了1995年，Bill向Irv提及基于资产税负与分散风险考量，他自己本身与R.C.Willey其它股东有意出售该公司股份。

From that point forward, things could not have been simpler. Bill sent me some figures, and I wrote him a letter indicating my idea of value. We quickly agreed on a number, and found our personal chemistry to be perfect. By mid-year, the merger was completed.

从那一刻开始，事情就变得再简单也不过了，Bill给了我一些报表，而我则回信表达我对价值的看法，5月我们双方很快地就价格达成协议(约1.5亿美元BRK股票，其销售规模约是NFM的两倍)，而我们私下的相处可说是再完美不过了，一直到年中，整个合并案大功告成。

R.C. Willey is an amazing story. Bill took over the business from his father-in-law in 1954 when sales were about $250,000. From this tiny base, Bill employed Mae West's philosophy: "It's not what you've got - it's what you do with what you've got." Aided by his brother, Sheldon, Bill has built the company to its 1995 sales volume of $257 million, and it now accounts for over 50% of the furniture business in Utah. Like Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Willey sells appliances, electronics, computers and carpets in addition to furniture. Both companies have about the same sales volume, but NFM gets all of its business from one complex in Omaha, whereas R.C. Willey will open its sixth major store in the next few months.

R.C.Willey有一段相当精彩的故事，1954年当Bill从其岳父手中接下这项事业时，该公司的年营业额只有25万美元，从那个基础开始，Bill运用Mae West的哲学：重点不在于你拥有什么，而在于你如何运用。在其兄弟Sheldon的协助之下，Bill将公司的营业额一举提升到1995年的2.57亿美元，目前拥有犹他州超过50%以上的家具市场份额。跟内布拉斯加家具店一样，除了卖家具以外，R.C.Willey也卖电器、电子产品与地毯等商品。两家公司的营业额相当，只是内布拉斯加家具店的营收全部来自在奥马哈惟一的一家店，而R.C.Willey却即将在几个月后成立第6家分店。

Retailing is a tough business. During my investment career, I have watched a large number of retailers enjoy terrific growth and superb returns on equity for a period, and then suddenly nosedive, often all the way into bankruptcy. This shooting-star phenomenon is far more common in retailing than it is in manufacturing or service businesses. In part, this is because a retailer must stay smart, day after day. Your competitor is always copying and then topping whatever you do. Shoppers are meanwhile beckoned in every conceivable way to try a stream of new merchants. In retailing, to coast is to fail.

零售业的经营相当不易，在我个人的投资生涯中，我看过许多零售业曾经拥有极高的成长率与股本回报率，然后突然间表现急速下滑，很多甚至被迫以倒闭关门收场，比起一般制造业或服务业，这种流星般的现象在零售业履见不鲜，部分的原因是，这些零售业者必须时时保持聪明警惕，因为你的竞争对手随时准备复制你的做法，然后超越你，同时消费者总是被各种可能的方式吸引去尝试新的商家，在零售业一旦业绩滑坡，注定就会失败。

零售业是个缺少本质的业务（卖的都是别人的产品），巴菲特的观察很仔细，他说：“因为你的竞争对手随时准备复制你的做法。。。”，因为产品都是别人的，自己所能提供的服务是有限的，困境是制造骗子的地方，《Supplying Saks Was a Soapmaker’s Dream Until He Got a $74 Check》这个例子比较典型，最终极的原因都是因为不够“本分”，这是一个不“本分”的商业模式。

In contrast to this have-to-be-smart-every-day business, there is what I call the have-to-be-smart-once business. For example, if you were smart enough to buy a network TV station very early in the game, you could put in a shiftless and backward nephew to run things, and the business would still do well for decades. You'd do far better, of course, if you put in Tom Murphy, but you could stay comfortably in the black without him. For a retailer, hiring that nephew would be an express ticket to bankruptcy.

与这种必须时时保持聪明的业务相反，有一种我称之为只要聪明一次的业务。举个例子来说，如果你足够聪明，在很早以前就买下一家地方电视台，你甚至可以把它交给懒惰又差劲的亲人来经营，而这项事业却仍然可以好好地经营个几十年，当然若是你懂得将汤姆·墨菲摆在正确的位置上，你会做得更惊人，但没有他你也可以舒服的赚钱。但是对零售业来说，用人不当将是快速破产的入场券。

The two retailing businesses we purchased this year are blessed with terrific managers who love to compete and have done so successfully for decades. Like the CEOs of our other operating units, they will operate autonomously: We want them to feel that the businesses they run are theirs. This means no second-guessing by Charlie and me. We avoid the attitude of the alumnus whose message to the football coach is "I'm 100% with you - win or tie." Our basic goal as an owner is to behave with our managers as we like our owners to behave with us.

不过今年我们买下的这两家零售业，却很幸运的拥有喜欢面对竞争挑战的经理人，同时过去几十年来也表现的相当优异，就像是我们旗下其它事业的经理人，他们将独立自主地经营，我们希望他们觉得就好象是在经营自己的事业一样，这意味着查理和我不会在旁边指手画脚。我们尽量避免像校友会常常对足球校队教练所说的那样：不论赢或是打平，我们都站在你这边。身为所有权人，我们的基本原则是，我们期望怎么对待自己，就怎么对待我们的经理人。

巴菲特一边说零售业不行一边又买入相应的资产，在我看来他遵循了另一个更重要的哲学：活在当下，r=c/DCF+g，c/DCF（即市盈率）代表当下，g代表未来的增长，巴菲特在对企业估值时当下的权重很高，未来的权重很低，未来都是不确定的，最能影响未来的是做好当下，买的便宜是做好当下的表现。

As we add more operations, I'm sometimes asked how many people I can handle reporting to me. My answer to that is simple: If I have one person reporting to me and he is a lemon, that's one too many, and if I have managers like those we now have, the number can be almost unlimited. We are lucky to have Bill and Sheldon associated with us, and we hope that we can acquire other businesses that bring with them managers of similar caliber.

随着我们旗下事业越来越多，有时我被问及，我到底可以应付多少个经理人同时向我报告，我的回答相当简单，要是我只管一个经理人，而他是一个讨厌鬼，那么管一个人都太多了。相反的，要是我所面对的是像我们现在所拥有的经理人的话，那么这个数目将没有上限，我们很幸运能与Bill跟Sheldon共事，我们也很希望在不久的未来，还能有更多相同水准的经理人加入我们公司。

I.H.42.Warren Buffett.Retailing is a tough business

I.H.42.Warren Buffett.Retailing is a tough business

1、《1996-03-01 Warren Buffett's Letters to Berkshire Shareholders》

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