I.H.46.Warren Buffett.Synergy among subsidiaries

1、《2010-05-01 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

33. Why there’s no synergy among subsidiaries

为什么子公司之间没有协同效应

WARREN BUFFETT: Becky? (Applause)

沃伦·巴菲特：贝琪？

BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Ben Soh (PH) who lives in the metro Vancouver area in British Columbia, Canada. This is for either Mr. Buffett or Mr. Munger.

BECKY QUICK：这个问题来自居住在加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省温哥华市区的 Ben Soh (PH)。这个问题是问巴菲特先生或芒格先生的。

He wants to know about synergies at Berkshire, specifically, “Does it make sense that the Dairy Queen stores here sell PepsiCo products and would not expect — accept — American Express, only Mastercard or Visa? (Laughter)

他想了解伯克希尔公司的协同效应，特别是："这里的 Dairy Queen 商店销售百事公司的产品，不接受美国运通卡，只接受万事达卡或维萨卡，这合理吗？笑声

WARREN BUFFETT: There are — around the world, there are pretty close to 6,000 Dairy Queen outlets of one sort or another. And some are called Grill and Chill now, different things, but roughly 6,000, and company-operated are 70 of those.

沃伦·巴菲特：全世界大约有 6000 家这样或那样的 Dairy Queen 分店。有些现在叫 Grill and Chill，叫法不同，但大约有 6000 家，其中 70 家是公司经营的。

So almost 99 percent are franchised, and at Dairy Queen we do not control what the franchisees do. Most of the franchisees — last time I checked sometime back — but most of the franchisees serve Coke, the enlightened ones — (laughter) — but it is entirely their business.

因此，几乎 99% 都是特许经营，而在 Dairy Queen，我们并不控制特许经营商做什么。大多数特许经营商--上次我查过--但大多数特许经营商都供应可乐，那些开明的特许经营商--（笑声）--但这完全是他们自己的事。

They can — they can — they can serve Coca-Cola products or Pepsi. It seems some of the other franchise operations seem to have more control over that than Dairy Queen.

他们可以--他们可以--他们可以供应可口可乐产品或百事可乐。其他一些特许经营似乎比 Dairy Queen 拥有更多的控制权。

But if you think about it, Dairy Queen goes back before McDonald’s, before Wendy’s, before Burger King, before Kentucky Fried, all of those. It goes way back into the ’30s, and a lot of the agreements with franchisees were territorial operators were done on the back of a napkin, or something of the sort.

但如果你仔细想想，Dairy Queen 比麦当劳、温迪、汉堡王、肯德基都要早。它的历史可以追溯到 30 年代很多与特许经营商的协议都是在餐巾纸的背面或类似的地方签订的

So to some extent we have less control over what franchisees do, particular in certain — a few parts of the country — than other people.

因此，在某种程度上，我们对特许经营商所做事情的控制要比其他人少，尤其是在国内的某些地区。

But we’ll — keep asking for Coke, and maybe you can cause them to see the light. The synergies, any synergies, any synergies at Berkshire come about at the operational level pretty much.

但我们会继续要求可口可乐公司，也许你能让他们看到曙光。伯克希尔的协同效应、任何协同效应、任何协同效应几乎都是在运营层面产生的。

We do not tell our companies to do business with each other. We hope they do do business with each other, and, you know, and we hope that each side of a subsidiary A offers good reasons for subsidiary B to do business with them.

我们不会告诉我们的公司彼此做生意。我们希望他们互相做生意，而且，你知道，我们希望子公司 A 的每一方都能为子公司 B 与他们做生意提供充分的理由。

But the whole idea at Berkshire is that our managers are responsible for their businesses, and if they’re going to be responsible for their businesses it means we shouldn’t tell them what to do, except in very limited ways.

但伯克希尔的整体理念是，我们的经理人要对自己的业务负责，如果他们要对自己的业务负责，就意味着我们不应该告诉他们该做什么，除非是在非常有限的范围内。

Charlie? 查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, you’ve accurately described the way it is. What’s interesting about it is we really like it that way. (Laughter)

查理·芒格：你描述得很准确。有趣的是，我们真的很喜欢这种方式。（笑声）

WARREN BUFFETT: It’s a lot less work. (Laughs)

沃伦·巴菲特：工作少了很多。（笑）

CHARLIE MUNGER: Yes. 是的。

WARREN BUFFETT: And I think, actually, that there’s some merit. Sometimes people work better together if it’s their decision to work together than if you tell them to work together.

沃伦·巴菲特：实际上，我认为这有一定道理。有时候，如果是人们自己决定一起工作，他们的合作会比你告诉他们一起工作更好。

CHARLIE MUNGER: It goes beyond that. Warren and I would like it that way if we were in the subsidiaries. There’s no doubt about that.

查理·芒格：不止如此。如果我们是子公司，沃伦和我都希望如此。这是毫无疑问的。

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, we’d probably leave if it wasn’t that way. (Laughs)

沃伦·巴菲特：是啊，如果不是这样，我们可能就走了。（笑）

2、《2015-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

62. Munger: GEICO synergies are “dumb idea”

芒格：GEICO 的协同效应是“愚蠢的想法”

WARREN BUFFETT: OK. Gary.

沃伦·巴菲特：好的，盖瑞。

GARY RANSOM: With the Van Tuyl acquisition — or now Berkshire Hathaway Automotive — there may be some natural synergies with GEICO, if it’s nothing more than just putting a gecko on the salesman’s desk.

加里·兰索姆：随着Van Tuyl收购——现在是伯克希尔哈撒韦汽车——与 GEICO 之间可能会有一些自然的协同效应，即使这仅仅是把一只壁虎放在销售员的桌子上。

Would you expect to do anything in that regard to encourage getting more customers through that relationship?

你会期待在这方面做些什么来鼓励通过这种关系吸引更多客户吗？

WARREN BUFFETT: Yeah, I don’t think so.

沃伦·巴菲特：是的，我不这样认为。

You always have these things that the investment banker will tell you will produce synergy and all that. Most times that doesn’t work.

你总是会听到投资银行家告诉你这些事情会产生协同效应等等。但大多数时候这并不奏效。

And historically, selling auto insurance through dealerships hasn’t been particularly effective. And if we were to do that, we would probably have to compensate people who did the insurance work — or made the insurance sales — out of Van Tuyl. That would add to costs.

历史上，通过经销商销售汽车保险并不是特别有效。如果我们这样做，我们可能需要对在 Van Tuyl 进行保险工作或进行保险销售的人进行补偿。这将增加成本。

I mean, GEICO is a low-cost model, and it’s a wonderful low-cost model. And [CEO] Tony Nicely has done an incredible job of keeping those costs down and our — and you can see it in our expense ratios.

我意思是，GEICO 是一个低成本模型，而且这是一个很棒的低成本模型。[首席执行官]托尼·尼克利做得非常出色，成功地控制了这些成本，你可以在我们的费用比率中看到这一点。

We spend a lot of money on advertising. But its success depends on delivering first-class insurance at a better price than other people can get, and the more people we put in distribution system or anything —

我们在广告上花了很多钱。但它的成功依赖于提供一流的保险，价格优于其他公司，并且我们越多地把人们放在分销系统中或者其他任何地方——

So, I would doubt very much that we do anything along that line. I think that those two companies will do better if run as two independent businesses than if we try to push through something.

所以，我非常怀疑我们会在这方面做任何事情。我认为，如果这两家公司作为两个独立的业务运营，它们会做得更好，而不是我们试图推进什么。

纵向独立比横向更有优势。

We — Charlie and I have seen a lot of things on paper that involve that sort of a proposition and very, very few succeed.

我们——查理和我在纸上看到过很多涉及这种提议的事情，但成功的非常非常少。

Charlie? 查理？

CHARLIE MUNGER: Well, I agree. It’s a very dumb idea, and we’re not going to do it. (Laughter)

查理·芒格：我同意。这是个非常愚蠢的主意，我们不会这样做。（笑声）

I.H.46.Warren Buffett.Synergy among subsidiaries

I.H.46.Warren Buffett.Synergy among subsidiaries

1、《2010-05-01 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

2、《2015-05-02 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

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