精译求精系列之九：我从巴菲特最大的投资失误中学到了什么？

编者按：巴菲特坦言称购买伯克希尔哈撒韦是其这辈子最大的投资失误之一。作为投资者，从别人身上吸取失败的教训是至关重要的。因为你每犯一个错误，都是金钱上的损失。那么普通投资者应该从这老巴的这次投资失误中学习到什么呢？

I was reading through the 2014 (lastyear’s) Berkshire Hathaway annual report and 10-K looking for a few things, andhappened to reread Buffett’s letter from last year. I wrote a post a coupleweeks ago concerning how a company that is buying back stock of a dyingbusiness is not a good use of capital.

我在看伯克希尔哈撒韦2014年年报的时候读到了巴菲特的股东信，刚好在几周前我写过购买垂死公司的股票并不能使资本得到最佳利用。

I noticed a passage in last year’sletter that is relevant to the topic—Buffett himself was attracted to buybackson a dying business—Berkshire Hathaway in the early 1960’s. Berkshire was a BenGraham cigar butt—it was trading at around $7 and had net working capital of$10, and book value of $20. Berkshire was a classic “net net”—a stock tradingfor less than the value of its cash, receivables, and inventory less allliabilities. Buffett liked the fact that Berkshire was a) trading at a cheapprice relative to liquidation value, and b) using proceeds from the sale ofplants to buy back shares—effectively liquidating the company through sharerepurchases.

信中有一段话跟这个相关——巴菲特很喜欢购买垂死公司的股票——二十世纪60年代的伯克希尔哈撒韦就是一个例子。伯克希尔之前是格雷厄姆丢掉的烟头——曾经的交易价是7美元，净运营资本是10美元，账面价值是20美元。伯克希尔是一个典型的“捡烟蒂投资”——股票价格小于其现金、应收账款、存货减去所有负债的价值总和。巴菲特看好伯克希尔的原因有两点：1）相对于清算价值而言，伯克希尔的股价很便宜。2）用销售收益去回购股票——通过股票回购有效地清算公司。

Here is what Buffett was looking atwhen he originally bought shares in this company in the early 1960’s:

巴菲特在20世纪60年代买伯克希尔股票的初衷如下：

Berkshire’s business was in seculardecline. In fact, it had been dying a long time, as the meeting notes from a1954 Berkshire board meeting stated: “The textile industry in NewEngland started going out of business forty years ago“.

Also like Outerwall, Berkshire wasbuying back stock. One difference (among many of course) between Berkshire thenand Outerwall now is that Berkshire was closing plants and using proceeds tobuy back shares. From the 1964 Berkshire report (which can befound on page 130):

伯克希尔的业务长期不佳。事实上，很早之前它就已经垂死挣扎。1954年伯克希尔董事会的会议记录上这样写道：“这家在新英格兰的纺织工厂早在40年前就已经停业”。当时，伯克希尔已经停止生产，并在用所得收益进行股票回购。下面这段话来自伯克希尔1964的报告（第130页）：

“Our policy of closing plants which could notbe operated profitabily was continued, and, as a result, the Berkshire KingPhilip Plants A and E in Fall River, Mass. were permanently closed during theyear. The land and buildings of Plant A have been sold and those of Pant Eoffered for sale…. Berkshire Hathaway has maintained its strong financialposition and it would seem constructive to authorize the Directors, at theirdiscretion, to purchase additional shares for retirement.”

“我们关闭工厂的决定虽然无利可图，但仍须执行下去，最终伯克斯尔菲利普亲王A工厂和马塞诸塞州福尔里弗E工厂在这一年里将永久性停产。A工厂的土地楼房已经出售，E工厂的土地楼房待售。伯克希尔哈撒韦过去的财务状况一直良好，由董事会自行裁量，回购额外股权作为退休保障，对公司来说是有建设性的一步。”

Liquidation vs. Leveraged Buyout

清算 VS 融资买入

Another difference is that Berkshirewas in liquidation mode and was buying out shareholders (through buybacks andtender offers) from cash proceeds it received from selling off plants.

伯克希尔当时正处于清算模式，并且用出售工厂的所得收益回购股票（回购散户股票，以及回购股权）。

So Berkshire in the 1960’s was moreof a slow liquidation.

所以在20世纪60年代，伯克希尔处于缓慢清算阶段。

In the case of BRK, shareholders whopurchased at $7 were rewarded with a tender offer of just over $11 a few yearslater. But that’s the nature of cigar butt investing—sometimes at the rightprice, there is a puff or two left that allows you to reap an outstanding IRRon your investment—in Buffett’s case, had he taken the tender offer fromSeabury Stanton, his IRR on the BRK cigar butt investment would have beenaround 40%.

在伯克希尔的案例中，以7美金回购股票的股东在几年后获得11美金以上的股权收购要约。这就是“捡烟蒂投资”的本质—在价格合适的时候，你总是还能从剩下的烟头里吸上一两口，这能让你获得一个不错的IRR（内部收益率）。在巴菲特的例子中，要是他接受了Seabury Stanton的股权收购邀约，那么伯克希尔这项“烟蒂投资”的IRR可能会接近40%。

He didn’t though, and the rest ishistory. It’s interesting to note another mistake that he points out in lastyear’s letter, one that I think is rarely mentioned but was very costly.Instead of putting National Indemnity in his partnership, which would havemeant it was 100% owned by Buffett and his partners, he put it into BerkshireHathaway, which meant that he and his partners only got 61% interest in it (thesize of the stake that Buffett had in BRK at the time).

但他并没有这样做，过去的已经成为历史。值得注意的是巴菲特在去年的股东信中提到了自己犯下的另外一个错误。这个错误很少被人提到，但是它的代价却是巨大的。巴菲特当时并没有继续维持跟国民保险公司的合作伙伴关系，而是将国民保险并入了伯克希尔哈撒韦，巴菲特及其合伙人由此失去了对国民保险100%的所有权，同时他们只能从中得到61％的收益（根据巴菲特当时所持伯克希尔股份的比重得出）。

I think this could have beenBuffett’s way of doubling down on Berkshire (then, a dying business with terriblereturns on capital). He thought he could save it (not the textile mills, butthe entity itself) by adding a good business with solid cash flow andattractive returns to a bad business that was destroying capital. Obviously, asBuffett points out, he should have shut down the textile mills sooner, and justused National Indemnity to build what is now the company we know as BerkshireHathaway.

我想这可能是巴菲特在伯克希尔身上押的双倍赌注（当时的伯克希尔是一个垂死的公司，并且回报极低）。巴菲特认为将具备大量现金和高回报率的好企业并入到一家正在耗钱的公司里，可以拯救伯克希尔（不仅只是纺织厂，而是整个公司）。但很显然，正如巴菲特说的，他要是早早讲纺织厂关闭就好了，直接把国民保险公司打造我们现在熟知的伯克希尔哈撒韦。

Two Mistakes to Avoid

两个需要避免的错误：

Two takeaways from this, which inBuffett’s own words were two of his greatest mistakes:

有两个值得注意的地方。用巴菲特自己的话来说，这是“他犯下的最大的两个错误”：

a)It’s usually not a good idea tobuy into bad businesses, even at a price that looks attractive

买入一个经营不佳的企业通常不是件好事，即使公司的股价看上去很有吸引力。

b)If you are in a bad business, itprobably doesn’t make sense to “double down”—for most of us, this could meanaveraging down and buying more shares. In Buffett’s case, it was already a 25%position in his portfolio and he “doubled down” by throwing good money afterbad (putting National Indemnity—a good business—inside a textile manufacturerinstead of just a wholly owned company inside of Buffett’s partnership.

对于大多数人而言，如果你已经买入了一家不良企业的股票，“双倍下注”可能也不太行得通，因为这意味着股价平均下跌，你需要买入更多的股票。在巴菲特的例子中，他持有的伯克希尔的股份占了总投资组合的25%，他选择将良好资产追加到不良资产中，进行了“双倍下注”（把经营良好的国民保险公司并入一家纺织品生产商，而不是将它作为全资合作公司）。

The good news—things have worked outjust fine for Buffett and for Berkshire. Although the textile millsunfortunately had to finally shut down for good, National Indemnity has come along way since Buffett purchased it for $8.6 million in 1967 (see the original 2-pagepurchase contract here, no big Wall Street M&A fees on this deal). NationalIndemnity now has over $80 billion of float, and over $110 billion of networth, making it the most valuable insurance company in the world. Theinsurance business that started with National Indemnity paid dividends toBerkshire last year of $6.4 billion and holds a massive portfolio ofstocks, bonds, and cash worth $193 billion at year end.

虽然最终纺织厂不幸地永远关门，但好消息是，对于巴菲特和伯克希尔而言，一切都开展得很顺利。1967年，巴菲特以860万美元买下了国民保险，自那以来，公司一直发展很迅速。而现在，公司的市场实际流通量已经超过800亿美元，净值超过1100亿美元（详见原版的2页购买合同，并无高昂的华尔街M&A中介费），国民保险早已成为全世界最具价值的保险公司。去年，伯克希尔在与国民保险公司合作的保险业务上得到64亿美元的分红。同年底，伯克希尔的重仓投资组合价值高达1930亿美元，包括股票、债券和现金。 

Buffett estimated hisdecision to put National Indemnity inside of Berkshire instead of in hispartnership ended up costing Berkshire around $100 billion. 

据巴菲特估计，伯克希尔花了近1000亿美金才突破跟国民保险公司的合作关系，将它并入旗下。

It’s refreshingwhen the world’s best investor humbly lays out two of his largest mistakes, hisoriginal thesis, and the thought processes he subsequently had in regardsto those investments. It’s also nice to note that despite two large mistakes,things worked out okay.

世界上最成功的投资者放下身段，直面自己最大的两次失误，对自己最初的论点和投资过程中的思维进行反省，这实在是让人耳目一新。值得高兴得是，虽然巴菲特犯了两个重大失误，但事情仍旧发展得不错。

相关链接：

精译求精系列之九：巴菲特炮轰川普，川普“跌停”？（中英对照视频）格隆汇声明：格隆汇作为免费、开放、共享的海外投资研究交流平台，并未持有任何关联公司股票。转载本文，请务必注明来源“港股那点事”及作者。

利益声明：本文内容和意见仅代表作者个人观点，作者未持有该公司股票，作者提供的信息和分析仅供投资者参考,据此入市，风险自担！

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