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2006年股东大会 · 巴菲特:在衰退行业中,很难找到好的投资机会

77 段 · 2 位说话人 · 原片 8:37
M1
M10:01

大家好,我叫 Jeremy,来自 San Diego。首先,我想感谢你们二位,你们对我作为职业投资人的职业生涯产生了非常巨大的影响。

Hi, my name is Jeremy from San Diego, and first of all, I want to thank you all for the tremendous impact that you've had on my career as a professional investor.

我的问题也是关于刚才那位先生提到的报业。基于你们刚刚说的那些相同的点,一些规模最大的报纸股,看起来它们的投入资本回报率跟 S&P 500 里的很多公司相比,简直高得惊人。

My question is also about the newspaper industry that the gentleman earlier touched on, and for some of those same points that you brought up, some of the largest newspaper stocks seem to earn an incredible return on invested capital as compared to a lot of the businesses in the S&P 500.

我的问题更具体一点,是关于估值的。

My question is more specifically related to valuation.

如果你们二位今天在看一家报纸公司的股票,而且看着它们一路下跌,有些人会把这种情况叫做 falling knives,那你们会用什么来判断,或者说,你们会怎么判断,一个足够让人安心的安全边际,来保护自己不受报业持续恶化这些因素的影响?

If either of you were looking at a newspaper stock today and watching them fall, as some people may categorize falling knives, what would you use to determine, or how would you determine, a very comfortable margin of safety to protect yourself against the deteriorating aspects of the newspaper industry?
M2
M21:03

嗯,问题其实是这样的:一家企业一年赚一亿美元,就按税前算吧,如果它的盈利每年会下降百分之五,那你该给它多少倍;而另一家企业也是一年赚一亿美元,但它的盈利每年会增长百分之五,你又该给它多少倍。

Yeah, well, the question is what multiple should you pay for a business that's earning $100 million a year, call it pre-tax, whose earnings are going to go down 5% a year compared to what you should pay for a business that's earning $100 million a year, whose earnings are going to go up 5% a year.

我要说的是——我不是说我就预测报纸公司一定是这个百分比——但报纸公司确实面临着报纸业务盈利被侵蚀的前景。

And I would say that— I'm not saying that those are percentages I predict on newspaper companies, but certainly newspaper companies face the prospect of their newspaper earnings eroding.

而且我们已经看到其中一部分了。

And we've seen some of it already.

我们看到所有趋势都在指向那个方向。

We see every trend pointing in that direction.

我们自己就拥有一家报纸公司。你知道,我不认为五年后我们这家报纸的发行量会更大,我也不认为广告版面会更多。

We own a newspaper ourselves, and, you know, I do not think the circulation of our paper will be larger in 5 years, and I don't think the advertising pages will be greater.

而且我觉得,即便是在美国那些比我们所在地区更繁荣——或者更准确地说,增长更快——地区运营的报纸,情况也是一样的。

And I think that's true even of newspapers that operate in more prosperous— or actually more growing, I should say— areas of the country than we do.

所以,我不认为——我觉得大多数报纸的所有者,到现在还没有真正走到那一步,也就是开始把盈利下降这件事正式预估进去。

So, but I don't think— I don't think most owners of papers still have quite gotten to the point where they start projecting out declining earnings.

当然,如果从现在开始,盈利真的每年下降百分之五到百分之六,那报纸股现在的估值倍数就高得没有吸引力了。

Certainly multiples on newspaper stocks, uh, are unattractively high if you would see some decline like 5 or 6% a year in earnings occurring from this point.

它们就是——就是还不够便宜,不足以弥补这种盈利能力的侵蚀。

They just— they're not cheap enough to compensate for that sort of erosion in earning power.

然后你还要面对额外的风险,那就是他们可能在认知上有些滞后,还会继续拿部分资金去收购其他报纸,而那些价格,说到底,还是不太说得通。

And then you face the added risk that they may have a sort of a perception lag and that they may continue to use some of that money to buy other newspapers at prices which, again, don't make much sense.

在一个走下坡路的行业里,要买到便宜到足以抵消这种下滑的东西,是相当难的。

It's pretty hard in a declining business to buy things cheap enough to compensate for the decline.

行业里的人总是倾向于觉得,自己好像已经看到了第一只知更鸟之类的,觉得情况马上就会好转。

People in the business always tend to think that they're seeing the first robin, you know, or something, and that it's going to get better.

而我要说的是,报业的下滑,如果有什么变化的话,那就是它实际上还有点加速了。

And I would say the newspaper business, the decline, if anything, has accelerated somewhat.

你看,当人们被送去墓地的时候,被带走的是报纸读者;而当人们从学校毕业的时候,他们并没有变成新的报纸读者。

I, you know, when they take people out to the cemetery, they're taking newspaper readers, and when people graduate from school, they're not gaining newspaper readers.

这也许不会一夜之间改变一切,但方向是错的。

And that may not change things overnight, but it goes in the wrong direction.

而且读者越少,读者群越小,拿去说服广告主的理由也就越弱。

And the less the readers, the less the readership, the less compelling argument to have to advertisers.

所以,原来那个良性循环——大家都读报,是因为所有广告都在报纸上;而所有广告都在报纸上,是因为大家都读报——现在这个良性循环正在往反方向转。

So that virtuous circle, uh, where everybody read a paper because every ad was in it, and every ad was in it because everybody read a paper, that virtuous cycle is going in the other direction now.

而我不认为报纸目前的价格足以补偿这一点。

And I don't, uh, I don't think present prices for papers compensate for that.

而且,你现在听到这些话,是出自两个特别热爱报纸的人。

And you, you are now hearing from a couple of guys that just love newspapers.

我们觉得报纸是不可或缺的,但持这种看法的人,现在比以前少了。

We think newspapers are indispensable, but we don't have a lot of— we have less company in that view than before.

我们,我们很喜欢——我每天都读五份报纸。

We, we love— I read 5 newspapers every day.

Charlie 大概也差不多。

Charlie probably does about the same.
M1
M14:18

更多。

More.
M2
M24:20

对,嗯,他——这也看得出来。

Yeah, well, he's— it shows too.

这个,呃,你知道,我们没有报纸简直活不了,但很多人可以,而且这样的人一天比一天多。

The, uh, you know, we, we couldn't live without them, but a lot of people can, and more people can every day.

而且,嗯,我们也一直很喜欢买报纸这个想法。

And, um, we love the idea of buying newspapers.

我们去过 Cincinnati,住便宜旅馆,还试过各种办法去买报纸。

We traveled to Cincinnati and stayed in cheap hotels and tried all kinds of things to buy newspapers.

不过,顺便说一句,我们当时觉得,我们很喜欢报纸这个产品,而且我们认为那是最棒的一类生意。

But, and we thought, incidentally, we, we loved them as products, and we, and we thought they were the greatest of businesses.

简直就是终极的、刀枪不入的 franchise。

The ultimate bulletproof franchise.

但后来很明显,我们错了。

But it became apparent we were wrong.

你知道,我们现在依然喜欢报纸,作为新闻——作为产品我们还是喜欢,但我们看错了它那个刀枪不入的 franchise。

You know, we still love them as news— as products, but we were wrong about the bulletproof franchise.

而且,你知道,当我们——我们得相信自己的眼睛,看看那个世界里正在发生什么。

And, and, you know, when we— we got to believe our eyes in terms of what we're seeing in, in, in that world.

Charlie?

Charlie?

对,我也有一个更大的错误得承认。

Yeah, I have an even greater sin to admit to.

我曾经一度以为 General Motors 是个刀枪不入的 franchise。

I once thought General Motors was a bulletproof franchise.

不过,我们应对很多这类事情有个很好的办法。

And but we have a wonderful way of coping with a lot of these things.

我们有一个“太难”的篮子。

We have this too-hard pile.

我不知道 Warren 现在有没有在买 General Motors,或者,呃,没有买,不过我大概能猜到。

I don't know if Warren is buying General Motors or, or, uh, or not, but I have a good guess.

这事就是太难了。

And, and it's just too hard.

如果一件事太难做,我们就去找那些没那么难做的事。

If something is too hard to to do, we look for something that isn't too hard to do.

还有什么比这更明显的呢?

What could be more obvious than that?

这可能意味着我们做的事情不会很多。

It may mean that we don't do very much.
M1
M15:57

对。

Yeah.
M2
M26:00

我们就不讲太具体的细节了。

We won't get into some specifics.

报纸这个行业——我觉得,真正五十年来,应该没有谁比 Charlie 和我观察这个报纸行业观察得更仔细了。

The news— it's— I don't think anybody has watched the newspaper business much more carefully than Charlie and I have for really 50 years.

我们以前——我们总是在聊全国每一家报纸,还有收购的可能性,诸如此类的事情。

We used to— we always talked about every paper in the country and, and the potential for buying and all of that sort of thing.

而且这本来是——这是很容易理解的。

And it was a— it was easily understood.

我的意思是,这几乎是你能想象到的最简单的一类经济问题——商业经济学问题。

I mean, it was, it was about as easy an economic— a business economics problem as you could imagine.

后来我们才慢慢意识到它发生了变化。

And we slowly woke up to change on it.

其实,我在一九九一年年报里写过,呃,报纸,还有这个世界上的那些 preprints,你知道,开始把报纸变成了一层包装纸。

Actually, I wrote in the 1991 annual report, uh, the newspaper, the very— the preprints of the world, you know, started turning the newspaper into a wrapper.

它里面装着一大堆本来可以装在别的包装里的东西。

It contained a whole bunch of things that could have been contained in some other package.

当然,你的报纸本身是没法用别的包装来复制的,但这个东西当时还夹带着一大堆 preprints。

Now, your newspaper wasn't reproducible in some other package, but this thing was carrying around a bunch of preprints.

那么问题就在于,有没有更容易的办法来把这些 preprints 送进去?

Now, the question is, is there a bunch— are there easier ways to carry around those preprints?

因为这张报纸本身并没有什么魔力,除了它能进到家里。

But there was nothing magical about the paper except it got inside the house.
M1
M17:05

对。

Right.
M2
M27:06

把这些 preprints 一起带进家里。

And brought the preprints inside the house.

随着报纸的覆盖率下降,它就变成了一种把信息送进家庭里、效率没那么高的方式,而其他方式在把信息送进家庭这件事上,变得更有效率了。

And as the newspaper lost penetration, it became a somewhat less efficient way of getting things into the house, and other ways became more efficient at getting things into the house.

所以就是这么回事——这并不是个很难理解的生意。

And so there's these things—it's not a hard business to understand.

让我觉得挺有意思的是,我看着无论是直接持有这些资产的老板,还是这个行业里的投资者,某种程度上都在抗拒去看清摆在他们眼前的现实。

And it has been interesting to me to watch both owners, direct owners, and investors in the business sort of resist seeing what's right in front of them.

你知道,呃,这个行业之前长期都是往另一个方向走,所以买一家垄断性的报纸,你根本不可能犯错。

You know, it, uh, it just—it went so long the other way that you couldn't make a mistake buying a monopoly newspaper.

你知道,在大概一九七五年或者八零年之前之类的,买这种报纸从来没人失过手。

Nobody ever made a mistake buying one, you know, up until what, 1975 or '80 or something like that.

如果技术没有发生变化,它们现在依然会是牢不可破的特许经营。

If the technology had not changed, they'd still be impregnable franchises.

但技术确实变了。

But the technology did change.

幸运的是,carbide cutting tools 看起来没有什么好的替代品。

Fortunately, carbide cutting tools appear to have no good substitute.

如果你有合适的管理层,从长期来看,这就是一门好得多的生意。

It's a lot better business over time if you have the right management.

我觉得这需要非常优秀的管理。

I think it takes very good management.

报纸行业在三四十年前有个好处,就是根本不需要什么管理。

Nice thing about the newspaper business 30 or 40 years ago, took no management at all.

我的意思是,就算你有个很笨的外甥去管,也一样行——电视台也是这样。

I mean, if you had an idiot nephew, you know, you'd be a perfect—or network television station.

我的意思是,不管发生什么,它们都能赚钱。

I mean, they were going to make money no matter what happened.

当然了,如果是在优秀的管理之下,它们会赚得更多。

They're going to make more money if they were under good management.

我的意思是,如果你的电视台是 Tom Murphy 在经营,那肯定会比让你外甥去管好得多。

I mean, if Tom Murphy was running your television stations, you were going to do much better than if you had your nephew doing it.

但就算是那个外甥来管,也还是能过得去。

But the nephew would have done all right.

第七个。

Number 7.