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1999年股东大会 · 巴菲特为何在1969年解散合伙投资公司?

37 段 · 3 位说话人 · 原片 4:04
M1
M10:00

Warren,Charlie,早上好。

Warren and Charlie, good morning.
M2
M20:03

早上好。

Good morning.
M1
M10:03

我叫 Morris Spence,来自 Nebraska 的 Waterloo。

My name is Morris Spence from Waterloo, Nebraska.

大约三十年前,你解散了你的 Buffett Partnership,当时你说,你觉得自己和市场节奏不一致,而且你担心资本会遭受永久性损失。

Some 30 years ago, you disbanded your Buffett Partnership, saying that you felt out of step with the market and you feared a permanent loss of capital.

考虑到今天的市场和当前的估值,如果 Berkshire Hathaway 不是一家 corporation,而是一家有一百位合伙人的 partnership,你会不会像三十年前那样考虑把它解散掉?

Given today's market and current valuations, if Berkshire Hathaway was a partnership of 100 partners instead of a corporation, would you consider disbanding it as you did 30 years ago?

如果不会,为什么不会?还有,当年那个决定是对的吗?

And if not, why not, and was that the right decision back then?
M2
M20:32

嗯,如果我们的活动范围只限于 marketable securities,而且我的合伙人不到一百个,同时我们操作的也是这么大一笔钱,以至于我们能做的事情确实受到很大限制,那我就会直接告诉合伙人,让他们自己来做决定。

Well, if our activities were limited to marketable securities, and I had less than 100 partners, and we were operating with this kind of money so that there was a real limitation on what we could do, I would simply tell the partners and let them make the decision.

这倒是很容易。

That would be easy enough.

但我们现在不是那种情况。

We're not in that position.

第一,我们拥有一些非常棒的企业,而这些企业的价值会增长,而且在某些情况下,增长幅度会非常大。

A, we've got a number of wonderful businesses, and those businesses will grow in value, and in some cases very significantly in value.

而且那也不是一种可行的做法。

And it's not a feasible way.

如果有人觉得,因为我们找不到合适的机会了,他们宁愿转去做别的事情,那他们完全可以按自己的方式来决定。

People have their own way if they decide that, that since we're unable to find things, that they'd rather go on to something else.

他们有自己的退出办法,而且他们退出时,拿到的钱肯定会比这些年投进这个企业的本金高出不少。

They have their own way of getting out, and they can get out at certainly a premium to the amount of money they put into the business over the years.

所以,如果我现在管理的是一个 marketable securities 的投资组合,而且只能局限在这个范围里,那我会非常仔细地向我的合伙人说明,在现在这个市场里,我赚钱的能力会受到多大的限制,然后我会请他们按自己的意愿决定怎么做。

So, if I were— if I were running a marketable securities portfolio now, and were limited to that, I would, I would explain very carefully to my partners how limited my ability to make money in this market would be, and then I would ask them to do whatever they wish to do.

有些人可能想退出,另外一些人可能想留下。

Some of them might want to pull out and others might want to stay.

在一九六九年我关闭合伙公司的那个时期,第一,就寻找投资机会这点来说,我面临的情况有点类似;第二,我确实觉得,前面十三年的经历把大家的预期抬得太高了,这让我非常不舒服。

In the 1969 period when I closed up, A, I had a somewhat similar situation in terms of finding things, and B, I really felt that the expectations of people had been so raised by the experience we'd had over the previous 13 years that, that it made me very uncomfortable.

而且我觉得自己没法把这些预期压下来。

And I felt unable to dampen those expectations.

我真的是不太愿意在那种情况下继续运作——哪怕我的合伙人会点头表示理解,会说,你知道,虽然别人都在赚钱,但我们确实明白你为什么赚不到钱。

And I really just didn't, I didn't find it comfortable to operate where my partners, even though they might nod their heads understandingly and say that, you know, we really know why you aren't making any money while everybody else is.

我觉得我不想去面对由此带来的那种内在压力。

I didn't think I, I didn't think I wanted to face the internal pressure that would come from that.

但我在经营 Berkshire 的时候,并没有这种内在压力。

I don't feel any such internal pressure in running Berkshire.
M1
M12:28

Charlie 呢?

Charlie?
M3
M32:30

对,我觉得一九六九、七零年和现在这个时期之间,确实有一些相似之处,但我不认为这就意味着一九七三、一九七四那样的情况马上就在前面等着我们。

Yeah, that— I think there are some similarities between 1969 and '70 and the present time, but I don't think that means that 1973, '74 lies right ahead of us.

这个我们没法预测。

We can't predict that.

你可以说,Warren 在六九年退出,后来又在七三到七四年那段时期手握充足现金进场,这个结果对他来说好得不得了。

You can argue it worked out wonderfully for Warren to quit in '69 and then have '73-'74 to come into with his powder dry.

但我不觉得我们还会再次有这么好的运气。

I don't think we're likely to be quite that fortunate again.
M2
M23:11

对,不过从六九年到七三年,中间也隔了挺长时间。

Yeah, it was a long time from '69, though, to '73.

我的意思是,回头看好像很容易,但你可能记得,Nifty Fifty 差不多是在七二年才见顶的。

I mean, it sounds easy looking back, but the Nifty Fifty, as you may remember, sort of hit their peak in '72.

所以虽然在六九到七零年那段时间,市场曾经低迷过一阵子,但后来又强劲反弹了。

So although there was a sinking spell for a while in that '69-'70 period, the market came back very strong.

这本来就是游戏的一部分。

Part of the game.

我的意思是,它便宜了很长一段时间。

I mean, it stayed cheap a long time.

你会看到一波又一波的乐观和悲观情绪,它们永远不会和以前一模一样,但是,它们总会以某种形式出现。

You will find waves of optimism and pessimism, and they'll never be exactly like they were before, but, but they will come in some form or other.
M3
M33:45

嗯,我们——

Um, we—.
M2
M23:46

但这并不——这并不意味着我们只是坐在那里拿着一大堆现金,因为我们预期股票会下跌。

But that doesn't— that does not mean we're sitting around with a bunch of cash because we expect stocks to go down, though.

我们,我们一直在寻找机会。

We, we keep looking for things.

我们现在就在找机会。

We're looking for things right now.

我们现在也正在和一些人谈,谈一些我们可能会投入大笔资金的事情,但在这个阶段,这要困难得多。

We're talking to people right now about, about things that, that where we could expend substantial sums of money, but it's much more difficult in this period.

所以,到二零一二年。

So in 2012.