1995年股东大会 · 巴菲特：现金流折现法估值是最好的，但我从来不用呵呵 — 文稿

M10:00

我是来自 San Francisco 的 Keith Breyer。

I'm Keith Breyer from San Francisco.

我有个问题。

I have a question.

当你们给公司估值、把你们说的未来收益折现回来的时候，你们一般会往后看多少年？

When you're valuing the companies and you discount back the future earnings you talk about, how many years out do you generally go?

如果你们不是固定看一个大致的年数，那这个时间跨度通常是怎么定出来的？

And if you don't go out a general number of years, how do you arrive at that time period?

M20:13

嗯，这是个非常好的问题，而且——我的意思是，这其实就是投资或者买企业这件事的核心，我们把这两者看成是一回事。

Well, that's a very good question and it's— I mean, it's the heart of investing or buying businesses, which we regard as the same thing.

不过——这也确实是我们的分析框架。

But— and it is the framework.

我们就是在这个框架里运作的。

In which we operate.

我的意思是，我们会尽量从企业本身来想：如果我们把整个企业都买下来，它能产出多少现金；或者如果我们只是买它的一部分，它又会产出多少现金，这两者是有区别的。

I mean, we are trying to look at businesses in terms of what kind of cash can they produce if we're buying all of them, or will they produce if we're buying part of them, and there's a difference.

然后，再看我们该用什么样的折现率把它折回来。

And then at what discount rate do we bring it back?

然后我想，你的问题还有我们会看到多远之类的。

And then I think your question was how far out do we look and all that.

尽管这件事我们完全可以用一个很简单、很直接的公式来定义。

Despite the fact that we can define that in a very kind of simple and direct equation.

一个直接的公式。

Direct equation.

你知道，我们其实从来没有真的坐下来，把跟那个公式对应的一整套数字写出来。

You know, we've never actually sat down and written out a set of numbers that relate to that equation.

当然，某种程度上我们是在脑子里这么做的。

We do it in our heads in a way, obviously.

我的意思是，这本来就是这件事的本质。

I mean, that's what it's all about.

但我们并没有一张纸，而且我们也从来没有过这样一张纸，写着我们在这方面对 Helzberg、See's Candies 或者 Buffalo News 的具体计算。

But there's no piece of paper, and we never— there never was a piece of paper that shows what our calculation on Helzberg's or See's Candies or the Buffalo News was in that respect.

所以，如果我跟你讲一堆术语，说什么我们算十八年，再加一个 terminal value，然后再做这一整套，那反而会让我们的分析听起来比实际情况更科学一点，其实并不是那么回事。

So, it would be attaching a little more scientific quality to our analysis than there really is if I gave you some gobbledygook about, well, we do it for 18 years and stick a terminal value on and do all of this.

我们就是坐在办公室里，针对每一家企业、每一笔投资，去想这个问题。

We are sitting at the— in the office thinking about that question with each business or each investment.

我们心里大致会有一些折现率的概念，但我们真的更希望这个决策对我们来说足够明显，明显到不需要做特别细的计算。

And we have discount rates in a general way in mind, but we really like the decision to be obvious enough to us that it doesn't require making a detailed calculation.

所以说，这是个框架，但并不是说我们真的会把所有变量一个个填进去那样去应用。

And it's the framework, but it's not applied in the sense that we actually fill in all the variables.

Charlie，我这么说算准确吧？

Is that a fair way of stating it, Charlie?

对。

Yes.

M32:11

嗯，对。

Yeah.

Berkshire 的运作方式，有点像伟大的诺贝尔奖得主 Thomas Hunt Morgan 当年管理 Caltech 生物系的方式。

Berkshire is, is being run the way Thomas Hunt Morgan, the great Nobel laureate, ran the biology department at Caltech.

他禁止使用 Friden calculator，那在当时就相当于那个年代的电脑，大家就说，你怎么能这么干呢？

He banned the Friden calculator, which was the computer of that era, and people said, how can you do this?

Caltech 别的地方，到处都在用 Friden calculators。

Every place else in Caltech, we have Friden calculators going everywhere.

他说，我们光靠有组织的常识，就已经能捡到这些大块大块的金子了。

And he said, well, we're picking up these great nuggets of gold just by organized common sense.

而资源是有限的，只要我们还能捡这些大堆大堆的金子，我们就不会去搞那些该死的砂金淘洗。

And resources are short, and we're not going to resort to any damn placer mining as long as we can pick up these major aggregations of gold.

Berkshire 就是这么运作的，我希望那种砂金淘洗的时代永远不要到来。

That's the way Berkshire works, and I hope the placer mining era will never come.

有一次，有人就某笔收购传唤我们交出 staffing papers，当然了，我们不但没有 staffing papers，我们连 staff 都没有。

Somebody once subpoenaed our staffing papers on some acquisition, and of course, not only did we not have any staffing papers, we didn't have any staff.