M10:42
对，你说得完全没错，private equity funds 在收购企业这件事上，确实是 Berkshire 的一种竞争力量。
Yeah, you're absolutely correct that, that the private equity funds are a form of competition with Berkshire in buying businesses.
我们其实并不是刻意去找那种特别便宜的企业来买，
We don't really seek to buy businesses
因为你基本上不会有这种机会。
cheap, because you're not going to get the chance to do that.
我们自己也一直没能做到这一点。
We haven't been able to do that.
我们偶尔会有机会，用我们认为合理的价格把企业买下来。
We, we do get occasional chances to buy them at what we would regard as, as fair value.
你永远不可能像有时候买股票那样，用那么便宜的价格买到整家公司。
You'll never buy companies as cheap as stocks sometimes get.
我的意思是，股票有时候相对于 intrinsic value，会便宜得离谱。
I mean, sometimes stocks sell for very low compared to intrinsic value.
但企业整体交易不是这样的。
Businesses just don't do it.
原因在于，股票的价格——就像我们前面提到的那些 junk bonds 一样——是在拍卖式市场里形成的。
I mean, the reason is that stocks are—the prices of stocks, like those junk bonds we talked about earlier, are set in an auction market.
而那个市场有时候会走到非常极端，但企业出售是通过谈判达成的交易，所以通常不会极端到那种程度。
And, and that market can do extreme things, but businesses are sold in a negotiated transaction, and that doesn't get as extreme.
尽管如此，我们的偏好，我们非常强烈的偏好，还是宁愿用合理的价格买下企业，也不愿意去买只是稍微便宜一点的股票。
Nevertheless, our preference, our strong preference, is that we would rather buy businesses at fair prices than stocks even a little cheaper.
而 private equity funds 的确是竞争对手。
And the private equity funds are competition.
不过另一方面，最近这些年我们也买了相当数量的企业。
On the other hand, we have bought a reasonable number of businesses in recent years.
而且未来我们还会继续买。
And, and we'll buy more in the future.
嗯，如果有人想要我们所提供的这种方式——你知道，我们在某种程度上是很独特的，因为我们可以买下一家企业，而把它卖给我们的那些人，如果这家企业是他们一手建立起来的，那他们今后实际上还能一直像经营自己的企业一样去经营它。
Um, if somebody wants what we are offering, uh, you know, we are somewhat one of a kind in that we can—we will buy a business and the people that sold it to us, if they built that business, are really able to run it as if it's their own, uh, indefinitely in the future.
所以，如果他们出于税务原因，或者家庭方面的安排，或者别的什么原因，想卖掉一家自己很热爱的企业，但又不想像卖一块肉那样把它拿去拍卖，也不想让某个人买下来以后大举加杠杆，再过两年改改会计处理之类的东西又转手卖掉，那么他们就会来找我们，因为他们知道，在我们这里能得到他们想要的结果。
So they—if they have a tax reason, if they have a family situation or whatever where they want to sell some business they love and they don't want to auction it off like a piece of meat, and they don't want some guy buying it and then leveraging it up and then reselling it a couple years after changing the accounting or something of the sort, they, they come to us and they know they'll get the result they want.
这种情况会周期性地出现。
And that happens periodically.
这并不会让我们买到什么超级便宜的大 bargain，诸如此类的事并不会发生。
It doesn't enable us to buy super bargains or anything like that.
事情本来就不是这么运作的。
It just doesn't work that way.
但这确实能让我们以一个合理的回报率把资金投出去。
But it does let us put the money to work at a sensible rate.
以后这样的人还会有更多。
There will be more people like that.
不幸的是，我们需要的是大型企业。
Unfortunately, we need big businesses.
而且你知道，这种机会不是天天都会出现的。
And, you know, they don't come along every day.
但就像我说过的，如果你遇到那种类型的 owner，假如我拥有一家企业，它规模很大，可能是我父亲创办的，或者我祖父创办的，而且我也为它工作了很长时间，但因为这样那样的原因，我必须把它变现，你知道，我会把它卖给 Berkshire。
But as I've said, when they— if you find that kind of an owner, if I owned a business that was big and that my— maybe my father had started, my grandfather had started, and I'd worked a long time for, but for one reason or another I had to monetize it, you know, I would sell to Berkshire.
这很简单，因为我不会觉得，把它拆开来卖，只为了拿到也许最高、或者更高一点的价格——而且那个价格最后是不是更高还不一定——这就是人生最终的目标。
It's very simple because I, I wouldn't regard the carving up of it to get perhaps the highest, a higher price, which might or might not be higher, but I wouldn't regard that as the ultimate goal in life.
我觉得那有点疯狂，你知道，花心思去——我觉得那就像把你女儿拿去拍卖一样，卖给那个……
I think it's kind of crazy, you know, to spend— I think it'd be kind of silly to auction off your daughter to whatever, you know, what—
那个愿意出最高价的男人。
Whatever a man is willing to pay the most for.
对于一家你几十年、几十年、几十年倾注心血建立起来的企业，我也是同样的感觉。
And I feel the same way about a business you've created lovingly over decades and decades and decades.
而且，而且我们还会再买一些。
And, and we will buy some more.
至于会不会发生在某一个季度，甚至某一年，那更多是运气问题。
It's a matter of luck whether it happens in any given quarter or even any given year.
但说真的，确实没有别人能像我们这样作出这些承诺。
But there, there's really no one else can quite make the promises that we can make.
我的意思是，我在 Berkshire 的持股比例，以及我为未来做的安排——不需要卖掉任何股份——所以你知道，在这方面，我的承诺大概已经是你能得到的最可靠的了。
I mean, the degree of ownership that I have in Berkshire and the way I've got it set up for the future where none has to be sold. So, you know, my promises will probably be about as good as you can get in that arena.
大多数大公司根本做不到这一点，因为如果它们的董事会，你知道，决定像你说的那样，想让公司变成某个领域里的 pure play，那就没办法了。
Most big companies simply can't do that if their board of directors, you know, decides they wanted to have a pure play, as you put it, in something.
你说，那还能怎么办呢？
You know, what can be done about it?
我会对潜在卖家说，基本上，唯一可能坑你们的人就是我。
I tell prospective sellers, basically, I'm the only one that can double-cross you.
我的意思是，而且我也确实有可能坑他们。
I mean, and I can double-cross them.
我是说，如果第二天我想临时从我这边搞点什么花样出来——我对他们说的这些，大概率并不是合同条款。
I mean, if I the next day want to pull something out of my— it's not contractual what I've said to them, in all probability.
但别人做不到这一点。
But nobody else can.
我们不会找来一些 management consultants，然后说他们建议你们应该重组业务；我们也不会让 Wall Street 来指挥我们。
We're not going to get some management consultants in and say that they say you ought to rearrange the business, or we're not going to get Wall Street dictating to us.
而这一点，我觉得，长期来看是个很大的优势。
And that's, I think, a significant advantage over time.
我觉得这会让我们有机会买到企业，不过就像你指出的，我们确实也面临很多竞争。
I think it'll enable us to buy businesses, but we do have a lot of competition, as you point out.
Charlie？
Charlie?
对，不过挺有意思的是，这种来自 private equity 的竞争，我们已经面对很久了。
Yeah, it's been interesting, though, that we've had this private equity competition for a long time.
但不管怎么说，我们还是设法买下了一些东西。
And one way or another, we've managed to buy a few things.