2001年股东大会 · 巴芒：什么是企业的资本成本？ — 文稿

M10:00

下午好，Buffett 先生，Munger 先生。

Good afternoon, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Munger.

我叫 Kevin Truitt，来自 Chicago。

My name is Kevin Truitt from Chicago.

我有三个问题想请教你们。

I have 3 questions for you.

Munger 先生，在去年的股东大会上，您说过，您觉得“资本成本”这个概念在真正的经济意义上说不通。

Mr. Munger, at last year's shareholder meeting, you stated that you didn't feel that the concept of the cost of capital made true economic sense.

您能不能解释一下，您为什么会这么看？如果要替代它的话，您会用什么来替代？如果真有替代的话。

Would you explain why you felt this way and what you would do to replace it with, if anything?

我的第二个问题是问 Buffett 先生的。

My second question is to Mr. Buffett.

您曾经讲过，偶尔出现一个大点子非常重要。

You've stated the importance of an occasional big idea.

那您实际上是怎么判断，自己遇到的是一个大点子呢？

How were you able to, in fact, tell when you had a big idea?

第三个问题，Buffett 先生，您谈过 franchise 和可持续竞争优势的重要性。

And my third question, Mr. Buffett, you have talked about the importance of the franchise and sustainable competitive advantage.

像 Kellogg 和 Campbell Soup 这样的公司，大多数人都会说它们具备这些特质。

Companies like Kellogg and Campbell Soup are companies that most people would have said had those qualities.

但是随着时间过去，因为消费者口味发生变化，这些特质后来又失去了。

However, over time, those qualities were lost as a result of a change in consumer taste.

那是什么让您有信心，相同的事情不会发生在 Coke 或者 Gillette 身上呢？

What gives you confidence that the same things won't happen to Coke or Gillette?

M21:11

请吧。

Go ahead.

M31:13

好，资本成本。

Well, cost of capital.

先说资本成本。

Cost of capital first.

M21:19

很显然，成本方面的考量在商业里很重要。

Obviously, considerations of cost are important in business.

而且很显然，机会成本——这是经济学里的一个原则，其实也是人生处世的一个原则——同样非常重要。

And obviously, opportunity costs, which is a doctrine of economics, really a doctrine of life-man-ship, are also very important.

我们一直都有这种基本的思考方式。

And we've always had that kind of basic thinking.

当然，资本不是免费的。

Of course, capital isn't free.

当然，你在借钱的时候，是可以算资本成本的，或者至少你可以算贷款成本。

And of course, you can figure cost of capital when you're borrowing money, or at least you can figure cost of loans.

但是理论家们非得发展出一套关于股权成本的理论，结果在这件事上他们就彻底跑偏了。

But the theorists had to develop some theory for what equity cost, and there they just went bonkers.

他们说，如果你因为拥有一家非常了不起的企业，资本回报率赚到了百分之百，那你的资本成本也是百分之百，所以你就不该去看任何只能带来区区百分之八十回报的机会。

They said if you earned 100% on capital because you had some marvelous business, your cost of capital was 100%, and therefore you shouldn't look at any opportunity that delivered a lousy 80%.

这种想法，就是从 capital asset pricing model 之类的东西里出来的，在我看来一直都是胡说八道。

That is the kind of thinking which came out of the capital asset pricing model and so forth that I've always considered inanity.

那 Berkshire 的资本成本是多少？

What is Berkshire's cost of capital?

我们就是有这么一大堆该死的资本。

We have this damn capital.

它就是不断地增殖，越变越多。

It just keeps multiplying and multiplying.

那它的成本到底是什么？

What is its cost?

你明明有那种非常好用、很老派的原则，比如机会成本。

You have perfectly good old-fashioned doctrines like opportunity cost.

你知道，在任何一个时点，当我们考虑一项投资的时候，我们必须把它跟当时我们手上最好的备选投资去比较。

You know, at any given time when we consider an investment, we have to compare it to the best alternative investment we have at that time.

我们明明有这种非常好用、很老派、而且非常基础的观念可以用，但这些东西对现代的理论家们来说还不够过瘾。

We have perfectly good old-fashioned ideas that are very basic to use, but they weren't good enough for these modern theorists.

所以他们就发明了一整套荒唐的数学，最后得出的结论居然是，最能赚钱的公司反而有最高的资本成本。

So they invented all this ridiculous mathematics which concluded that the companies that made the most money had the highest cost of capital.

嗯，我能说的就是，那一套不适合我们。

Well, all I can say is it's not for us.

那这个问题的另一半，我就留给 Buffett 先生来回答。

Now, the other half of that question I leave for Mr. Buffett.

M33:24

对，你当然会发现，所谓资本成本，通常就比任何一个 CEO 想做的交易所承诺的回报率低大概四分之一个百分点。

Yeah, what you find, of course, is that the cost of capital is about a quarter percent below the return promised by any deal that the CEO wants to do.

就是这么简单。

Very simple.

你知道，关于资本，准确地说是 capital allocation，我们有三个问题要考虑，先不谈要不要借钱这件事，我们一般是不想借的。

You know, we have three questions on capital, with capital allocation, leaving aside whether we want to borrow money, which we generally don't want to do.

第一个问题是，把钱分给股东，是不是比留在公司内部更合理。

And one is, does it make more sense to pay it out to the shareholders than to keep it within the company?

这里还有个子问题：如果我们要分出去，是通过 repurchase 回购股票更好，还是通过 dividend 分红更好。

Sub-question on that is, if we pay it out, is it better off to do it via repurchases or via dividend.

判断我们要不要以 dividend 的方式发出去，检验标准是：这一块钱留在公司里，我们能不能创造出比把这一块钱分给股东更高、超过一块钱的价值。

The test for whether we pay it out in dividends is, can we create more than a dollar of value within the company with that dollar than by paying it out?

这个问题你永远不可能百分之百知道答案，但到目前为止，从结果来看，答案是能，我们做得到。

And you never know the answer to that, but so far the answer, as judged by results, is yes, we can.

而且我们觉得往前看，我们也还能做到，不过这更多是我们的一个期望。

And we think that prospectively we can, but that's a hope on our part.

这种期望在某种程度上有过去历史的支持，但它不是确定无疑的。

And it's justified to some extent by past history, but it's not a certainty.

一旦我们跨过了这个门槛，接下来就是，要不要回购股票。

Once we've crossed that threshold, then do we repurchase stock?

嗯，很明显，如果你能以相对于保守估算的 intrinsic value 明显打折的价格买回自家股票，而且还能买到相当的数量，那这就是资本的一种用途。

Well, obviously, if you can buy your stock at a significant discount from conservatively calculated intrinsic value and you can buy it in reasonable quantity, that's a use for capital.

再往下，问题就变成了：如果你手里有资本，而且你认为自己能创造出超过一块钱的价值，那你要怎么做，才能在风险最小的情况下创造出最多的价值。

Beyond that, then the question becomes, if you have the capital, you think you can create more than a dollar, how do you create the most with the least risk?

这就说到 business risk 了。

And that gets to business risk.

这跟什么波动率计算没有关系。

It doesn't get to any calculation of the volatility.

我不知道 See's Candy 的风险如果按股价波动率来衡量会是多少，因为自从一九七二年以来，它的股票就没有在外流通了。

I don't know the risk in See's Candy as measured by its stock volatility because the stock hasn't been outstanding since 1972.

那是不是就意味着，因为我们没有它每天的报价，我就没法判断 See's 这个生意风险有多大呢？

Does that mean I can't determine how risky a business See's is because we don't have a daily quote on it?

不是，我可以通过看这个生意本身、它所处的竞争环境等等来判断。

No, I can determine it by looking at the business and the competitive environment in which it operates and so on.

所以，一旦我们先判断出，每留存一块钱资本，我们都能创造出超过一块钱的现值，那接下来就只是尽可能去做你能找到的最聪明的事。

So, once we crossed the threshold of deciding that we can deploy capital so as to create more than a dollar of present value for every dollar retained, then it's just a question of doing the most intelligent thing that you can find.

而且你知道，我们做的每一笔交易，它的成本，都是拿当时能找到的次优方案来衡量的，这里面也包括继续加码我们已经在做的一些事情。

And, you know, that is— the cost of every deal we do is measured by the second-best deal that's around at a given time, including doing more of some of the things we're already in.

我参加过各种公司董事会，也听过各种关于 capital cost 的讨论，还有别的类似场合。说实话，我从来没觉得这里面有多少真正说得通的东西，唯一的解释就是，这是他们在 business school 学来的，也是 consultants 一直在讲的，而大多数董事会成员会一边点头，一边根本不知道到底他妈的在说什么。

And I have listened to cost of capital discussions at all kinds of corporate board meetings and everything else, and, you know, I've never found anything that made very much sense in it, except for the fact that it's what they learned in business school, and it's what the consultants talked about, and most of the board members would nod their head without knowing what the hell was going on.

这就是我跟资本成本打交道的一贯经历。

And that's been my history with the cost of capital.