市值飆升1.8萬倍:巴菲特掌控伯克希爾的這50年是如何做到的?
????大多數(shù)公司一年僅發(fā)布一份年報。然而,前幾天,伯克希爾哈撒韋公司實(shí)際上發(fā)布了兩份“年報”,它們共用一張金色封面,標(biāo)志著巴菲特執(zhí)掌伯克希爾哈撒韋50周年。 ????第一份報告是伯克希爾哈撒韋的2014年年報?,F(xiàn)年84歲的首席執(zhí)行官巴菲特表示,2014年公司的表現(xiàn)不錯,但算不上完美(我們后面將講到這一問題)。 ????第二份“報告”則盤點(diǎn)了巴菲特執(zhí)掌伯克希爾的半個世紀(jì)。在一個專門的章節(jié)——致股東信里,巴菲特勾畫了伯克希爾的“過去、現(xiàn)在和未來”,這個章節(jié)簡直可以命名為“我犯過的錯誤”(當(dāng)然實(shí)際名稱并非如此)。此前從未參與過“致股東信”撰寫的伯克希爾副董事長查理?芒格,也對老搭檔這50年來的表現(xiàn)進(jìn)行了理性的評估,稱伯克希爾的成功,要部分歸功于巴菲特的“建設(shè)性特質(zhì)”。 芒格列出的其中一條特質(zhì)是“巴菲特決定將自己的(投資)活動限定在少數(shù)幾個種類,并50年如一日的高度專注這幾個種類,這一點(diǎn)難能可貴?!?/p> ????伯克希爾年報不聲不響的進(jìn)行了一處改動,公眾因此注意到另一件難能可貴的事情。過去,年報業(yè)績表中僅包含伯克希爾的每股賬面價值以及標(biāo)普500指數(shù),如今,巴菲特新增了一項(xiàng)——伯克希爾的歷史股價。 ????緊挨著巴菲特致股東信的那一頁上,列出了50年來伯克希爾股價的漲跌幅,后面還附有兩句總結(jié)。在巴菲特執(zhí)掌伯克希爾的半個世紀(jì)里,該公司股價復(fù)合年增長率為21.6%,市值總漲幅為1,826,163%。 ????需要說明的是,筆者多年來一直是伯克希爾的股東,而且目前仍持有該公司股票。此外,我與巴菲特是近50年的老朋友,并無償為其年度致股東信擔(dān)任編輯。 ????關(guān)于上述高得驚人的總漲幅:雖然該統(tǒng)計數(shù)值一直準(zhǔn)備呈現(xiàn)在業(yè)績表中,但巴菲特致股東信的初稿中并未提到該數(shù)值,因?yàn)檎勥@個似乎有吹牛之嫌。不過,不提它的話,之前一個段落就顯得不知所云。最終,巴菲特決定為了邏輯流暢,將50年總漲幅的數(shù)值加進(jìn)了致股東信。 ????至于說為何等到現(xiàn)在,才將伯克希爾的歷史股價加入公司年報,則另有內(nèi)情,這牽涉到伯克希爾公司的歷史與現(xiàn)狀。歷史上,名為巴菲特合伙公司的對沖基金在1965年掌握伯克希爾的控制權(quán)后,巴菲特試圖找到一個業(yè)績衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn),他決定,每年公開將伯克希爾每股賬面價值的漲跌與含分紅的標(biāo)普500指數(shù)走勢進(jìn)行對比。 ????早些年,上述比較合乎情理,因?yàn)楫?dāng)時伯克希爾公司主要從事兩項(xiàng)業(yè)務(wù):一是保險,二是將保險資金用于投資普通股。所投資的股票每季度按市值計算價值,所以其價值即其貢獻(xiàn)的賬面價值。因此,將賬面價值與標(biāo)普500指數(shù)作比較很有道理。此外,還有一個重要的事實(shí),那就是此時的賬面價值,非常接近巴菲特所說的伯克希爾的“內(nèi)在價值”,即與財報好壞無關(guān)的公司真實(shí)估值。 ????隨后,在上世紀(jì)70年代初,伯克希爾慢慢顯著改變了自身經(jīng)營策略。沒錯,該公司仍然進(jìn)行大手筆投資,但也開始全資收購企業(yè)。布法羅新聞和Blue Chip Stamps是伯克希爾早期收購的兩家企業(yè),這只是伯克希爾打響的第一槍:自那以來,該公司從未停止收購企業(yè),也沒有壓制自身大手筆收購的野心。 ????那么,在連續(xù)數(shù)十年大舉收購后,伯克希爾的業(yè)務(wù)版圖如何?巴菲特明確表示:“如今的伯克希爾,是一個龐大的企業(yè)集團(tuán),并時刻伺機(jī)進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)張?!?/p> ????在《財富》美國500強(qiáng)榜單上,伯克希爾位列第四,年?duì)I收約1950億美元。其中大部分收入并非投資回報,而是來自其收購的70多家企業(yè),其中的重量級選手包括伯靈頓北方圣達(dá)菲鐵路、原名中美能源的伯克希爾能源、汽車保險公司GEICO以及伯克希爾掌握半數(shù)股份的番茄醬廠商亨氏。 ????大舉收購企業(yè)的轉(zhuǎn)變,不僅令伯克希爾的規(guī)模迅速膨脹,也提出了一個大問題(該問題此前在公司年報中從未提及,但在公司年會上偶爾會被提出),即該公司應(yīng)該用什么作為業(yè)績衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。根據(jù)一般公認(rèn)會計原則(GAAP),被收購公司的成本永遠(yuǎn)不會調(diào)高,這就意味著,該公司內(nèi)在價值在被收購后提升,不會推高賬面價值。因此,伯克希爾的賬面價值增長緩慢,而且無法準(zhǔn)確反映該公司的高速發(fā)展。因此,與標(biāo)普500指數(shù)作對比就變得毫無意義。 ????那巴菲特為何不向股東說明情況,并停止與標(biāo)普500指數(shù)作對比? ????原因之一是,30多年前,巴菲特在1982年的致股東信中,嘲笑有些商界人士在業(yè)績不理想時,就更改此前設(shè)定的目標(biāo)。巴菲特稱,這種做法,無異于“先將經(jīng)營績效之箭射入白布,然后小心翼翼的圍繞射入的箭來畫靶心?!?/p> ????在年報中對業(yè)績表做變動,給人的印象是在衡量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)方面做出了妥協(xié)。因此,與標(biāo)普500指數(shù)的對比仍然被保留了下來。就此標(biāo)準(zhǔn)而言,伯克希爾近來似乎未能達(dá)到原定目標(biāo)。過去五年來,除2011年以外,標(biāo)普的表現(xiàn)都擊敗了伯克希爾。2014年,標(biāo)普500指數(shù)上漲了13.7%,而伯克希爾賬面價值僅上漲了8.3%。盡管如此,從整整50年的表現(xiàn)來看,伯克希爾遙遙領(lǐng)先:其每股賬面價值上漲了751,113%,而標(biāo)普上漲了11,196%。 ????當(dāng)然,兩者都大大低于伯克希爾市值1,826,163%的漲幅。 |
????Most companies put out one annual report. Berkshire Hathaway in effect posted two today, which when printed will have just one gold-colored cover, signifying a Golden Anniversary. ????The first report is for 2014: a good year, says CEO Warren Buffett, 84, but hardly perfect (we’ll get to that). ????The second report covers Buffett’s 50 years of managing Berkshire. He lays out the company’s “past, present and future” in a special section that could have been subtitled (though it wasn’t) “Mistakes I Made.” Berkshire vice-chairman Charles Munger, who has never before written for the annual report, contributes his own cerebral appraisal of his colleague’s tenure, attributing part of Berkshire’s success to Buffett’s “constructive peculiarities.” Here’s one he lists: “Buffett’s decision to limit his activities to a few kinds and to maximize his attention to them, and to keep doing so for 50 years, was a lollapalooza.” ????Here’s another lollapalooza, brought into public view by a quiet change in the report. To the performance table that has always contained only Berkshire’s book value per share and the S&P 500 index, Buffett has added the historical record of Berkshire’s stock price. ????And there the record is, on the page facing Buffett’s shareholder letter: 50 years of percentage increases and declines in Berkshire’s stock, followed by two summations. For the half-century—for all the years of Buffett’s management—the price grew at a compound annual rate of 21.6%. The gain, overall, was 1,826,163%. ????Quick note here: I, the writer of this article, have been a Berkshire shareholder for most of those years and still am. I have also been a friend of Buffett’s for more than 45 years and am the pro bono editor of his annual letter to shareholders. ????About that remarkable overall gain: Though the statistic was always slated to be in the performance table, the first draft of Buffett’s letter did not include it because that would have seemed like, well, bragging. But the omission also left one early paragraph making no sense. In time, Buffett faced up to logic and put the 50-year percentage into the letter. ????There’s an inside story as to why Berkshire’s stock history has at this late date been inserted in the report, those reasons having to do with where the company has been and where it now is. Historically, after the hedge fund called Buffett Partnership Ltd. took control of Berkshire in 1965, Warren Buffett looked for a performance yardstick and decided that every year the company would publicly compare the rise or fall of its per-share book value to the S&P 500 index with dividends included. ????For a number of years, that comparison made sense because Berkshire’s business was predominantly two things: insurance and, with the money made available by insurance, investments in common stocks. The values of these stocks were marked to market every quarter, and so, in effect, was their dollar contribution to book value. That made book a rational comparative to the S&P index. In an important additional fact, book value was then also fairly close to what Buffett calls the “intrinsic value” of Berkshire—that is, an estimate of the company’s true worth, regardless of what its financial statements indicate it to be. ????Then, in the early 1970s, Berkshire slowly but very significantly changed its business strategy. It still made huge investments, true, but also began to purchase, in their entirety, operating companies. Among the first of these were the Buffalo News and Blue Chip Stamps, and they were just the opening shots: Berkshire has never since stopped buying companies nor suppressed its ambitions of buying big. ????So what do you have after decades of acquisitions? You have Buffett unequivocally declaring: “Berkshire is now a sprawling conglomerate, constantly trying to sprawl further.” ????Berkshire is likewise the fourth largest company on the Fortune 500, with annual revenues of about $195 billion. Most of that intake comes not from investments but from more than 70 operating companies Berkshire has bought, among them such heavyweights as railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Berkshire Energy (formerly called MidAmerican Energy), auto insurer GEICO, and half of ketchup purveyor Heinz. ????That large-scale shift to buying businesses not only rocketed Berkshire’s size, but also raised a big question (never discussed in the annual report, but occasionally raised at the company’s annual meeting) as to what its performance yardstick should be. Under GAAP accounting standards, the cost of an acquired company is never revalued upward, which means any post-acquisition rise in that company’s intrinsic value never pumps up book value. So Berkshire’s book value became in time both an anemic figure and a poor indicator of how well the company was doing. In a corollary result, the comparison with the S&P 500 grew meaningless. ????So why didn’t Buffett just explain the situation to his shareholders and do away with the comparison? ????One reason, surely, is that more than 30 years ago, in his 1982 annual letter, Buffett derided businesspeople who set targets and then, confronted with unsatisfactory results, simply change the target. What those people do, Buffett said, is “shoot the arrow of business performance into a blank canvas and then carefully draw the bullseye around the implanted arrow.” ????The new performance table in the annual report comes across as a sort of yardstick compromise. The S&P 500 results are still there—and indeed look like a set of targets that haven’t recently been hit. In all but one of the last five years (the exception was 2011), the S&P beat Berkshire’s book value. In 2014, the S&P index was up 13.7% against Berkshire’s rise in book value of 8.3%. Still, for the 50 years, Berkshire was the runaway leader: its book value-per-share was up 751,113% vs. 11,196% for the S&P. ????And both of those figures pale, of course, against Berkshire’s market value rise of 1,826,163%. |