巴菲特眼中的估值：How to think about value？（上）

Q: How do you think about value?

问：在你心中价值意味着什么呢？

• Source: Q&A with 6 Business Schools

• 来源：6大商学院问答

• Time: Feb 2009

• 时间：2009年2月

The formula for value was handed down from 600 BC by a guy named Aesop. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Investing is about laying out a bird now to get two or more out of the bush. The keys are to only look at the bushes you like and identify how long it will take to get them out. When interest rates are 20%, you need to get it out right now. When rates are 1%, you have 10 years. Think about what the asset will produce. Look at the asset, not the beta. I don’t really care about volatility. Stock price is not that important to me, it just gives you the opportunity to buy at a great price. I don’t care if they close the NYSE for 5 years. I care more about the business than I do about events. I care about if there’s price flexibility and whether the company can gain more market share. I care about people drinking more Coke.

公元前600年一个叫做伊索的人给了我们价值的等式：一鸟在手胜于二鸟在林。投资就是用一只鸟去捕获林子里的其他鸟。关键就在于你能死死盯住自己中意的那片树林并且清楚地知道要把这几只鸟捉到需要多少时间成本。要是利息率是20%的话，你现在就得赶紧把它们弄出来。要是只有1%呢，那就等个十年吧。要好好想想它们能给你带来什么资产。一定要专注于资产，不要在意beta值。我其实并不怎么在意波动性，股票价格对我来说影响也不大，唯一的意义就是给你提供一个在便宜的时候买入的机会。要是纽约证券交易所关门5年我都不会太在意。我关心的更多的是商业本身，比如这个产品的价格灵活性以及这个公司能否获得更多的市场份额。我还在乎人们是不是越来越爱喝可乐。

 I bought a farm from the FDIC 20 years ago for $600 per acre. Now I don’t know anything about farming but my son does. I asked him, how much it cost to buy corn, plow the field, harvest, how much an acre will yield, what price to expect. I haven’t gotten a quote on that farm in 20 years.

二十年前我从联邦储蓄保险公司手里以600刀每公顷的价格买了一个农场。时至今日那个农场怎么样了我完全不知道，一直是我儿子在打理。我也就问问他买种子、耕地、收获的成本是多少，每公顷产量是多少，以及预期能带来多少利润。其他的东西这二十年间我一概不知。

If I were running a business school I would only have 2 courses. The first would obviously be an investing class about how to value a business. The second would be how to think about the stock market and how to deal with the volatility. The stock market is funny. You have no compulsion to act and a bunch of silly people setting prices all the time, it is great odds. I want the market to be like a manic depressive drunk. 

要是我开商学院的话我就只教两门课。第一门毫无疑问就是投资课程，讲讲如何给企业估值。第二门就是讲一下该如何理解股票市场和如何应对股票的波动性。股票市场是非常有意思的。你什么措施都不用采取就有一大群傻瓜一直在定价，这胜算就很大了。我倒是希望市场能一直像一个喝醉了的消极躁郁狂。

Graham’s Ch. 8, in the book Intelligent Investor, on Mr. Market is the most important thing I have ever read. Attitude is much more important than IQ. You can really get into trouble with a high IQ, i.e. Long-Term Capital. You need to have the right philosophical temperament.

迄今为止我读到过最重要的东西就是格雷厄姆在《聪明的投资者》第八章中所说的关于市场先生的内容。态度比智商科重要太多了。拥有高智商很容易惹祸上身啊，比如说我们说的长期资本。你真正需要的是一个正确的处世哲学。

Q: How do you calculate intrinsic value?

问：你怎么计算内在价值呢？

• Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2003 Tilson Notes

• 来源：BRK 2003年度股东大会 Tilson Notes

• Time: 2003

• 时间：2003

Intrinsic value is terribly important but very fuzzy. We try to work with businesses where we have fairly high probability of knowing what the future will hold. If you own a gas pipeline, not much is going to go wrong. 

内在价值确实特别重要但是极其难搞。我们尽量去买那些我们能够大概率预见未来的公司。就好比一旦你拥有了一条输气管道，走错的几率也没那么高了。

Maybe a competitor enters forcing you to cut prices, but intrinsic value hasn't gone down if you already factored this in. We looked at a pipeline recently that we think will come under pressure from other ways of delivering gas [to the area the pipeline serves]. We look at this differently from another pipeline that has the lowest costs [and does not face threats from alternative pipelines]. If you calculate intrinsic value properly, you factor in things like declining prices.

有时候竞争者的参与会迫使你降价，但是如果你事先把这个因素考虑进去的话股票的内在价值就不会下降。最近我们查看了一条可能会因为其他管子也开始向该地区输气而备受压力的管道（此处股神的意思是有其他玩家入场），要是我们以成本最低的那条管道的角度来看这件事情就会发现只要成本够低就根本不会怕被取代。如果你能正确的计算内在价值，你就会在估值的时候把“价格不断降低”这个因素算进去。

When we buy business, we try to look out and estimate the cash it will generate and compare it to the purchase price. We have to feel pretty good about our projections and then have a purchase price that makes sense. Over time, we've had more pleasant surprises than we would have expected.

当我买入一个公司的时候，我们会算算这个公司能产生的现金，然后再对比一下买入价格。我们必须对自己做的预测极其自信而且买入价要极具说服力。时间长了，收获的惊喜会比当初预测的大得多。

I've never seen an investment banker's book in which future earnings are projected to go down. But many businesses' earnings go down. We made this mistake with Dexter shoes -- it was earning $40 million pretax and I projected this would continue, and I couldn't have been more wrong.

20% of Fortune 500 companies will be earning significant less in five years, but I don't know which 20%. If you can't come up with reasonable estimates for that, then you move on.

我在投行家的书里从来没见过有说未来预计收益会下降。但是很多公司的利润确实在下降。我们在Dexter鞋上就犯过这个错误——税前盈利四千万，我预计还会继续盈利，结果证明我大错特错。五百强公司里有百分之二十的公司盈利在五年内会大幅缩水，可我不知道是哪百分之二十。如果你在这一点上实在无法合理预判，那我建议你还是别想了。

Q: What do you believe to be the most important tools in determining intrinsic value?  What rules or standards do you apply when using these tools?

问：在计算内在价值的过程中你认为哪个/哪些工具是最重要的？在使用这些工具的时候有什么规则和标准吗？

• Source: BRK Annual Meeting 1997

• 来源：BRK 1997 股东大会

• Time: May 1997

• 时间：1997年4月

If we could see in looking at any business what its future cash flows would be for the next 100 years, and discount that back at an appropriate interest rate, that would give us a number for intrinsic value. It would be like looking at a bond that had a bunch of coupons on it that was due in a hundred years ... Businesses have coupons too, the only problem is that they're not printed on the instrument and it's up to the investor to try to estimate what those coupons are going to be over time. In high-tech businesses, or something like that, we don't have the faintest idea what the coupons are going to be. 

如果我们能够计算出任意行业在未来一百年内的现金流并且以一个合适的利率折现回现在，那么对于内在价值也就大概有数了。这就好比一个有若干付息票的债券但是一百年之后才到期...商业同样也有“付息票”，问题就在于它们并不算是金融工具而且是由投资者自己决定这些付息票随着时间的流逝值多少钱。在高科技和其他类似的产业中，这些所谓的付息票值多少钱我是一点概念都没有。

In the businesses where we think we can understand them reasonably well, we are trying to print the coupons out. If you attempt to assess intrinsic value, it all relates to cash flow. The only reason to put cash into any kind of investment now is that you expect to take cash out--not by selling it to somebody else, that's just a game of who beats who--but by the asset itself ... 

那么在我们特别了解的行业呢，我们就会尽力把“付息票”的价值算出来。产业的内在价值全在于现金流。在现在这个时间点我们把钱放到投资项目里的唯一原因就是想赚更多的现金—不是靠买卖产业来赚钱，因为这说白了也是双方非输即赢的游戏—但我们是靠产业本身来生财的。

If you're an investor, you're looking on what the asset is going to do, if you're a speculator, you're commonly focusing on what the price of the object is going to do, and that's not our game. We feel that if we're right about the business, we're going to make a lot of money, and if we're wrong about the business, we don't have any hopes of making money.

如果你是投资者，你会关注这个资产能做什么；如果你是投机者，那么你的重点就放在这件东西的价格是多少，我们又不玩投机。要是我们对这一行的看法是正确的那就肯定赚的盆满钵满，要是错了，就别想赚钱了。

[CM:  I would argue that one filter that's useful in investing is the idea of opportunity costs. If you have one idea that's available in large quantity that's better that 98% of the other opportunities, then you can just screen out the other 98% ... With this attitude you get a concentrated portfolio, which we don't mind. That practice of ours which is so simple is not widely copied, I don't know why. Even at great universities and intellectual institutions. It's an interesting question: If we're right, why are so many other places so wrong.]

（查理芒格：我得补充一下，在投资中机会成本是一个挺有用的工具。假设你有一个可行性大的点子，而且好于其他98%的机会，那你完全就可以把那98%剔除出去了。一直保持这样的投资态度的话你的投资组合中的类型就比较专一了。但是我不知道为啥秉持这种简单态度的人非常少，即便是在卓越的大学和研究院里都是凤毛麟角。有一个很有趣的问题值得我们思考：如果我们是正确的，那么为什么那么多人都错了呢？）

There are several possible answers to that question! The first question we ask ourselves is, would we rather own this business than more Coca-Cola, than more Gillette .... We will want companies where the certainty gets close to that, or we would figure we'd be better off buying more Coke. If every management, before they bought a business, said is this better than buying in our own stock or even buying Coca-Cola stock, there'd be a lot less deals done. We try to measure against what we regard as close to perfection as we can get.

那这个问题的答案估计不少！我们首先要问自己的是，如果看好一个公司你愿不愿意持有它比持有可口可乐或者吉列还多？我们当然希望买入确定性大的公司，否则还是多买点可口可乐才是明智之举。要是每一个管理层在下手买入之前都能言之凿凿的说买这个公司比买自己的公司和可口可乐都要好，那么我们就省事多了。我们一般都拿理想中的接近完美状态和我们所得到的对照着来评价。

Q: Could you comment on the matter of intrinsic value as it applies to some of the Inevitables?

问：你对内在价值在实际操作时是注定无法避免的这一点怎么看？

• Source: BRK Annual Meeting 1997

• 来源：BRK 1997年股东大会

• Time: May 1997

• 时间：1997年4月

Well, we won't stick a price on it. They are absolutely wonderful businesses run by sensational people, and they are selling at prices that are higher than they've sold at most of the time. But they may well be worth it, either in present terms, or they may be a couple of years ahead of themselves. Gillette doesn't repurchase their shares ... Coke consistently repurchases their shares. 

好吧，关于这一点，我们是从来不给公司贴价格标签的。当然他们都是由优秀的人运营的公司，但同时绝大多数情况下要价比平时要高。不过有的公司可能很值，这一点不在现在体现就会在将来体现出来，他们不过是看到了自己的未来罢了。你看像吉列公司就不会回购自家股票，倒是可口可乐一直在回购。

We generally like the policy of companies that have really wonderful businesses repurchasing their shares. The problem with most companies repurchasing their shares is that they are frequently so-so businesses and they are repurchasing shares for purposes other than intensifying the interest of shareholders in a wonderful business. 

我们一般情况下比较喜欢那些有真正好理由回购股票的公司。问题在于大多数业绩平平的公司回购股票不是为了尽可能发展好业务使股东利益最大化。

It's hard to do things intelligently with money in this world and Coke has been very intelligent about using their capital, particularly to fortify and develop their bottler network around the world, but there's only so far you can go with that, and to enhance the ownership of shareholders in a company like Coca-Cola [is great].

在我们所生活的世界想要明智的花钱真的很难，但是可口可乐就可以，尤其是在世界范围内巩固装瓶网络这一点。但迄今为止你也只能跟到这里了，像可口可乐这样的公司买多点是没坏处的。

The bottling is actually kind of interesting ... Asa Canver back in the late 1880's essentially bought the whole Coca-Cola company for $2,000, and that may be the smartest purchase in the history of the world. 

其实装瓶业还是挺暴利的一个行业。Asa Canver在19世纪80年代末以2000美元的价格把可口可乐全买下来了，恐怕这是有史以来最明智的一笔买卖了。

Then in 1889, a couple of guys from Chattanooga came along, and in those days soft drinks were sold over the counter, and they said bottling's got a future and you're busy with the pump side of the business, so why don't you let us develop the bottling side of the business. And I guess Mr. Canver didn't think much of bottling, so he gave them a contract that gave them the rights, in perpetuity for almost all of the United States, and gave them the right to buy Coca-Cola syrup at a fixed price forever. So Asa, who had scored with his $2,000 in a major way, seems to have made one of the dumbest contracts in history.

之后到了1889年，几个来自 Chattanooga市的小伙子出现了，那个时候柜台上的软饮常常脱销，他们就觉得瓶装饮料未来潜力很大，既然你们负责核心业务那么干嘛不把装瓶这部分交给我们来发展呢？我才那时候Canver先生根本不在乎装瓶这部分，于是他就把这块业务交给了那几个小伙子，让他们永久负责美国境内的装瓶业务，还许诺他们永远可以以初始固定价格购入可口可乐糖浆。Asa，这个用2000美元做了最划算买卖的人，竟然又签了世上最蠢的合同。

And the Coca-Cola company was faced over the years with the problem of having this bottling system which soon became the dominant system of distribution for Coke, being subject to a contract where there was no price flexibility and where the contract ran for perpetuity. And of course every bottler on his deathbed would call his children and grandchildren around, and he would prop himself up, and he would croak out in his last breath, "Don't let 'em screw with the bottling contract." 

可口可乐公司在很长一段时间里都面临着装瓶系统（已然成为可乐分销板块中的主导业务）掌握定价主动权但合同又无法更改的窘境。同时每一个装瓶商在临死之前都会把子孙召集到床前然后拼着最后一口气殷殷嘱咐道“千万别把装瓶合同交出去啊！”

So the Coca-Cola company faced this for decades, and they couldn't really do anything about the bottling system for a long time, and Roberto and Don Keough and some other people spent 20, 25 years getting that rationalized ...it was a huge, huge project, but it made an enormous difference over time, and that's what I mean when I talk about intellectual capital. You know you're not going to get results on that in a day or a month or a year, but they decided that to get the job done they had to do this, and they used capital to get that job done, but they used capital beyond that to repurchase shares, and it's been very smart, and they're probably repurchasing shares even as we talk.

所以说这个问题一直是可口可乐公司的世纪难题，相当长一段时间他们都拿这块业务没办法，Roberto和Don Keough花了20,25年的时间才把这个业务模式合理化，虽说工程量真的很大很大，但是时间越长好处就越大，这就是我说明智花钱的意思。他们清楚不会在一天、一个月、一年之内得到回报，但是必须有人把这个事情解决了，于是他们用资本把事情解决了，但是在干这件事的同时还在用资本回购股票，你说他们是不是很聪明，就在我们说话的当口他们还在回购呢。

[CM: I do think the Coca-Cola company is one of the most interesting cases in the history of business, and it ought to be way more studied than it is. There's just lesson after lesson after lesson in the history of the Coca-Cola company. But it's too long a story for today.]

（查理芒格：我觉得可口可乐不是商业史上最暴利的企业，他们应该被更加深入地研究一下。在可口可乐公司史上有的只是一课接一课的教训，故事太长今天是说不完了。）

Q: When you estimate intrinsic value in capital intensive companies like McDonald's and Walgreens where a very healthy and growing operating cash flow is largely offset by expenditures for new stores, restaurants, etc how do you estimate future free cash flow? And at what rate do you discount those cash flows?

问：像麦当劳和沃尔格林这种资本密集型企业，他们的营运现金流都非常健康而且一直在增长，但是都被不断开张的新店抵消了，这种情况你要怎么估算未来的自由现金流呢？现金流折现率又是多少呢？

• Source: BRK Annual Meeting 2003 Tilson Notes

• 来源：BRK 2003年股东大会 Tilson Notes

• Time: 2003

• 时间：2003

We use the same discount rate across all securities. We may be more conservative in estimating cash in some situations.

所有债权我们都使用同样的折现率。某些情况下可能会保守点。

Just because interest rates are at 1.5% doesn't mean we like an investment that yields 2-3%. We have minimum thresholds in our mind that are a whole lot higher than government rates. When we're looking at a business, we're looking at holding it forever, so we don't assume rates will always be this low.

只有1.5%的利率并不意味着我们喜欢2%-3%回报的投资。我们给出的最低临界值也要比政府利率高出很多。当我们研究一个企业的时候，我们是抱着要永久持有的心态去研究的，所以我们不会希望利率永远这么低。

利益声明：本文内容和意见仅代表作者个人观点，作者未持有该公司股票，作者提供的信息和分析仅供投资者参考，据此入市，风险自担！

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