原文信息：
- 标题：Nomad Investment Partnership Interim Letter For the period ended June 30th, 2005
- 链接：PDF
- 中文参考：Toby的研究笔记 ,AI等
- 整合校译：Terrellchen
| To June 30th, 2005: 至2005年6月30日 |
Nomad Investment Partnership 游牧人投资合伙 |
MSCI World Index (net) US$ 摩根士丹利资本国际世界指数美元 |
|---|---|---|
| 6 months | +2.4% | -0.3% |
| One year | +26.2% | +11.2% |
| Two years | +78.1% | +38.3% |
| Three years | +118.7% | +35.3% |
| Since inception (Sept. 10th 2001) | +150.5% | +28.9% |
| Annualised since inception | ||
| Before performance fees | +27.1% | +6.9% |
| After performance fees | +22.6% | +6.9% |
The figures above are presented on a cumulative basis (for the “A” shares, after management fees and before performance fees). Below the same results are presented in discrete annual increments. In our opinion, it is the upper table that is most useful in assessing long-term investment performance (see appendix).
上述数字以累计方式列示（"A "股，扣除管理费后，未扣除绩效费）。下表按年度分段列出了同样的结果。我们认为，上表对评估长期投资业绩最为有用（见附录）。
| To June 30th, 2005: 至2005年6月30日 |
Nomad Investment Partnership 游牧人投资合伙 |
MSCI World Index (net) US$ 摩根士丹利资本国际世界指数美元 |
|---|---|---|
| 6 months | +2.4% | -0.3% |
| 2004 | +22.1% | +15.2% |
| 2003 | +79.6% | +34.0% |
| 2002 | +1.30% | -19.3% |
| 2001(inception Sept. 10th 2001) | +10.1% | +3.9% |
When we said we expect to get rich slowly, we did not quite have the first half of 2005 in mind. Even so, a 2% gain is at least in the right direction and is a little better than the alternatives represented by global stock market indices. But more important, the value of the companies in which we have invested rose by more than 2% and we were able to add to some of the cheapest investments with the effect that, by our analysis, the price to value ratio of the Partnership declined from the low seventy cents on the dollar at the end of the year, to the upper sixty cents. A rational analysis would conclude that we are richer twice over,once from the gain in the price of the Partnership to date, and second from the rise in the value of the Partnership compared to its price.
当我们表明自己希望慢慢变富时，我们并未完全想到 2005 上半年基金净值增长的速度会如此之“慢”。即便如此，2% 的正收益至少在方向上是正确的，而且略好于全球股票市场指数所代表的投资替代品。但更重要的是，我们所投资的公司价值上升了不止 2%，而且我们还增加了一些最便宜的投资，其结果是，根据我们的分析，合伙公司的内在价值/市值比率从年末的 0.7 下降到了当期的 0.6 多一点。理性分析的结论是，我们的财富增加了两倍，一是来源于迄今为止合伙企业持仓市值增长的收益，二是来源于合伙企业持仓的内在价值相对于其价格的上升。
It is a constant feature of the investment landscape that people applaud recent gains when they should be thinking more about the future. We all do this to some extent. We all like rewards and like to be associated with success. And it is hard not to be drawn toward the crowd. One of our favourite cartoons, carried by Punch in the 1970s (and reproduced in the book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini some years later) makes the point.
人们在为近期收益喝彩的同时，应该更多地考虑未来，这是投资领域的一个常态。我们在某种程度上都是这样。我们都喜欢回报，喜欢与成功联系在一起。我们很难不被人群所吸引。我们最喜欢的漫画之一是 20 世纪 70 年代在《Punch》杂志上刊登的一幅漫画（几年后，罗伯特·西亚迪尼（Robert Cialdini）在《影响力》一书中再次引用了这幅漫画）。
Reproduced under licence and with the kind permission of the Punch Cartoon Library
根据授权转载，并已获得 Punch 漫画图书馆的许可
Following what everyone else is doing may be hard to resist, but it is also unlikely to be associated with good investment results. Zak and I concentrate on the price to value ratio of the Partnership and ignore its performance as much as is practical, and we would encourage you to do the same. In our opinion you should be more pleased with the improvement in the price to value ratio of the Partnership than the gain in the price of the Partnership this year. That’s easy to say when results have been reasonable. But it would feel quite different if the Partnership had declined in price instead. Unfortunately, nature does not always help us to think rationally. Psychologists (McClure, Laibson, Loewenstein and Cohen 2004) have found that the brain perceives immediate rewards differently to deferred rewards because two different parts of the brain are involved. Immediate gains are perceived positively compared to larger deferred gains as the limbic (survival) system has the ability to over-ride the fronto-parietal (analytical) system. Interestingly, stress induces this over- ride, and of course, money induces stress. So, the more stressed we are, the more we value short-term outcomes! This is not without reason, for if starving is a real possibility, a meal today is more important than a feast in a week’s time, and the brain’s wiring reflects that survival bias. Such notions are embedded in popular phrases such as “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. But at Nomad we try to be more analytical: it is the two birds in the bush we are concerned with and how they compare to the bird in the hand. In our opinion, today, the birds in the bush are around 47% (68c/100c) bigger than the bird in the hand. This compares with only around 37% (73c/100c) bigger at the end of last year. The Partnership is up this year, but you can see that it also does not mean very much compared to the deferred gains. It is price to value that's important.
追随别人的做法可能难以抗拒，但也不太可能带来好的投资结果。扎克和我专注于合伙企业的内在价值/市值比率，尽可能忽略股价涨跌带来的业绩表现，我们鼓励你们也这样做。在我们看来，与合伙企业今年的价格涨幅相比，合伙企业内在价值/市值比率的提高更应该让你们感到高兴。在收益为正的情况下，这很容易说出口。但如果合伙公司净值下跌，那感觉就完全不同了。不幸的是，大自然并不总能帮助我们理性思考。几位心理学家（McClure、Laibson、Loewenstein 和 Cohen）2004 年的研究成果表明，大脑对即时奖励和延迟奖励的感知是不同的，因为这涉及大脑的两个不同部分。由于大脑有时会优先处理来自边缘系统（和生存相关）而非前顶叶系统（和理性分析相关）的信息，因此与较高的递延收益相比，人们对即时收益的感觉更为强烈。有趣的是，压力会诱发这种情况，当然，金钱也会诱发压力。因此，压力越大的情况下，我们会越重视短期结果！这并非没有道理，因为如果真的可能挨饿，那么今天的一餐就比一周后的盛宴更重要，大脑的线路反映了这种生存偏差。"一鸟在手，胜过两鸟在林 "等流行语就蕴含着这种观念。但在游牧人基金，我们更注重分析：我们关心的是丛林中的两只鸟，以及它们与“在手的鸟”相比如何。在我们看来，如今丛林中的鸟儿比手中的鸟儿大 47%【投资组合的内在价值/市值为0.68，1÷0.68=1.47】。而在去年年底，这个数字仅为 37%（1/0.73）。今年合伙企业的净值有所增长，但与我们未来将获取的收益相比，它的意义也不大。重要的是内在价值/市值比率。
As a young(ish) man there is something slightly depressing about thinking things through for a while, arriving at a somewhat reasoned conclusion only to find that others have been there before, and years earlier. In some respects, we are fifty years behind Buffett, but that’s ok so long as the average investor is at least fifty-one years behind! I would estimate we were some way behind Bill Miller as well, as evidenced by his recent speech to students at the Columbia Business School in which he posed the question – what is your competitive advantage in investing? It was the elegance of the answer that grabbed us. Broadly Bill Miller argued that there are three competitive advantages in investing: informational (I know a meaningful fact nobody else does); analytical (I have cut up the public information to arrive at a superior conclusion) and psychological (that is to say, behavioural). Sustainable competitive advantages are usually a product of analytical and or psychological factors, and the overwhelming advantage with regard to Nomad is the patience of the investor base and the alignment of that disposition with the analytical and psychological traits of your manager. It simply would not work otherwise. In the investment objective section of the Nomad prospectus, we say that our job is to “pass custody [of your investment] over at the right price and to the right people” and that “the approach will require patience”. That’s what investing is, at least for us. But let me return to the speech for a moment.
作为一个年轻人，在思考问题一段时间后得出合理的结论，却发现别人已经走在前面，而且早走了很多年，这不禁让人有些沮丧。在某些方面，我们比巴菲特晚了 50 年，但没有关系，只要普通投资者比巴菲特晚 51 年意识到这些道理，我们就能享有一年的先发优势了！著名基金经理比尔·米勒最近在哥伦比亚商学院对学生发表演讲，提出了一个问题——你在投资中的竞争优势是什么？这个问题的答案非常优雅，让我们眼前一亮。概括地说，米勒认为，投资有三种竞争优势：信息优势（我知道一个别人不知道的有意义的事实）；分析优势（我对公开信息进行了深入分析，得出了一个卓越的结论）和心态优势（也就是行为优势）。可持续的竞争优势通常是分析优势和心态优势的产物，而游牧人基金的压倒性优势在于投资者的耐心，以及这种耐心与基金经理的分析方法和心理特征相一致。否则，我们根本无法成功。在游牧人基金招股说明书的投资目标部分，我们说我们的工作是 "以合适的价格将[您的投资]托管权交给合适的人"，而且 "这种方法需要耐心"。这就是投资，至少对我们来说是这样。不过，让我回过头来再谈谈米勒的演讲。
“Think of how the future will be different from the past. Most people default to the directions and trends that they are currently observing...The important thing is that most things change. In longer term projections, Peter Bernstein tells us, that cone of uncertainty gets wider as time goes out. What are the chances that IBM will be bankrupt tomorrow morning? Probably none. A year from now? Five years from now? What about one hundred years from now? The point being that the possibilities increase as time goes out. So, what you are trying to do as an investor is exploit the fact that fewer things will happen than can happen. So, you are trying to figure out how that probability distribution works and stay in the middle of what will happen. The market has to worry about all the things that can happen.”
"想想未来与过去有何不同。大多数人默认他们目前观察到的方向和趋势......重要的是，大多数事情都会改变。彼得-伯恩斯坦告诉我们，在长期预测中，随着时间的推移，不确定性的范围会越来越大。明天早上 IBM 破产的可能性有多大？可能没有。一年后呢？五年后呢？一百年后呢？关键是随着时间的推移，可能性会越来越大。因此，作为投资者，你要做的就是利用会发生的事情比可能发生的事情少这一事实。你要弄清楚概率分布是如何运行的，并时时关注将要发生的事情。市场必须担心所有可能发生的事情"。
To repeat: “what you are trying to do as an investor is exploit the fact that fewer things will happen than can happen”. That is exactly what we are trying to do. We spend a considerable portion of our waking hours thinking about how company behaviour can make the future more predictable and lower the risk of investment. Costco’s obsession with sharing scale benefits with the customer makes that company’s future much more predictable and less risky than the average business and that is why it is our largest holding. Our smaller holdings are less predictable but in certain circumstances could do much better as investments. We are just not sure that they will as their “cone of uncertainty” has a much greater radius than at Costco. Bill Miller got there years ago. We are just getting there today.
重复一遍："作为投资者，你要做的是利用未来会发生的事情少于可能发生的事情这一事实"。这正是我们要做的。我们在醒着的时候，都会花大量时间思考公司行为如何使未来更可预测，并降低投资风险。Costco 执着于与客户分享规模经济效益，这使得该公司的未来比一般企业更可预测，风险更低，这也是它成为我们第一重仓的原因。我们持有的较小仓位的可预测性较低，但在某些情况下，其投资收益可能会更好。我们只是不确定它们是否会这样，因为它们的 "不确定性"范围要比 Costco 大得多。比尔·米勒多年前就已经做到了这一点。我们今天才刚刚领悟到这一点。
At the risk of mildly boring some readers, it may be worth completing the analysis of Costco here by introducing the robustness ratio. (Avid readers will recognise that this ratio was introduced in a Global Investment Review, contained in the appendix to this letter). The robustness ratio is a framework we use to help think about the size of the moat around a company. It is the amount of money a customer saves compared to the amount earned by shareholders. This ratio is more appropriate for some companies than others, the prime criteria being that the customer proposition is based on price, such as exists at Costco, as opposed to an advertising-reinforced purchase such as Nike trainers. In the Berkshire Hathaway annual report this year, the Chairman tells us that Geico policyholders saved U$1bn on their policies compared to the next cheapest carrier. It also turns out that Geico earned around U$1bn as well. So that’s one dollar saving to the customers and one dollar retained for shareholders. At Costco we think the customer saving is around five dollars, compared to shopping at most supermarkets, for every dollar retained by the company.
冒着让一些读者略感无聊的风险，我们不妨在此介绍一下稳健性比率 (robustness ratio)，以完成对 Costco 的分析（热心读者会发现，本信附录中的《全球投资评论》介绍了这一比率）。稳健性比率是我们用来辅助思考公司护城河规模的一个框架。它是指客户节省的金额与股东赚取的金额的比值。与其他公司相比，这一比率更适合某些公司，主要标准是客户的主张（customer proposition）基于价格，例如 Costco，而不是基于广告促进的购买，如耐克。在伯克希尔-哈撒韦今年的年度报告中，公司董事长告诉我们，与次便宜的保险公司相比，Geico 保险的投保人在保单上节省了 10 亿美元。事实证明，Geico 也赚了约 10 亿美元。因此，客户节省了 1 美元，股东则保留了 1 美元。我们认为，与在大多数超市购物相比，客户每节省 5 美元，Costco 的公司股东就能保留1美元。
So what? Well, it is probably fair to argue that the higher the ratio, the harder it would be to compete against Costco on a like for like basis. Also, a higher ratio may imply a somewhat inequitable distribution of system rewards between customer and shareholder than a lower ratio. There is a tension here between the size of the moat on the one hand and the distribution of rewards on the other. In the last few years, the pendulum has swung in favour of the customer, with the result that the stock is cheap enough to be vulnerable to a leveraged buy-out (completely unobserved by Wall Street where only one in five analysts rate the stock a buy, which solves for the shares being cheap enough to fund a buy out in the first place – the two are of course linked). This is a huge source of risk for current shareholders since being taken out at a low-price amounts to theft. It’s that serious, and you can rely upon us to see it that way. We think the board understands this, and the way to bet is that the pendulum will swing back in favour of the shareholders over the next few years. Look around you. How many companies save five dollars for their customers for every one dollar they keep?
那又怎么样呢？也许可以这样说，稳健性比例越高，竞争对手就越难与 Costco 竞争。此外，与较低的比率相比，较高的稳健性比率可能意味着利益在顾客和股东之间的分配有些不公平。护城河的大小与回报的分配之间存在着矛盾。在过去的几年里，Costco 的钟摆向客户倾斜，结果是股票便宜到容易被杠杆收购（华尔街完全没有注意到，只有五分之一的分析师认为该股票“值得买入”，这就解决了股票便宜到足以资助收购的问题，当然这两者是有联系的）。这对目前的股东来说是一个巨大的风险来源，因为以低价被收购相当于被盗。事情就是这么严重，我们也是这么看的。我们认为董事会明白这一点，而且可以打赌的是，在未来几年里，钟摆将重新向股东倾斜。看看你的周围。有多少公司每保留 1 美元，就能为客户节省 5 美元？
It does not happen in the investment industry where fees can be levied regardless of performance – that’s not much of a robustness ratio and does not take into account the asymmetry of the risks involved. You can’t lose money shopping at Costco, but you can investing. This would argue that robustness ratios need to be much higher in the investment industry than for normal businesses to compensate for the risks involved. We have tried to some extent to account for this asymmetry through Nomad’s six percent performance hurdle. It is not perfect, there is no science behind the number, although it is meant to represent a generous proxy for deposit rates. And besides having a hurdle rate helps us sleep at night.
在投资行业，这种情况不会发生，因为无论业绩如何，基金经理都可以收取费用——这不是什么稳健比率，也没有考虑到所涉及风险的不对称性。在 Costco 购物不会亏钱，但投资却可能亏钱。这就表明，投资行业的稳健性比率需要比普通企业高得多，以弥补所涉及的风险。我们在一定程度上试图通过游牧人基金 6% 的门槛收益率（hurdle rate）来弥补这种不对称性。这个数字并不完美，背后也没有科学依据，其目的是为存款利率提供一个宽松的替代指标。此外，有了门槛收益率，我们晚上也睡得踏实。
We have begun making some investments in Zimbabwe and wrote about the background to these in a recent Global Investment Review (also contained in the appendix). The investment case relies upon extreme undervaluation compared to normalised values, so much so that a wait of ten years for normalisation would still yield wonderful results. It makes little sense to discuss stocks we may or are buying (Costco is likely to be a rare exception in this regard) but I can illustrate the investment case by describing Zimcem. This is the country’s largest cement producer (after the local division of Pretoria Portland Cement), with around 700,000 tons of cement capacity and a replacement cost of around U$70 to U$100m. The firm has no debt and business conditions are awful (general inflation exceeds cement price inflation and product demand is low) but the company is priced on the Harare stock exchange at one seventieth (1/70th!) of its replacement cost.
我们已经开始在非洲的津巴布韦进行一些投资，并在最近的《全球投资评论》（也包含在附录中）介绍了这些投资的背景。我们的投资决策依赖于与正常价值相比极度低估的价值，以至于持有并等待十年仍会产生美妙的结果。讨论我们可能买入或正在买入的股票意义不大（Costco 可能是这方面的一个罕见例外），但我可以通过介绍 Zimcem 公司来说明投资案例。这是津巴布韦最大的本地水泥生产商（仅次于比勒陀利亚波特兰水泥公司在当地的分公司），水泥产能约为 70 万吨，重置成本约为 7000 万至 1 亿美元。该公司没有债务，经营状况非常糟糕（津巴布韦的总体通胀率超过水泥价格涨幅，产品需求低迷），但该公司在哈拉雷证券交易所的价格仅为其重置成本的七十分之一。
Why is this relevant? So far, we have only discussed one model we use to pick good investments which we call “scale efficiencies shared” as evidenced by Costco (and to a lesser extent Amazon.com). We have little more than a handful of distinct investment models, which overlap to some extent, and Zimcem is a good example of a second model namely, “deep discount to replacement cost with latent pricing power”. Indeed, these two models combined can be used to describe around 45% of total Partnership assets. It was this model that led to many investments during the Asian crisis (such as Siam Cement which has risen twenty-fold from the trough in eight years) and to neighbouring South Africa where Pretoria Portland Cement could be bought at a price of U$20 per ton of capacity in 1998 and is now valued at U$180 per ton. The model is premised upon the observation that the business needs to replace its assets and will require prices which 1. fund the capex, and 2. economically justify the spending. Either that or Zimbabwe will have to go without cement or import from abroad (tricky for this land locked country). In any event, provided discretionary capital is not invested to exacerbate the situation, the supply side remains muted (industry capex is zero) and the business is not nationalised, then the shares ought to do well, in time.
为什么这是相关的？到目前为止，我们只讨论了我们用来挑选好投资项目的一种模式，我们称之为 "共享规模效益（Shared economics of scale）"，Costco，以及亚马逊（后者也在一定程度上表现了这一特征）就是很好的例子。我们只有少数几种不同的投资模式，这些模式在一定程度上存在重叠，而 Zimcem 就是第二种模式的很好例子，即 "以重置成本为基础的深度折价与潜在定价能力"。事实上，这两个模型合在一起可以用来描述大约 45% 的合伙企业总资产。正是这种模式促成了我们在亚洲金融危机期间的许多投资（如暹罗水泥公司在八年内从谷底上涨了 20 倍），也促成了我们在邻国南非的投资，1998 年比勒陀利亚波特兰水泥公司的市值除以当年的水泥产量相当于每吨 20 美元，而现在的估值为每吨 180 美元。该模式的前提是企业需要更替资产，并且价格需要符合以下条件：1.为资本支出提供资金；2.在经济上证明支出是合理的。否则，津巴布韦将不得不放弃水泥行业或从国外进口水泥（这对这个地处内陆的国家来说很棘手）。无论如何，只要不投入可自由支配的资金来加剧局势，供应方面依然低迷（行业资本支出为零），企业不被国有化，那么假以时日，股价应该会有不错的表现。
This last point, along with other confiscation events, does not have a zero probability, and is the main reason our investments in the country will be modest in size. Even if we were able to secure all the shares we desire (which we seem incapable of doing) it is unlikely that the total investment would be much more than a few percent of the Partnership at cost. There is no a priori reason why Zimbabwean businesses should not trade at a premium to replacement cost. Just over the northern border Zambia’s dominant cement company is now valued at a premium to replacement cost following recovery in the economy after years of mismanagement. In Zimbabwe this may require “regime change”, or even regime changes. Perhaps the investment case rests in your manager being fifty years younger than Bob Mugabe.
在津巴布韦，企业被国有化以及以其他形式被没收资产的可能性并非为零，这也是我们在该国投资规模不大的主要原因。即使我们能够获得我们想要的所有股份（我们似乎做不到），投资总额也不太可能超过合伙企业资产规模的几个百分点。津巴布韦企业没有理由不以高于重置成本的价格进行交易。津巴布韦北边的赞比亚，在经历了多年的管理不善之后，随着经济的复苏，其占主导地位的水泥公司目前的估值已高于重置成本。在津巴布韦，这可能需要领导人换代，乃至政权更迭。也许我们投资的理由在于您的基金经理比津巴布韦现任领导人穆加贝年轻 50 岁。
The official exchange rate at the time of writing is Z$9,100 to the U$1. The unofficial, street rate is around Z$17,000 to the U$1. In other words, the Central Bank values its own currency at over twice the price set by the public with the effect that money entering the country via the Central Bank buys approximately half as much as at the street rate. Fortunately, there is an alternative to the Central Bank for foreign investors, which is to purchase Old Mutual shares in Johannesburg, re-register the same shares in Harare and then sell the shares in Harare. This we have done. But it creates a problem in valuing our Zimbabwean shares as Bloomberg, Reuters and the other main sources of currency prices use feeds from the Central Bank. In other words, if we solely relied upon the official rate of exchange our investments would immediately show an 86% gain. This gain is entirely illusory. Were we to reverse the process by re-registering the shares in Johannesburg and selling our stock there, the proceeds would approximate the money we first put in (minus frictional costs and any change in the price of Old Mutual shares). The only way we could realise the 86% gain would be to present our Zim dollars to the Central Bank and ask for US dollars at a rate of Z$9,100. And we would be waiting for Godot. There are almost no transactions taking place at the Central Bank and priority is given to trade and working capital requirements, not foreign investment portfolios. So, we could try, but I don’t think it is prudent to value the portfolio on the basis of a warm response from the Zimbabwean Central Bank. So, our solution has been to value the Zimbabwean investments at the rate of exchange implied by the Old Mutual share price in Harare divided by the price of exactly the same share in Johannesburg (note that the shares are fungible in both directions). The effect is to approximate the street rate of exchange and remove the artificial book gain implied by the official exchange rate, and hopefully the worst of any pricing distortions should be minimised as a result. This is a somewhat unusual solution, but one that I think is fair, and the auditors, board and administrators have decided to agree with my methodology. Please do call however, if all is not clear.
在撰写本报告时，津巴布韦的官方汇率为 1 美元兑 9,100 津元，非官方汇率约为 1 美元兑 17,000 津元。换句话说，中央银行对本国货币的估价是公众所定价格的两倍多，因此通过中央银行进入津巴布韦的资金所能买到的东西大约是按照市场汇率所能买到的东西的一半。幸运的是，除了中央银行之外，外国投资者还有一个选择，那就是在约翰内斯堡购买 Old Mutual 的股份，在津巴布韦首都哈拉雷重新注册相同的股份，然后在哈拉雷出售股份。我们已经这样做了。但这给我们的津巴布韦股票估值带来了问题，因为彭博社、路透社和其他主要货币价格来源都使用中央银行提供的信息。换句话说，如果我们只依赖官方汇率，我们的投资将立即显示出 86% 的浮盈。这种收益完全是虚幻的。如果我们反其道而行之，在约翰内斯堡重新注册股票，然后在那里出售股票，所得收益将与我们最初投入的资金相近（减去摩擦成本和 Old Mutual 股票价格的变动）。要想实现 86% 的收益，唯一的办法就是把我们的津巴布韦元交给中央银行，然后以 9,100:1津元的汇率换取美元。而我们只能“等待戈多”【校译注："等待戈多 "是一部由塞缪尔·贝克特创作的戏剧，是在等待希望】。中央银行几乎没有任何交易，优先考虑的是贸易和周转资金需求，而不是外国投资组合。因此，我们可以尝试这样操作，但我认为根据津巴布韦中央银行的热情回应来评估投资组合的价值是不谨慎的。因此，我们的解决方案是按照哈拉雷的 Old Mutual 股票价格除以约翰内斯堡的同类股票价格（注意，股票在两个方向上都是可互换的）所暗示的汇率对津巴布韦的投资进行估值。这样做的效果近似于非官方汇率，消除了官方汇率所隐含的人为账面收益。这是个有点不寻常的解决方案，但我认为是公平的，审计员、董事会和管理者已决定同意我的方法。如果有不清楚的地方，请来电咨询。
“Any year that _you don’t destroy one of your best loved ideas is probably a wasted_year”, Charles T. Munger.
“任何一年，如果你没有毁掉你最喜欢的一个想法，那可能就是虚度的一年"——查理·芒格（Charles T. Munger）。
In January this year, the market town of Carlisle (located between the English Lake District and the border with Scotland and incidentally home to your manager’s family-in-law) was flooded when the River Eden broke its banks. Parts of the city center were under many feet of water and residents were shown on national TV being evacuated from roof tops by helicopter. As the water receded the city slowly returned to normal, although the damage remained extensive, and included the traffic light system at Hardwicke Circus, a junction of seven roads controlled by a series of traffic lights dotted throughout approaching roads and a central roundabout. Although the lights remained out of use, the authorities opened the roads and trusted the residents to drive with care. Soon afterwards, drivers began to suspect that the traffic flowed better through the complex junction without the traffic lights than before, and in March this year the City Council began a trial in which the lights were covered up, and drivers left to get on with it. What they found confirmed public suspicions, the speed of traffic through the intersection had indeed risen, and better still, it appeared that the number of accidents may actually have fallen as well. What they found was entirely contrary to accepted wisdom in council planning, that the roundabout was faster and may also be safer without the traffic lights! Ayn Rand would recognise what was happening, as may members of the Santa Fe Institute (which recently published a study entitled “How Individuals Learn to Take Turns: Emergence of Alternating Cooperation in a Congestion Game and the Prisoner’s Dilemma”). The point is that, often, if one removes the rules, and instead ask people to think for themselves, the system works better.
今年 1 月，英国的伊登河决堤，卡莱尔集镇（位于英格兰湖区和苏格兰交界处，也是你们基金经理岳父的家乡）被洪水淹没。市中心部分地区被淹没在数英尺深的水中，国家电视台播放了居民乘坐直升机从屋顶撤离的画面。随着洪水的退去，城市慢慢恢复了正常，尽管受损范围仍然很广，其中包括哈德威克广场的红绿灯系统：这是一个由七条道路组成的交叉路口，由分布在各条道路和中央环岛上的一系列红绿灯控制。虽然红绿灯仍未启用，但当局还是开放了道路，并相信居民会小心驾驶。不久之后，司机们开始怀疑，没有红绿灯的复杂路口交通比以前更顺畅了。今年 3 月，市政委员会开始进行一项试验，将红绿灯遮盖起来，让司机们继续行驶。他们的发现证实了公众的猜测，通过交叉路口的车速确实提高了，更妙的是，事故数量似乎也确实减少了。他们的发现与市政规划中公认的观点完全背道而驰，即没有交通信号灯，环岛的车速更快，也可能更安全！安·兰德（Ayn Rand）会意识到发生了什么，圣塔菲研究所（Santa Fe Institute）的成员也会意识到发生了什么（该研究所最近发表了一项题为 "个人如何学会轮流：拥堵博弈和囚徒困境中交替合作的出现” 的研究）。问题的关键在于，通常情况下，如果取消规则，转而要求人们自己思考，系统就会运行得更好。
We criticise hedge funds for their fee scales and short investment time frames, but they have a point when it comes to investment rules and certain regulations. Traditional investment management can become heavily burdened by bureaucracy, compliance and corrupted by marketing expediency. These business forces can work at the expense of the investment process, and the trick for any growing investment firm is not to sap the life out of the investment team through stapling them to the bureaucratic equivalent of the US Department of Agriculture. We think of ourselves as reasonably entrepreneurial, but even we suffer to some extent from this culture-drift. The solution is not hard to come by. What is required is for people to behave in such a way that, in the words of Charlie Munger, one builds “a seamless web of deserved trust”. The operative word is “deserved”. The problem is that rules do not require people to think, and how are people to deserve trust if first they don’t think? Degenerative spirals of behaviour do not build good results (or fast roundabouts), but that is where the industry is going, and it is a destination we will all do well to avoid.
我们批评对冲基金的收费标准高，投资时限短；但在投资规则和某些法规方面，他们说得也有道理。传统的投资管理可能因官僚主义、合规性和市场营销的权宜之计而负担沉重。这些商业力量可能会以牺牲投资流程为代价。对于任何一家处于成长期的投资公司来说，诀窍就是不要把投资团队束缚在相当于美国农业部的官僚机构中，从而耗尽他们的生命力。我们认为自己是合理的创业者，但即使是我们也在一定程度上受到这种文化偏差的影响。解决方案并不难找到。用查理-芒格的话说，我们需要的是人们以这样一种方式行事，即建立 "理应得到信任的无缝网络"。关键词是 "理应"。问题在于，规则并不要求人们思考，而如果人们不思考，又如何值得信任呢？ 堕落的螺旋式行为不会产生好的结果，但这正是行业发展的方向，我们都应该避免。
We try not to be too hard and fast about rules. In previous letters we have quoted H.O. Hirt, founder of Erie Indemnity, and it would be a shame not to do so again. Hirt posted the following notice to staff:
我们尽量不硬性规定规则。在以前的信中，我们曾引用过伊利赔偿公司创始人 H.O. Hirt 的观点，如果不再引用一次，那就太可惜了。Hirt 向员工发布了如下通知：
“RULES
Are for INFANTS, INCOMPETENTS,
INCARCERATED CRIMINALS and IMBECILES
- NONE of WHOM should have any place in the **ERIE FAMILY **.”
"规则
是为幼童、不称职者、未阉割的罪犯和胎儿制定的。
- 任何人都不应在伊利家族中占有一席之地"。
Even so a few rules end up slipping in overtime and need to be viewed with great suspicion. One was that a low share price was better than a high share price, all other things being equal, which proved unwise when the low market capitalisation undermined shareholders’ bargaining position in the recapitalisation of Conseco a few years ago. This year we shall have to discard another strongly held bias which is that high inside ownership is a good thing. This too is not always helpful, as shareholders in Northwest Airlines are finding out. In this instance the unions appear to reason that management (who are the largest group of shareholders) will not risk placing the company in bankruptcy and are holding out for the last dollar in negotiations. Oddly here, high inside ownership is hindering the process that would lead to a more viable airline. Who would have thought that a low share price and high inside ownership could be bearish? But they can. I wonder what other “best loved ideas” we will need to rethink in the coming years.
即便如此，还是有一些规则需要以极大的怀疑来看待。其中一条规则是，在其他条件相同的情况下，低股价比高股价要好。几年前，当低市值损害了股东在 Conseco 破产重组中的议价地位时，这条规则被证明是不明智的。今年，我们必须摒弃另一种强烈的偏见，即内部员工持股比例高不一定是件好事。西北航空公司的股东们就发现了这一点。在这种情况下，工会似乎认为管理层（他们是最大的股东群体）不会冒公司破产的风险，因此在劳资谈判中坚持索要最后一美元。奇怪的是，高内部持股比例阻碍了建立一家更有活力的航空公司的进程。谁会想到低股价和高内部持股比例会带来负面影响呢？但它们可以。我想知道，在未来几年里，我们还需要重新思考哪些 "最受欢迎的想法"是否真的成立。
We don’t write to you that often, as measured by number of letters per annum. But the sum of the letters we write amounts to around ten per stock holding period (two annual letters times five years). On this measure we may be more communicative than many investors who write more often, but trade shares more frequently still. Even so, we like the balance as it is, and are hesitant to fall into say-something territory. We are very conscious that investors in the Partnership have reciprocated and allowed us to get on with our job of roaming the globe looking for value. Thank you.
按每年写信的数量计算，我们给你写信的次数并不多。但是，我们在每个股票持有期内所写的信件总和约为十封（每年两封乘以五年）。从这个角度看，我们可能比很多投资者更善于沟通，因为他们写信更频繁，但买卖股票的频率却更高。即便如此，我们还是喜欢目前的平衡状态，不愿陷入 "说点什么 "的境地。我们深知，合伙企业中的出资人给予了我们回报，让我们能够继续在全球范围内寻找价值。谢谢你们。
To date we have appended a copy of the schedule of investments with our letters. This is not necessarily in Partners’ interests. There are powerful psychological reasons for not doing so associated with commitment and consistency tendency (covered in previous letters), and then there is the issue of others piggy backing on ideas. This is not so much a problem today as few care what we do and the Partnership is small, but it could become an issue should the Partnership grow. Only the other week I received a request from a London based hedge fund (with a reputation for short term punts) for another copy of our Global Investment Review. Think of that! We did not know they had one copy, and they were casually asking for another? What are they going to do with the information? If Partners wish to circulate our schedule of investments to others, then they must understand that their actions are contrary to their (and our) economic interests in Nomad. The same cannot be said for those that are not invested. So, if you are a Partner then you will find a copy of the schedule of investments attached to this letter, and we ask you to use that information wisely.
迄今为止，我们在致函时都会附上一份投资明细表。这不一定符合合作伙伴的利益。不这样做是有强大的心理原因的，这与承诺和一致性倾向有关（在以前的信件中已有论述），而且还有他人借鉴想法的问题。由于很少有人关心我们的工作，而且伙伴关系规模较小，这在今天还不是一个大问题，但如果伙伴关系发展壮大，这可能会成为一个问题。就在上周，我收到了一家伦敦对冲基金（以短期投资著称）的请求，希望再得到一份我们的《全球投资评论》。想想看！我们不知道他们有一本，而他们却随随便便又要了一本？他们会怎么处理这些信息？如果合作伙伴想把我们的投资计划传给其他人，那么他们必须明白，他们的行为违背了他们（和我们）在 Nomad 的经济利益。而那些没有投资的人则不能这么说。因此，如果你是合伙人，你会发现本信附有一份投资计划表，我们请你明智地使用这些信息。
On the administration side, please do call Daiwa Securities Trust and Banking in Dublin with your enquiries (+353 1603 9921). The 2004 Nomad annual report and accounts were mailed to shareholders in May, considerably earlier than last year. I am also aware that there have been issues with the timely receipt of statements. We are on to it, and nag Daiwa constantly. Please do press them if you are not fully satisfied. They are here to help you, and you have paid for their services. Don’t be shy, we aren’t. Likewise, Alexandra Aitken at this office (+44 207 497 2211) is employed to help Partners with basic performance and statement enquiries.
在行政管理方面，请致电都柏林的大和证券信托和银行（+353 1603 9921）进行咨询。2004 年 Nomad 年度报告和账目已于五月寄给股东，比去年早了很多。我也知道在及时收到报表方面存在一些问题。我们正在处理此事，并不断向大和公司催促。如果您不完全满意，请向他们提出。他们是来帮助您的，而且您已经为他们的服务支付了费用。不要害羞，我们不会。同样，该办事处的亚历山德拉-艾特肯（Alexandra Aitken）（+44 207 497 2211）受雇帮助合作伙伴处理基本的业绩和报表查询。
As always it is a tonic running this Partnership. We value your confidence in us very highly and thank you for your patience.
与往常一样，管理这家合伙公司是一件令人兴奋的事情。我们非常重视您对我们的信任，感谢您的耐心等待。
...back to the company annual reports.
...回到年度报告。
Yours sincerely
您真挚的
Nicholas Sleep
尼克·斯利浦
In this article, we use the term "Partners" as a generic term referring to all Nomad investors, whether shareholders in the feeder fund or limited partners in the Partnership and not, in the strict, legal sense of the word, to imply the creation of a partnership between shareholders in the feeder fund, Nomad and/or Marathon Asset Management.
在本文中，我们使用 "合伙人 "一词作为通用术语，指所有 Nomad 投资者，无论是联接基金的股东还是合伙企业的有限合伙人，而不是在严格的法律意义上暗示在联接基金股东、Nomad 和/或 Marathon Asset Management 之间建立合伙关系。
The phrase “business moat” is often banded around when discussing the absolute or comparative strength of a franchise. That there are businesses with defendable positions is of little doubt; but what these discussions often lack is any empirical method by which moat size or longevity can be measured, compared or monitored over time. In addition, stock investors (particularly those who, for their sins, have been labelled growth investors) face an important task, namely, how can one recognise the creation of a business moat well in advance of its value being discounted in the stock market? While reading the 2005 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report, one paragraph stood out for us as Warren Buffett referred in passing to the division of operating and underwriting cost savings at motor insurer GEICO. These “benefits” were divided between shareholders, policy holders and employees and the statistics spelt out in some detail. This simple breakdown struck a chord with our continuing analysis of Costco, a significant Marathon shareholding in the United States. What is becoming clearer in our minds is that one can empirically measure the strength of a business franchise through such an analysis of the division of benefits, what we have come to call its “robustness ratio”.
在讨论特许经营的绝对实力或比较优势时，"商业护城河 "一词经常被挂在嘴边。毋庸置疑，有些企业的地位是站得住脚的，但这些讨论往往缺乏任何经验性的方法来衡量、比较或监测护城河的规模或寿命。此外，股票投资者（尤其是那些被冠以 "成长型投资者 "称号的投资者）还面临着一项重要任务，即如何才能在企业护城河的价值被股票市场折现之前，提前发现它的存在？在阅读伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司 2005 年年报时，沃伦-巴菲特顺便提到了汽车保险公司 GEICO 运营和承保成本节约部门，其中有一段让我们印象深刻。这些 "收益 "在股东、保单持有人和员工之间进行了分配，并详细列出了统计数据。这一简单的细分引起了我们对 Costco 的持续分析。我们越来越清楚地认识到，通过对企业利益分配，也就是我们所说的 "稳健性比率"的分析，可以实证地衡量一个企业特许经营的实力。
First, a brief recap of Buffett’s comments with respect to GEICO.
首先，我们简要回顾一下巴菲特对 GEICO 的评论：
“Indeed, GEICO delivers all of its constituents major benefits: In 2004 its customers saved $1 billion or so compared to what they would otherwise have paid for coverage, its associates earned a $191 million profit-sharing bonus that averaged 24.3% of salary, and its owner – that’s us –enjoyed excellent financial returns.”
"事实上，GEICO 为其所有成员带来了重大利益： 2004 年，它的客户比他们原本需要支付的保险费用节省了 10 亿美元左右，它的员工赚取了 1.91 亿美元的利润分享奖金，平均占工资的 24.3%，它的所有者——也就是我们——享受到了极佳的财务回报。”
Source: Berkshire Hathaway, 2005 Annual Report
资料来源：伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司，2005 年年报
These financial returns, measured in terms of an underwriting profit, were close to US$1 billion pre-tax last year but this excludes the investment returns earned on the US$5-6 billion of float generated by GEICO throughout the year (on which we may want to assign subjectively a return of 5%). These benefits, of course, only accrue to the three groups as a result of scale (if one assumes that underwriting skill can be developed or acquired). This allows us to construct a pie chart (Figure 1) representing how these scale economies are shared. The robustness ratio, defined as the combined distribution to customers and employees (through a profit share or the like) divided by the distribution to shareholders, is in GEICO’s case about 1:1.
以承保利润计算，这些财务回报在去年税前接近 10 亿美元，但这不包括 GEICO 的 50-60 亿美元浮存金每年产生的投资回报（我们可以主观地将其回报率定为 5%）。当然，员工、股东和顾客获得的这些收益只是规模效应的结果（如果我们假定承保技能是可以培养或获得的）。这样，我们就能绘制出一张饼图（图 1），说明规模经济产生的效益是如何在股东、员工和顾客之间进行分配的。稳健性比率的定义是对客户和员工的分配之和（通过利润分成或类似方式）除以对股东的分配。在 GEICO 的案例中，稳健性比率约为 1:1。
Figure 1: GEICO: A fair division of spoils
图1 GEICO:公平的利益分配
Source: Marathon
This picture, of course, represents a snapshot; just as important is how this division of benefits develops over time, a subject we will touch on later. Tracking back to Costco, we are able to construct a similar pie chart using the following facts and figures. On average, a Costco cardholder (as opposed to household; on average each household holds 2 cards) spends US$1,100 per year in the store. Costco spends US$980 at cost to supply these goods which, if one assumes similar buying power and a comparable basket make up, would cost US$1,300 at a competing supermarket such as Kroger or US$1,250 at Wal-Mart (gross margins of 26% and 23% respectively, compared with 11% at Costco). Now these comparisons are not quite so straightforward as Costco’s members must “pay to play”, currently US$23 per cardholder on average, and this annual fee is fixed whatever a cardholder spends (this implies the distribution of customer savings is not even across the membership base, a fascinating influence on customer behaviour and itself worthy of analysis). But we can estimate that, on average, a Costco cardholder saves somewhere in the region of US$175 per year by shopping at Costco in return for an annual fee investment of US$23, or a net gain in the region of US$150 per cardholder per year.
当然，这只是一个缩影；同样重要的是，这种利益分配是如何随着时间的推移而发展的，这一点我们将在后面讨论。回到 Costco，我们可以利用以下事实和数据构建一个类似的饼图。Costco 的持卡人（相对于家庭而言；平均每个家庭持有两张卡）平均每年在店内消费 1,100 美元。如果假定购买力和购物篮中的商品种类相似，Costco 在供应这些商品方面的成本支出为 980 美元，而 Kroger 等竞争对手的成本支出为 1300 美元，在沃尔玛的成本支出为 1250 美元（毛利率分别为 26% 和 23%，而 Costco 的毛利率为 11%）。由于Costco 的会员必须"付费才能使用"，目前平均每位持卡人需支付 23 美元，而且无论持卡人消费多少，年费都是固定的（这意味着客户节省的费用在整个会员群体中的分布并不均匀，这对客户行为的影响令人着迷，本身就值得分析），因此这些比较并不那么直截了当。但我们可以估计，平均而言，Costco 持卡人每年在 Costco 购物可节省大约 175 美元，而年费为 23 美元，即每位持卡人每年净收益大约为 150 美元。
Now we turn to employees. From recent management meetings, we have gained some clarity on the difference between Costco’s wage/benefit scales and those available from competitors (this difference being the functional equivalent of GEICO’s profit related bonus). If we assume that 70% of Costco’s SG&A is made up of wages/benefits and that Costco’s wage/benefit scales are 55% higher than the competition, then Costco, in a sense, “overpays” its employees to the tune of US$1.1bn per year, or US$26 per cardholder per year. Finally, shareholders. On Wall Street, there has been a suspicion that the return to shareholders has been a “residual” after customers and employees have been well cared for. And at US$32 per cardholder pre-tax, or 15% of the distributable pie, the shareholders’ share is not in the same league as at GEICO. In any case, Costco’s pie chart (Figure 2) looks something like this, and its robustness ratio is of the order of 5:1.
现在我们来谈谈员工。在最近的管理层会议上，我们进一步明确了 Costco 的工资/福利标准与竞争对手的工资/福利标准之间的差异（这种差异在功能上相当于 GEICO 的利润相关奖金）。如果我们假设 Costco 70% 的 SG&A 是由工资/福利构成的，而 Costco 的工资/福利标准比竞争对手高 55%，那么从某种意义上说，Costco 每年"多付"给员工的工资高达 11 亿美元，即每位持卡人每年多付给员工 26 美元。最后是股东。在华尔街，人们一直怀疑股东的回报是在顾客和员工得到充分照顾之后的 "剩余"。Costco 的股东回报约占可分配利润的 15%，相当于平摊到每名持卡人头上的股东应占税前利润为 32 美元。Costco 的股东所占利润份额与 GEICO 并不相同。Costco的饼图（图 2）看起来是这样的，其稳健性比率大约为 5:1【(150+26)/32=5.5】。
Figure 2: Happiness is... being a Costco customer.
图2:幸福是……成为好市多的顾客。
Source: Marathon
While the standard Wall Street view is that such a picture is retailing’s equivalent of collectivism, in our view it represents an excitingly wide and unassailable moat. While “unassailable” may seem like a bold assertion, an analysis of the limited disclosure of financials at Sam’s Club suggests that the size of the distribution to Costco customers is so large that any attempt to match its prices would cost Sam’s somewhere in the region of US$1.4 billion annually while matching Costco’s pay scales would set them back another US$750million. Such numbers are not insignificant even to Wal-Mart which last year earned net profits of US$9 billion. Such a chasm of competitiveness is, of course, difficult to capture using traditional analytical tools. After all, both Costco and Sam’s Club generate thin profit margins, both are growing revenues, and both are placing enormous pressure on traditional supermarkets and smaller wholesale clubs. But it seems inevitable that the long-term outcome for the two businesses will be significantly different particularly as measured by the growth of revenue per unit of selling space over the long-term. And Costco’s business model dictates that this competitive gap should expand over time as a fall in Costco’s relative asset intensity and increasing buying power will lead to greater scale efficiencies, which in turn are handed back to the customer in the form of lower prices. Game over.
虽然华尔街的标准观点认为，这种情况相当于零售业低效率的集体主义，但在我们看来，它代表了一条令人兴奋的宽广而不可逾越的护城河。虽然 "不可逾越"似乎是一个大胆的断言，但对山姆会员店有限的财务信息披露进行的分析表明，Costco 的客户分销规模如此之大，以至于山姆会员店如果试图以 Costco 类似的价格销售商品，每年将额外支出大约 14 亿美元，而如果他们将员工薪资提升至Costco 相当的水平，每年又将支出 7.5 亿美元。即使是去年净利润高达 90 亿美元的沃尔玛，这样的数字也并非微不足道。当然，这样的竞争力差距是很难用传统的分析工具来衡量的。毕竟，Costco 和山姆会员店的利润率都很低，收入都在增长，而且都给传统超市和小型会员店带来了巨大压力。但似乎不可避免的是，两家企业的长期结果将大相径庭，尤其是以单位销售空间的长期收入增长来衡量。Costco 的商业模式决定了这种竞争差距会随着时间的推移而扩大，因为 Costco 相对资产密集度的下降和购买力的增强将导致规模效率的提高，而规模效率的提高又会以更低的价格回馈给顾客。
Having come to such a robust conclusion we should offer a word of warning. Both Costco and GEICO have strong corporate cultures, embedded in which is the inspirational thought that the rational (and equitable?) division of benefits is the only appropriate way of ensuring these businesses will grow in strength as they grow in size. And while culture slippage at GEICO is hard to envisage, courtesy of its place in the Berkshire Hathaway corporate museum, the same may not be true of Costco. An unpleasant output of this apparent disregard for shareholder returns is that the Costco share price is broadly unchanged on levels reached six years ago. And Wall Street is, by all accounts, not happy. Even a culture built up over forty years is not immune to this pressure and Costco’s senior management team are beginning to feel the heat. Indications are that the company is gently tinkering with the division of benefits in favour of shareholders in part to satisfy the quarterly EPS junkies but also in recognition that an asset-rich Costco represents an attractive target for private equity buyers. Long-term shareholders should view such slippage as worrying and unnecessary. In our view, the correct response to a six-year share price famine is for the company to use its balance sheet to buy back shares at prevailing prices and allow the long-term growth in free cash flow per share (an inescapable function of steady margins, falling asset intensity, growing revenues and a shrinking base of shares outstanding) to translate into a higher share price over time. The argument for allowing the robustness ratio to drift gently ignores the impact on future generations of managers who will have been presented with a precedent for tweaking the model when expedient. We do not presume to lecture the remarkable managers at Costco on what the appropriate robustness ratio should be, just that any changes to the division of benefits should be made for purely competitive reasons and not driven by a wish to pander to investors.
在得出如此有力的结论之后，我们应该提出一个警告。Costco 和 GEICO 都拥有强大的企业文化，其中蕴含着一种鼓舞人心的思想，即合理（和公平？）的利益分配是确保这些企业在规模增长的同时增强实力的唯一适当方式。GEICO 是伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）的企业博物馆中的藏品之一，因此很难想象它的企业文化会出现滑坡，但 Costco 可能并非如此。Costco 明显无视股东回报的做法带来的一个令人不快的结果是，当下的股价与六年前的水平基本持平。从各方面来看，华尔街并不高兴。即使是建立了四十年的企业文化也难免受到这种压力的影响，Costco 的高级管理团队已经开始感受到这种压力。有迹象表明，该公司正在逐步调整有利于股东的利益分配，部分原因是为了满足季度每股收益的迷恋者，同时也是认识到资产丰富的 Costco 对私募股权收购者来说是一个极具吸引力的目标。长期股东应该认为这种滑坡是令人担忧的，也是不必要的。我们认为，应对股价不上涨的正确方法应当是：公司利用其资产负债表以市价回购股票，让每股自由现金流的长期增长（这是稳定的利润率、资本开支强度下降、收入增长和流通股基数缩小的必然结果）随着时间的推移转化为更高的股价。允许稳健性比率缓慢浮动的论点忽略了对后代经理人的影响，因为他们已经有了权宜之计时调整经营模式的先例。我们并不想教导 Costco 的杰出经理们什么才是合适的稳健性比率，我们只想说，对利益分配的任何改变都应该纯粹出于市场竞争的原因，而不是为了迎合投资者。
We wouldn’t wish readers to come away with the view that robustness ratios are a numerical magic bullet to measure moats. They are plainly not. There are numerous reasons why Costco’s 5:1 and GEICO’s 1:1 ratios may be equally powerful barriers to competition and why a ratio even finer than that at GEICO may be perfectly sufficient to repel competitive marauders. Also, falling ratios are not necessarily a sign of shrinking moats, just that moats are not being made as wide as they could be. Where robustness comes into its own is in identifying companies, such as Costco, which may be under-earning when compared to their potential. This generates super long-term investment opportunities for those willing to look beyond reported earnings.
我们不希望读者认为稳健性比率是衡量护城河的数字灵丹妙药。它们显然不是。好市多的 5:1 比率和 GEICO 的 1:1 比率可能是同样强大的竞争壁垒，甚至比 GEICO 的比率更小的比率也可能完全足以击退竞争掠夺者，这其中的原因不胜枚举。此外，比率下降并不一定是护城河缩小的迹象，只是护城河的宽度不够而已。稳健性的作用在于识别公司，比如好市多，这些公司的收入可能低于其潜力。这就为那些愿意把眼光放远的人提供了超级长期的投资机会。
Early in a firm’s development it makes sense to reward customers disproportionately as customer referrals and repeat business are so essential to the development of a valuable franchise. With maturity this bias can be reduced, and shareholders can reasonably take a greater slice of the pie. Too much, however, and the moat is drained with negative consequences for longevity. The temptations are enormous because capital markets will reward profiteering. There are many examples of companies which “harvest” excessively, when perhaps they should focus on longevity. This may have been what happened at Coca Cola which has leant excessively on bottlers, or Gillette where advertising has been cut, or even at Home Depot which has boosted gross margins in recent years. Shareholders often suffer a double whammy as highly rated companies enter “growth purgatory”, because growth slows just at the time when shareholders spot their misanalysis of reported profitability.
在公司发展的早期，对客户进行不成比例的奖励是合理的，因为客户推荐和回头客对于发展有价值的特许经营至关重要。随着企业的成熟，这种偏向可以减少，股东可以合理地分得更多的蛋糕。但如果股东分得太多，护城河就会被抽干，对企业的长远发展造成负面影响。诱惑是巨大的，因为资本市场会奖励暴利。有很多公司过度 "收割"的例子，而他们或许应该把重点放在长寿上。可口可乐公司过度依赖装瓶商，吉列公司削减广告，甚至家得宝公司近年来提高毛利率，都可能是这种情况。当优秀的公司进入 "增长炼狱 "时，股东往往会遭受双重打击，因为就在股东发现自己对公司财报盈利能力的分析出现错误时，公司的增长却放缓了。
“That’s what brothers are for, brother.”
"这才是兄弟们的使命，兄弟"
Gil Scott-Heron, “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox”
吉尔-斯科特-赫伦，在125 街与莱诺克斯大道路口的闲谈
Some commentators believe that the current condition of stock markets is now more dangerous than the bubble of the late 1990s. Then at least there was the anti-bubble formed from cheap low growth companies. Today there is no Zen-like symmetry to stock prices; and there are few obvious pockets of undervaluation for the contrarian. A cheer all round then for Zimbabwe. The clients will hate it. Compliance will hate it. The consultants will hate it. Marketing will hate it. The size of the investment opportunity is tiny. It is not part of the benchmark. It is not even part of the Commonwealth. It’s perfect.
一些评论家认为，目前股市的状况比 20 世纪 90 年代末的泡沫更加危险。那时，至少还有廉价的低增长公司形成的反泡沫。如今，股票价格没有禅宗式的对称性；对于逆向投资者来说，几乎没有明显的低估板块。既然如此，那就为津巴布韦的股市欢呼吧。客户会讨厌它，合规部门会讨厌它，投资顾问们会讨厌它，市场营销人员会讨厌它。投资机会微乎其微。它不是市场基准的一部分。它甚至不是英联邦的一部分。这简直太完美了。
Not that it is exactly risk free. Not “risky” in a tracking error, index relative, transient stock price quotation, quarterly reporting sense. The real risk comes in the form of a sleepy, quick to smile, want to get on with people apathy that pervades the population. The financial pages of Harare’s Daily Mirror newspaper continue to publish the exchange rates for the deutschmark, French franc, Spanish peseta and Italian lira. Presumably it is someone’s daily task to take one number and multiply it by another for the purpose of completing the next day’s currency table. No one has noticed that the currencies no longer exist. This is not a good precedent for reform. Neither was the paper’s headline which read – “Officials Grab Cell Phone Lines”. First, there is the physical impossibility of the act; one could in theory grab a land line, but a wireless phone line? Secondly the problem is few people in Zimbabwe appear politically active, let alone angry. The editorial was not angry. And if no one is angry then what is the prospect of the Meikles Hotel occupancy exceeding its current 30%, except during the occasional English cricket team tour, which was controversial in England but locally ignored.
津巴布韦股市并非完全无风险。投资风险并非来自跟踪误差、指数相对性、短期的股价报价和公司季报。真正的投资风险来自于民众中弥漫的一种嗜睡、匆忙的微笑、希望与人相处的冷漠态度。哈拉雷《每日镜报》的财经版继续刊登津元相对德国马克、法国法郎、西班牙比塞塔和意大利里拉的汇率。我们猜测这可能是某个职员每天的例行公事，将一个数字乘以另一个数字，以完成第二天的货币汇率表。没有人注意到这些货币在欧盟采用欧元后已不复存在。这不是改革的好先例。该报的头版标题 "官员抢占手机电话线路"也是如此。首先，这种行为实际上是不可能的；从理论上讲，人们可以抢夺固定电话线，但无线电话线呢？其次，津巴布韦很少有人表现出政治上的积极性，更不用说愤怒了。社论并不愤怒。如果没有人感到愤怒，那么 Meikles 酒店的入住率又有什么希望超过目前的 30% 呢，除了偶尔在英国板球队巡回赛期间？
The most valuable company in the country as measured by the price of traded shares at the stock exchange is worth U$150m at the official exchange rate, and U$100m at the unofficial. That is less than one tenth of the quarterly dividend payment from the ExxonMobil Corporation. The price earnings ratio of the index constituent stocks is less than three. Most industrial concerns are valued at less than the replacement cost of their assets, not that anyone is replacing assets. And that’s bullish. The ungeared Lafarge cement subsidiary has a market capitalisation of U$2.5m. There is some difficulty precisely assessing the size of plant capacity but bearing in mind that replacement cost for a cement plant is around US$120m per ton, we don’t need to be too accurate.
根据证券交易所的股票交易价格计算，这家国内最有价值的公司按官方汇率计算价值 1.5 亿美元，按非官方汇率计算价值 1 亿美元。这还不到埃克森美孚公司季度股息的十分之一。指数成分股的市盈率不到 3。大多数工业企业的估值低于其资产的重置成本，而不是说有人在重置资产。而这是看涨的。拉法基水泥子公司的市值为 250 万美元。要准确评估水泥厂的产能规模有一定难度，但考虑到水泥厂的重置成本约为每吨 1.2 亿美元，我们也不必过于精确。
Zimbabwe is not a good advert for black capitalism. But it is not a good advert for white capitalism either. The occupation of white-owned farms looks racially motivated but note, it has been followed with the intimidation of black bankers as well. Zimbabwe can be described as a fascist state, in denial. Not only is not encouraging, but it is also not sustainable. Destroying the agricultural sector because it is white-controlled is stupid to the point of evil, when agriculture makes up 65% of the economy. It’s the poor blacks that will be affected the most. The closest parallel may be that of Indonesia where the minority Chinese population control a large share of the economy. That is not necessarily a disproportionate share of the economy, as one likes to think they earned it. But the point is that the majority resent the rich minority, black or white, and the politicians feed on the distrust when their own policies have failed.
津巴布韦不是黑人资本主义的好样本，但它也不是白人资本主义的榜样。津巴布韦从殖民统治独立之后，黑人占领白人拥有的农场看起来是出于种族动机，但请注意，在占领农场之后，他们还对黑人银行家进行了恐吓。津巴布韦可以说是一个否认法西斯主义的国家。这不仅不令人鼓舞，也是不可持续的。由于农业部门受白人控制而将其摧毁是愚蠢至极的做法，因为农业占经济总量的 65%。受影响最大的是贫穷的黑人。最接近的相似之处可能是印度尼西亚，那里的少数民族华人控制着经济的很大一部分。这并不一定是不成比例的经济份额，因为人们喜欢认为这是他们应得的。但问题是，大多数人憎恨富有的少数人，不管是黑人还是白人，而政客们在自己的政策失败后，就会利用这种不信任。
But unlike Indonesia, there was no boom to precede the bust. Zimbabwe has never been a tiger economy. This bust is political not economic. It is not predicated upon over-investment, over-borrowing or over-enthusiasm. But that means there is almost no bad debt in the economy. A visit to the publicly listed Barclays Zimbabwe revealed bad debts at 4% of the loan book. So, there is no recapitalisation needed here, no Argentinean default situation. One reason is that the dispossessed white farmers have repaid their mortgages and working capital loans in order to take title to their land. In most cases their farms have not been compulsorily purchased by the government, although the government has tried. Most farms have been occupied by mobs whose interest has been to loot, not produce. One farmer we spoke to had been given twenty-four hours to collect his belongings and arrange his affairs before occupation. The looters then looted, taking the 2,000 head of cattle to market in the nearby villages and apparently feasting on the cattle not sold. Yet the agricultural equipment was left untouched. There is no market for the kit with few productive outlets for its use domestically, and so it is left idle, waiting for its owner’s return. In the meantime, the farm lies fallow, the equipment sits in storage, the economy is denied its exports and the currency spirals downward to reflect the country’s new worth. When and if the regime changes some farmers will return, armed with their title certificates and reclaim their property – just as the Chinese have in Indonesia, and the West Germans in East Germany. Meikles Financial Services, a retail credit operation, claim bad debts of just 1% of receivables. Their loan book is lent to those that are staying in Zimbabwe. With debts this low, the economy could recover quickly when confidence returns. But what is to be done about the apathy?
但与印尼不同的是，在经济萧条之前并没有出现繁荣。津巴布韦从来都不是一个经济猛虎。它的经济萧条是政治性的，而不是经济性的，并非基于过度投资、过度借贷或过度热情。这意味着经济中几乎没有坏账。对公开上市的津巴布韦巴克莱银行的访问显示，坏账只占贷款额的 4%。因此，这里不需要资本重组，也不存在阿根廷的违约情况。其中一个原因是，被剥夺土地的白人农民已经偿还了抵押贷款和流动资金贷款，从而获得了土地所有权。在大多数情况下，他们的农场并没有被政府强制购买，尽管政府已经尝试过。大多数农场被暴民占领，他们的兴趣在于抢劫，而不是生产。与我们交谈过的一位农民在农场被占领之前，曾有 24 小时的时间来收拾物品和安排事务。抢劫者随后大肆掠夺，将 2000 头牛带到附近村庄的市场上出售，显然还大吃大喝了一顿没有卖掉的牛。然而，农业设备却丝毫未动。这些农具没有市场，在国内也几乎没有出路，因此被闲置起来，等待主人归来。与此同时，农场荒芜，设备闲置，经济无法出口，货币螺旋式下跌，无法反映国家的新价值。如果政权更迭，一些农民将带着产权证返回，收回他们的财产，就像中国人在印尼，西德人在东德一样。零售信贷业务 Meikles Financial Services 声称坏账仅占应收账款的 1%。他们的贷款都借给了那些留在津巴布韦的人。由于债务如此之低，一旦信心恢复，经济就能迅速复苏。然而，该如何应对这种冷漠呢？
In the early 1970s the black American poet and musician Gil Scott-Heron was an angry man. Unlike his fellow activists he was not just angry at the white establishment, he was also angry at the insincerity of his fellow black men: especially “those that hung out on street corners in Harlem with a ‘blacker-than-thou’ attitude” who felt that everyone-else owed them a living. This is the attitude of the political class in Zimbabwe. These are Ayn Rand’s “looters”. In contrast to some of his fellow activists, Scott-Heron wanted his black peers to have integrity, be sincere, and be capitalists. Zimbabwe could do with a few Scott-Herons right now. Perhaps the lyrics to Scott-Heron’s song “Brother” could be slipped into Robert Mugabe’s suggestion box.
20 世纪 70 年代初，美国黑人诗人兼音乐家吉尔·斯科特-赫伦（Gil Scott-Heron）是一个愤怒的人。与其他活动家不同的是，他不仅对白人当权者感到愤怒，还对黑人同胞的不诚实感到愤怒：尤其是 "那些在哈林区街头巷尾闲逛、抱着'比你更黑'态度的人"，他们觉得其他人都欠他们一条命。这就是津巴布韦政治阶层的态度。他们就是安·兰德笔下的 "掠夺者"。与他的一些活动家同僚相比，斯科特-赫伦希望他的黑人同僚正直、真诚，并成为资本家。津巴布韦现在就需要几个斯科特-赫伦。或许我们可以试着把斯科特-赫伦的歌曲《兄弟》的歌词塞进津巴布韦现任领导人罗伯特·穆加贝的意见箱：
“We deal in too many externals, brother
Always afros, handshakes and dashikis
Never can a man build a working structure for black capitalism,
Always does the man rebound off a known.
I think I know you would-be black revolutionaries too well
Standing on a box, on the corner, talking about blowing the white boy away, But
that’s not where it is at yet, brother.
...You need to get your memory banks organised, brother Show
that man you call an Uncle Tom just where he is wrong Show that
woman you are a sincere black man
All we need to do is see you shut up and be black Help
that woman!
Help that man!
That’s what brothers are for, brother.”
"我们过于注重外在的东西，兄弟
总是以非洲发型、握手和非洲短裙为主题
一个人永远无法为黑人资本主义建立一个可行的结构
总是会被已知的事物所限制。
我想我太了解你们这些黑人革命者了
站在街角的箱子上，谈论着要把白人小子轰走，但还没到那一步，兄弟。
......你需要整理一下你的记忆库，兄弟
向那个你称之为汤姆叔叔的人展示他的错误，让那个女人知道你是个真诚的黑人
我们要做的就是看到你闭嘴，做个黑人
帮助那个女人!
帮助那个男人!
这才是兄弟们的使命，兄弟。"