巴菲特：我最大弱点是不擅长炒鱿鱼

    你能既打造出世界上最成功的公司之一，同时又当一名好老板吗？有这样成就的企业负责人不多，但沃伦•巴菲特可能是其中一位。

    今天的伯克希尔-哈撒韦公司（Berkshire Hathaway）价值3150亿美元，由几十家子公司组成。在收购这些子公司的过程中，巴菲特从来没有干过什么“坏事”，比如削减成本、裁员以及经常引发新收购行动的管理层重组。上周末，伯克希尔在奥马哈召开了股东大会。身为首席执行官和董事长，巴菲特承认自己的风格是允许表现落后的公司不断滑坡。这正是他如此独特的原因之一，但也是他最大的弱点。

    在上周六的大会上，一位股东要求巴菲特列举自己的弱点。巴菲特回答说，他可能是一名“懒散的”经营者：“我在人事调整方面行动速度很慢，这是一个纯粹的弱点。有时候，大家也许会说，对子公司缺乏监管意味着我们会让某些东西从眼皮底下溜走。”

    巴菲特没有详细进行解释，但举了个例子：“曾经有那么个人，我们很喜欢他，而且我们的业务也不会因为他而受到致命的影响，过了多久我们才用别人取代了他？（跟巴菲特同坐在台上的伯克希尔副董事长查理•蒙格也想不起来）。有时候，我们在更换管理者方面等的时间过长。”

    有些到奥马哈参加股东大会的投资者抱怨说，巴菲特过于放任自流，他也许应该效仿一下维权股东，比如对冲基金公司潘兴广场（ Pershing Square）基金经理比尔•阿克曼，或者像私募基金公司3G Capital那样专门致力于扭亏。周六的大会上，确实有一些投资者和分析师把问题的焦点集中在伯克希尔会不会在今后的收购中采取像3G Capital那样“亲自动手”模式。2013年，伯克希尔和3G Capital联手收购了番茄酱生产商亨氏（Heinz，而且迅速调整了这家公司的管理团队）。

    虽然巴菲特对3G Capital这位合作伙伴表示赞赏（“他们很聪明，也很专注；他们工作时非常努力，而且很坚定。”），但他也指出：“他们永远不满足”。巴菲特还为伯克希尔的温和处理方式进行了辩护。其中一个原因是，巴菲特不喜欢要求子公司裁员，也不喜欢用其他方式限制子公司的行动。他说：“我们不是特别崇尚严格的纪律。”蒙格对这一点的说法是：“如果用世界上其他地方的标准来衡量，我们过于信任别人。”

    巴菲特是如此信任伯克希尔子公司的负责人，以至于他都没有详细记录过后者在什么时候为伯克希尔贡献了多少收益，他甚至都不去核实一下这些公司是否存在。比如说，他从没考察过设在印第安纳州的房车制造商Forest River。巴菲特开玩笑说：“但愿有这么一家公司，我能想象到他们正在商量，‘这个月我们应该给巴菲特报什么样的数字呢？’”说完之后他自己也笑了。（巴菲特还说：“如果他们愿意听的话，我要说，我不想鼓励子公司负责人改变自己的行为方式。”）

    巴菲特承认，让子公司完全自主有时候也会带来一些问题。批评者认为，如果巴菲特加强监管，伯克希尔的回报率会更高。但巴菲特并不赞同这一点。他说：“正是因为给了他们这样的空间，我们才能和如此这么多人一起获得成功，批评者根本没办法衡量这种积极影响。”巴菲特还指出，伯克希尔没有内部法律顾问或人力资源部门。

    至于比尔•阿克曼代表的维权主义，对巴菲特来说，在伯克希尔和这位对冲基金经理之间做任何类比看来都近乎于冒犯。最近，阿克曼做空了营养品公司康宝莱（Herbalife），还敌意收购了制造瘦脸除皱注射剂保妥适（Botox）的爱力根公司（Allergan），成了媒体关注的焦点。首先，巴菲特不在股市做空，也不参与金融衍生产品交易。同时，巴菲特对阿克曼最近的成功能否延续下去持怀疑态度。巴菲特说，阿克曼等人通常着眼于短期股价波动，而不是通过永久性调整来改善一家公司。蒙格则是从总体上反对所有投资者维权行动。蒙格说：“我觉得这种行为对美国没有好处。”

    巴菲特的接班人会有巴菲特所不具备的强硬做派吗？别想太多了。

    上周末，巴菲特和其他投资者重申，伯克希尔最宝贵的资产之一就是别人愿意把自己的公司转让给伯克希尔——而且实际的转让价格往往低于私募股权公司的报价，原因是他们相信巴菲特会照看好自己的公司。正如对冲基金公司Kase Capital Management基金经理惠特尼•蒂尔森上周五所说：“伯克希尔就像一座博物馆，或者说大都会博物馆。人们都愿意把自己最有价值的艺术品卖给它，原因在于，人们知道这些艺术品待在那儿会很安全。”

    巴菲特也说：“我们信守承诺。这就意味着，虽然有时候一些公司的表现没有达到预期，但我们会一直持有它们的股份。”(财富中文网)

    译者：Charlie

    Can you build one of the world's most successful companies and also be a great boss? Warren Buffett may be one of the few executives to accomplish this feat.

    In acquiring the dozens of companies that today make up his $315 billion Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), Buffett has never dirtied his hands much with the sort of cost-cutting, layoffs, and management shakeups that often follow acquisitions at other firms. While Buffett's style of allowing even underperforming businesses to languish is part of what makes him so unique, it is also his greatest shortcoming, the Berkshire CEO and chairman admitted during the company's annual shareholder meeting this past weekend in Omaha.

    Asked by a shareholder to highlight his weaknesses, Buffett said that as a manager, he can be "sloppy." "A pure weak point is, I'm slow to make personnel changes," he said on Saturday. "There will be times when what you might call our lack of supervision of our subsidiaries means we'll miss something."

    Without getting into specifics, he recalled one example. "We had a guy, we loved the guy, and it wasn't killing us in our business, and how long before we went to somebody else?" (Neither he nor Berkshire's vice chairman Charlie Munger, who sat beside Buffett on stage, could remember.) "We've waited too long on one manager sometimes," Buffett said.

    Buffett's comments came amid grumbling from some investors gathered in Omaha that the Oracle is too hands-off and perhaps should take a page from activist shareholders like Pershing Square Capital's BillAckman or turnaround specialists like private equity firm 3G Capital. Indeed, several questions from shareholders and analysts at Saturday's meeting focused on whether Berkshire, which teamed up with 3G in 2013 to purchase ketchup maker Heinz (where management was then swiftly replaced), would adopt 3G's "hands-on" approach for future acquisitions.

    While Buffett praised 3G as a partner ("They're smart, they're focused; they're very hard-working and determined.") he also noted that "they're never satisfied," and defended Berkshire's gentler way of doing things. For one, Buffett doesn't like telling his subsidiaries that they need to get rid of employees or restrict their actions in other ways. "We're not big disciplinarians," Buffett said. As Munger put it, "By the standards of the rest of the world, we over-trust."

    So much does Buffett trust the CEOs of Berkshire companies that he doesn't keep close track of how much money they send him and when, or bother to double-check that a company even exists. He's never visited Forest River, the Indiana-based recreational vehicle manufacturer that Berkshire owns, for example. "I hope it's there," Buffett joked. "I could see them saying, 'What figure should we send Warren this month?'" he said, laughing. ("I don't want to encourage managers of subsidiaries to do a different way of behaving, if they're listening," he added.)

    When you leave companies alone to run themselves, sometimes things go wrong, Buffett acknowledged. But he took issue with critics who complain that Berkshire's returns would be higher if Buffett ran a tighter ship. "What they won't be able to measure is how much on the positive side we have achieved with so many other people because we gave them that leeway," he said, noting that Berkshire doesn't have in-house general counsel or human resources.

    As for Ackman's brand of activism, Buffett seemed almost offended by any likeness between Berkshire and the hedge fund manager. First, unlike Ackman, who has lately made headlines for his short position in Herbalife (HLF) and hostile bid for Botox manufacturer Allergan (AGN), Buffett doesn't short stocks or trade in derivatives. He's also skeptical that activists' recent success is sustainable, saying they're usually looking to cause a short-term swing in a stock price, not permanent changes to improve a business. Munger, for his part, swore off investor activism in general, saying, "I don't think it's good for America."

    Will Buffett's successor be the hard-line boss that Buffett isn't? Don't count on it.

    One of Berkshire's most valuable assets, Buffett and other investors reiterated over the weekend, is other businesses' willingness to sell to Berkshire -- often at lower prices than what private equity firms would pay -- because they trust Buffett to mind the store. As hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson of Kase Capital Management put it on Friday, "Berkshire is like a museum, like the Met, where people will sell their most valuable art just because they know it's going to be safe there."

    Added Buffett, "We keep promises, and that means we sometimes end up holding on to some businesses that haven't lived up to expectations."