伯克希尔终于将矛头指向索科尔

    伯克希尔公司（Berkshire）审计委员会在周三发布的一份报告中指出，大卫•索科尔违反了公司的交易规则，对首席执行官沃伦•巴菲特撒了谎。索科尔长期担任公司高管，上月，正当外界对他交易伯克希尔正在并购的一家公司的股票提出种种质疑之际，他出人意料地离开了伯克希尔公司。

    就在伯克希尔一年一度的奥马哈市年会隆重召开前三天，公司对外发表此项声明，此时，距巴菲特向诸位投资人宣布索科尔离职已有四周之久，而消息一出则即引起震惊。

    索科尔曾任伯克希尔旗下子公司中美洲能源公司（MidAmerican Energy）董事会主席，他个性非常强硬冷傲，曾被媒体普遍认为是80岁高龄的巴菲特的继承人选。然而周三发布的报告揭露，他另有企图。

    尽管这样做可以让巴菲特稍微松口气，但索科尔离职事件势必还会在奎斯特中心（Qwest Center）周六年会上被热议。届时巴菲特也将出席，并对其追随者发表演讲。

    而对于巴菲特早前对索科尔新闻的处理决定，评论家们则投来了轻蔑的目光，称其作法没能达到人们普遍能接受的标准，即向投资人公开事实真相并交由投资人做出决定。

    非但如此，伯克希尔公司竟发表了一封新闻稿，言辞中极力袒护索科尔，而审计委员会报告显示，索科尔的行为根本没有辩解的余地。这份报告指出，巴菲特最早是从一位投资银行家那里听到口风，得知索科尔购买股票的消息。

    3月14日上午，伯克希尔•哈撒韦公司和路博润公司(Lubrizol)宣布签署并购协议。一位与伯克希尔有生意往来的花旗银行（Citigroup）代表就并购事宜向巴菲特表示祝贺，并告知巴菲特：是花旗的投资银行家让索科尔注意到路博润。这是巴菲特先生第一次得知，投资银行家在向索科尔推荐路博润公司的过程中起到了一定作用，而这与索科尔在一月份时称自己是因为拥有路博润的股票才了解路博润这家公司的说法不相吻合。

    报告中还披露，索科尔并没有把自己视为巴菲特未来的继承人；或者至少在违规交易事件曝光之后，他是这么想的。

    3月29日，巴菲特曾提供给索科尔一次机会，让索科尔审阅由他本人起草的一份有关宣布索科尔辞职，并披露索科尔与路博润交易事件的新闻稿草稿。应索科尔的要求，巴菲特先生删除了新闻稿中一段索科尔认为并不属实的话，其中暗示到：索科尔提出辞职是因为他认为与路博润进行的交易会殃及到他成为巴菲特先生继承人的机会。索科尔告诉巴菲特，他根本没有幻想能够成为巴菲特的继承人，提出辞职的原因与那些交易完全无关。

    除了删除的那段话，索科尔先生对这则新闻稿的准确性别无异议。例如，有关索科尔购买路博润股票时，“他并不知道如果巴菲特也有意与路博润进行交易，路博润会作何反应”这部分声明，索科尔先生并未提出任何改动。索科尔先生也对巴菲特有关其“在这则新闻稿中毫无隐瞒”的声明表示认可。

    巴菲特也许在这则新闻稿中的确毫无隐瞒，但他也没有从中获得任何好处。遵照公关传统惯例，伯克希尔公司隐瞒了索科尔违规交易的真实内幕，反而为索科尔开脱，宣称索科尔辞职是为了“利用职业生涯的剩余时间，将其家族资源投入到可以创造长期权益价值的渠道中，并且希望能创立一家能为后代谋福利同时又能为个人慈善事业提供资金的企业。”

    这段评论说明索科尔已失去了理智，但更为爆料的新闻接踵而来。巴菲特随后在信中开始提及极为骇人听闻的事实——即他早就知道索科尔在向伯克希尔公司推荐并购润滑剂制造商路博润时，并没有披露索科尔本人已购买该公司股票这一事实。

    巴菲特没有提供相关更多细节，接着只是表示“大卫和我都没有觉得购买路博润股票是违法行为。他告诉过我，这些事件不是他决定辞职的原因。”

    巴菲特幸亏不是法官，否则他的这番陈词定会引起一片哗然。据报道，尽管索科尔已引起美国证券交易委员会（Securities and Exchange Commission）对其是否触及法律界限的关注，但谁知道还会不会有这方面的后续报道呢。

    不管怎样，即使伯克希尔公司审计委员会的报告如预测那样，其目的是为了保护巴菲特，至少现在没有人能说“公司无视索科尔卑劣行径”这样的话了。这不算什么大的举动，但为了奥马哈那些巴菲特的忠实追随者们，伯克希尔可能不得不这么做。

    A report from the company's audit committee said Wednesday that David Sokol broke company trading rules and lied to CEO Warren Buffett. Sokol is the longtime top executive who unexpectedly quit Berkshire (BRKA) last month amid questions about his trading in shares of a company Berkshire was acquiring.

    The company's statement comes three days before its heavily attended annual meeting in Omaha and four weeks to the day after Buffett shocked investors by announcing Sokol's departure.

    Sokol was the hard-charging, abrasive chairman of Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy unit and was widely depicted in the press as a possible successor to the 80-year-old Buffett -- though Wednesday's report reveals he had other ideas.

    The move could take some heat off Buffett, though the Sokol affair will still surely be the talk of the Qwest Center Saturday when Buffett addresses his acolytes.

    Critics rained scorn on his initial handling of the Sokol news, saying he failed to live up to his commonsense standard of presenting investors with the facts and letting them decide.

    Instead, Berkshire issued a press release that read to many as a defense of Sokol, whose actions are revealed in the audit committee's report to have been indefensible. The report says the first Buffett heard of Sokol's stock purchases was through, gasp, an investment banker.

    On the morning of March 14, Berkshire Hathaway and Lubrizol announced the signing of the merger agreement. A Citi representative with whom Berkshire Hathaway did business congratulated Mr. Buffett on the merger agreement, and told Mr. Buffett that Citi's investment bankers had brought Lubrizol to Mr. Sokol's attention. This was the first time Mr. Buffett heard that investment bankers played any role in introducing Lubrizol to Mr. Sokol, and did not square with Mr. Sokol's remark in January that he had come to know Lubrizol by owning the stock

    The report also reveals that Sokol didn't view himself as a potential successor to Buffett – or at least, didn't after the trading transgressions came to light.

    On March 29, Mr. Buffett provided Mr. Sokol an opportunity to review for accuracy a draft Mr. Buffett had prepared of a press release announcing Mr. Sokol's resignation and disclosing Mr. Sokol's Lubrizol trades. At Mr. Sokol's request, Mr. Buffett deleted from the release the one passage Mr. Sokol said was inaccurate: a passage that implied that Mr. Sokol had resigned because he must have known the Lubrizol trades would likely hurt his chances of being Mr. Buffett's successor. Mr. Sokol told Mr. Buffett that he had not hoped to be Mr. Buffett's successor, and was resigning for reasons unrelated to those trades.

    Except for that deletion, Mr. Sokol concurred in the accuracy of the press release. For example, Mr. Sokol left unchanged the statement that when Mr. Sokol made his purchases, he "did not know what Lubrizol's reaction would be" if Mr. Buffett developed an interest in a transaction. Mr. Sokol also left unchanged Mr. Buffett's statement that he had "held back nothing in this press release."

    Buffett may not have held anything back with that press release, but he didn't do himself any favors with it either. In the great PR tradition, it buried the news of Sokol's transgressions, instead starting with the claim that Sokol had resigned to "utilize the time remaining in my career to invest my family's resources in such a way as to create enduring equity value and hopefully an enterprise which will provide opportunity for my descendents and funding for my philanthropic interests."

    This comment established Sokol as off his rocker, but the bigger news was to come. Buffett later got around to mentioning in that letter the rather daunting fact that he had learned Sokol recommended Berkshire acquire lubricants maker Lubrizol (LZ) without disclosing his purchase of the company's shares.

    Without offering much in the way of details, Buffett then said that "neither Dave nor I feel his Lubrizol purchases were in any way unlawful. He has told me that they were not a factor in his decision to resign."

    Buffett not being a judge, that line drew a few hoots and hollers. And though Sokol is reportedly getting some attention now from the Securities and Exchange Commission on the legality front, who knows if we will ever hear again about that.

    Anyway, if the Berkshire audit committee's report is predictably protective of Buffett, at least no one can say now that the company is blind to the fact that Sokol is a creep. It isn't much, but it may have to do for the faithful in Omaha.