失误变收购：巴菲特表演投资魔术

    沃伦•巴菲特正在试图扭转伯克希尔哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）铸下的一个大错。

    周一，伯克希尔（Berkshire）宣布将收购炼油商Phillips 66旗下的特殊化学品公司。伯克希尔计划将所持Phillips 66的股票还给这家公司，用以支付交易款项。

    伯克希尔持有的这些Philips 66股票来自于2008年对康菲石油（ConocoPhillips）的一笔投资。巴菲特是在油价接近高点时购入这些股票的。于是，它迅速变成了一笔显而易见的糟糕交易。巴菲特曾经在伯克希尔的年度报告中称这笔投资是“重大失误”，愿意承担所有责任。

    根据Seeking Alpha上的一份分析报告，巴菲特为近8,500万股康菲石油的股票支付了约70亿美元，合每股约82美元。目前，这只股票当前的股价为70美元。因此，假如伯克希尔仍持有所有这些股票，当前市值为59亿美元，意味着巴菲特在这笔投资中损失了约11亿美元。

    但伯克希尔没有持续持有这些股票。它一直在卖出，目前仅持有约1,500万股。这只股票在2009年初下探32美元的低点后，大部分时间都在走高。因此，巴菲特在此项投资中的损失很可能超过10亿美元，他在这只股票的涨跌过程中选错了时机。这就是为何康菲石油常常被视为是巴菲特最大的失误之一。

    但分析中没有提及的一件事情是，伯克希尔在此次分拆中获得的Phillips 66股票。根据最近提交的文件，在此项收购前，伯克希尔拥有近16亿美元的Phillips股票。伯克希尔的2012年年报中将此项持股的成本基础计为6.60亿美元。但伯克希尔在分拆后购入了更多的Phillips 66股票，因此，并不是所有的股票都来自康菲石油投资。

    如今，用这些股票中的一部分（伯克希尔和Phillips都没有说明具体有多少），伯克希尔可以获得Phillips旗下一家专门制造石油运输专用化学品的子公司。类似于伯克希尔拥有的路博润（Lubrizol）制造的产品。因此，基本上，伯克希尔是在消除竞争，尽管它将继续单独运营这家新子公司。而且，用Phillips自己的股票，而不是现金或伯克希尔的股票，将很可能帮助伯克希尔节约他通过Phillips股票获得的所有收益而需支付的税费。

    但是，此项交易再一次显示，巴菲特能够利用平常人所不具备的方式利用其投资，让每一项交易都获得尽可能多的收益，即便是那些糟糕的投资。（财富中文网）

    Warren Buffett is turning one of his biggest blunders into a deal for Berkshire Hathaway.

    On Monday, Berkshire (BRKA) announced it was acquiring a specialty chemical division of oil refiner Phillips 66 (PSX). To pay for the deal, Berkshire is going to use Phillips 66 shares it holds, handing them back to the company in exchange for the deal.

    Berkshire got its Philips 66 shares from a 2008 investment in ConocoPhillips (COP). Buffett bought the stock when oil prices were near their peak. It quickly became apparent it was a bad call. In Berkshire's annual report, Buffett called the investment a "major mistake," taking full blame.

    According to an analysis on Seeking Alpha, Berkshire paid roughly $82 a share for the nearly 85 million shares of Conoco it bought, or nearly $7 billion. The stock currently trades for $70. So if Berkshire still held all of its shares, that holding would be worth $5.9 billion, meaning Buffett would have lost about $1.1 billion on the investment.

    Berkshire didn't hold on to the stock, though. It sold along the way, and now only owns around 15 million shares. The stock has mostly gone up from hitting a low of $32 in early 2009. So Buffett probably lost more than $1 billion on the investment, mistiming the stock on the way down and the way back up. That's why Conoco is often seen as one of Buffett's largest blunders.

    But one of the things that gets left out of that analysis is the Phillips 66 stock that Berkshire got from the spin-off. According to its latest filing, before this acquisition, Berkshire owned nearly $1.6 billion in Phillips stock. Berkshire's 2012 annual report puts a cost basis on that holding of $660 million. But Berkshire bought more Phillips stock after the spin-off, so not all of it came from its Conoco investment.

    Now, for a portion of those shares (Berkshire and Phillips didn't say how much), Berkshire is getting a division of Phillips that makes a chemical used in transporting oil. It's similar to something made by Lubrizol, which is also owned by Berkshire. So, basically, Berkshire is taking out the competition, though it will continue to run the new unit separately. And doing the deal with Phillips' own shares, rather than cash or Berkshire's stock, will probably save Berkshire money on taxes it would have paid on any gains it had in Phillips stock.

    Still, the transaction shows once again how Buffett is able to capitalize his investments in ways that Average Joes can't, getting as much value as he can out of every deal, even the bad ones.