巴菲特信徒须提防标题党

    由于媒体和股市专家们都喜欢“巴菲特买入……”这样的新闻，我们时不时地就会看到这样的重磅标题。但很多时候，这些标题并不准确，原因很简单，除了巴菲特，在伯克希尔哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）还有其他人也在买入。而且，过去几年，这种混淆视听的情况更为严重了。

    很多年来，在伯克希尔哈撒韦，卢•辛普森一直是除了巴菲特以外的另一个买入者。他买入的股票总是会被归为巴菲特投资。我还记得很清楚，2007年的一天，《财富》杂志（Fortune）的汽车版记者艾利克斯•泰勒很惊讶地打电话给我，问“巴菲特在买入二手车零售商Carmax的股票吗？”没这回事，我告诉他。当时那笔投资规模相对较小，只有约2.60亿美元，说明买入者是辛普森。艾利克斯查清了事实，在此基础上写了一篇不错的报道，澄清了这笔交易出自辛普森、而不是巴菲特之手。

    2010年，辛普森带着巴菲特的致敬和感谢从伯克希尔退休了。伯克希尔迎来了一位新的投资经理、前康涅狄格州对冲基金Castle Point Management资本管理公司首席执行官托德•康布斯【参见《康布斯，欢迎来到奥马哈》（Welcome to Omaha, Todd Combs）】。2011年，康布斯一直在为伯克希尔进行了投资买入。伯克希尔向美国证券交易委员会（SEC）提交13F表格后，媒体就突然报出了“巴菲特买进万事达（MasterCard）股票”、Visa股票或Dollar General股票等新闻。唉，这些可都是康布斯买的，不是巴菲特。

    2011年晚些时候，巴菲特又请到了当时管理着弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔一家对冲基金半岛资本顾问（Peninsula Capital Advisors）的泰德•韦斯切勒，加盟伯克希尔的投资团队 【参见《从慈善晚宴标王到股神新接班人》（Meet Ted Weschler: Buffett auction winner, Berkshire's new hire）】。韦斯切勒随后开始着手关闭自己的基金，计划2012年初正式加入伯克希尔。他希望在伯克希尔的新组合能继续持有一些他原来基金中所持有的一些股票。为此，他在征得了巴菲特的同意后，于2011年底将其中一些股票直接划转到了伯克希尔。这些股票将是韦斯切勒在伯克希尔的新组合所持有的最早一批股票，预计整个组合规模将与康布斯的组合相当，后者目前为17.5亿美元。

    几周前，伯克希尔提交了2011年底的13F表格，又有媒体开始报道“巴菲特买入DirecTV股票”、肾透析中心运营商DaVita的股票或Liberty Media股票。把这些投资记在巴菲特的名下，完全是个误会。所有这些都是韦斯切勒所持股票，且转自半岛资本。

    那么，如果巴菲特2011年没有买入DirecTV股票，没有买入Visa股票或上述其他股票，他到底买入了哪些股票呢？正如一段时间以来所有人都知道的那样，答案是IBM。2011年伯克希尔花了近110亿美元买IBM股票，到年底，伯克希尔在这只股票上已赚了约9亿美元。

    巴菲特在致股东的公开信中特别提到了其他三项投资。一是伯克希尔对重仓股富国银行（Wells Fargo）再增仓10亿美元，总建仓成本增至略高于90亿美元，在富国银行的持股比提高到了7.6%。巴菲特称银行业已经“重新站起来”，富国银行正在“蓬勃发展”。

    Because the press and stock-market pundits like headlines that begin "Buffett Buys…," big-type assertions of that precise kind often appear. But such headlines are all too often wrong, for the simple reason that other people besides Buffett do some of the buying at Berkshire Hathaway. Moreover, the confusion has compounded in the last couple of years.

    For many years Lou Simpson was the other buyer besides Buffett. Purchases that he made were often attributed to Buffett. I well remember the 2007 day that Fortune's automobile writer, Alex Taylor, called me in astonishment, asking, "Buffett is buying Carmax stock?" No, I said, the relatively small size of the stake—around $260 million—suggested the buyer was Simpson. Alex checked out the facts and got a nice story out of Buffett-it-wasn't, Simpson-it-was.

    Simpson retired from Berkshire (BRKA) in 2010. But as he was leaving, taking with him salutes and thanks from Buffett, into Berkshire came new hire Todd Combs, who had previously run Connecticut hedge fund Castle Point Management. (See also: Welcome to Omaha, Todd Combs). Combs made his purchases for Berkshire throughout 2011. When Berkshire filed its 13Fs with the SEC, there were suddenly headlines that said "Buffett Buys MasterCard," or Visa, or Dollar General (DG). Alas, those were all Combs' purchases, not Buffett's.

    Later in 2011, Buffett hired Ted Weschler, who was then running a Charlottesville, Virginia, hedge fund called Peninsula Capital Advisors, to join the Berkshire investment team. (See also: Meet Ted Weschler: Buffett auction winner, Berkshire's new hire). Weschler proceeded to start shutting down his fund, planning to do that by early 2012. He had certain stocks in his old fund that he wanted to have in his new Berkshire portfolio. So he secured Buffett's okay to simply transfer some of his stocks to Berkshire, doing that in the last weeks of 2011. These were to be the beginnings of the Berkshire portfolio that Weschler will run and that is expected to be about the size of Combs' portfolio, which is now at the $1.75 billion level.

    When Berkshire's 13F filing for yearend 2011 was made a few weeks ago, headlines began to appear that said, "Buffett Buys DirecTV," or DaVita (which runs kidney dialysis centers), or Liberty Media. Not true insofar as Buffett is concerned. All of those are Weschler positions, transferred over from Peninsula in its final days.

    So if Buffett wasn't buying DirecTV (DTV) in 2011 or Visa (V) or any of the others described above, what was he buying? The huge answer, as everybody has known for a while, is IBM (IBM), into which Berkshire poured close to $11 billion in 2012. By the end of the year, Berkshire had a gain of about $900 million in Big Blue.

    Buffett singled out three other investments for special comment in his chairman's letter. One was an addition of $1 billion that Berkshire made to its already large holdings of Wells Fargo (WFC), raising its cost basis to just over $9 billion and its ownership of the company to 7.6%. Buffett described banking as "back on its feet" and Wells as "prospering."