“巴菲特溢价”严重缩水

    实际上，很多巴菲特的忠实粉丝称，如今市场给予这位奥马哈先知的总估值为零。他们如何得到这样的结论呢？经营Wintergreen Advisors的巴菲特投资者戴维•温特斯称，如果将伯克希尔分拆出售，并将所得分给投资者，每股将获得16万美元，比当前股价119,650美元高出约33%。（伯克希尔还有便宜一些的B股，股价79.76美元。拆卖价值略高于106美元。）温特斯说，“（这等于说）投资者分文不花就得到了巴菲特的投资头脑。”

    但这并不意味着如果巴菲特突然宣布离职，伯克希尔股价不会下跌。像伯克希尔这样的企业集团，股价往往低于部分加总估值，有时折价幅度可能高达50%。

    对冲基金经理、巴菲特投资者惠特尼•蒂尔森就曾经说过，市场低估了伯克希尔的价值。但他同意，如果巴菲特的癌症诊断结果是他只剩下4个月生命，伯克希尔的股价将至少下跌10%，市值缩水110亿美元。或许，巴菲特对于伯克希尔的最大价值是他选择业务和项目能拿到更有利的条款，因为他是巴菲特。蒂尔森举例说，2006年巴菲特收购以色列金属公司Iscar的价格只有其他人可能须付价格的一半。金融危机期间，巴菲特购入高盛（Goldman Sachs）股票的条件甚至优于美国政府。很多公司，特别是那些似乎遇到了麻烦的公司，都希望宣称，巴菲特对它们抱有信心。所有这些都反映在了伯克希尔的股价中，但具体几何却很难讲。“巴菲特是个做聪明事的聪明人，”温特斯说。“没人知道他还能活多久，还会做多少聪明事。”

    但有一点很清楚，巴菲特眼下不会采取什么行动。

    译者：早稻米

    In fact, a number of Buffett's ardent fans say that the value that the market puts on the Oracle of Omaha these days is grand total of zero. How do they get at that conclusion? They say if you were to split up Berkshire and sell if off for parts, and then split up the proceeds to investors the product would be $160,000 a share, according to Buffett investor David Winters, who runs the Wintergreen Advisors, or roughly 33% more than the just over $119,650 the shares trade at now. (Berkshire also has a class of cheaper B shares (BRKB) shares that trade for $79.76. The break-up value for those shares is just over $106.) Says Winters, "You are getting Buffett's brain for free."

    But that doesn't mean that Berkshires stock is unlikely to drop if Buffett were to suddenly announce he was leaving the company. Conglomerates, which is what Berkshire is now, often trade a discount to the sum of their parts, sometimes as large as 50%.

    Whitney Tilson, a hedge fund manager and Buffett investor, has said it the past that the market is undervaluing Berkshire. Still, he agrees that if Buffett's cancer prognosis was that he had four months to live, the stock would at least drop by 10%, or roughly $11 billion. Perhaps, the biggest value that Buffett adds to Berkshire is his ability to pick up businesses and investments at better terms than others because he is Buffett. Tilson says, for example, Buffett was able to buy Israeli metal company Iscar in 2006 at a 50% discount to what others might have had to pay. During the financial crisis, Buffett was able to pick up shares in Goldman Sachs at better terms than were even secured by the U.S. government. Companies, particularly ones seemingly in trouble, want to be able to say that Buffett believes in them. All that is certainly baked into the value of Berkshire's shares but how much is hard to tell. "Buffett is a smart guy who does smart things," says Winters. "No one knows how long he is going to live and how many more smart things he will do."

    But what is clear is that Buffett's window for smart moves is far more closed than open.