蔑视成法，不按套路出牌 —— 沃伦•巴菲特之道

    作为伯克希尔-哈撒韦的传奇CEO，股神沃伦•巴菲特在8月底满85岁了。今后三周，眺望后巴菲特时代的前瞻性文章必将铺天盖地而来，但我不会这么写。在巴菲特开始迈向90岁之际，就下一届管理层展开探讨似乎合情合理。但几十年来巴菲特经常不按常理出牌，因此，我们也许应该把注意力放在他的下一步行动上。毕竟，巴菲特甚至都未曾显露过疲态，周一（8月10日）上午的新闻就是证明——他完成了几年来最大的一笔交易。

    伯克希尔宣布，将花费320亿美元现金来收购Precision Castparts（这笔交易总价值372亿美元），后者从事精密铸件生产，可丁可卯的精细活。作为伯克希尔掌门人，巴菲特向我们展示了他经典的逆市操作手法。今年Precision Castparts的股价下跌了22%，原因是该公司的许多石油和天然气行业客户都受到了低油价的打击。市场看到的是麻烦，巴菲特看到的则是一家股价便宜、长期前景光明的公司。大多数人都从未听说过这家公司，而且会觉得它乏善可陈，但它却让巴菲特兴奋不已，这一幕已经上演过很多次了。巴菲特招致麾下的公司中就有制造床垫的Ohio Mattress和生产砖头的Acme Brick（这是我最喜欢的一家企业）。

    偷偷嘲笑传统已经成了巴菲特的终身行为方式。众所周知，他从未分拆过伯克希尔的股票（该公司最近的股价约为每股21.5万美元），也从未向华尔街分析师透露过自己对伯克希尔季度或年度利润的预期。不过，他的确会时不时地对投资者说，他觉得伯克希尔的股价过高。他的公司在美国排名第4位（2014年实现收入1950亿美元），总部却只有25名员工。在激进投资者这个名词出现之前，巴菲特早已开始这样做了，他开除过多家持股公司的CEO。但和如今行为高调、动不动就发推文的激进投资者不同，巴菲特炒掉这些CEO时几乎总是隐身幕后。

    坚持自己的道路让巴菲特成为过去50年中最伟大的企业领袖之一。谁知道他还会在任多久？到目前为止，以可口可乐和汉堡为主的“非主流”饮食给了他格外健康的体魄。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

    Over the next three weeks, the media will be clogged with forward-angled articles looking past the Warren Buffett era at Berkshire Hathaway as the legendary CEO and investor turns 85 at the end of the month. I won’t be writing any of them. While it seems sensible to contemplate the next managerial chapter as a CEO closes in on 90, Buffett has confounded conventional thinking so often over the decades that maybe we should instead focus on what he’ll do next. After all, he isn’t even getting tired, as we see in Monday morning’s news of his biggest deal in years.

    Berkshire has just announced that it will pay $32 billion in cash for Precision Castparts (total deal value: $37.2 billion), a company that could be described non-metaphorically as a nuts-and-bolts business. Here we observe a corporate leader at his most characteristically contrarian: Precision’s stock was down 22% this year because low oil prices have hurt many of its customers in the oil and gas business. But where the market saw trouble, Buffett saw a strong long-term business at a bargain price. And, as he has often done, he got excited by a company most people had never heard of and would regard as hopelessly unglamorous. This is a CEO who has pounced on companies with names like Ohio Mattress and (my favorite) Acme Brick.

    Quietly flouting convention has been Buffett’s lifelong m.o. He has famously never split Berkshire’s stock (recent price: about $215,000 a share), and he never tells Wall Street analysts what he expects Berkshire’s earnings to be this quarter or this year. He does, however, tell investors from time to time that he thinks Berkshire stock is too expensive. He runs America’s fourth-biggest company (2014 revenue: $195 billion) with a headquarters staff of 25. He has been an activist investor since long before the term existed, and he has fired CEOs of companies in which he holds a stake. But, unlike today’s high-profile, vigorously tweeting activists, he has done it almost invisibly.

    By continuing to go his own way, Buffett remains one of the great business leaders of the past 50 years. Who knows how long his reign may last? His Coca-Cola-and-hamburger-based diet, another snub of conventionality, has served him remarkably well so far.