Ep 418. Warren Buffett, Teledyne, and the Art of Allocating Company Capital

发布时间 2023-12-20 14:31:17 来源

摘要

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中英文字稿

Welcome, welcome, welcome. How's everybody doing? Hope you are doing well. My name is Andrew Koon from Focus Compounding on AirLive with Jeff Gannon. Jeff, how's it going today? It's going very well, Andrew. How's it going with you? It's going great. We hope it's going great with everybody else as well.

欢迎，欢迎，欢迎。大家好吗？希望大家一切都好。我是安德鲁·库恩，来自Focus Compounding，与杰夫·甘农一起在AirLive节目上。杰夫，今天怎么样啊？非常好，安德鲁。你呢？我很棒。我们也希望大家都过得很棒。

If this is the first time you're tuning in with us, thank you so much for joining us. Be sure to check out all of our content out on the internet, the best place to do that or the best way to do that is to follow me on Twitter at at Focus Compound. Go to FocusCompound.com to get access to investment write-ups from Jeff going all the way back to 2005. And of course, if you're interested in learning about our money management services, where Jeff Gannon is the portfolio manager, you can reach out to me at Andrew at FocusCompounding.com. Of course, you can click the Invest With Us tab on the website to get all the information on that as well.

如果这是您第一次加入我们的直播，非常感谢您的参与。请务必在互联网上查阅我们的所有内容，最好的方式是在Twitter上关注我，账户名为Focus Compound。请访问FocusCompound.com，获取Jeff自2005年起的投资报告。当然，如果您对了解我们的资金管理服务感兴趣，其中Jeff Gannon是投资组合经理，可以通过电子邮件联系我，我的邮箱是Andrew@FocusCompounding.com。当然，您还可以点击网站上的"Invest With Us"选项卡，获取有关此服务的所有信息。

So in today's podcast, Jeff, we're going to talk about capital allocation. And I want to read something to you. It's from the Outsiders. I like to not have the sleeve on my books because I think it looks nice, nice color. And it's called the Buffett Test. We've spoken about this on the podcast. We've never actually looked at a scenario. That Buffett does. And it says, Warren Buffett has proposed a simple test for capital allocation ability. Has a CEO created at least a dollar of value for every dollar of retained earnings over the course of his tenure? So wanted to talk to you about that metric. We could also talk about a few other capital allocation things out of this book, but wanted to get your opinion on the Buffett Test, how you tend to think about it, how you analyze a company and judge a CEO in his capital allocation abilities from this specific metric, and really just how you think about it. So do you agree that that is the best way to judge the ability of a CEO as it relates to capital allocation?

在今天的播客中，杰夫，我们要谈论资本配置。我想向你朗读一段文字，它来自《离群者》。我喜欢不给书套上书套，因为我觉得它看起来漂亮，颜色也好看。它叫做巴菲特测试。我们在播客中谈论过这个话题，但从来没有具体讨论过巴菲特是如何做的。书中写道，沃伦·巴菲特提出了一个简单的测试来评估资本配置能力。在其任期内，CEO是否创造了至少与保留利润相等的价值？所以想和你讨论一下这个指标。我们也可以从这本书中谈谈其他一些关于资本配置的事情，但我想听听你对巴菲特测试的看法，你是如何思考和分析一个公司以及判断CEO在资本配置能力方面的表现的，对这个具体指标你是如何考虑的，你同意这是评估CEO在资本配置方面能力的最佳方式吗？

So yes, in theory, that is the perfect test. In practice, I think even Buffett's walked away from it from the sense that you can't do it over such a short period of time. And there are also some accounting complications for some things where I know people email me about this question a lot, and you can't really use retained earnings.

是的，在理论上，那是一个完美的测试。实际上，我认为甚至巴菲特也从某种意义上放弃了它，因为你不能在如此短的时间内重复做这个测试。而且，在某些会计问题上也存在一些复杂性，我知道有很多人经常通过电子邮件向我提问这个问题，你不能真正使用保留收益。

This is a problem for many companies you can, but it'll be a problem that some companies that this won't work. But any test you could come up with will have that problem. You know, some you could say, okay, well, it's a test of how much you raise earnings, but it won't show up in earnings. Buffett was speaking about this specifically because of, you know, kind of measuring Berkshire and stuff, and Berkshire had operating businesses and in a portfolio. But it's absolutely true. If you retain a dollar instead of paying it out to shareholders, then you need to create a dollar of market value over time.

这对许多公司来说是一个问题，不过对一些公司来说，这种做法是行不通的。但无论你想出什么测试，都会存在这个问题。你知道，有些人可能会说，好吧，这是一项对盈利增长的测试，但它并不会在盈利中体现出来。巴菲特特别谈到这个问题是因为他要衡量伯克希尔以及其中的运营业务和投资组合。但这是完全正确的。如果你将一美元留在公司而不支付给股东，那么你需要随着时间的推移创造一美元的市场价值。

And the Outsiders has a table where it kind of does that test and compares things. But I think you'll notice it can't run the test for TCI because it didn't have reported earnings, right? But they're still retaining things because they had cash flow. So, but it's absolutely true. That discretionary money that the that headquarters chooses to keep needs to add a dollar of market value.

而Outsiders公司有一张表格，其中对此进行了测试并进行了比较。但是我认为你会注意到，它无法为TCI运行测试，因为TCI没有报告的收益，对吧? 但他们仍然保留资金，因为他们有现金流。所以，这是绝对正确的。总部选择保留的这笔自由资金需要增加一美元的市场价值。

And I think that that is also seeing that CEOs and stuff respond to this. I'm sometimes too short term, you know, but that explains like when we talk about movie studios and why they were all in on streaming and everything is luck. Their stocks were telling them a subscriber's worth X to your stock, you know, per subscriber. So I need to acquire them at whatever, you know, however many million subscribers that will add to my stock price and that will get results, even if my accounting numbers don't show that.

我认为这也是因为首席执行官和其他相关人员对此作出了回应的原因。你知道，我有时候过于短视，但这解释了为什么我们谈到电影制片厂以及为什么他们都投入流媒体领域，而一切都是侥幸而已。他们的股票告诉他们每个订户价值X的股票，你知道，每个订户都会对我的股价产生影响。所以无论我的财务数据是否显示出来，我都需要以无论什么价格获取他们，只要他们能为我的股价带来增长，这将会带来结果。

So, I mean, is it literally looking at the balance sheet, right? And here's Berkshire Hathaway. As Buffett is the longest running CEO, probably in the world right now, from the perspective of how long he's been chief executive officer, we could go to quarterly on quick FS, get the current retained earnings of 569 billion. And their market cap is 793 billion. I mean, is that literally how you would think about it using the Buffett test to be like, okay, market cap is more than what they've retained. There's something there. Yeah, so that is one way.

所以，我的意思是，你是不是字面上看资产负债表，对吗？这里有伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司。由于巴菲特是现在世界上任职时间最长的首席执行官，从他担任首席执行官的时间来看，我们可以在快速财务报表上查看季度数据，得到目前保留收益为5690亿美元。他们的市值是7930亿美元。我的意思是，你是不是会用巴菲特的方法来思考，比如说，市值超过保留收益，那就有一些价值。是的，这是一种方式。

And one thing that I've mentioned to people before is that any situation in which you have a company selling for less than its retained earnings is immediately interesting. It may not be good that it is doing that. There may be legitimate reasons why it is, but that's actually very exciting in terms of looking at net nets and stuff. If it's trading at just a discount to possible liquidation is a little more complicated because it has no past history of earnings.

我之前曾向人们提到过一个观点，任何一家公司以低于其保留收益的价格出售的情况都是非常有趣的。虽然它这样做可能并不好，有可能存在合理的原因，但从净净资产角度来看，这实际上非常令人兴奋。如果它只是以低于可能清算价值的折扣进行交易，情况就会变得更加复杂，因为它没有过去的盈利记录。

But anytime a company is trading at less than its retained earnings, that is, the market is making a very clear argument that future returns will be really lousy and for possibly a long time and stuff. So the capital has to be kind of stuck or there has to be some reason why it's going to be used for really, really poor purposes or something like that.

但是，无论何时一家公司的交易价格低于其保留收益，也就是说，市场明确地表明未来回报将非常糟糕，可能会持续很长时间等等。因此，资本必须有些问题，或者必须有一些原因来解释为什么它将被用于非常糟糕的目的。

What are some other tests that you look at or look through or think through as it relates to judging a CEO and their capital allocation abilities? Is there anything else, any soft signs that you tend to think about? Oh, there's lots of like symptoms of things, but they don't necessarily work in all situations. So like I tend not to like companies issuing a lot of shares, but there's nothing wrong with issuing a lot of shares. It's just companies don't do it in a way that benefits their containing shareholders usually.

你还关注或者考虑过哪些其他测试以判断一位CEO及其资金配置能力？还有其他的一些软性迹象你是否会考虑？虽然有很多迹象的存在，但并不适用于所有情况。比如我倾向不喜欢公司大量发行股票，但是大量发行股票本身并没有错。通常情况下，公司发行股票的方式并无法使其现有股东获益。

So what is the way that can benefit shareholders? And what is the other way that you would think would be destructive? Well, the easiest way to benefit them would to be at a time when private companies are not as valuable as public companies in an industry to issue stock to acquire companies for less than your own stock trades for. Because basically your stock, your PE and stuff when flipped is going to give you a yield, which is really sort of the cost of capital that you have that way.

那么，有什么方法可以使股东受益？你认为还有哪些方法可能会对公司造成破坏？嗯，最简单的方法就是在私人企业在某个行业的价值不如公共公司时，以比自己公司股票的交易价格更低的价格发行股票来收购公司。基本上，你的股票、你的市盈率等翻转后会给你一个收益，这实际上是你的资本成本。

So what we're talking about is that as you get a higher PE ratio, it becomes less and less to maintain your stock price requires less and less performance in terms of what your future returns are in earnings versus what your situation is now. So you can in essence buy, you can pay higher and higher prices and get rewarded for it. So today, let's say something, you know, there's venture capital and stuff. So I'm sure that private AI things are very expensive.

所以我们正在讨论的是，随着市盈率的增加，为了维持股票价格，您所需的未来收益相对于现有状况来说，所需的业绩越来越少。因此，在本质上，您可以以越来越高的价格购买股票，并因此获得回报。所以，今天，假设有些东西，比如创投和其他事物。所以我确定私人的人工智能项目非常昂贵。

But if they weren't, it might be that the market thinks that AI stuff is great. So if NVIDIA provides chips that are used and stuff like that.

但如果他们没有这样做，可能是因为市场认为人工智能的东西很棒。所以如果英伟达提供被使用的芯片等等。

So if they could find someone else, who's a private supplier that they could buy and then it was at a higher multiple, that would work if they use their own shares.

所以，如果他们能找到另外一个私人供应商，可以进行收购并且价格倍数较高，只要他们使用自己的股票就可以实现这一目标。

Now some cases, it makes no difference. You have the problem with, let's see, Exxon and they've been what like three recent big acquisitions in oil stuff, big enough, $10 billion plus.

现在有些情况下，这并没有什么区别。你有问题，让我们看看，Exxon公司他们最近进行了三笔重要的石油收购交易，交易规模都超过了100亿美元以上。

Accidentally, it's not using all shares, although they're using some shares. So they're buying some oil in the Permian without using all oil reserves that they already have and stuff.

不小心地，尽管他们使用了一些股份，但并未使用所有股份。因此，他们在佩里米安地区购买了一些石油却未利用他们已经拥有的全部石油储备等等。

Some of the other companies, I don't know how much of a difference it makes. It shifts the mix that they have.

其他一些公司，我不知道这会有多大的差异。它改变了他们所拥有的组合。

So in a sense, you know, Buffett said this before, like, so if Exxon buys something, they don't really buy it, they're using all shares. So if a big company buys Pioneer or whatever, using shares, it's selling itself, all the reserves it has all over the world, all the other things it has that other downstream things or whatever. And it is doing that in exchange for the Permian stuff that they want or whatever it might be.

某种意义上，你知道，巴菲特以前说过这个，比如，如果埃克森购买一些东西，他们并不真正购买它，他们是用全部股份交换。所以，如果一个大公司用股份购买先锋或其他任何公司，它就相当于在出售自身全球拥有的所有储量、其他下游业务等一切资产。他们为了得到所需的佩尔米安油田或其他东西而进行这种交换。

Whereas when NACO uses cash to buy oil in the Permian and when Occidental does a steal, in both of those cases, it's using cash to do it, which is different. I worry if it borrow money to do it, it'll be different.

当NACO用现金购买佩尔米安地区的石油时，以及Occidental进行偷骗行为时，在这两种情况下，都是使用现金进行交易，这是不同的。但如果他们借钱来做这件事，我会很担心会有所不同。

So those are big differences. They're betting bigger on it in the sense that those two companies, in the sense that they're using large amounts of their enterprise value, you know, over 10% and stuff in a single year on a cash basis or with using debt and stuff instead of most of it being done in stock.

那些是相当大的差异。从某种意义上说，那两家公司在此方面打的赌更大一些，因为它们在一个财年中使用了大量企业价值的款项，超过了10%之类的比例，或者是通过借债等方式，而不是大部分是通过股份完成的。

So that's a different signal that it's sending. Whereas the other ones that are doing share swaps between them, they're preferring some multiple in some part of the world for oil stuff as opposed to pricing it on other things.

所以这是一个发送不同信号的行动。与其他进行股份交换的行动不同，它们更倾向于在全球某个地区固定石油价格，而不是根据其他因素进行定价。

In essence, they could be telling you that their stock is expensive. And if their stock is expensive and the stuff they're buying is cheap, that's fine.

基本上，它们可能在告诉你，他们的股票很贵。如果他们的股票很贵，而他们购买的东西很便宜，那没有问题。

But they always talk about as if it's an acquisition when in fact, you know, who knows, you know, Cal and Petroleum did a deal where they talked about, you know, the the EBITDA multiple that they were buying stuff at, right? You know, it's like less than three or something, which is great. But of course, it's misleading because they're divesting and acquiring at the same time. And they're divesting at like the same multiple. That's just what everything's going for in oil and Texas stuff is, you know, three times even dollar something. So that's what they divested and that's what they acquired at, you know.

但事实上，他们总是谈论得好像这是一次收购，但实际上，你知道，谁知道呢，你知道，卡尔石油和原油(Bob)的交易中谈到了他们以某种EBITDA倍数购买东西的情况，对吧？你知道，这是很好的，像是小于3倍之类的。但是当然，这是具有误导性的，因为他们同时在减持和收购。而且他们减持的那些东西，以相同的倍数进行了回购。这就是目前在石油和德克萨斯州的情况，你知道，即使是三倍甚至还有一些美元。所以这就是他们减持和收购的价格，你知道。

And even from that perspective, I mean, how can you judge if you let's say did 100% of your shares to purchase a company? I mean, is there a way to judge over time if that was the right decision?

从那个角度来看，我是说，如果你拿出了100%的股份来购买一家公司，你又如何评判呢？我的意思是，随着时间的推移，是否存在一种判断这是否是正确决策的方法？

Is it still Buffett's market value test? Yeah, I mean, Teladine, it worked well for them. They issued a lot and then they bought back a lot of bank rollups over time were done successfully that way.

这还是巴菲特的市值测试吗？是的，我的意思是，对于泰拉丁来说，它对他们很有效。他们发行了很多股票，然后用这些资金成功地回购了许多银行整合项目。

They basically issued stock at a higher price to book than they bought, then they got acquired banks. It's a good way to make money in banking and insurance doing that.

他们基本上以比买入价格更高的股价发行股票，然后被银行收购。这是在银行和保险业中赚钱的好方法。

It was interesting about Teladine how, yeah, he bought back a lot of his stock when the valuation multiples were low and then he would issue what it's high. It kind of reminded me of Tillman Fertita how he went like public a couple of times and bought back the company that took a public again that bought the back like based on the multiples that that the companies were trading at at the time.

关于泰拉丁（Teladine），有一件有趣的事是，他在估值倍数较低时收回了大量股份，然后在倍数较高时发行新股。这让我想起蒂尔曼·费蒂塔（Tillman Fertita）的做法，他曾多次上市并回购了上市公司，然后根据当时公司的交易倍数再次上市并回购。

And what you hit on is really what matters, which is you just want that someone managing a public company where Singleton, I don't know if he ever owned much more than 6 or 7% of the company where they're managing it the same way they would run their own money.

你所说的其实是最重要的，那就是你只是希望有人管理公开公司，而Singleton我不知道他是否拥有超过6%或7%的公司股份，但他们会像管理自己的金钱一样运营公司。

What you talked about in restaurants casinos is also what we saw in the NASCAR tracks. Those companies all went public at high multiples and then they went private at low multiples, which is good for the families that control them. And families always do that to their benefit, but they don't necessarily do it when they're running it as a public company and certainly professional managers may not do it.

你在餐馆和赌场里讨论的内容，也是我们在NASCAR赛道上看到的。这些公司都以较高的倍数上市，然后以较低的倍数私有化，这对控制它们的家族来说是有利的。家族总是为了自己的利益这么做，但在公开公司运营时他们不一定这么做，而专业经理人可能也不会这么做。

So like in the auto dealers in the UK, you know, Cambria at a certain multiple, they took the company private. So people were betting on his capital allocation and stuff. He kept to the same capital allocation he had done before and everything. It's just you are on the other side of the deal.

就像在英国的汽车经销商中，你知道，Cambria以特定倍数将公司变为私有。所以人们对他的资本配置等进行了投注。他继续按照以前的资本配置方式进行所有事情。只是你变成了交易的另一方。

You know, the same thing with with Hunter Douglas or with any of those things is that at some point you're not on the same side of the deal with them. And so often it's easier to know what they'll do with their own money, but you don't always know that their own money and your money will be on the same side of the table in every deal. At some point they may try to take a private at an on attractive price for you or something like that.

你知道，跟亨特·道格拉斯或其他类似的公司一样，问题在于在某个时刻你与他们的利益不再一致。往往你可以更容易地知道他们如何运用自己的资金，但并不总是知道他们的资金与你的资金是否在每笔交易中站在同一边。在某个时刻，他们可能会以对你不利的价格进行私有化，或者类似的情况。

Professional managers, how do they typically think about capital allocation? I mean, do they really just kind of waltz in and go, wow, now I have to allocate a lot of this cash. I don't really know how to think about this. I mean, from your experience, just through books you've read and a different account to what not, how do professional managers typically think about it? I mean, it is a unique skill set, right? And a lot of times if you rise to the ranks because you are a professional manager, perhaps you weren't allocating capital. So what are your thoughts on professional managers and allocating capital and, you know, just how they typically think about it?

专业经理人通常如何考虑资本配置呢？我的意思是，他们真的只是散步进来，然后想，哇，现在我必须分配这么多现金。我真的不知道该怎么去思考。从您的经验来看，通过您阅读的书籍以及其他人的描述，专业经理人通常是如何思考的呢？我的意思是，这是一种独特的技能组合，对吗？而且很多时候，如果你因为是一个专业经理人而晋升，也许你并不知道如何分配资本。那么对于专业经理人和资本配置，您有什么看法呢？他们通常如何思考呢？

For most of them, it's how they were trained and it's what their peers are doing. So normally when people don't really know how to do something, they look around and kind of ask what are the best practices and stuff. So if you take over Microsoft and you've never done anything like that before, you go, okay, well, what does Facebook do? What does Apple do? What does what, you know, and you might listen to analysts, you might read media reports, whatever, that all gets into your head. And so that's what kind of tends to happen.

对于大多数人来说，这是他们的培训方式，也是他们的同行所做的。所以通常当人们真的不知道如何做某件事时，他们会四处看看并询问什么是最佳实践之类的。所以如果你接管微软，并且之前从未做过类似的工作，你会去看看Facebook、苹果这些公司做了什么，你可能会听取分析师的意见，阅读媒体报道之类的内容，所有这些都会影响你的思考。所以这通常是会发生的情况。

And then the other thing is how you were trained at the company. You know, one of the big things with General Electric and what went wrong there is they really focused at the subsidiary levels at earnings and not cash flow. And they ended up with a lot of people at the top who had not been trained very well in making decisions that would be important once you got to the top to a company that was in real need of improving their capital situation. They weren't sort of telling them that you, they weren't training people in terms of thinking in cash terms and thinking of how much capital you were tying up. And so when people got to the top of the organization, that's a problem because they hadn't really thought about those kinds of things before. The whole organization was run that way so that when it got into a situation where it needed to improve that they didn't have a lot of people inside who would have known how to do that.

然后另一件事是你在公司受到的培训。你知道，通用电气出了很大的问题，其中之一就是他们在子公司层面过分关注盈利而忽视了现金流。结果就是在顶层有很多人并没有接受过很好的培训，以便在公司真正需要改善资本状况时做出重要决策。他们没有告诉他们，也没有按现金的方式培训人们，并没有考虑到你所占用的资本量。所以当人们到达组织的顶层时，这就成了一个问题，因为他们之前并没有真正考虑过这些事情。整个组织都是这样运作的，所以当它遇到需要改善的情况时，内部没有很多人知道如何去做。

But sometimes what you get is people who are kind of observers of the industry have a criticism of things that are done wrong or something and decide when they get to the top, they're going to do it differently. You know, and there's a couple examples of that in the outsiders. I think the general dynamics example, but especially the Ralston Perrine example, is someone looking at it and saying, well, this doesn't really make that much sense and stuff. And so they're taking their sort of approach or how they would run things if they could run the whole thing.

有时候，你会发现一些对这个行业有观察的人，他们对某些事情的错误做法有批评，并决定当他们站在顶峰时，会以不同的方式去做。你知道，离群之辈中有一些例子。我觉得广义动力公司就是一个例子，而Ralston Perrine尤其是一个例子，他们看到一些不合理的地方，并决定如果能够掌控整个事情，他们会采取怎样的方法来运营。

And it's interesting too, like some companies just learn by touching that stove. I could think of a couple companies that issued shares at bad valuations to buy other stuff and then their stock gets killed and they're like, oh, wow, I guess that's not what investors like. Perhaps we shouldn't do that.

这也很有趣，就像有些公司通过亲身经历来学习一样。我可以想到几家公司，他们以不合理的估值发行股票来购买其他东西，结果导致股价暴跌，然后他们就会觉得，哇，投资者原来不喜欢这种做法。也许我们不应该这么做。

What are your thoughts on? There are some management teams that communicate their capital allocation to investors. So they'll say, if we get to like a 15% free cashflow yield or 12% free cashflow yield, the buyback machine is on and we're just clipping away. Do you have any thoughts on that approach to capital allocation?

你对此有什么想法？有一些管理团队会向投资者沟通他们的资本配置情况。因此，他们会说，如果我们达到15%的自由现金流收益率或12%的自由现金流收益率，我们将会启动回购计划，然后继续回购。对于这种资本配置方式，你有什么想法吗？

It's okay. It could attract people. It's certainly a way to attract investors to your stock and to attract certain kinds of investors to your stock if that's what you want. Investors really like that kind of hard trigger that way.

没关系。这可能会吸引人们。对于吸引投资者购买你的股票来说，这绝对是一种方法，并且如果这是你想要的，它还能吸引某种类型的投资者购买你的股票。投资者非常喜欢这样的明确触发方式。

I would be worried about that in that, you know, Buffett and Singleton are the same way. They had no master plan, right? Even to a significant extent Malone had no master plan. He had an idea that he played out to the point where it made sense to play that out and then he did other things when it made sense to play out those things. But, you know, he was basically focused, all of them, focused on extreme efficiency in terms of what's the formula for what creates the most value at this time.

对此我会感到担忧，因为你知道，巴菲特和辛格也是这样。他们没有总体规划，对吗？即使马隆在很大程度上也没有总体规划。他有一个想法，并落实到了合理的程度，然后在合适的时间做其他事情。但是你知道，他们都基本上专注于极致效率，追求在当前时间点创造最大价值的公式是什么。

And so at one point, the big things that can move the needle are different a lot of times because of prices, but sometimes it can be because of other things. And what makes sense in one industry at one time could be really different from another industry at another time.

所以在某个时刻，能够改变形势的重要因素往往因价格而异，但有时也可能是因其他原因。在某个行业中的合理之举，在另一个行业和不同时间可能会大为不同。

So you can, the environment can change so much that you maybe don't want to say that, you know, that would make a ton of sense except what if whoever saying that said, so if they were saying that and it's something very, very predictable and the pricing doesn't go crazy, then it makes a lot of sense.

所以你可以，环境可以改变得如此之大，以至于你可能不想说出来，你知道的，虽然这听起来非常合理，但如果说这话的人说的是一件非常、非常可预测的事情，而且价格没有疯狂，那么这就非常合理了。

But if either the pricing goes crazy in the industry with different things or simply let's say it's newspapers or something, do you want to buy back at those multiples if it's, you know, an industry that might be in decline after that, right? Or like, you know, oil, you wouldn't want to do it on a free cashable basis, but you might say we'll do it on a barrel of oil equivalent basis of some sort of thing about the discount, the value to the, you know, the present value to the discounted level of like, okay, what would make sense at $60 barrel oil or something.

但如果行业的定价疯狂地涉及到各种不同的事物，或者只是举个例子，就像是报纸之类的，你是否愿意按那些倍数来回购呢？尤其是在那之后，可能会是一个衰退的行业，对吧？或者像石油，你不会基于自由现金流去做，但你可能会说我们将基于一个等价于一桶石油的方式去做折扣，即对折扣价值的现值，例如在每桶60美元的油价情况下，会有什么合理的方式。

But you wouldn't want to do it to say over a certain amount of free cashover going to buy back stock because what if oil goes to 140. And so that's why you have a lot of free cash flow. And so you're wasting that free cashflow buying back very at a very expensive stock, right?

但是你不会希望用一定数量的自由现金去回购股票，因为如果油价达到140美元呢？这就是为什么你会有很多自由现金流。所以，使用这些自由现金流去买回一只非常昂贵的股票是在浪费，对吗？

Sure. What about like a company like Apple, right? A, it's interesting to see that their revenue, this is just the top line, right? I mean, the revenue has declined annually. I believe we have, I mean, it's really only year over year, but a lot of Buffett's returns since he's on it, I mean, earnings have gone up dramatically, but they've also had a huge multiple expansion.

当然。像苹果这样的公司呢，怎么样呢？首先，他们的收入，只是顶线的数据，对吗？我的意思是，就是收入每年都在下降。我相信我们已经看到了，虽然这个只是年度数据，但是自从巴菲特进入之后，他们的收益猛增，同时他们也获得了巨大的倍数扩张。

But, you know, like a company that's at 31 times free cashflow earnings, whatever you want to use, I mean, they still buy back like what, $20 billion? A quarter? Yeah, a huge amount. So to me, this is almost like they're on autopilot with their buyback.

然而，你知道的，就像一家市值已达到31倍自由现金流收益的公司，随你怎么理解吧，我的意思是，它们仍然以每季度大约200亿美元的规模进行股票回购。是的，数量相当庞大。所以在我看来，这几乎就像是它们的股票回购计划处于自动驾驶状态。

Would you rather a company just kind of take the Buffett approach and really just soak up capital and do big stuff? Or would you rather that do like kind of automatic stuff like this? Like I understand in the sense of one may be better for the long term than the other.

你更希望一个公司像巴菲特那样采取措施，大规模吸收资本并进行重大交易，还是更愿意它像这样自动进行一些事务？我理解其中一个可能对长期来说更好。意思是，你更倾向于公司是采取类似巴菲特的方式，通过吸收资本和进行重大交易来拓展业务规模，还是更倾向于公司更加自动化地处理事务。同时理解到其中一个方法可能对公司的长远发展更有利。

But then in the short term, you still get this, okay, will they still buy back, you know, in this case, $80 billion a year or whatever of their own stock, however, it is that way higher valuations, which approached you prefer, just continue to stockpile that cash. And then if you get the opportunity, do something big with it?

但是在短期内，你仍然会遇到这样的情况，好吧，他们还会回购，也就是每年回购他们自己的股票价值约800亿美元，然而，这会导致股票估值上升，你更倾向于哪一种方式，继续积累现金，或者如果有机会，用现金做一些大规模的投资呢？

No, because there's no evidence that Apple would know how to do that. No one Apple has ever done that. And they have too much money. So that's the same problem that Berkshire has.

不，因为没有证据表明苹果知道如何做到这一点。苹果从未做过类似的事情。而且他们有太多的钱。所以这与伯克希尔公司面临的问题相同。

I mean, at this point, I think Berkshire is probably in Buffett, may even realize this. It doesn't really make sense to buy up the cash when it's this big. As a percentage of your balance sheet and stuff is one thing, because you could always find a big deal, but can he really find a deal that big?

我的意思是，到了这个时候，我认为伯克希尔可能已经体会到了巴菲特的担忧，甚至可能已经意识到了这点。现在的情况下，购买大量现金并没有多大意义。作为资产负债表的一部分，这还可以理解，因为你总是能找到大笔交易，但他真的能找到那么大的交易吗？

So with both Apple and Berkshire, it's, you know, when you're this size, it's just a way to get rid of the cash and stuff. Like if you look at Apple, with the buybacks you're talking about, if they wanted to buy Paramount, I don't think that it would absorb more than six months or something of their buybacks that you're talking about.

所以，对于苹果和伯克希尔来说，当公司规模这么大时，回购股票只是一种处理现金和资产的方式。就拿苹果来说，如果他们想要收购派拉蒙公司，我觉得这不会耗用超过你所说的回购金额的六个月左右。

So it would barely make a change if you wanted to make a huge transformational deal like that. And what else could they buy? You know, what else would they want to buy? What would make sense that they could eat? That would be better to buy than to build it out themselves. And that would really move the needle for the rest of the company by moving it more into one thing or another.

如果您想进行如此巨大的变革性交易，它几乎不会产生任何影响。还有什么他们可以购买呢？您知道，他们还想购买什么？有什么是他们可以比自己建设更好地购买的？这将真正推动公司的发展，使其更加专注于某一特定领域。

So even the biggest deals you can think of are small compared to how much they need to use up.

即使是你能想到的最大的交易，与他们需要使用的金额相比都微不足道。

It's kind of funny too. I mean, there's a story about Steve Jobs not wanting to do buybacks and even like called Buffett and asked for his advice on it. I think Buffett told him to buy back his stock and Steve just like was not interested in doing that.

这也有点好笑。我的意思是，有一个关于史蒂夫·乔布斯不愿意进行股票回购的故事，他甚至给巴菲特打电话向他咨询意见。我想巴菲特告诉他回购自己的股票，但史蒂夫对此毫不感兴趣。

Yeah. Well, from that story, it's clear that he understood rationally that he should buy back the stock with that he never would. But, you know, that may be why Buffett invested in the stock when he did and not before then.

是的。从那个故事里，可以清楚地看出他在理性上明白他应该回购股票，但他却从未这样做。不过，你知道，这可能就是为什么巴菲特选择在那个时候投资这家公司，而不是之前。

Yeah, it's all about capital occasion, right? Yeah, I don't know that he would have wanted Steve Jobs as the head of Apple forever, I don't know that would be as attractive to him.

是的，这一切都是关于资本场合，对吧？是的，我不知道他是否希望史蒂夫·乔布斯永远担任苹果的首席，我不知道这是否对他有吸引力。

In Buffett situation, and let's play more on what you had just said, perhaps like piling up all that cash, it's just too much. Yeah.

在巴菲特的情况下，让我们就你刚才说的继续深入探讨一下，也许像堆积那么多现金，实在是太多了。是的。

Could you make a case for Berkshire to pay out their cash in the form of dividends? I'm not sure that Berkshire has a path anymore to achieve higher than average returns on its investments as opposed to like if it just invests in index funds and things. So I don't know that the investment management aspect of it really matters anymore. And well, it has some benefits to being insurance company that way. And it certainly has more not paying dividends is very important for the capital strength of the company dividends are often the thing that put the capital strength of something like an insurer in trouble because they'll pay it out for too long. I mean, so it helps a lot that way. Any bank any insurance thing any of that if they had no dividend would be in a strong position to bounce back from things and to get into a strong capital position again.

你能提出伯克希尔以股息形式支付现金的理由吗？我不确定伯克希尔是否还能找到一条实现高于平均投资回报的路径，相比于仅仅投资于指数基金等等。所以我不确定投资管理方面是否还有重要性。当然，作为一家保险公司也有其好处。而且，对于公司的资本实力来说，不支付股息非常重要，因为股息往往会使像保险公司这样的资本实力处于困境，因为他们会过长时间支付股息。我的意思是，这种方式对于公司非常有帮助。任何银行、保险公司或者其他类似机构，如果没有股息，将能够更容易从困境中恢复并重新获得强大的资本实力地位。

But Berkshire also knows that its float isn't going to increase over time. So it's not like they can suddenly write a lot of business against the capital that they have. So I don't know that there will be that much for them to do. And you could break it up, obviously, and there'll be a lot to be a little push for that.

伯克希尔也知道，其流动资金不会随着时间的推移增加。因此，他们不可能突然间对他们拥有的资本大量进行业务写作。所以我不知道他们会有太多要做的事情。当然，你可以把它分割开来，并且会有一些小推动。

But the other way that you could do it is just by either buying back a lot of stock over time or paying a dividend or having a formal policy where you buy back below a certain level and you do a dividend or something like that. You could do a quarterly thing or whatever where you tender for stock if it meets certain requirements and you pay out dividends if it does and the company designates how much excess capital is.

但你还可以通过逐步回购大量股票、支付股息，或者制定一个正式政策，在某个特定水平以下回购股票并支付股息等方式来实现。你可以每季度或者其他周期性地进行招标，只要符合某些要求就可以回购股票，并支付相应的股息，公司会确定剩余资金的使用量。

But if it's pretty much told people how much is excess, like he says, I need 30 billion or I need 50 billion or whatever to feel comfortable. So you can see that over a certain level, Berkshire could say, we need to get rid of this in some way and then just change how they get rid of it rather than paying a regular dividend, which would be more of a problem for what wants to be a AAA insurance company, the strongest in the world and stuff. It helps to not pay a dividend. Do you think he'll ever do that? In his lifetime, or do you think they'll be sort of after Buffett? That sounds like an after problem.

但是，如果它基本上告诉人们拥有多少多余资金，就像他说的，我需要300亿或者我需要500亿或者其他多少来感到舒适。所以你可以看到在某个水平以上，伯克希尔可能会说，我们需要以某种方式摆脱这个，然后改变他们如何摆脱它，而不是支付常规股息，这对于想成为AAA级别的保险公司，世界上最强大的公司等来说是更大的问题。不支付股息对公司有帮助。你认为他会在他有生之年这样做吗？还是说这是一个未来的问题，可能在巴菲特之后才会出现？

I mean, I think the biggest concession he made to that was the buybacks. I think that's the real purpose of the buybacks is how could we absorb money in some way and then it's really about that and that if the stock had traded cheaply for a long period of time, then maybe that would be a way to use up money. But I think that was a concession to the idea that we have too much cash was really the buyback thing. I don't know that he would have been as excited about buybacks even if the company was really cheap. Berkshire been cheaper before early in its history. But there was just so much he could do and so much he could imagine happening again that he'd have a big opportunity to do something.

我是说，我认为他为此做出的最大让步就是回购股份。我认为回购的真正目的是如何将资金吸收进来，而真正关键的是，如果股票长时间低价交易，那或许是一种使用资金的方式。但我认为这是对我们有太多现金的想法作出的让步，回购是真正的关键。我不知道即使公司真的很便宜，他是否会对回购如此兴奋。伯克希尔公司在早期曾经更便宜过。但是他能做的事情和他能想象会再次发生的事情实在太多了，所以他有机会去做一些大的事情。

This time, I don't think that he feels that's as much the case just because it's gotten to such incredibly large size. And whenever Charlie Munger would say it's the world that's changing everything Buffett would say, no, it's the size of our company has changed and that's why we can't do the same things we did before. You know, he would say if you give me a small amount of money, I can still do things. Whereas Charlie was saying it's more the markets got more efficient and everything. Maybe they're both right.

这一次，我不认为他觉得情况仅仅因为公司规模变得如此巨大而有所不同。而且每当查理·芒格说是世界发生了改变，巴菲特会说不，是我们公司的规模发生了变化，这就是为什么我们不能再做以前的同样的事情的原因。你知道的，他会说如果给我一小笔钱，我仍然能够做些事情。而查理则认为是市场变得更加高效和一切都有所改变。也许他们两个都是对的。

Yeah, of course it could be both of them. And also it can be temporary. I mean, something goes on for long enough. Then you think, oh, I mean, he when he quit in the 60s, he may not have thought that the next decade or so would be the greatest opportunity that he'd ever see as an investor. It's hard to imagine things swinging that much. But I mean, I think in the 70s market downturn, the median stock was down 70, 80% or something incredible. And he had a small amount of money. So it's not like the indexes matter to him. It was like the median stock mattered. And for things to come down that much, you know, imagine it now you think, oh, the market's kind of expensive or whatever. Well, you're not expecting that suddenly things could go on sale by three quarters off. That would change your attitude. And you'd be saying, oh, I can take in as much cash as you can give me. I can invest in everything from going there from saying, oh, I need to wind up my partnership.

是的，当然可能是他们两个人的共同原因。而且这种情况也可能是暂时的。我的意思是，如果某件事情持续下去足够久，你会以为，噢，我是说，当他在60年代辞职时，他可能没有想到接下来的十年左右会是他作为投资者见过的最大的机会。很难想象事情会变化这么大。但是我的意思是，在70年代的市场衰退中，中位股票下跌了70%，80%或者是一些令人难以置信的数字。而他所拥有的资金量相对较小，所以股指对他来说并不重要，中位股票才重要。如果事情下跌了这么多，你知道，现在想象一下，你可能会认为，哦，市场有点贵了什么之类的。但你并没有期望突然间就以四分之三的折扣出售。这会改变你的态度。你可能会说，哦，无论你能给我多少现金，我都可以接受，我可以投资所有的东西，从那里前进到说，哦，我需要结束我的合伙关系。

So sometimes it's efficiency. And sometimes it's an expensive market. It's very hard to tell the difference between the two while you're living it.

有时是效率的问题，有时是昂贵市场的问题。在亲身经历中很难分辨这两者之间的区别。

So let's say a public company CEO was listening and wanted to reach out to you to get advice on how they should think about capital allocation, similar to how Steve reached out to off it. What advice would you give them? My advice is always that, look, everything is ultimately a cash to cash transaction that you're doing.

假设一位上市公司的首席执行官在聆听时想要与你取得联系，以获取关于资本配置的建议，就像史蒂夫联系off it那样。你会给他们什么建议呢？我的建议一直是，看，你所做的一切最终都是一笔现金到现金的交易。

So there are things that maybe strategically or whatever people convince you are important. But it's hard to tell the difference between that and fashion.

所以有些事情可能在战略上或者由于他人的说服而被认为很重要。但很难区分这种重要性和时尚之间的差异。

So what you want to do is say, okay, if I pay this out to you, can I get a return that's better than that by keeping it? Can I get a return that's better than that by buying this thing that I like that doing this?

所以你想做的是说，好吧，如果我把钱支付给你，我能够通过保留它获得更好的回报吗？我能够通过购买我喜欢的东西来获得比这更好的回报吗？

It may make a great deal of sense to buy up things in the Permian. But it also may just be that it's now fashionable for everyone to think the Permian is a good thing to be in and it won't matter what price they're paying.

购买Permian地区的事物可能是非常明智的决策。但也有可能只是因为现在每个人都认为投资Permian是个好主意，而不管价格如何的原因而已。

So what the kind of capital allocation that you want is what Berkshire did in Japan. They said, okay, well, we can finance this at like nothing. These are cheap stocks. They'll probably go up over time. And while we own them, we'll get this spread on it, basically. So you can, this is the cheapest way to create value. This is the cheapest on a cash to cash basis to get this kind of return.

您希望的资本配置方式，就是伯克希尔在日本所做的那样。他们说：“好吧，我们可以以几乎没有成本的方式提供资金支持。这些股票很便宜，而且随着时间的推移很可能会上涨。在我们持有这些股票的同时，我们也会获得基本差价。”所以您可以说，这是创造价值最廉价的方法，是以现金流为基础获得这种回报的方式最便宜。

And that's what you'd want to be thinking whether you're an oil company or whatever. I mean, a lot of times they'll just think, okay, well, we should spin off our gas stations or something. Well, at one price and stuff, it makes sense. But at another price, the gas stations provide you with a better multiple, better return on tying up the capital in that, then you could get in other parts of the oil business and stuff.

这是你无论是石油公司还是其他行业都应该思考的事情。我的意思是，很多时候他们只会想，好吧，我们应该剥离我们的加油站或其他什么。在某个价格范围内，这是有道理的。但在另一个价格范围内，加油站给你提供了更好的倍数、更高的回报率，如果将资本投入其他石油业务中，你可能无法获得同样的回报。

So I think generally people are going to think thematically, strategically. The really great fortunes made that we're talking about in a lot of these companies are made by just doing always rational things, never doing anything crazy. And always on the substance of it, not any of the attraction of what's in fashion, what the terms are that people are using, the buzz words and everything of it.

所以我认为一般人们会从整体和战略的角度去思考。那些我们所说的真正巨额财富，往往是通过一直做理性的事情，而从不做任何疯狂的事情来实现的。并且始终关注实质，而非追随潮流、流行词汇等吸引力。

And what will be the main problem for most companies in terms of capital allocation is they will get caught up in the different illusions of the period. So they'll be a period where they think we need to be in entertainment company. I think we need to be in toys because there's baby boomers and that's going to be the thing.

对于大多数公司而言，资金配置方面的主要问题将是它们会陷入不同的时期幻觉中。因此，会出现一段时间，他们会认为我们需要成为一个娱乐公司。又或者认为我们需要从事玩具行业，因为有婴儿潮，这将成为市场热点。

And then you'll say, well, we need to be in LECR stuff, because that home video I think is becoming the biggest thing ever. Then you'll say it's streaming and each time it will feel like it's the change of that it's the thing you need to be in to stay relevant. But that's always the biggest concern.

然后你会说，我们需要进入LECＲ领域，因为我觉得家庭视频正在成为最流行的事物。然后你会说它是流媒体，每次都会感觉到它是一种必须参与以保持相关性的变化。但这始终是最大的担忧。

I mean, that was my biggest concern when we were investing in NACO, for instance, with the spin off. It isn't, oh, it's dying over time and stuff. I mean, they'll have, as they have had, plenty of time to make a pivot to something else. The biggest concern is that you go, oh, we're tied to coal and stuff. Let's quickly whatever the price buy something solar thing, because then that'll get, that's what will make investors, analysts, whatever, stop asking about the fact that you're dying business from this other thing. And so you do this knee jerk move to that.

我的意思是，在我们投资NACO的时候，比如说，当它分拆时，这是我最担心的。并不是说它会随着时间的流逝而消亡。我的意思是，他们将有足够的时间转型为其他业务，就像他们过去做过的一样。最大的担忧是，你会说，“哦，我们被束缚在煤炭和其他东西上。”然后急忙以任何价格购买太阳能产品，因为那样才能使投资者、分析师以及其他人停止问你的业务是否在衰退。所以你们做出了这种膝反射式的转变。

It's always just based on getting out of paper and pencil and doing the numbers. All the other things are fine. It's good to focus on this thing or do that, but it always has to work on terms of the numbers. And so you have to say I'm laying out this amount of money to get this amount of money back.

这句话的意思是：关键是拿出纸和笔，进行运算。其他的事情都没问题。专注于某件事情或者做某事固然很好，但最终还是要靠数字来验证。因此，你必须要说清楚，我投入了这么多钱，希望能够得到相应的回报。

A lot of companies pay a premium for comfort or whatever, being something that's a little bit more popular or that's a little not going to be so much controversial or whatever, instead of saying, you know, this gets me the best return. And then it just snowballs over time. So if you keep doing that for 10 years, you actually end up with a lot less capital than the Berkshire and the Teladine and whatever happens. You're wondering how did they get so big and have all these opportunities that I don't have. It's because in the early years, you didn't do it, but in year one, it didn't seem like it would make that big a difference.

很多公司支付额外费用来追求舒适或者其他一些受欢迎且不会引起争议的事物，而不是追求最高回报。随着时间的推移，这种情况会逐渐放大。因此，如果你在接下来的十年里一直这样做，最终你拥有的资本将比伯克希尔和特拉迪新少很多。你会好奇为什么他们能变得如此庞大并且拥有我没有的这些机会。原因是在早年你没有这样做，而在第一年时，似乎没有什么大的区别。

We spoke with a CEO one time who is an owner operator, understands capital allocation, seems like lifelong learner, total Buffett fanatic. And he had told us one time that he thought about like he sort of went through the math of, you know, what do they have to do to become a hunter bagger over time? And like, what does that mean if they were to become a hunter bagger? And then how do you work back to the present? Like what steps need to be taken to get there?

我们曾与一位CEO交谈过，他是一个业主经营者，了解资本配置，似乎是一个终身学习者，对巴菲特非常狂热。有一次他告诉我们，他思考过这样一个问题：他们需要做些什么才能成为猎人袋鼠（指公司市值增长100倍以上的公司）？如果他们要成为猎人袋鼠，那意味着什么？然后，如何逆向推导到现在？需要采取哪些步骤才能实现这个目标？

And I don't know, I don't think a lot of public companies think about that, right? And it doesn't have to be a hunter bagger, it could be 10 bag or 50 bag or whatever, 20 bag or. But I was always pretty impressed of how we thought, okay, how do you get there? What could the company look like? And I imagine all he was doing is a normal multiple for our businesses 15 times. Okay, how do we get to this valuation? What do we need to do? We do in free cash flow or even dollar cash flow earnings, whatever you want, like, what does the company have to look like? And how do you get there? And I don't know, I was just always impressed by that because I don't think, I guess I should say I know that most companies don't think about things like that, you know, and constantly think with their capital allocation hat on on how they can create value over time.

我觉得很多上市公司并不这么想，对吧？而且也不一定是翻倍，可以是10倍、50倍，或者其他20倍。但我一直对我们是怎么思考的印象深刻，我们在思考怎么实现这个估值。公司会是什么样子？我想他只是按照我们企业的正常倍数（15倍）来算的。好的，我们怎样才能达到这个估值？我们需要做些什么？我们通过自由现金流或甚至是美元现金流利润，或者你想要的任何形式，来达到这个估值，公司应该是什么样子？怎样才能达到这个目标？我不知道，但我总是对此印象深刻，因为我知道大多数公司并不思考这样的事情，不断思考资本配置的角度如何在时间上创造价值。

You know, because most businesses, you're going to have to start buying things at some point, unless you're like, maybe a software is a service business that, you know, your total addressable market is infinite, right? But most companies, if you want to continue to grow, you're going to have to pivot, innovate, buy, whatever. I mean, look at Berkshire and their business today. I mean, four units make up the entire company. And, you know, what it looks like today is nowhere, what it looked like 20 years ago, you know, from the perspective of where their earnings and cash flow come from.

你知道，因为大部分的企业，迟早都需要开始购买东西，除非像软件服务企业这样，你知道，他们的可寻址市场是无限的，对吧？但是大部分公司，如果你想要持续增长，你就需要转变、创新、购买，或做其他的事情。比如看看伯克希尔（Berkshire）和他们今天的业务。整个公司由四个单元组成。你知道，今天看起来跟二十年前完全不同，就从他们的收益和现金流来源来看。

Yeah, going back to Charlie Munger, you know, he said that it's a tragedy would happen with GM. I mean, GM as in making cars and stuff, maybe had to was doomed to not a lot of success. But there was no reason why the shareholders of the corporation should ever lose all their money. It was a very successful enterprise that could have pivoted to other things and don't know things for their shareholders. Same thing with like Sears or something, how easy would have been to stop the decline of Sears as a retail company, you know, as a chain using that name, maybe not that easy. But there was a long period of time with a lot of real estate and a lot of valuable things they'd collected in diverse businesses that you could have protected shareholders money over that time, right? So what you're saying, like both extremes would come up pretty quickly in terms of capital allocation requirements, like, okay, let's say that you're all in on some business that's dying or something. Well, you actually have big capital allocation requirements, you have to get out of those things and reallocate that money to something else.

是的，说到查理·芒格，他说通用汽车会发生一场悲剧。我的意思是，通用汽车在制造汽车等方面可能注定不会取得太多成功。但没有理由企业的股东会失去所有的资金。它是一个非常成功的企业，可以转向其他领域，为股东们创造收益。就像西尔斯之类的公司一样，阻止它作为零售公司的衰败应该是很容易的，至少作为一个连锁店使用该品牌的公司，也许没有那么容易。但是在很长一段时间内，他们积累了许多房地产和有价值的资产，可以在这段时间里保护股东的资金，对吧？所以，你是说，无论是极端中的哪个，对资金配置都有很高的要求，比如，假设你将所有的资金投入到一个即将消亡的企业中。那么，你实际上有很大的资金配置需求，你必须退出这些项目，并将资金重新配置到其他方面。

You know, Buffett had that problem right away with the textile business, whether it was producing money or not, he needed to get into things that had great returns on capital. But then if you're a Google or an Apple or something, after the decade, you're going to have too much capital all the time that you have nowhere to put it. And so you're going to have to be faced with the same problem, a terrible business and a great business, both face this problem pretty early on. You know, maybe if you're in the growth phase of being, you know, a railroad or whatever, or utility in the days when those things were growing, you never face this problem because you can have a 10-year plan for here's how we're going to do things. And this is how much we need to grow capacity in our assets are so long lived and all of that. But for most businesses, a terrible business is going to require you to get out of other things and put the money in something else. And a great business is going to have too much cash coming in and you're going to have to do something with it. So it's really more the mediocre businesses that you don't have to face that problem all the time.

你知道，巴菲特在纺织业务上就遇到了这个问题，无论它是否赚钱，他都需要去做那些回报率高的投资。但如果你是谷歌或苹果这样的公司，在经过十年之后，你会一直面临资金过剩的问题，无处可放。所以你也会面临同样的问题，无论是糟糕的业务还是伟大的业务，两者早期都会面临这个问题。也许如果你是处于成长阶段的行业，比如铁路或公用事业，在那些事物还在增长的年代，你永远不会面临这个问题，因为你可以有一个十年计划来规划我们要如何做事情。这些资产生命周期很长等等。但对于大多数企业来说，糟糕的业务将要求你放弃其他事物，并将资金投入其他项目。而一个伟大的业务将会有太多的现金流进账，你必须想办法处理。所以真正不用经常面临这个问题的是那些中庸的企业。

You know, someone asked about Herco, which I know was written up on value of assets, club and stuff. It was net net. I don't know if it still is a net net as of today. But that's the kind of business where you don't have to make a lot of decisions about capital allocation because it's not that great a business. It's not that terrible business either, but it's not that great a business. So often you have to tie up everything in inventory over time whether you want to or not. But most businesses don't look like that. And more did maybe 50 years ago in the United States, they're a lot more capital heavy that way. But most don't. So it's going to be really important what companies do with the capital allocation.

你知道，有人问到关于Herco的事情，我知道有关该公司资产价值、俱乐部等方面的报告。那是一种净净值投资。我不知道现在是否还是一家净净值投资公司。但这是一种你不必做出太多关于资本分配的决策的业务，因为它并不是那么出色的业务。它也不是那么糟糕的业务，但也不是那么出色的业务。所以，你通常必须不管你是否愿意，将所有资本都绑定在库存中。但大多数企业都不是这样的。在美国，50年前的情况可能更多，它们更加注重资本。但大多数企业并非如此。因此，公司如何分配资本将变得非常重要。

You know, and even when we talk about things, you know, people talk about the future of Disney or whatever, right? It'll be the same thing. What do we sell off? What do we buy? How do we change? You know, that's very important. If you get the wrong price for something or you get out of the an asset that would have been very valuable for you.

你知道的，即使我们谈论事情，你知道的，人们也会谈论迪士尼的未来或其他什么的，对吗？这将是相同的情况。我们卖掉什么？我们买什么？我们如何改变？你知道的，这非常重要。如果你为某样东西定了一个错误的价格，或者你把一个对你非常有价值的资产剥离了出去。

So it comes up in all sorts of different companies to make those decisions. And a lot of times it isn't based on looking at the numbers and what it'll mean for your stock. It can be like, okay, well, we promise we won't get rid of this asset. Or we told them that we're going to focus on this part of the business, right? And we laid out that plan and we got to stick to that plan and not make it look like we're pivoting too much to one thing or the other. They always hate to make it look like there's actually a change in strategy. It also has to be a continuation of what they've said before.

这种决策在各种不同的公司中都会出现。而很多时候，决策并不是基于数字和对股票意义的考量。它可能是说，好吧，我们承诺不会摆脱这项资产。或者我们告诉他们我们将专注于业务的这个部分，对吧？并且我们制定了计划，必须坚持该计划，不能让它看起来我们过多地偏向某一方面。他们总是不喜欢让其显得实际上策略有所变化。这还必须是他们之前所说的事情的延续。

So yeah, I mean, I would focus on people need to think more in terms of numbers and less in terms of the press release that goes out explaining the capital allocation, just because it will add up over time, no matter whether people like it or don't like it the day that you make the announcement over the long run. What matters is those cash on cash returns that you get. And that's what really determines the compounding of the stock over long period time. And they'll forgive everything if your stock goes up a lot more than the market over 10 or 15 years. And they won't forgive much if you underperformed the market over that period. So that's a long term test.

是的，我是说，我会更加关注人们需要在数字上思考，而不是着重于解释资本配置的新闻稿，因为随着时间的推移，无论人们喜欢与否，这些数字都会累积起来。重要的是你所获得的现金回报率。这才是真正决定股票在长期内的复利效应。如果你的股票在10或15年内比市场涨得多，人们会原谅你一切。但如果你在那段时间内表现不佳，他们不会原谅你多少。所以这是一个长期的考验。

Got it. Cool. Well, I want to thank everybody so much for tuning in with both the Voss on the focused compounding podcast. If this is the first time you are joining us, be sure to check out our Twitter, which is at focus compound.That is the best way to keep track of everything that we push out into the investing universe. If you're interested in learning about our money management services, you can reach out to me directly at Andrew at focus compounding.com. All the information is in the description below.

好的，知道了。太棒了。嗯，非常感谢大家收听了Voss在“聚焦复利”播客中的分享。如果你是第一次加入我们，请务必关注我们的Twitter账号，账号名为focuscompound。这是了解我们发布到投资界的内容的最佳方式。如果您对了解我们的资产管理服务感兴趣，可以直接联系我，我的电子邮箱是Andrew@focuscompounding.com。在下方的说明中会提供所有相关信息。

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