原文信息：

标题：2011 Letter to Berkshire Shareholders
作者：Warren Buffett
发表时间：2012-02-25
链接：PDF
中文翻译参考：芒格书院共读群友
整理：Ponge
校译：

Berkshire’s Corporate Performance vs. the S&P 500

Year	Annual Percentage Change in Per-Share Book Value of Berkshire (1)	Annual Percentage Change in S&P 500 with Dividends Included (2)	Relative Results (1)-(2)
1965	23.8	10.0	13.8
1966	20.3	(11.7)	32.0
1967	11.0	30.9	(19.9)
1968	19.0	11.0	8.0
1969	16.2	(8.4)	24.6
1970	12.0	3.9	8.1
1971	16.4	14.6	1.8
1972	21.7	18.9	2.8
1973	4.7	(14.8)	19.5
1974	5.5	(26.4)	31.9
1975	21.9	37.2	(15.3)
1976	59.3	23.6	35.7
1977	31.9	(7.4)	39.3
1978	24.0	6.4	17.6
1979	35.7	18.2	17.5
1980	19.3	32.3	(13.0)
1981	31.4	(5.0)	36.4
1982	40.0	21.4	18.6
1983	32.3	22.4	9.9
1984	13.6	6.1	7.5
1985	48.2	31.6	16.6
1986	26.1	18.6	7.5
1987	19.5	5.1	14.4
1988	20.1	16.6	3.5
1989	44.4	31.7	12.7
1990	7.4	(3.1)	10.5
1991	39.6	30.5	9.1
1992	20.3	7.6	12.7
1993	14.3	10.1	4.2
1994	13.9	1.3	12.6
1995	43.1	37.6	5.5
1996	31.8	23.0	8.8
1997	34.1	33.4	.7
1998	48.3	28.6	19.7
1999	.5	21.0	(20.5)
2000	6.5	(9.1)	15.6
2001	(6.2)	(11.9)	5.7
2002	10.0	(22.1)	32.1
2003	21.0	28.7	(7.7)
2004	10.5	10.9	(.4)
2005	6.4	4.9	1.5
2006	18.4	15.8	2.6
2007	11.0	5.5	5.5
2008	(9.6)	(37.0)	27.4
2009	19.8	26.5	(6.7)
2010	13.0	15.1	(2.1)
2011	4.6	2.1	2.5
Compounded Annual Gain -- 1965-2011	19.8%	9.2%	10.6
Overall Gain -- 1964-2011	513,055%	6,397%	-

Notes: Data are for calendar years with these exceptions: 1965 and 1966, year ended 9/30; 1967, 15 months ended 12/31. Starting in 1979, accounting rules required insurance companies to value the equity securities they hold at market rather than at the lower of cost or market, which was previously the requirement. In this table, Berkshire’s results through 1978 have been restated to conform to the changed rules. In all other respects, the results are calculated using the numbers originally reported. The S&P 500 numbers are pre-tax whereas the Berkshire numbers are after-tax. If a corporation such as Berkshire were simply to have owned the S&P 500 and accrued the appropriate taxes, its results would have lagged the S&P 500 in years when that index showed a positive return, but would have exceeded the S&P 500 in years when the index showed a negative return. Over the years, the tax costs would have caused the aggregate lag to be substantial.

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.

To the Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.:

致伯克希尔·哈撒韦公司所有股东：

The per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock increased by 4.6% in 2011. Over the last 47 years (that is, since present management took over), book value has grown from $19 to $99,860, a rate of 19.8% compounded annually.¹

我们公司在2011年A/B股的每股账面价值都增长了4.6%(标普2.1%)。自现任管理层接手的47年以来，每股账面价值从19美元增长到了99860美元，年复合增长率为19.8%。(A股=1500*B股)

Charlie Munger, Berkshire’s Vice Chairman and my partner, and I feel good about the company’s progress during 2011. Here are the highlights:

伯克希尔的副董事长兼我的合伙人查理·芒格，以及我对公司2011年的业务进展感到相当满意。以下是其中的亮点：

The primary job of a Board of Directors is to see that the right people are running the business and to be sure that the next generation of leaders is identified and ready to take over tomorrow. I have been on 19 corporate boards, and Berkshire’s directors are at the top of the list in the time and diligence they have devoted to succession planning. What’s more, their efforts have paid off.

董事会首要工作是确保由正确的经理人在经营管理企业业务，并确保已经选定下一代接班的领导人而且已经准备好明天就能接手。我曾加入过19家公司的董事会，我认为，在接班人规划上付出的时间和精力上，伯克希尔公司的董事会肯定排名前列。更重要的是，他们的努力已经得到了回报。

As 2011 started, Todd Combs joined us as an investment manager, and shortly after yearend Ted Weschler came aboard. Both of these men have outstanding investment skills and a deep commitment to Berkshire. Each will be handling a few billion dollars in 2012, but they have the brains, judgment and character to manage our entire portfolio when Charlie and I are no longer running Berkshire.

2011年初，托德·康布斯(Todd Combs)作为投资经理人加入我们，2012年初泰德·韦斯勒(TedWeschler)也加入了我们。他们两位都具有杰出的投资技巧，而且愿意全心全意为伯克希尔服务。2012年他们俩人都将管理几十亿美元的投资，但是当查理和我不再管理伯克希尔的时候，他们俩人具备的头脑、判断和性格完全能够管理我们的整个投资组合。

Your Board is equally enthusiastic about my successor as CEO, an individual to whom they have had a great deal of exposure and whose managerial and human qualities they admire. (We have two superb back-up candidates as well.) When a transfer of responsibility is required, it will be seamless, and Berkshire’s prospects will remain bright. More than 98% of my net worth is in Berkshire stock, all of which will go to various philanthropies. Being so heavily concentrated in one stock defies conventional wisdom. But I’m fine with this arrangement, knowing both the quality and diversity of the businesses we own and the caliber of the people who manage them. With these assets, my successor will enjoy a running start. Do not, however, infer from this discussion that Charlie and I are going anywhere; we continue to be in excellent health, and we love what we do.

公司董事会对我的继任CEO同样充满信心，他们对他已经非常了解，对于此人的管理能力和个人品德也非常敬仰。(我们同时还有两位出色的候选人)。未来需要移交管理职责的时候，一切将会是平滑过渡无缝衔接，伯克希尔的前景仍将是一片光明。我个人98%以上的财富都放在伯克希尔股票上，所有这些持股将会捐赠慈善机构。如此高度集中投资于一只股票完全违背传统的投资智慧。但是我对这种安排非常满意，因为我本人既非常了解我们所拥有的企业的品质和多元化程度，也了解管理这些企业的经理人的出色能力。能够拥有如此优质的资产，我的继任者将会拥有一个很好的起点。然而，千万不要根据这些讨论，就推断查理和我将很快将会离开管理岗位，我们仍然非常健康，而且我们非常热爱我们的工作。
On September 16th we acquired Lubrizol, a worldwide producer of additives and other specialty chemicals. The company has had an outstanding record since James Hambrick became CEO in 2004, with pre-tax profits increasing from $147 million to $1,085 million. Lubrizol will have many opportunities for “bolt-on” acquisitions in the specialty chemical field. Indeed, we’ve already agreed to three, costing $493 million. James is a disciplined buyer and a superb operator. Charlie and I are eager to expand his managerial domain.

2011年9月16日，我们收购了路博润(Lubrizol)，这是一家全球性的添加剂及其它特殊化学品生产商。自2004年JamesHambrick担任CEO以来，该公司的业绩一直表现突出，税前利润从1.47亿增至10.85亿美元。Lubrizol公司在专业化学品领域将会拥有很多补强式并购机会。实际上，我们已经谈成了三个，共投入4.93亿美元。James Hambrick既是一个训练有素的收购者，又是一个出色的经营者。查理和我急切盼望能够扩大他的管理范围。
Our major businesses did well last year. In fact, each of our five largest non-insurance companies -- BNSF, Iscar, Lubrizol, Marmon Group and MidAmerican Energy -- delivered record operating earnings. In aggregate these businesses earned more than $9 billion pre-tax in 2011. Contrast that to seven years ago, when we owned only one of the five, MidAmerican, whose pre-tax earnings were $393 million. Unless the economy weakens in 2012, each of our fabulous five should again set a record, with aggregate earnings comfortably topping $10 billion.

去年我们旗下主要业务都表现出色。事实上，我们五大非保险企业BNSF，Iscar，Lubrizol，Marmon和中美能源都实现了创纪录的经营收益。2011年这些企业的税前收益合计超过90亿美元。相比之下，七年前我们只拥有中美能源一家，其税前收益为3.93亿美元。除非2012年经济衰退，否则我们这五家企业都将再创纪录，税前总收益将轻松超过100亿美元。
In total, our entire string of operating companies spent $8.2 billion for property, plant and equipment in 2011, smashing our previous record by more than $2 billion. About 95% of these outlays were made in the U.S., a fact that may surprise those who believe our country lacks investment opportunities. We welcome projects abroad, but expect the overwhelming majority of Berkshire’s future capital commitments to be in America. In 2012, these expenditures will again set a record.

总体而言，2011年我们所有的运营业务在房产厂房设备方面的资本支出高达82亿美元，比我们过去的历史记录还要多20亿美元。其中95%投在美国，这一事实或许会让那些认为美国缺乏投资机会的人非常震惊。我们也非常乐意在海外投资，但是我们期望伯克希尔未来绝大多数资本支出将在美国。2012年，这些资本支出将会再创新高。
Our insurance operations continued their delivery of costless capital that funds a myriad of other opportunities. This business produces “float” -- money that doesn’t belong to us, but that we get to invest for Berkshire’s benefit. And if we pay out less in losses and expenses than we receive in premiums, we additionally earn an underwriting profit, meaning the float costs us less than nothing. Though we are sure to have underwriting losses from time to time, we’ve now had nine consecutive years of underwriting profits, totaling about $17 billion. Over the same nine years our float increased from $41 billion to its current record of $70 billion. Insurance has been good to us.

我们的保险业务继续为无数其它投资机会提供无成本的资金。保险业务产生了"浮存金"，这是不属于我们的钱，但我们可以为伯克希尔的利益拿来进行投资。如果我们未来赔付和运营费用支出低于我们收取的保费，我们还能额外获得承保盈利，这意味着我们的保险浮存金的成本低于零。尽管我们肯定会不时出现承保亏损，但我们已经连续9年实现承保盈利，累计获利170亿美元。这9年期间，我们的浮存金从410亿美元增长到现在创记录的700亿美元。保险业务对我们来说简直太棒了。
Finally, we made two major investments in marketable securities: (1) a $5 billion 6% preferred stock of Bank of America that came with warrants allowing us to buy 700 million common shares at $7.14 per share any time before September 2, 2021; and (2) 63.9 million shares of IBM that cost us $10.9 billion. Counting IBM, we now have large ownership interests in four exceptional companies: 13.0% of American Express, 8.8% of Coca-Cola, 5.5% of IBM and 7.6% of Wells Fargo. (We also, of course, have many smaller, but important, positions.)

最后我们对有价证券市场进行了两笔主要投资：投资50亿美元买入美国银行年利率6%的优先股，附带可以在2021年9月2日前以每股7.14美元购买7亿股普通股的认股权证；投资109亿美元买入IBM公司6390万股股票。算上IBM，我们现在拥有四家特殊公司的大量股权：美国运通13%，可口可乐8.8%，富国银行7.6%，IBM5.5%。当然我们还拥有其它许多较小但重要的持仓。

We view these holdings as partnership interests in wonderful businesses, not as marketable securities to be bought or sold based on their near-term prospects. Our share of their earnings, however, are far from fully reflected in our earnings; only the dividends we receive from these businesses show up in our financial reports. Over time, though, the undistributed earnings of these companies that are attributable to our ownership are of huge importance to us. That’s because they will be used in a variety of ways to increase future earnings and dividends of the investee. They may also be devoted to stock repurchases, which will increase our share of the company’s future earnings.

我们把这些持股都视为伟大企业的部分合伙权益，而不是根据其近期前景而买卖的纸片。然而，我们在这些企业收益中应占的份额并未完全反映在我们的收益中，只有我们实际收到的股息才反映在我们的财务报表上。不过长期而言，这些公司归属于我们的未分配收益，对我们来说非常重要。这是因为它们将通过各种方式，进一步提高这些企业的未来收益和股息。它们也可能被用于股票回购，这将提高我们在企业未来收益中的份额。

Had we owned our present positions throughout last year, our dividends from the “Big Four” would have been $862 million. That’s all that would have been reported in Berkshire’s income statement. Our share of this quartet’s earnings, however, would have been far greater: $3.3 billion. Charlie and I believe that the $2.4 billion that goes unreported on our books creates at least that amount of value for Berkshire as it fuels earnings gains in future years. We expect the combined earnings of the four -- and their dividends as well -- to increase in 2012 and, for that matter, almost every year for a long time to come. A decade from now, our current holdings of the four companies might well account for earnings of $7 billion, of which $2 billion in dividends would come to us.

如果我们在去年全年持有目前的头寸，我们从四巨头获得的股息将是8.62亿美元。这就是伯克希尔损益表中可以报告的收益。然而，我们在这四家公司的收益中所占的份额要多得多: 33亿美元。查理和我相信，我们报表中未报告的24亿美元至少为伯克希尔创造了这么多的价值，因为它在未来几年将推动收益增长。我们预计，在2012年这四家公司的合并收益以及股息都将增长。因此，在未来很长一段时间内年年都将保持增长。十年后，我们目前持有的这四家公司的股份可能会为我们带来70亿美元的收益，其中有20亿美元为我们收到的股息。

I’ve run out of good news. Here are some developments that hurt us during 2011:

好消息我已经说完了。以下是一些在2011年给我们带来伤害的坏消息：
A few years back, I spent about $2 billion buying several bond issues of Energy Future Holdings, an electric utility operation serving portions of Texas. That was a mistake -- a big mistake. In large measure, the company’s prospects were tied to the price of natural gas, which tanked shortly after our purchase and remains depressed. Though we have annually received interest payments of about $102 million since our purchase, the company’s ability to pay will soon be exhausted unless gas prices rise substantially. We wrote down our investment by $1 billion in 2010 and by an additional $390 million last year.

几年前，我花了20亿美元购买了一家服务于得州部分地区的未来能源控股公司(Energy Futere Holdings)发行的债券。这是一个错误，而且是一个大错误。总体上看，这家公司的发展前景与天然气价格挂钩，而我们买入债券不久天然气价格就开始下跌，目前仍非常低迷。尽管我们买入后，每年都收到1.02亿美元的债券利息，但是这家公司支付利息的能力将会很快耗尽，除非天然气市场价格大幅上升。2010年我们减记了10亿美元，2011年又减记了3.9亿美元。

At yearend, we carried the bonds at their market value of $878 million. If gas prices remain at present levels, we will likely face a further loss, perhaps in an amount that will virtually wipe out our current carrying value. Conversely, a substantial increase in gas prices might allow us to recoup some, or even all, of our write-down. However things turn out, I totally miscalculated the gain/loss probabilities when I purchased the bonds. In tennis parlance, this was a major unforced error by your chairman.

在年底，我们持有的债券市值为8.78亿美元。如果天然气价格保持在目前的水平，我们很可能会面临进一步的损失，可能会使我们目前的账面价值化为乌有。相反，天然气价格的大幅上涨可能会让我们收回部分甚至全部减记。不管结果如何，我在购买债券时完全错误地估算了收益/损失的概率。用网球的话说，这是你的主席犯的一个重大的非受迫性错误。
Three large and very attractive fixed-income investments were called away from us by their issuers in 2011. Swiss Re, Goldman Sachs and General Electric paid us an aggregate of $12.8 billion to redeem securities that were producing about $1.2 billion of pre-tax earnings for Berkshire. That’s a lot of income to replace, though our Lubrizol purchase did offset most of it.

2011年，三笔规模庞大且非常具有吸引力的固定收益投资被发行人撤回。瑞士再保险(Swiss Re)、高盛和通用电气总共向我们支付了128亿美元以赎回这些证券，它们为伯克希尔创造了约12亿美元的税前收益。那可是一大笔收益需要填补，不过我们收购路博润确实抵消了大部分。
Last year, I told you that “a housing recovery will probably begin within a year or so.” I was dead wrong. We have five businesses whose results are significantly influenced by housing activity. The connection is direct at Clayton Homes, which is the largest producer of homes in the country, accounting for about 7% of those constructed during 2011.

去年我告诉你说："房地产可能会在未来1年左右开始复苏"。我实在是大错特错。我们旗下有5家企业的经营业绩受到住房市场活动的显著影响。其中影响最直接的是ClaytonHomes，它是美国最大的预制房屋生产商，在2011年建成的住宅中约占7%。

Additionally, Acme Brick, Shaw (carpet), Johns Manville (insulation) and MiTek (building products, primarily connector plates used in roofing) are all materially affected by construction activity. In aggregate, our five housing-related companies had pre-tax profits of $513 million in 2011. That’s similar to 2010 but down from $1.8 billion in 2006.

此外，Acme Brick(砖块)、Shaw(地毯)、Johns Manville(隔热材料)和MiTek(建筑产品，主要用于屋顶的连接件)都受房屋建设活动的严重影响。总体而言，2011年我们旗下与房屋建设密切相关的5家企业的税前利润只有5.13亿美元，与去年相当，但是相比2006年18亿美元的税前利润，下跌超过70%。

Housing will come back -- you can be sure of that. Over time, the number of housing units necessarily matches the number of households (after allowing for a normal level of vacancies). For a period of years prior to 2008, however, America added more housing units than households. Inevitably, we ended up with far too many units and the bubble popped with a violence that shook the entire economy. That created still another problem for housing: Early in a recession, household formations slow, and in 2009 the decrease was dramatic.

住房市场会回来的，这一点你可以肯定。随着时间的推移，住房单元的数量必然与家庭数量相匹配(考虑到正常的空置率水平)。然而，在2008年之前的一段时间里，美国新增的住房单元超过了家庭数量。不可避免的是，我们最终拥有了太多的住房单元，泡沫的破灭暴力地摧毁了整个经济。这又给住房市场带来了另一个问题：在经济衰退初期，家庭组建放缓，在2009年又大幅下降。

That devastating supply/demand equation is now reversed: Every day we are creating more households than housing units. People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over. And while “doubling-up” may be the initial reaction of some during a recession, living with in-laws can quickly lose its allure.

现在这种供给远超需求的毁灭性供需关系开始逆转：每天我们创造出的新的家庭数量都超过新增住房数量。在不确定的时期，人们也许会推迟结婚，但最终荷尔蒙会战胜一切。虽然与家庭亲属"合住"可能是在经济衰退期间有些人作出的最初反应，但是"合住"很快就会失去原来的吸引力。

At our current annual pace of 600,000 housing starts -- considerably less than the number of new households being formed -- buyers and renters are sopping up what’s left of the old oversupply. (This process will run its course at different rates around the country; the supply-demand situation varies widely by locale.) While this healing takes place, however, our housing-related companies sputter, employing only 43,315 people compared to 58,769 in 2006. This hugely important sector of the economy, which includes not only construction but everything that feeds off of it, remains in a depression of its own. I believe this is the major reason a recovery in employment has so severely lagged the steady and substantial comeback we have seen in almost all other sectors of our economy.

以我们现在每年60万套新房的开工速度，大幅低于新成立的家庭数量，购买方和租房者正在逐步消化过去过度建设的房屋库存。(这个消化过程将在美国各地以不同速度进行，各地供求关系也有很大差别。)然而，尽管这一复苏现象正在进行，但我们旗下与房屋建设市场相关的企业却仍然业务萎缩，雇员人数从2006年的58769人下降到2011年的43315人。房产行业是非常重要的经济部门，不仅仅包括建筑行业，还包括所有依赖于它，仍然处于衰退之中的行业。我们已经看到美国几乎所有经济部门都出现了持续稳定的显著复苏，但就业人数的复苏却仍然严重滞后的主要原因我认为就在这里。

Wise monetary and fiscal policies play an important role in tempering recessions, but these tools don’t create households nor eliminate excess housing units. Fortunately, demographics and our market system will restore the needed balance -- probably before long. When that day comes, we will again build one million or more residential units annually. I believe pundits will be surprised at how far unemployment drops once that happens. They will then reawake to what has been true since 1776: America’s best days lie ahead.

明智的货币和财政政策，在减缓衰退中发挥了重要作用，但是这些工具既不能创造出新的家庭，也不能消化过剩的房屋单元。幸运的是，人口统计数据和我们的市场体系将恢复必须的平衡，可能不久就会恢复。当那一天到来，我们将会再次每年建造100万套甚至更多的住房单元。我相信，一旦这种情况发生，那些专家学者们将会非常吃惊地发现失业率大幅下降。他们那时就会重新认识到自1776年以来始终不变的事实真相：美国最好的日子还在后头。

Intrinsic Business Value 企业内在价值

Charlie and I measure our performance by the rate of gain in Berkshire’s per-share intrinsic business value. If our gain over time outstrips the performance of the S&P 500, we have earned our paychecks. If it doesn’t, we are overpaid at any price.

查理和我衡量我们业绩的标准是，伯克希尔每股企业内在价值的增长率。如果随着时间的推移，我们的回报能够超过标普500指数的表现，那么我们才能对得起我们拿的薪水。如果我们没有做到，那么不管我们拿多少薪水都是过高了。

We have no way to pinpoint intrinsic value. But we do have a useful, though considerably understated , proxy for it: per-share book value. This yardstick is meaningless at most companies. At Berkshire, however, book value very roughly tracks business values. That’s because the amount by which Berkshire’s intrinsic value exceeds book value does not swing wildly from year to year, though it increases in most years. Over time, the divergence will likely become ever more substantial in absolute terms, remaining reasonably steady, however, on a percentage basis as both the numerator and denominator of the business-value/book-value equation increase.

我们无法精确确定内在价值。但是我们确实有一个可用(尽管有相当程度的低估)的替代指标：每股账面价值。对于大多数公司而言这个指标毫无意义。可是对于伯克希尔，账面价值能够大致地追踪企业内在价值的变化。这是因为伯克希尔的内在价值超越账面价值的金额并没有逐年剧烈波动，尽管在大多数年份超越的金额都在增加。随着时间的推移，两者的差额从绝对数值来看，可能会变得越来越大，但是随着内在价值/账面价值的分子分母的增加，其二者的比率将保持相对稳定。

We’ve regularly emphasized that our book-value performance is almost certain to outpace the S&P 500 in a bad year for the stock market and just as certainly will fall short in a strong up-year. The test is how we do over time. Last year’s annual report included a table laying out results for the 42 five-year periods since we took over at Berkshire in 1965 (i.e., 1965-69, 1966-70, etc.). All showed our book value beating the S&P, and our string held for 2007-11. It will almost certainly snap, though, if the S&P 500 should put together a five-year winning streak (which it may well be on its way to doing as I write this).

我们经常强调说，在股市表现糟糕的年份，我们的账面价值的表现几乎肯定会超越标普500指数，但在股市表现强劲的年份，我们的账面价值的表现也几乎肯定会落后于指数。真正考验我们的是其长期的表现如何。去年我在年报中列出了一张表，计算了自1965年我们接管伯克希尔以来42个5年为期的业绩表现(如1965-69年，1966-70年等等)，所有这些记录表明，我们的账面价值表现都战胜了标普500指数，而且我们的连胜记录也持续保持到了最近的2007-11年的5年期。不过，如果标普500指数连续5年保持上涨的话，这个成功记录很可能将被打破(在我写下这篇文章时股市可能正在这样做呢)。

I also included two tables last year that set forth the key quantitative ingredients that will help you estimate our per-share intrinsic value. I won’t repeat the full discussion here; you can find it reproduced on pages 99-100. To update the tables shown there, our per-share investments in 2011 increased 4% to $98,366, and our pre-tax earnings from businesses other than insurance and investments increased 18% to $6,990 per share.

去年我还列出了两张表格，罗列了那些将会帮助你估算伯克希尔每股内在价值的关键性的定量因素。在这里我就不再重复叙述了，你可以在年报后文中找到那些内容。表格中更新的数据是，2011年我们的每股投资增长了4%达到98366美元，来自保险和投资业务之外的每股经营性税前利润增长了18%达到了6990美元。

Charlie and I like to see gains in both areas, but our primary focus is on building operating earnings. Over time, the businesses we currently own should increase their aggregate earnings, and we hope also to purchase some large operations that will give us a further boost. We now have eight subsidiaries that would each be included in the Fortune 500 were they stand-alone companies. That leaves only 492 to go. My task is clear, and I’m on the prowl.

查理和我都希望能够在投资和经营两个方面都实现增长，但是我们关注的重点是提高经营性收益。长期而言，我们现在拥有业务的总收益将会进一步提高，我们也希望能收购一些大型企业，从而进一步推动我们业绩增长。我们现在有八家企业，如果它们做为独立的公司，每家都能进入财富500强。外面只有492家500强企业了。我的任务非常清楚，我正在搜寻猎物。

Share Repurchases 股票回购

Last September, we announced that Berkshire would repurchase its shares at a price of up to 110% of book value. We were in the market for only a few days -- buying $67 million of stock -- before the price advanced beyond our limit. Nonetheless, the general importance of share repurchases suggests I should focus for a bit on the subject.

2010年9月，我们宣布伯克希尔将会以账面价值的110%的价格回购自己的股票。我们在股票市场上只得到几天的买入机会，只回购了6700万美元股价就上涨超过我们的上限。尽管如此，考虑到股票回购的普遍重要性，我应该专门谈一下。

Charlie and I favor repurchases when two conditions are met: first, a company has ample funds to take care of the operational and liquidity needs of its business; second, its stock is selling at a material discount to the company’s intrinsic business value, conservatively calculated.

只有满足以下两个前提条件，查理和我才愿意回购股票：第一，公司有充足的资金，完全能够满足业务上的运营和流动性需求；第二，保守地估算，公司的股价相对于其内在价值有很大的折扣。

We have witnessed many bouts of repurchasing that failed our second test. Sometimes, of course, infractions -- even serious ones -- are innocent; many CEOs never stop believing their stock is cheap. In other instances, a less benign conclusion seems warranted. It doesn’t suffice to say that repurchases are being made to offset the dilution from stock issuances or simply because a company has excess cash. Continuing shareholders are hurt unless shares are purchased below intrinsic value. The first law of capital allocation -- whether the money is slated for acquisitions or share repurchases -- is that what is smart at one price is dumb at another. (One CEO who always stresses the price/value factor in repurchase decisions is Jamie Dimon at J.P. Morgan; I recommend that you read his annual letter.)

我们已经亲眼见证过很多起股票回购，但都不满足第二个回购条件。当然，有时违规行为(甚至是严重的违规)也是无辜的；许多CEO一直认为自己公司的股票是低估的。而在其它情况下，似乎可以得出一个不太好的结论。如果说回购股票是为了抵消股票发行引发的股权稀释，或是仅仅因为公司有太多富余的现金，这是完全没有说服力的。除非公司以低于内在价值的价格回购股票，否则，继续持股的股东的利益肯定受到损害。不管资金是用于收购企业还是用于回购股票，资本配置的第一定律都是，在一个价格上，聪明的一边永远对应着愚蠢的一边。

Charlie and I have mixed emotions when Berkshire shares sell well below intrinsic value. We like making money for continuing shareholders, and there is no surer way to do that than by buying an asset -- our own stock -- that we know to be worth at least x for less than that -- for .9x, .8x or even lower. (As one of our directors says, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, after the barrel has been drained and the fish have quit flopping.) Nevertheless, we don’t enjoy cashing out partners at a discount, even though our doing so may give the selling shareholders a slightly higher price than they would receive if our bid was absent. When we are buying, therefore, we want those exiting partners to be fully informed about the value of the assets they are selling.

查理和我看到伯克希尔的股价远低于内在价值时，内心的感受十分复杂。我们非常愿意为继续持股的股东多赚钱，而做到这一点最可靠的方法莫过于，当我们知道自己的股价只有内在价值的9折、8折甚至更低时，大力回购自己的股票。就像我们的一位董事所说，这就像在桶里射鱼，等到桶里的水流光以后，鱼也就不再扑腾了。尽管如此，我们并不喜欢折价回购合伙人的股票，即使我们这样做可以让他们卖的价格更高，因为如果我们不回购他们只能以更低的价格卖给别人。因此，当我们回购时，我们希望那些卖出的股东，能够充分了解他们所出售的资产的真实价值。

At our limit price of 110% of book value, repurchases clearly increase Berkshire’s per-share intrinsic value. And the more and the cheaper we buy, the greater the gain for continuing shareholders. Therefore, if given the opportunity, we will likely repurchase stock aggressively at our price limit or lower. You should know, however, that we have no interest in supporting the stock and that our bids will fade in particularly weak markets. Nor will we buy shares if our cash-equivalent holdings are below $20 billion. At Berkshire, financial strength that is unquestionable takes precedence over all else.

按照我们设定的最高110%账面价值的回购限价之下，回购显然会增加伯克希尔的每股内在价值。如果我们回购的越多越便宜，继续持股的股东获益就会越大。因此，一旦市场机会来临，我们可能会以我们最高限价或者更低的价格积极的回购股票。但是你们应当知道，我们没有任何兴趣去支撑股价。在特别低迷的市场，我们出价只会越来越低。如果我们持有的现金等价物低于200亿美元时，我们也不会回购股票。在伯克希尔，保持压倒性的财务实力毫无疑问高于一切。

This discussion of repurchases offers me the chance to address the irrational reaction of many investors to changes in stock prices. When Berkshire buys stock in a company that is repurchasing shares, we hope for two events: First, we have the normal hope that earnings of the business will increase at a good clip for a long time to come; and second, we also hope that the stock underperforms in the market for a long time as well. A corollary to this second point: “Talking our book” about a stock we own -- were that to be effective -- would actually be harmful to Berkshire, not helpful as commentators customarily assume.

这次股票回购的讨论，让我有机会谈一下很多投资者对于股价变化的非理性反应。当伯克希尔买入一家正在回购股票的公司时，我们希望两个事件能够发生：第一，我们通常希望，在未来很长一段时期内，公司的收益将以良好的速度持续增长；第二，我们同时也希望，公司的股价长期表现不佳。对于第二点必然导致产生下面的推论：如果市场是有效的，那么公开谈论我们持有股票，实际上对伯克希尔来说是有害的，而不是像很多评论人士通常认为的那样有益。

Let’s use IBM as an example. As all business observers know, CEOs Lou Gerstner and Sam Palmisano did a superb job in moving IBM from near-bankruptcy twenty years ago to its prominence today. Their operational accomplishments were truly extraordinary.

让我们以IBM为例。正如所有企业观察人士知道的那样，IBM前任两位CEO郭士纳(Lou Gerstner)和彭明盛(Sam Palmisano)做得非常出色，把公司从20年前几近破产的边缘挽救回来，到现在打造成了一个卓越的公司。他们的管理成就实在是卓越非凡。

But their financial management was equally brilliant, particularly in recent years as the company’s financial flexibility improved. Indeed, I can think of no major company that has had better financial management, a skill that has materially increased the gains enjoyed by IBM shareholders. The company has used debt wisely, made value-adding acquisitions almost exclusively for cash and aggressively repurchased its own stock.

但是，他们的财务管理同样做的非常出色，尤其是最近这些年公司的财务弹性大幅提升。事实上，我实在想不出有那家大公司拥有如此优异的财务管理技术，这显著增加了IBM股东们的投资收益。IBM明智地运用债务融资，几乎完全只用现金进行增加公司内在价值的企业并购，而且非常积极地回购自己的股票。

Today, IBM has 1.16 billion shares outstanding, of which we own about 63.9 million or 5.5%. Naturally, what happens to the company’s earnings over the next five years is of enormous importance to us. Beyond that, the company will likely spend $50 billion or so in those years to repurchase shares. Our quiz for the day: What should a long-term shareholder, such as Berkshire, cheer for during that period?

如今，IBM有11.6亿股流通股，其中我们持有5.5%约6390万股。当然，未来5年公司的盈利情况对我们来说非常重要。除此之外，在这5年公司准备花费500亿美元左右回购股票。我们今天的小测验是：在这段时间里，伯克希尔等长期股东应该为什么事情而欢呼？

I won’t keep you in suspense. We should wish for IBM’s stock price to languish throughout the five years.

我不会吊你胃口的。答案是：我们应该期望IBM未来5年的股价持续低迷下去。

Let’s do the math. If IBM’s stock price averages, say, $200 during the period, the company will acquire 250 million shares for its $50 billion. There would consequently be 910 million shares outstanding, and we would own about 7% of the company. If the stock conversely sells for an average of $300 during the five-year period, IBM will acquire only 167 million shares. That would leave about 990 million shares outstanding after five years, of which we would own 6.5%.

让我们来算算吧。如果在此期间IBM的平均股价为每股200美元，该公司将以500亿美元的价格回购2.5亿股股票。因此，将剩下约9.1亿股流通股，我们持有的6390万股所占的持股比例将会从现在的5.5%上升到约7%。如果股价走势相反，在5年内该股平均股价上涨为300美元，IBM将仅能回购1.67亿股。5年后，我们将拥有剩余9.9亿股流通股的6.5%。

If IBM were to earn, say, $20 billion in the fifth year, our share of those earnings would be a full $100 million greater under the “disappointing” scenario of a lower stock price than they would have been at the higher price. At some later point our shares would be worth perhaps $1.5 billion more than if the “high-price” repurchase scenario had taken place.

如果IBM在第5年的盈利达到200亿美元，那么在"令人失望"更低的股价情景下，我们在这些收益中所占的份额，将比股价更高的情景下，多出整整1亿美元。在未来的某个时候，我们的持股价值可能比"高价"回购情景发生时的价值，高出1.5亿美元。

The logic is simple: If you are going to be a net buyer of stocks in the future, either directly with your own money or indirectly (through your ownership of a company that is repurchasing shares), you are hurt when stocks rise. You benefit when stocks swoon. Emotions , however, too often complicate the matter: Most people, including those who will be net buyers in the future, take comfort in seeing stock prices advance. These shareholders resemble a commuter who rejoices after the price of gas increases, simply because his tank contains a day’s supply.

逻辑非常简单：如果将来你准备成为[股票的净买入者]，不管是用你自己的钱直接买入，还是通过持股一家正在回购股票的公司间接买入，股价上涨都会损害你的利益。股价低迷不振反而会增加你的利益。然而，感情因素往往会让事情复杂化：大多数人，包括那些将来会是股票净买入者的投资者，看到股价上涨就会感到内心非常舒服。这样的股东，就像一个天天开车上班的人，仅仅因为他的油箱还有一天的油量，就为油价上涨而欢呼。

Charlie and I don’t expect to win many of you over to our way of thinking -- we’ve observed enough human behavior to know the futility of that -- but we do want you to be aware of our personal calculus. And here a confession is in order: In my early days I, too, rejoiced when the market rose. Then I read Chapter Eight of Ben Graham’s The Intelligent Investor , the chapter dealing with how investors should view fluctuations in stock prices. Immediately the scales fell from my eyes, and low prices became my friend. Picking up that book was one of the luckiest moments in my life.

查理和我并不期望能让你们中多数人接受我们的思维方式，我们已经观察到了足够多的人类行为，深深知道这是徒劳的。但我们确实希望你们能够了解我们自己的计算逻辑。在这里我应该坦白的说：在我年轻的时候，也是一看到市场上涨就会非常高兴。后来我读了本·格雷厄姆写的《聪明的投资者》，第八章讲的是投资者应该如何看待股价的波动。我立刻两眼放光，低估值成了我的朋友。拿起那本书是我一生中最幸运的一刻。

In the end, the success of our IBM investment will be determined primarily by its future earnings. But an important secondary factor will be how many shares the company purchases with the substantial sums it is likely to devote to this activity. And if repurchases ever reduce the IBM shares outstanding to 63.9 million, I will abandon my famed frugality and give Berkshire employees a paid holiday.

最终，我们对IBM投资的成功将主要取决于其未来的收益。但一个非常重要的第二因素是，该公司用其准备投入的巨额资金回购了多少股份。如果回购使IBM的流通股减少至6390万股(只剩下我自己)，我将放弃我著名的节俭，给伯克希尔员工一个带薪假期。

Now, let’s examine the four major sectors of our operations. Each has vastly different balance sheet and income characteristics from the others. Lumping them together therefore impedes analysis. So we’ll present them as four separate businesses, which is how Charlie and I view them. Because we may be repurchasing Berkshire shares from some of you, we will offer our thoughts in each section as to how intrinsic value compares to carrying value.

现在，让我们来看看我们四大主要运营业务。由于各类业务之间资产负债表和利润表的特点差异巨大，把它们合并一起会妨碍分析。因此我们把它们作为四个独立的业务来展示，这也是查理和我看待这些业务的方式。因为我们可能会从你们有些股东手里回购股票，所以我们将会在每类业务分析中，提供我们自己对于内在价值和账面价值如何比较的思考。

Insurance 保险业务

Let’s look first at insurance, Berkshire’s core operation and the engine that has propelled our expansion over the years.

我们先来看看保险业务，这是伯克希尔的核心业务，也是多年来推动我们不断扩张的发动机。

Property-casualty (“P/C”) insurers receive premiums upfront and pay claims later. In extreme cases, such as those arising from certain workers’ compensation accidents, payments can stretch over decades. This collect-now, pay-later model leaves us holding large sums -- money we call “float” -- that will eventually go to others. Meanwhile, we get to invest this float for Berkshire’s benefit. Though individual policies and claims come and go, the amount of float we hold remains remarkably stable in relation to premium volume.

财产意外险保险公司先收取保费后支付索赔。在极端情况下，比如某些工人的事故赔偿，支付赔偿金可能长达几十年。这种"先收钱后赔付"的模式让我们能够持有巨额的资金，我们称其为"浮存金"，这些浮存金并不属于我们，最终将会进向别人的口袋。在持有期间，我们可以用这些浮存金进行投资，为伯克希尔赚取投资收益。尽管个人的保单和赔付进进出出，但我们持有的浮存金的总额相对保费收入的比例却非常稳定。

Consequently, as our business grows, so does our float. And how we have grown, as the following table shows:

因此，随着我们保险业务的增长，我们持有的浮存金也会相应增长。我们是如何增长的，请看下表：

Year	Float (in $ millions)
1970	$ 39
1980	237
1990	1,632
2000	27,871
2010	65,832
2011	70,571

It’s unlikely that our float will grow much -- if at all -- from its current level. That’s mainly because we already have an outsized amount relative to our premium volume. Were there to be a decline in float, I will add, it would almost certainly be very gradual and therefore impose no unusual demand for funds on us.

我们现在的浮存金规模超过700亿美元，未来就算有增长的话，也不太可能大幅增长。这主要是因为我们的浮存金相对于保费水平，其金额已经过大。我必须加以说明的是，即使未来浮存金出现下降的话，也几乎可能肯定是非常缓慢的下降，因此不会对我们造成不寻常的资金压力。

If our premiums exceed the total of our expenses and eventual losses, we register an underwriting profit that adds to the investment income our float produces. When such a profit occurs, we enjoy the use of free money -- and, better yet, get paid for holding it. Unfortunately, the wish of all insurers to achieve this happy result creates intense competition, so vigorous in most years that it causes the P/C industry as a whole to operate at a significant underwriting loss. For example, State Farm, by far the country’s largest insurer and a well-managed company besides, has incurred an underwriting loss in eight of the last eleven years. There are a lot of ways to lose money in insurance, and the industry is resourceful in creating new ones.

如果我们的保费收入超过我们的费用支出和最终理赔损失之和，在财务报表上就会体现为承保盈利，这将增加我们浮存金产生的投资收益。如果产生了承保盈利，我们就可以享受到无成本使用资金的好处，更好的是，我们因持有免费资金而获得收益。不幸的是，所有保险公司都希望能够取得如此美妙的结果，因此导致了激烈的竞争，在绝大多数年份里竞争如此激烈，以至于财产意外险行业整体承保严重亏损。例如，州立农业保险公司目前是美国最大的保险公司，而且经营管理良好，但在过去11年期间有8年发生承保亏损。保险行业有很多亏钱的办法，而且这个行业还在源源不断地创造出新的亏钱的办法。

As noted in the first section of this report, we have now operated at an underwriting profit for nine consecutive years, our gain for the period having totaled $17 billion. I believe it likely that we will continue to underwrite profitably in most -- though certainly not all -- future years. If we accomplish that, our float will be better than cost-free. We will profit just as we would if some party deposited $70.6 billion with us, paid us a fee for holding its money and then let us invest its funds for our own benefit.

正如年报第一部分所述，我们已经已经连续9年实现承保盈利，期间累计盈利高达170亿美元。我相信，我们很可能在未来多数年份(当然不是所有年份)继续实现承保盈利。如果我们做到了这一点，那么我们的浮存金成本要比无成本更低。我们肯定将会盈利，这就像有人在我们这里存了706亿美元的资金，而且支付我们一笔费用来持有这些资金，而且还让我们可以用这些资金进行投资，所得投资收益完全归我们自己。

So how does this attractive float affect intrinsic value calculations? Our float is deducted in full as a liability in calculating Berkshire’s book value, just as if we had to pay it out tomorrow and were unable to replenish it. But that’s an incorrect way to view float, which should instead be viewed as a revolving fund. If float is both costless and long-enduring, the true value of this liability is far lower than the accounting liability.

那么，这些非常吸引人的保险浮存金会如何影响内在价值的估算？在计算伯克希尔账面价值时，我们的浮存金全部做为负债进行扣减，就像我们必须明天就偿还而且再也不能重新借到同样多的负债一样对待。但是，用这种方式来看待浮存金是不正确的，相反应该把浮存金看作是一笔不断循环滚动的基金。如果浮存金既能够是无成本的，又能够是长期持续的，那么这种负债的真正价值远远低于会计报表上的负债数额。

Partially offsetting this overstated liability is $15.5 billion of “goodwill” attributable to our insurance companies that is included in book value as an asset. In effect, this goodwill represents the price we paid for the float-generating capabilities of our insurance operations. The cost of the goodwill, however, has no bearing on its true value. If an insurance business produces large and sustained underwriting losses, any goodwill asset attributable to it should be deemed valueless, whatever its original cost.

部分抵销这一高估负债的是我们保险公司的155亿"商誉"资产，它们作为一项资产计入账面价值。实际上，这种会计商誉只是代表我们为保险业务创造浮存金能力所支付的收购溢价。可是商誉的成本和它的真实价值并没有任何联系。如果一家保险公司发生了巨额的持续承保损失，那么无论其原始成本是多少，这些商誉资产都应该视为没有任何价值。

Fortunately, that’s not the case at Berkshire. Charlie and I believe the true economic value of our insurance goodwill -- what we would pay to purchase float of similar quality -- to be far in excess of its historic carrying value. The value of our float is one reason -- a huge reason -- why we believe Berkshire’s intrinsic business value substantially exceeds book value.

幸运的是，伯克希尔旗下的保险公司并非如此。查理和我相信，我们保险业商誉的真实经济价值，也就是我们购买创造同样品质的浮存金所需支付的价格，肯定远远超过其历史账面价值。我们的保险浮存金的巨大价值，是我们认为伯克希尔的内在价值大幅超越账面价值的一个原因，而且是一个重要原因。

Let me emphasize once again that cost-free float is not an outcome to be expected for the P/C industry as a whole: We don’t think there is much “Berkshire-quality” float existing in the insurance world. In most years, including 2011, the industry’s premiums have been inadequate to cover claims plus expenses. Consequently, the industry’s overall return on tangible equity has for many decades fallen far short of the average return realized by American industry, a sorry performance almost certain to continue. Berkshire’s outstanding economics exist only because we have some terrific managers running some extraordinary insurance operations. Let me tell you about the major units.

我要再次强调，无成本的浮存金并不是整个财产意外险行业的预期结果：我们认为在保险行业并没有太多公司拥有类似于伯克希尔品质的浮存金。在大多数年份，包括2011年，保险行业的保费收入并不足以覆盖赔付损失和费用支出。因此，保险行业的净有形资产回报率水平，数十年来一直远远低于美国企业整体水平，保险行业这种糟糕的业绩表现几乎肯定会持续下去。伯克希尔保险业务卓越非凡的经济效益之所以存在，是因为我们拥有一些非凡的经理人在经营着一些非凡的保险业务。下面让我来告诉你我们主要的保险企业。

First by float size is the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, run by Ajit Jain. Ajit insures risks that no one else has the desire or the capital to take on. His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most importantly, brains in a manner that is unique in the insurance business. Yet he never exposes Berkshire to risks that are inappropriate in relation to our resources. Indeed, we are far more conservative in that respect than most large insurers. For example, if the insurance industry should experience a $250 billion loss from some mega-catastrophe -- a loss about triple anything it has ever faced -- Berkshire as a whole would likely record a moderate profit for the year because of its many streams of earnings. Concurrently, all other major insurers and reinsurers would be far in the red, and some would face insolvency.

按照浮存金的规模排序，排名第一的是由阿吉特·贾因运营的伯克希尔再保险集团。阿吉特为那些其它任何保险公司没有意愿或者没有资本实力承担的风险提供保险。他在保险业务的操作以独一无二的方式，融和了能力、速度、决断力、以及最最重要的智力。但是他绝对不会把伯克希尔置于与我们拥有的资源不相匹配的高风险之中。事实上，在这一点上，我们比大多数大型保险公司要保守得多。例如，如果整个保险行业在某次巨灾中遭受2500亿美元的损失，这相当于保险业历史上最大损失的三倍，而伯克希尔作为一个整体，可能因为其众多的收益来源而录得温和的利润。而与此同时，所有其它主要大型保险公司和再保险公司都将出现巨额亏损，其中一些甚至面临破产。

From a standing start in 1985, Ajit has created an insurance business with float of $34 billion and significant underwriting profits, a feat that no CEO of any other insurer has come close to matching. By these accomplishments, he has added a great many billions of dollars to the value of Berkshire. Charlie would gladly trade me for a second Ajit. Alas, there is none.

从1985年开始，阿吉特创立了一家拥有340亿美元浮存金和可观的承保盈利的保险公司，这一成就是任何其他保险公司的CEO都无法企及的。通过这些成就，他为伯克希尔增加了数十亿美元的价值。查理很乐意用我来交换第二个阿吉特。哈哈，可惜世界上根本找不到第二个阿吉特。

We have another insurance powerhouse in General Re, managed by Tad Montross.

我们旗下还有另外一家实力强大的保险公司是通用再保险，由泰德·蒙特罗斯(Tad Montross)管理。

At bottom, a sound insurance operation needs to adhere to four disciplines. It must (1) understand all exposures that might cause a policy to incur losses; (2) conservatively evaluate the likelihood of any exposure actually causing a loss and the probable cost if it does; (3) set a premium that will deliver a profit, on average, after both prospective loss costs and operating expenses are covered; and (4) be willing to walk away if the appropriate premium can’t be obtained.

从根本上讲，一个强健的保险公司在业务运营上需要坚持四个原则：第一，必须了解所有可能会导致理赔损失的风险敞口；第二，必须保守的评估任何实际导致损失的风险敞口的概率以及可能的损失成本。(3)合理制定保费水平，以保证扣除预期赔付损失成本和运营费用之后，能够产生一个平均的承保收益。(4)如果不能收取适当的保费，宁愿选择放弃。

Many insurers pass the first three tests and flunk the fourth. They simply can’t turn their back on business that their competitors are eagerly writing. That old line, “The other guy is doing it so we must as well,” spells trouble in any business, but in none more so than insurance. Indeed, a good underwriter needs an independent mindset akin to that of the senior citizen who received a call from his wife while driving home. “Albert, be careful,” she warned, “I just heard on the radio that there’s a car going the wrong way down the Interstate.” “Mabel, they don’t know the half of it,” replied Albert, “It’s not just one car, there are hundreds of them.”

许多保险公司通过了前三项测试，但第四项不及格。他们根本无法放弃竞争对手正在热切承保的业务。有句老话说："其他人都在这么干，所以我们也必须这么干"，这在任何行业都意味着麻烦，但在保险行业尤甚。事实上，一个优秀的保险商，需要具备独立思考的心态，这就像开车回家接到妻子电话的老年人一样，她警告说，"Albert，开车小心点。我刚从广播里听说，有辆车在州际公路上逆行。"他回答说："Mabel，他们根本没有看清真相的另一半，不只是一辆车，而是有上百辆车在逆行"。

Tad has observed all four of the insurance commandments, and it shows in his results. General Re’s huge float has been better than cost-free under his leadership, and we expect that, on average, it will continue to be. In the first few years after we acquired it, General Re was a major headache. Now it’s a treasure.

泰德严格遵守了所有四条承保原则，这反映到他的经营业绩上。在他的领导下，通用再保持有的巨额浮存金成本比无成本更低。我们预计，未来平均而言这种情况仍将如此。在我们收购后的最初几年里，通用再保险是我们一个大麻烦，现在则是我们的大宝贝。

Finally, there is GEICO, the insurer on which I cut my teeth 61 years ago. GEICO is run by Tony Nicely, who joined the company at 18 and completed 50 years of service in 2011.

最后要谈的是GEICO保险公司， 61年前年轻的我就是通过投资这家保险公司开始领悟真正的投资之道。GEICO由托尼·莱斯利(TonyNicely)管理，他18岁就加入公司，到2011年已经为公司服务了整整50年。

GEICO’s much-envied record comes from Tony’s brilliant execution of a superb and almost-impossible-to-replicate business model. During Tony’s 18-year tenure as CEO, our market share has grown from 2.0% to 9.3%. If it had instead remained static -- as it had for more than a decade before he took over -- our premium volume would now be $3.3 billion rather than the $15.4 billion we attained in 2011. The extra value created by Tony and his associates is a major element in Berkshire’s excess of intrinsic value over book value.

GEICO令人羡慕的业绩记录，来自于托尼出色地运营着一个极棒的且几乎不可能复制的商业模式。在托尼担任CEO的18年期间，GEICO的市场份额从2.0%上升到9.3%。如果市场份额维持不变，就像他接手前的十几年那样，那么我们现在的保费收入将只是33亿美元，而不是2011年的154亿美元保费收入。托尼和他的同事们创造的超额价值，是伯克希尔内在价值超过账面价值的主要因素。

There is still more than 90% of the auto-insurance market left for GEICO to rake in. Don’t bet against Tony acquiring chunks of it year after year in the future. Our low costs permit low prices, and every day more Americans discover that the Gecko is doing them a favor when he urges them to visit GEICO.com for a quote. (Our lizard has another endearing quality: Unlike human spokesmen or spokeswomen who expensively represent other insurance companies, our little fellow has no agent.)

仍有超过90%的汽车保险市场份额等待GEICO去挖掘。千万不要打赌托尼未来不能做到年复一年地抢占大块市场份额。我们的低成本允许我们提供给客户更低的保险价格，因此，每天都会有越来越多的人发现，GEICO的吉祥物大蜥蜴Gecko正不断劝说他们，去访问GEICO.com查询汽车保险报价，这会让他们省下很多钱。(我们的大蜥蜴还有另外一个可爱的特质：和那些保险代理人或保险公司女性销售员不同，我们这个可爱的小家伙没有经纪人。)

In addition to our three major insurance operations, we own a group of smaller companies, most of them plying their trade in odd corners of the insurance world. In aggregate, their results have consistently been profitable and the float they provide us is substantial. Charlie and I treasure these companies and their managers.

除了这三家大型保险公司以外，我们旗下还有一群规模较小的的保险公司，它们的大部分专注于保险行业的一些细分领域。总体而言，他们一直保持承保盈利，而且为我们提供的浮存金规模相当大。查理和我非常珍视这些保险公司及其经理人。

At yearend, we acquired Princeton Insurance, a New Jersey writer of medical malpractice policies. This bolt-on transaction expands the managerial domain of Tim Kenesey, the star CEO of Medical Protective, our Indiana-based med-mal insurer. Princeton brings with it more than $600 million of float, an amount that is included in the following table.

2011年底我们收购了普林斯顿保险公司(Princeton Insurance)，这是一家新泽西的医疗事故保险公司。这一补强收购扩大了蒂姆(TimKenesey)的管理领域，他是我们位于印地安那州的Medical Protective保险公司的明星CEO。Princeton为我们带来了超过6亿美元的浮存金，这一数字也包括在下面的表格里。

Here is the record of all four segments of our property-casualty and life insurance businesses:

以下是我们所有四大块财产意外险和人寿保险业务的业绩摘要：

Insurance Operations	Underwriting Profit 2011 (in millions)	Underwriting Profit 2010 (in millions)	Yearend Float 2011 (in millions)	Yearend Float 2010 (in millions)
BH Reinsurance	$ (714)	$ 176	$ 33,728	$ 30,370
General Re	144	452	19,714	20,049
GEICO	576	1,117	11,169	10,272
Other Primary	242	268	5,960	5,141
	$ 248	$ 2,013	$ 70,571	$ 65,832

Among large insurance operations, Berkshire’s impresses me as the best in the world.

在所有大型保险公司中，我认为伯克希尔是世界上最好的保险公司。

Regulated, Capital-Intensive Businesses 受监管的资本密集型业务

We have two very large businesses, BNSF and MidAmerican Energy, that have important common characteristics distinguishing them from our many other businesses. Consequently, we assign them their own sector in this letter and also split out their combined financial statistics in our GAAP balance sheet and income statement.

我们拥有两家规模非常庞大的企业，BNSF铁路和中美能源，他们具有一些非常重要的共同特点，使得他们与我们旗下其他众多企业完全不同。因此，我们在这封信里把他们单独列为一个板块，而且在GAAP财务报表中也将他们两家的合并财务数据单独列报。

A key characteristic of both companies is the huge investment they have in very long-lived, regulated assets, with these partially funded by large amounts of long-term debt that is not guaranteed by Berkshire. Our credit is not needed: Both businesses have earning power that even under terrible business conditions amply covers their interest requirements. In a less than robust economy during 2011, for example, BNSF’s interest coverage was 9.5x. At MidAmerican, meanwhile, two key factors ensure its ability to service debt under all circumstances: The stability of earnings that is inherent in our exclusively offering an essential service and a diversity of earnings streams, which shield it from the actions of any single regulatory body.

这两家公司的一个关键特点是，它们对生命周期非常长期且受政府监管的资产，进行了巨额投资。其中部分资金来自于伯克希尔没有担保的巨额长期债务融资。它们并不需要伯克希尔的信用担保，因为它们具有强大的盈利能力，即使是在特别糟糕的经济环境下也能完全满足利息支付的资金需求。在2011年经济不太强劲的情况下，BNSF的利息保障倍数高达9.5倍。同时，在中美能源公司，两项关键指标确保了其在任何情况下都有偿付债务的能力：一个是由于我们专为提供必需的基础服务而具有的收益稳定性，另一个是多元化的收益来源，使其避免受到任何单一监管机构的行动影响。

Measured by ton-miles, rail moves 42% of America’s inter-city freight, and BNSF moves more than any other railroad -- about 37% of the industry total. A little math will tell you that about 15% of all inter-city ton-miles of freight in the U.S. is transported by BNSF. It is no exaggeration to characterize railroads as the circulatory system of our economy. Your railroad is the largest artery.

以吨公里计算，铁路运输承担了美国42%的城际货运，而BNSF的承运量超过了其它任何铁路公司，占到行业运输总量的37%。简单的算术就能发现，BNSF的运输量约占美国城际吨公里货运总量的15%。毫不夸张的说，铁路是我们经济的循环系统。而我们的铁路是最大的动脉。

All of this places a huge responsibility on us. We must, without fail, maintain and improve our 23, miles of track along with 13,000 bridges, 80 tunnels, 6,900 locomotives and 78,600 freight cars. This job requires us to have ample financial resources under all economic scenarios and to have the human talent that can instantly and effectively deal with the vicissitudes of nature, such as the widespread flooding BNSF labored under last summer.

这样的地位让我们肩负巨大的责任。我们必须毫无疑问的维护和改善我们拥有的23000公里长的铁路线，以及1.3万座桥，80条隧道，6900辆机车和78600节货运车厢。这项工作要求我们在所有经济环境下都必须保有充足的财务资源，而且具有充足的人力资源，能够保证及时地有效地应对自然界的无常变化，比如2011年BNSF遭受的大范围洪灾。

To fulfill its societal obligation, BNSF regularly invests far more than its depreciation charge, with the excess amounting to $1.8 billion in 2011. The three other major U.S. railroads are making similar outlays. Though many people decry our country’s inadequate infrastructure spending, that criticism cannot be levied against the railroad industry. It is pouring money -- funds from the private sector -- into the investment projects needed to provide better and more extensive service in the future. If railroads were not making these huge expenditures, our country’s publicly-financed highway system would face even greater congestion and maintenance problems than exist today.

为了履行其社会义务，BNSF定期投资规模远远大于其折旧费用，2011年投资超出折旧的金额更是高达18亿美元。美国其它三大铁路公司也都做出了类似的巨额投资。尽管许多人大声指责美国基础设施投入严重不足，但这种批评对于铁路行业来说并不公平。铁路行业从私人部门融入巨额资金注入投资项目，以在未来能够提供更好更广泛的服务。如果铁路公司没有做出这些巨大的投资支出，那么国家公共财政支持的公路系统将会面临更加严重的拥堵和维护问题。

Massive investments of the sort that BNSF is making would be foolish if it could not earn appropriate returns on the incremental sums it commits. But I am confident it will do so because of the value it delivers. Many years ago Ben Franklin counseled, “Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.” Translating this to our regulated businesses, he might today say, “Take care of your customer, and the regulator -- your customer’s representative -- will take care of you.” Good behavior by each party begets good behavior in return.

如果未来BNSF不能从其承诺的巨额增量投资中获得适当的回报，那么BNSF正在进行的这种巨额投资将会是非常愚蠢的。但我很相信BNSF将从其提供的服务价值中获得适当的回报。很多年前本杰明·富兰克林曾建议说："照顾好你的店，你的店也会照顾好你"。翻译这句话对应到我们的受监管业务，他今天可能会说："照顾好你的客户，你客户的代表也就是监管机构就会照顾好你"。每一方的良好行为都会换来对方良好的行为作为回报。

At MidAmerican, we participate in a similar “social compact.” We are expected to put up ever-increasing sums to satisfy the future needs of our customers. If we meanwhile operate reliably and efficiently, we know that we will obtain a fair return on these investments.

在中美能源公司，我们参与了一种类似的"社会契约"。我们预计将投入越来越多的资金来满足客户未来不断增长的需求。如果我们同时能够保持可靠且高效的运营，我们知道我们将从这些投资中获得公平合理的回报。

MidAmerican, 89.8% owned by Berkshire, supplies 2.5 million customers in the U.S. with electricity, operating as the largest supplier in Iowa, Utah and Wyoming and as an important provider in six other states as well. Our pipelines transport 8% of the country’s natural gas. Obviously, many millions of Americans depend on us every day. They haven’t been disappointed.

伯克希尔持有中美能源89.8%的股份，向美国250万客户提供电力，在爱荷华州、犹他州和怀俄明州是最大的电力供应商，也是其他6个州重要的电力供应商。我们的管道运输了美国8%的天然气。很明显，每天有数以百万的美国人依赖我们提供的服务。他们对我们的服务从来没有失望过。

When MidAmerican purchased Northern Natural Gas pipeline in 2002, that company’s performance as a pipeline was rated dead last, 43 out of 43, by the leading authority in the field. In the most recent report, Northern Natural was ranked second. The top spot was held by our other pipeline, Kern River.

中美能源在2002年收购北方天然管道公司时，行业内领先的权威机构对这家公司的管道业务表现评级极差，在业内43家公司中排名最后一名。而在最新一期报告中，北方天然已经排名第2。排名第一的是我们旗下的另一条管道科恩河管道公司。

In its electric business, MidAmerican has a comparable record. In the most recent survey of customer satisfaction, MidAmerican’s U.S. utilities ranked second among 60 utility groups surveyed. The story was far different not many years back when MidAmerican acquired these properties.

在电力业务上，中美能源也拥有类似于天然气业务的优秀表现。在最近的客户满意度调查中，中美能源旗下的美国公用事业业务在60家公用事业机构中排名第2。而这一切与多年前中美能源收购这些公用事业资产时相比差异巨大。

MidAmerican will have 3,316 megawatts of wind generation in operation by the end of 2012, far more than any other regulated electric utility in the country. The total amount that we have invested or committed to wind is a staggering $6 billion. We can make this sort of investment because MidAmerican retains all of its earnings, unlike other utilities that generally pay out most of what they earn. In addition, late last year we took on two solar projects -- one 100%-owned in California and the other 49%-owned in Arizona -- that will cost about $3 billion to construct. Many more wind and solar projects will almost certainly follow.

到2012年底，中美能源的风力发电量将会达到3316兆瓦，远远超过美国其他任何一家受到政府管制的电力企业。我们对风能的投资以及承诺的项目总额达到惊人的60亿美元。我们之所以能够做出如此规模巨大的投资，是因为中美能源保留了所有的利润，而不是像其他公用事业企业那样把大部分的利润都分配给了股东。此外，2011年底我们承接了2个太阳能项目，一个是我们100%持股的位于加州的项目，另一个我们持股49%的位于亚利桑那州的项目，这两个项目建设成本约30亿美元。我们未来几乎肯定还会有更多的风能和太阳能项目。

As you can tell by now, I am proud of what has been accomplished for our society by Matt Rose at BNSF and by Greg Abel at MidAmerican. I am also both proud and grateful for what they have accomplished for Berkshire shareholders. Below are the relevant figures:

正如你所看到的，我为BNSF铁路的MattRose和中美能源的GregAbel为社会做出的贡献感到非常骄傲。我对他们为伯克希尔股东们做出的贡献既非常骄傲也非常感谢。以下是相关的经营业绩：

MidAmerican	Earnings 2011 (in millions)	Earnings 2010 (in millions)
U.K. utilities	$ 469	$ 333
Iowa utility	279	279
Western utilities	771	783
Pipelines	388	378
HomeServices	39	42
Other (net)	36	47
Operating earnings before corporate interest and taxes	1,982	1,862
Interest, other than to Berkshire	(323)	(323)
Interest on Berkshire junior debt	(13)	(30)
Income tax	(315)	(271)
Net earnings	$ 1,331	$ 1,238
Earnings applicable to Berkshire*	$ 1,204	$ 1,131

* Includes interest earned by Berkshire (net of related income taxes) of $8 in 2011 and $19 in 2010.

BNSF (Historical accounting through 2/12/10; purchase accounting subsequently)	2011 (in millions)	2010 (in millions)
Revenues	$ 19,548	$ 16,850
Operating earnings	5,310	4,495
Interest (Net)	560	507
Pre-Tax earnings	4,741	3,988
Net earnings	2,972	2,459

In the book value recorded on our balance sheet, BNSF and MidAmerican carry substantial goodwill components totaling $20 billion. In each instance, however, Charlie and I believe current intrinsic value is far greater than book value.

在我们的资产负债表的账面价值中，BNSF和中美能源的商誉账面价值总计200亿美元。然而查理和我都相信现在这两家公司任何一家的内在价值都远远高于账面价值。

Manufacturing, Service and Retailing Operations 制造、服务和零售业务

Our activities in this part of Berkshire cover the waterfront. Let’s look, though, at a summary balance sheet and earnings statement for the entire group.

伯克希尔这个板块的业务可以说是面面俱到包罗万象。不过让我们先看一下整体的资产负债表和利润表。

Balance Sheet 12/31/11 (in millions)

Assets	--	Liabilities and Equity	--
Cash and equivalents	$ 4,241	Notes payable	$ 1,611
Accounts and notes receivable	6,584	Other current liabilities	15,124
Inventory	8,975	Total current liabilities	16,735
Other current assets	631
Total current assets	20,431
		Deferred taxes	4,661
Goodwill and other intangibles	24,755	Term debt and other liabilities	6,214
Fixed assets	17,866	Non-controlling interests	2,410
Other assets	3,661	Berkshire equity	36,693
	$ 66,713		$ 66,713

Earnings Statement (in millions)

	2011**	2010	2009
Revenues	$ 72,406	$ 66,610	$ 61,665
Operating expenses (including depreciation of $1,431 in 2011, $1,362 in 2010 and $1,422 in 2009)	67,239	62,225	59,509
Interest expense	130	111	98
Pre-tax earnings	5,037*	4,274*	2,058*
Income taxes and non-controlling interests	1,998	1,812	945
Net earnings	$ 3,039	$ 2,462	$ 1,113

* Does not include purchase-accounting adjustments.

** Includes earnings of Lubrizol from September 16.

This group of companies sells products ranging from lollipops to jet airplanes. Some of the businesses enjoy terrific economics, measured by earnings on unleveraged net tangible assets that run from 25% after-tax to more than 100%. Others produce good returns in the area of 12-20%. A few, however, have very poor returns, a result of some serious mistakes I made in my job of capital allocation. These errors came about because I misjudged either the competitive strength of the business being purchased or the future economics of the industry in which it operated. I try to look out ten or twenty years when making an acquisition, but sometimes my eyesight has been poor. Charlie’s has been better; he voted no more than “present” on several of my errant purchases.

这个板块包括多家公司，销售的产品包括从棒棒糖到喷气飞机。有些企业享有极其出色的竞争优势，以非财务杠杆的净有形资产收益率衡量，高达25%甚至100%以上。其他一些企业这种收益率则在12-20%之间。但是也有少数企业回报率非常糟糕，这是因为我在资本配置工作中犯下了一些严重的错误。我之所以犯下这些错误，是因为我错误地判断这些被收购企业未来的竞争优势，或者错误判断这些企业所在行业的未的经济前景。我在投资时会努力看清楚企业未来10年或20年的发展前景，但有时我的判断非常糟糕。查理做的比我要好一些，他对我的一些错误收购投了反对票，而不是仅仅"列席"会议。

Berkshire’s newer shareholders may be puzzled over our decision to hold on to my mistakes. After all, their earnings can never be consequential to Berkshire’s valuation, and problem companies require more managerial time than winners. Any management consultant or Wall Street advisor would look at our laggards and say “dump them.”

我们决定继续持有我错误收购的那些企业，这可能会让伯克希尔的新股东感到迷惑不解。毕竟这些公司的收益永远不会对伯克希尔的整体估值产生助力，而且有问题的公司要比优秀的公司需要我们付出更多的管理时间。任何一个管理咨询顾问或或华尔街投资顾问，都会看着我们这些已经成为累赘的公司说："甩掉他们吧"。

That won’t happen. For 29 years, we have regularly laid out Berkshire’s economic principles in these reports (pages 93-98) and Number 11 describes our general reluctance to sell poor performers (which, in most cases, lag because of industry factors rather than managerial shortcomings). Our approach is far from Darwinian, and many of you may disapprove of it. I can understand your position. However, we have made -- and continue to make -- a commitment to the sellers of businesses we buy that we will retain those businesses through thick and thin. So far, the dollar cost of that commitment has not been substantial and may well be offset by the goodwill it builds among prospective sellers looking for the right permanent home for their treasured business and loyal associates. These owners know that what they get with us can’t be delivered by others and that our commitments will be good for many decades to come.

我们是不会这么做的。过去29年来，我们一直在年报中定期阐述伯克希尔的经营原则，其中第11条讲的是，我们一般情况不愿卖掉业绩表现糟糕的公司(大多数情况下业绩表现落后是因为行业因素而不是管理缺陷)。我们的做法与达尔文主义者相差甚远，你们很多人可能并不赞同。我可以理解你们的看法。但是，我们曾经并将继续向我们收购的企业卖家承诺，在任何情况下，我们都将不惜一切代价继续保留这些公司。到目前为止，坚守这些承诺而付出的金钱成本并不算高，而且很可能会被我们在潜在企业出售者中建立的良好声誉而抵销，因为这些卖家是想为他们所珍视的业务和忠实的伙伴寻找一个合适且永久的归宿。这些企业所有人知道，他们从我们这里能够得到其他任何人都无法给予的承诺，我们对他们的承诺未来数十年都将忠诚不变。

Please understand, however, that Charlie and I are neither masochists nor Pollyannas. If either of the failings we set forth in Rule 11 is present -- if the business will likely be a cash drain over the longer term, or if labor strife is endemic -- we will take prompt and decisive action. Such a situation has happened only a couple of times in our 47-year history, and none of the businesses we now own is in straits requiring us to consider disposing of it.

但是请你们理解，查理和我既不是愿意长期忍受亏损的受虐狂，也不是盲目乐观的乐天派。如果我们制定的第11条规则中的任何一个缺点出现——如果这些企业可能未来长期都是一个吞金兽，或如果劳资冲突非常激烈，我们将迅速果断的彻底放弃这些企业。在我们过去47年的经营历史中，这种情况只发生过几次，而且我们现在拥有的企业没有一家由于陷入困境而要求我们必须考虑放弃。

The steady and substantial comeback in the U.S. economy since mid-2009 is clear from the earnings shown at the front of this section. This compilation includes 54 of our companies. But one of these, Marmon, is itself the owner of 140 operations in eleven distinct business sectors. In short, when you look at Berkshire, you are looking across corporate America. So let’s dig a little deeper to gain a greater insight into what has happened in the last few years.

从前面的利润表列示的数据可以看出，美国经济从2009年中期以来正在稳步大幅复苏。这个业务部门总共包括54家公司。但是其中Marmon集团就在11个各不相同的行业中拥有140家企业。简而言之，当你分析伯克希尔的时候，实际上就是在分析整个美国企业界。所以，让我们进一步深入分析过去几年发生了什么变化。

The four housing-related companies in this section (a group that excludes Clayton, which is carried under Finance and Financial Products) had aggregate pre-tax earnings of $227 million in 2009, $362 million in 2010 and $359 million in 2011. If you subtract these earnings from those in the combined statement, you will see that our multiple and diverse non-housing operations earned $1,831 million in 2009, $3,912 million in 2010 and $4,678 million in 2011. About $291 million of the 2011 earnings came from the Lubrizol acquisition. The profile of the remaining 2011 earnings -- $4,387 million -- illustrates the comeback of much of America from the devastation wrought by the 2008 financial panic. Though housing-related businesses remain in the emergency room, most other businesses have left the hospital with their health fully restored.

这个业务部门中有四个与房地产相关的公司(不包括Clayton公司，我们将其归入金融和金融产品部分)，过去3年税前收益分别是：2009年2.27亿美元，2010年3.62亿美元，2011年3.59亿美元。如果把这四家与房地产相关的公司从整个板块合并报表中扣除，你会发现我们多元化的非房产相关业务过去3年的经营收益分别是：2009年18.31亿美元，2010年39.12亿美元，2011年46.78亿美元。2011年约有2.91亿美元收益来自于收购的路博润公司。但是2011年剩余的收益为43.87亿美元，这说明美国大部分行业已经从2008年金融危机造成的打击中复苏过来。虽然房地产相关行业还停留在急诊室，但其他大多数行业都已经出院并完全康复。

Almost all of our managers delivered outstanding performances last year, among them those managers who run housing-related businesses and were therefore fighting hurricane-force headwinds. Here are a few examples:

2011年我们旗下几乎所有的经理人都取得了优秀的业绩，其中包括管理房地产相关企业的经理人，他们正在与抵御飓风般的经营阻力。以下是其中几个做得非常优秀的经理人：

Vic Mancinelli again set a record at CTB, our agricultural equipment operation. We purchased CTB in 2002 for $139 million. It has subsequently distributed $180 million to Berkshire, last year earned $124 million pre-tax and has $109 million in cash. Vic has made a number of bolt-on acquisitions over the years, including a meaningful one he signed up after yearend.

VicMancinelli领导CTB公司再次创下新纪录。CTB是我们的农业设备生产企业。我们在2002年以1.39亿美元收购了CTB公司。收购之后这几年CTB总共向伯克希尔分配了1.8亿美元股利，2011年税前收益为1.24亿美元，而且账上拥有1.09亿美元的现金。VicMancinelli在过去几年又进行了多次补强型并购，其中包括2011年底他刚刚签署的一项有意义的并购。
TTI, our electric components distributor, increased its sales to a record $2.1 billion, up 12.4% from 2010. Earnings also hit a record, up 127% from 2007, the year in which we purchased the business. In 2011, TTI performed far better than the large publicly-traded companies in its field. That’s no surprise: Paul Andrews and his associates have been besting them for years. Charlie and I are delighted that Paul negotiated a large bolt-on acquisition early in 2012. We hope more follow.

TTI公司是我们旗下一家电子元件分销商，2011年销售收入增加到21亿美元，比2010年增长了12.4%。收益也创下新高，比2007年我们收购的第一年增长了127%。2011年TTI公司的业绩表现远远好于该领域的大型上市公司。这一点也不让人感到意外，因为保罗(PaulAndrews)和他的团队已经连续很多年都打败了他们。查理和我很高兴得知保罗在2012年初谈成了一项规模很大的补强型并购。我们期待以后他做出更多收购。
Iscar, our 80%-owned cutting-tools operation, continues to amaze us. Its sales growth and overall performance are unique in its industry. Iscar’s managers -- Eitan Wertheimer, Jacob Harpaz and Danny Goldman -- are brilliant strategists and operators. When the economic world was cratering in November 2008, they stepped up to buy Tungaloy, a leading Japanese cutting-tool manufacturer. Tungaloy suffered significant damage when the tsunami hit north of Tokyo last spring. But you wouldn’t know that now: Tungaloy went on to set a sales record in 2011. I visited the Iwaki plant in November and was inspired by the dedication and enthusiasm of Tungaloy’s management, as well as its staff. They are a wonderful group and deserve your admiration and thanks.

ISCAR是我们拥有80%股份的一家金属切割工具公司，其业绩表现一直让我们感到震惊，销售增长和整体业绩表现在其所在行业中是独一无二的。ISCAR的经理人EitanWertheimer、JacobHarpaz和DannyGoldman是杰出的战略家和经营者。2008年11月在全球经济遭受困境时，他们却逆向收购了日本领先的切削工具制造商Tungaloy。2011年春天海啸突袭东京北部时，Tungaloy遭受严重毁坏。但是你绝对不会想到现在的情形：Tungaloy在2011年创下新的销售纪录。我在2011年11月参观了他们在Iwaki的工厂，Tungaloy管理层及其员工的热情和奉献精神深深打动了我。他们是一个非常杰出的团队，值得我们表示尊敬和感谢。
McLane, our huge distribution company that is run by Grady Rosier, added important new customers in 2011 and set a pre-tax earnings record of $370 million. Since its purchase in 2003 for $1.5 billion, the company has had pre-tax earnings of $2.4 billion and also increased its LIFO reserve by $230 million because the prices of the retail products it distributes (candy, gum, cigarettes, etc.) have risen. Grady runs a logistical machine second to none. You can look for bolt-ons at McLane, particularly in our new wine-and-spirits distribution business.

McLance是我们旗下的大型分销公司，由GradyRosier运营，在2011年又新增了一些新的重要客户，并创下3.7亿美元的税前盈利纪录。自2003年以15亿美元收购以来，公司累计税前收益为24亿美元，而且由于它们分销的零售商品(糖果、口香糖、香烟等)价格上涨导致其后进先出的存货规模增加了2.3亿美元。在管理运营物流企业方面，没有人能够比得上Grady。McLance未来可能会有一些补强型并购，特别是在我们新进入的葡萄酒和烈酒分销业务上。
Jordan Hansell took over at NetJets in April and delivered 2011 pre-tax earnings of $227 million. That is a particularly impressive performance because the sale of new planes was slow during most of the year. In December, however, there was an uptick that was more than seasonally normal. How permanent it will be is uncertain.

JordanHansell在2011年4月份接管Netjets公司，其2011年税前收益为2.27亿美元。这是一个特别出色的业绩表现，因为在过去一年里大多数时间里，新飞机的的分时所有权销售都增长缓慢。不过12月销售出现了高于季节性正常水平的上升，但这种销售上升能持续多久还无法确定。

A few years ago NetJets was my number one worry: Its costs were far out of line with revenues, and cash was hemorrhaging. Without Berkshire’s support, NetJets would have gone broke. These problems are behind us, and Jordan is now delivering steady profits from a well-controlled and smoothly-running operation. NetJets is proceeding on a plan to enter China with some first-class partners, a move that will widen our business “moat.” No other fractional-ownership operator has remotely the size and breadth of the NetJets operation, and none ever will. NetJets’ unrelenting focus on safety and service has paid off in the marketplace.

几年之前，NetJets是我最为担忧的企业，因为它的成本支出远远超过其收入，现金一直大量失血。如果没有伯克希尔的支持，NetJets早就破产了。现在这些问题已经过去了，Jordan正从一个成本控制良好运转顺畅的企业中稳定地创造利润。NetJests正与一些一流合作伙伴合作计划进入中国市场，此举将进一步拓宽我们的业务"护城河"。现在没有其他任何一家分时所有权航空企业能够具有NetJets如此庞大的运营规模和广阔的市场范围，未来也不会有。NetJets长期坚持不懈专注于安全和服务在市场上终于获得了回报。
It’s a joy to watch Marmon’s progress under Frank Ptak’s leadership. In addition to achieving internal growth, Frank regularly makes bolt-on acquisitions that, in aggregate, will materially increase Marmon’s earning power. (He did three, costing about $270 million, in the last few months.) Joint ventures around the world are another opportunity for Marmon. At midyear Marmon partnered with the Kundalia family in an Indian crane operation that is already delivering substantial profits. This is Marmon’s second venture with the family, following a successful wire and cable partnership instituted a few years ago.

我们很高兴看到Marmon公司在FrankPtak的领导下取得的进步。除了取得了内部增长以外，Frank还定期进行补强型并购，这些并购总体上将会显著增加Marmon公司的盈利能力。他在过去几个月里就花费约2.7亿美元收购了三家公司。在全球范围内成立合资企业是Marmon另外一个发展机会。2011年中Marmon公司与Kundalia家族合作成立了一家印度起重机公司，目前已经产生了可观的盈利。这是Marmon与这个家族合作成立的第二个合资企业，几家之前他们合资的电线电缆公司非常成功。

Of the eleven major sectors in which Marmon operates, ten delivered gains in earnings last year. You can be confident of higher earnings from Marmon in the years ahead.

在Marmon经营的11个主要行业中，有10个行业在过去一年都取得了盈利。你应该对Marmon未来几年取得更高的收益充满信心。
“Buy commodities, sell brands” has long been a formula for business success. It has produced enormous and sustained profits for Coca-Cola since 1886 and Wrigley since 1891. On a smaller scale, we have enjoyed good fortune with this approach at See’s Candy since we purchased it 40 years ago.

"采购大宗商品，销售品牌产品"，长期以来都是一个企业经营成功的秘诀。自1886年成立的可口可乐和自1891年成立的箭牌，这个秘诀让它们创造出巨大且持续的利润。自40年前我们收购喜诗糖果开始，我们也享受了喜诗糖果运用这个方法创造的高回报，尽管喜诗的规模要小得多。

Last year See’s had record pre-tax earnings of $83 million, bringing its total since we bought it to $1.65 billion. Contrast that figure with our purchase price of $25 million and our yearend carrying-value (net of cash) of less than zero. (Yes, you read that right; capital employed at See’s fluctuates seasonally, hitting a low after Christmas.) Credit Brad Kinstler for taking the company to new heights since he became CEO in 2006.

去年喜诗糖果的税前收益达到创纪录的8300万美元，使得我们收购以来累计盈利达到了16.5亿美元。相比之下我们的收购价格只有2500万美元，而且年末扣除现金后的账面价值小于零。是的，你没看错，喜诗使用的资本季节性波动很大，圣诞节之后会达到最低点。这一切都要归功于BradKinstler，从2006年他接任CEO之后带领这家公司不断达到新的高度。
Nebraska Furniture Mart (80% owned) set an earnings record in 2011, netting more than ten times what it did in 1983, when we acquired our stake.

我们持股80%的内布拉斯加家具商城NFM在2011年创下新的盈利纪录，是1983年我们收购时的十倍以上。

But that’s not the big news. More important was NFM’s acquisition of a 433-acre tract north of Dallas on which we will build what is almost certain to be the highest-volume home-furnishings store in the country. Currently, that title is shared by our two stores in Omaha and Kansas City, each of which had record-setting sales of more than $400 million in 2011. It will be several years before the Texas store is completed, but I look forward to cutting the ribbon at the opening. (At Berkshire, the managers do the work; I take the bows.)

但这还不算是大新闻。更重要的是，NFM收购了达拉斯北部的433英亩的大片土地，我们将会在此建造几乎可以肯定是全美最大的家具商城。目前全美最大的家具商店是我们在奥马哈和堪萨斯的两家分店，两家商场在2011年都创下了超过4亿美元的销售纪录。德州的这家商场还需几年才能建成，但是我现在就盼望着去参加开业剪彩。在伯克希尔，经理人负责干活，我负责接受喝彩和表扬。

Our new store, which will offer an unequalled variety of merchandise sold at prices that can’t be matched, will bring huge crowds from near and far. This drawing power and our extensive holdings of land at the site should enable us to attract a number of other major stores. (If any high-volume retailers are reading this, contact me.)

我们的新店将提供无与伦比的商品种类和低价格，肯定会吸引无数远近的客户蜂拥而来。如此巨大的客户吸引力，再加上我们在这个地方拥有的大量土地，肯定能够使我们吸引很多大型卖家加入。(任何销量很大的零售商读到这封信，有兴趣的请与我联系。)

Our experience with NFM and the Blumkin family that runs it has been a real joy. The business was built by Rose Blumkin (known to all as “Mrs. B”), who started the company in 1937 with $500 and a dream. She sold me our interest when she was 89 and worked until she was 103. (After retiring, she died the next year, a sequence I point out to any other Berkshire manager who even thinks of retiring.)

我们和NFM以及管理层Blumkin家族相处得都非常愉快。1937年，RoseBlumkin(人称B夫人)创办了这家企业，当时她只有500美元和一个梦想。她89岁的时候把公司80%的股份卖给了我，又一直工作到103岁。(她退休后仅仅一年就去世了。我经常把这个退休的严重后果告诉伯克希尔公司里面任何一个想要退休的经理人)。

Mrs. B’s son, Louie, now 92, helped his mother build the business after he returned from World War II and, along with his wife, Fran, has been my friend for 55 years. In turn, Louie’s sons, Ron and Irv, have taken the company to new heights, first opening the Kansas City store and now gearing up for Texas.

B夫人的儿子Louie，现在已经92岁了，他从二战后退伍回家后帮助他的母亲创办了这家企业，他和他的妻子Fran过去55年来一直都是我的朋友。后来，Louie的儿子Ron和Irv将公司带到了新的高度，他们先是在堪萨斯开设一家分店，现在又准备进军德州。

The “boys” and I have had many great times together, and I count them among my best friends. The Blumkins are a remarkable family. Never inclined to let an extraordinary gene pool go to waste, I am rejoicing these days because several members of the fourth Blumkin generation have joined NFM.

这两个"男孩"和我一起度过了很多美好的时光，我把他们看作是我最好的朋友。Blumkins家族是一个了不起的家族。我从来不会让这个家族非凡的基因浪费掉，最近Blumkin家族第四代中有几位已经加入了NFM，这让我感到非常高兴。

Overall, the intrinsic value of the businesses in this Berkshire sector significantly exceeds their book value. For many of the smaller companies, however, this is not true. I have made more than my share of mistakes buying small companies. Charlie long ago told me, “If something’s not worth doing at all, it’s not worth doing well,” and I should have listened harder. In any event, our large purchases have generally worked well -- extraordinarily well in a few cases -- and overall this sector is a winner for us.

总体而言，伯克希尔旗下这一板块的内在价值大大超过它们的账面价值。可是对于其中很多规模较小的公司而言，情况并非如此。我在收购小公司上犯下了更多的错误。查理很早以前就告诉过我，"如果有些事情根本就不值得去做，那就不值得做好"。我本应该更加认真地听从他的话去做。我们在大型企业收购方面做的不错，其中有几个表现极好，总体上，我们在这个业务部分是个大赢家。

Certain shareholders have told me they hunger for more discussions of accounting arcana. So here’s a bit of GAAP-mandated nonsense I hope both of them enjoy.

有些股东告诉我，他们渴望在我每年写的信中看到更多关于会计奥秘的讨论。所以在这里有一些关于公认会计准则(GAAP)规定的荒谬，我希望大家能够喜欢。

Common sense would tell you that our varied subsidiaries should be carried on our books at their cost plus the earnings they have retained since our purchase (unless their economic value has materially decreased, in which case an appropriate write-down must be taken). And that’s essentially the reality at Berkshire -- except for the weird situation at Marmon.

常识会告诉你，我们各个子公司入账时，应该用我们的收购成本加上自收购以来的留存收益(除非其经济价值大幅减少，在这种情况下必须进行适当的减记)。这基本上符合的伯克希尔的实际情况，不过Marmon是一个非常奇怪的例外情况。

We purchased 64% of the company in 2008 and put this interest on our books at our cost, $4.8 billion. So far, so good. Then, in early 2011, pursuant to our original contract with the Pritzker family, we purchased an additional 16%, paying $1.5 billion as called for by a formula that reflected Marmon’s increased value. In this instance, however, we were required to immediately write off $614 million of the purchase price retroactive to the end of 2010. (Don’t ask!) Obviously, this write-off had no connection to economic reality. The excess of Marmon’s intrinsic value over its carrying value is widened by this meaningless write-down.

我们在2008年收购了Marmon公司64%的股份，在我们账上记录了48亿美元的收购成本。到目前为止一切顺利。然后在2011年初期，按照我们原先跟Pritzker家族签订的协议，又购买了其16%的股份，并按照一个能反映Marmon增值的公式所计算的支付了15亿美元。可是在这种情况下，GAAP却要求我们把追溯到2010年底的收购价格减记6.14亿美元。(不要提出任何疑问！)很显然这种减记与经济现实毫无关系。由于这种毫无意义的减记，导致Marmon的内在价值与其账面价值之间的差额进一步扩大了。(两次收购商誉占比降低减值？)

Finance and Financial Products 金融与金融产品

This sector, our smallest, includes two rental companies, XTRA (trailers) and CORT (furniture), and Clayton Homes, the country’s leading producer and financer of manufactured homes. Aside from these 100%-owned subsidiaries, we also include in this category a collection of financial assets and our 50% interest in Berkadia Commercial Mortgage.

这个业务板块是我们公司中规模最小的，其中包括XTRA(拖车)和CORT(家具)两家租赁公司，以及美国领先的预制房屋制造商和融资提供方ClaytonHomes。除了这三家我们100%控股的子公司，在该业务板块中还包括一系列金融资产以及我我们持有的Berkadia商业抵押公司50%的股权。

It’s instructive to look at what transpired at our three operating businesses after the economy fell off a cliff in late 2008, because their experiences illuminate the fractured recovery that later came along.

分析我们这三家运营公司在2008年末经济跌落悬崖后所发生的事情很有启发意义，因为他们的经历体现了危机之后各个行业的复苏各不相同。

Results at our two leasing companies mirrored the “non-housing” economy. Their combined pre-tax earnings were $13 million in 2009, $53 million in 2010 and $155 million in 2011, an improvement reflecting the steady recovery we have seen in almost all of our non-housing businesses. In contrast, Clayton’s world of manufactured housing (just like site-built housing) has endured a veritable depression, experiencing no recovery to date. Manufactured housing sales in the nation were 49,789 homes in 2009, 50,046 in 2010 and 51,606 in 2011. (When housing was booming in 2005, they were 146,744.)

我们的两家租赁公司的业绩表现反映了"非住房"行业的经济状况。他们两家公司过去3年的税前利润分别是：2009年1300万美元，2010年5300万美元，2011年1.55亿美元，其盈利的持续增长也反映出我们在几乎所有非住房相关行业中所看到的稳步复苏。相比之下，Clayton的预制房屋业务(跟固定地址上建造的房屋几乎一模一样)经历了一场真正的萧条，至今没有任何复苏的迹象。美国的预制房屋销售量过去3年分别是：2009年49789套，2010年50046套，2011年51606套。(而在2005年住房市场繁荣期间年销量为146744套)。

Despite these difficult times, Clayton has continued to operate profitably, largely because its mortgage portfolio has performed well under trying circumstances. Because we are the largest lender in the manufactured homes sector and are also normally lending to lower-and-middle-income families, you might expect us to suffer heavy losses during a housing meltdown. But by sticking to old-fashioned loan policies -- meaningful down payments and monthly payments with a sensible relationship to regular income -- Clayton has kept losses to acceptable levels. It has done so even though many of our borrowers have had negative equity for some time.

尽管经历了如此艰难的萧条，但Clayton仍保持盈利，主要是因为其抵押贷款组合在极其艰难的经济环境下仍然表现良好。由于Clayton是预制房屋市场最大的贷款人，而且通常是贷款给中低收入家庭，所以你可能会推断，Clayton肯定在住房市场崩溃中遭受了惨重的损失。但由于我们坚守传统贷款的基本原则，即高比例的首付以及占正常收入合理水平的月供，所以Clayton把损失维持在可以接受的水平，尽管我们许多借款人一直都是负资产的情况下，仍然如此。

As is well-known, the U.S. went off the rails in its home-ownership and mortgage-lending policies, and for these mistakes our economy is now paying a huge price. All of us participated in the destructive behavior -- government, lenders, borrowers, the media, rating agencies, you name it. At the core of the folly was the almost universal belief that the value of houses was certain to increase over time and that any dips would be inconsequential. The acceptance of this premise justified almost any price and practice in housing transactions. Homeowners everywhere felt richer and rushed to “monetize” the increased value of their homes by refinancings. These massive cash infusions fueled a consumption binge throughout our economy. It all seemed great fun while it lasted. (A largely unnoted fact: Large numbers of people who have “lost” their house through foreclosure have actually realized a profit because they carried out refinancings earlier that gave them cash in excess of their cost. In these cases, the evicted homeowner was the winner, and the victim was the lender.)

众所周知，美国在房屋所有权和抵押贷款政策上偏离了轨道，如今我们的经济正在为这些错误付出巨大的代价。包括政府、贷款人、借款人、媒体以及评级机构等在内，我们所有人都参与了这种自我毁灭性的行为。这些愚蠢行为的根本原因是，几乎所有人都相信，房屋的价格必定会随着时间的推移而一直上涨，任何下跌都是暂时的、无关紧要的。接受这种前提假设，就意味着在房地产交易中任何价格和做法都是合理的。各地的房主都感到自己变得更加富有了，纷纷抢着通过再融资将其房屋增值部分"货币化"。这些大规模的现金流入助长了整个经济的消费狂潮。这个过程的一切看起来似乎都非常美好。(一个几乎不被注意的事实是：数量众多的人由于丧失抵押品赎回权而"失去"自己的房屋，可是事实上他们却已经实现了盈利，因为他们在此之前通过再融资拿到的现金远超原来付出的成本。这这种情况下，被驱逐出房屋的房主是赢家，而贷款人才是真正的受害者)。

In 2007, the bubble burst, just as all bubbles must. We are now in the fourth year of a cure that, though long and painful, is sure to succeed. Today, household formations are consistently exceeding housing starts.

2007年，泡沫破裂了，正如所有泡沫必定会经历的那样。我们如今正处于破裂后逐渐恢复的第4个年头，尽管这一恢复过程漫长而痛苦，但终将成功。今天，新家庭的形成数量持续高于房屋开工数量。

Clayton’s earnings should improve materially when the nation’s excess housing inventory is worked off. As I see things today, however, I believe the intrinsic value of the three businesses in this sector does not differ materially from their book value.

当美国过剩的房屋库存逐步消化之后，Clayton的盈利将会大幅提高。然而，根据现在我所看到的情况，我认为这三家企业的内在价值与其账面价值相比并没有显著的差异。

Investments 投资业务

Below we show our common stock investments that at yearend had a market value of more than $1 billion.

以下表格列示了我们在2011年底持有的市值超过10亿美元的普通股投资：

Shares	Company	12/31/11 Percentage of Company Owned (in millions)	12/31/11 Cost (in millions)*	12/31/11 Market (in millions)
151,610,700	American Express Company	13.0	$ 1,287	$ 7,151
200,000,000	The Coca-Cola Company	8.8	1,299	13,994
29,100,937	ConocoPhillips	2.3	2,027	2,121
63,905,931	International Business Machines Corp.	5.5	10,856	11,751
31,416,127	Johnson & Johnson	1.2	1,880	2,060
79,034,713	Kraft Foods Inc.	4.5	2,589	2,953
20,060,390	Munich Re	11.3	2,990	2,464
3,947,555	POSCO	5.1	768	1,301
72,391,036	The Procter & Gamble Company	2.6	464	4,829
25,848,838	Sanofi	1.9	2,055	1,900
291,577,428	Tesco plc	3.6	1,719	1,827
78,060,769	U.S. Bancorp	4.1	2,401	2,112
39,037,142	Wal-Mart Stores, Inc	1.1	1,893	2,333
400,015,828	Wells Fargo & Company	7.6	9,086	11,024
--	Others		6,895	9,171
--	Total Common Stocks Carried at Market		$ 48,209	$ 76,991

* This is our actual purchase price and also our tax basis; GAAP “cost” differs in a few cases because of write-ups or write-downs that have been required.

We made few changes in our investment holdings during 2011. But three moves were important: our purchases of IBM and Bank of America and the $1 billion addition we made to our Wells Fargo position.

2011年我们的投资持股几乎没有变化。但有三个投资举动非常重大：我们大幅购买IBM和美国银行，还增持了10亿美元的富国银行。

The banking industry is back on its feet, and Wells Fargo is prospering. Its earnings are strong, its assets solid and its capital at record levels. At Bank of America, some huge mistakes were made by prior management. Brian Moynihan has made excellent progress in cleaning these up, though the completion of that process will take a number of years. Concurrently, he is nurturing a huge and attractive underlying business that will endure long after today’s problems are forgotten. Our warrants to buy 700 million Bank of America shares will likely be of great value before they expire.

银行业正在恢复，富国银行现在正蓬勃发展，其盈利强劲增长，资产稳健，资本金也达到创纪录的水平。至于美国银行，之前管理层犯下了一些重大错误。其现任首席执行官Brian Moynihan在清理这些错误方面取得了极其出色的进展，不过还需要数年时间才能完成清理过程。与此同时他正在培育一个规模巨大且有吸引力的基础业务，在今天的问题被人们遗忘之后，该业务能够持续经营下去。我们购买的7亿美国银行认购权证将在到期之前可能将会具有很高的价值。

As was the case with Coca-Cola in 1988 and the railroads in 2006, I was late to the IBM party. I have been reading the company’s annual report for more than 50 years, but it wasn’t until a Saturday in March last year that my thinking crystallized. As Thoreau said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

如同我在1988年才投资可口可乐以及在2006年才投资BNSF铁路一样，我再一次因下手太晚而错过IBM的投资机会。我已经持续阅读这家公司的年报50多年了，直到去年3月的一个周六，我的想法才变的清晰起来。正如梭罗所说："重要的不是你在看什么，而是你看到了什么"。

Todd Combs built a $1.75 billion portfolio (at cost) last year, and Ted Weschler will soon create one of similar size. Each of them receives 80% of his performance compensation from his own results and 20% from his partner’s. When our quarterly filings report relatively small holdings, these are not likely to be buys I made (though the media often overlook that point) but rather holdings denoting purchases by Todd or Ted.

Todd Combs去年建立了一个17.5亿美元的投资组合(按成本计)，TedWeschler也将很快建立一个类似规模的投资组合。他们每个人的业绩报酬，80%来自于自己，20%来自于合伙人。当我们的季度申报文件披露了占投资组合比例相对较小的持股时，这些股票不太可能是我买入的(尽管媒体经常会忽略这一点)，而是表示这是Todd或者Ted买入的。

One additional point about these two new arrivals. Both Ted and Todd will be helpful to the next CEO of Berkshire in making acquisitions. They have excellent “business minds” that grasp the economic forces likely to determine the future of a wide variety of businesses. They are aided in their thinking by an understanding of what is predictable and what is unknowable.

对这两位新来的投资经理人，我还有一点要补充说明。Ted和Todd都会对伯克希尔的下一任CEO在收购企业决策中提供帮助。他们拥有非常出色的"商业头脑"，能够抓到那些可能决定各种企业未来的关键经济力量。他们两人通过理解什么是可预知的，什么是不可知的，来帮助他们进行思考。

There is little new to report on our derivatives positions, which we have described in detail in past reports. (Annual reports since 1977 are available at http://www.berkshirehathaway.com.) One important industry change, however, must be noted: Though our existing contracts have very minor collateral requirements, the rules have changed for new positions. Consequently, we will not be initiating any major derivatives positions. We shun contracts of any type that could require the instant posting of collateral. The possibility of some sudden and huge posting requirement -- arising from an out-of-the-blue event such as a worldwide financial panic or massive terrorist attack -- is inconsistent with our primary objectives of redundant liquidity and unquestioned financial strength.

关于我们的金融衍生品仓位，并没有什么新东西需要报告，在过去的年报中已经解释得非常详细。(从1977年以来我们的所有年报都可以在berkshirehathaway.com官网上查阅。)然而，我必须谈谈一个重要的行业性变化：虽然我们现有的合约对抵押品的要求很小，但是对于新建立的仓位的规定已经发生改变。因此，我们将不会新建任何大规模的衍生品仓位。我们回避任何要求立即提供抵押品的衍生合约。由于突发事件根本无法预测(比如全球金融危机或者大规模恐袭)，可能会导致某些突然且要求提供巨额担保物的要求，这完全不符合我们的首要目标——保持过剩的流动性和毋庸置疑的财务实力。

Our insurance-like derivatives contracts, whereby we pay if various issues included in high-yield bond indices default, are coming to a close. The contracts that most exposed us to losses have already expired, and the remainder will terminate soon. In 2011, we paid out $86 million on two losses, bringing our total payments to $2.6 billion. We are almost certain to realize a final “underwriting profit” on this portfolio because the premiums we received were $3.4 billion, and our future losses are apt to be minor. In addition, we will have averaged about $2 billion of float over the five-year life of these contracts. This successful result during a time of great credit stress underscores the importance of obtaining a premium that is commensurate with the risk.

我们持有的类似于保险的衍生品合约，如果高收益率债券指数中包含的各种发行公司出现违约，我们将根据合约进行赔付。我们持有的损失风险最大的那些合约已经到期，其余的合约也将很快终止。2011年，我们为两笔赔付支付了8600万美元，这也让我们的赔付总额达到了26亿美元。我们几乎可以确定，这个投资组合最终将会实现"承保盈利"，因为我们收到的类似保费收入是34亿美元，而我们未来的赔付会很小。此外，在这类合约的5年期间，我们持有的浮存金规模平均为20亿美元。在面临巨大信贷压力的时期取得这一成功业绩凸显出，保费定价与所承担的风险相匹配是多么重要。

Charlie and I continue to believe that our equity-put positions will produce a significant profit, considering both the $4.2 billion of float we will have held for more than fifteen years and the $222 million profit we’ve already realized on contracts that we repurchased. At yearend, Berkshire’s book value reflected a liability of $8.5 billion for the remaining contracts; if they had all come due at that time our payment would have been $6.2 billion.

考虑到我们未来能够持有42亿美元的浮存金超过15年以上，而且我们已经在那些回购合约上赚到了2.22亿美元，查理和我相信，我们的股票指数卖出期权合约将会实现相当可观的利润。2011年底，伯克希尔的账面价值反映其余衍生品合约的85亿美元负债。如果这些合约全部持有到期，我们将会支付62亿美元。

The Basic Choices for Investors and the One We Strongly Prefer 投资者的基本选择与我们的强烈偏好

Investing is often described as the process of laying out money now in the expectation of receiving more money in the future. At Berkshire we take a more demanding approach, defining investing as the transfer to others of purchasing power now with the reasoned expectation of receiving more purchasing power -- after taxes have been paid on nominal gains -- in the future. More succinctly, investing is forgoing consumption now in order to have the ability to consume more at a later date.

投资经常被描述为现在投入资金，以期望在未来收回更多的资金的过程。在伯克希尔，我们采用更加严格的标准，把投资定义为：现在把购买力转让给别人，并合理的预期未来将获得更多的购买力(按税后名义收益)。更简洁的说，投资就是放弃现在的消费，以便未来拥有消费更多的能力。

From our definition there flows an important corollary: The riskiness of an investment is not measured by beta (a Wall Street term encompassing volatility and often used in measuring risk) but rather by the probability -- the reasoned probability -- of that investment causing its owner a loss of purchasing-power over his contemplated holding period. Assets can fluctuate greatly in price and not be risky as long as they are reasonably certain to deliver increased purchasing power over their holding period. And as we will see, a non-fluctuating asset can be laden with risk.

根据我们的定义可以得出一个重要的推论：一项投资的风险高低不能用贝塔值来衡量(beta贝塔值是一个包含波动性的华尔街金融术语，经常用于衡量风险)，而应该用购买力损失的可能性来衡量，也就是在其持有期内，这项投资导致其持有人的购买力出现损失的合理概率。资产的价格可以大幅波动，只要这些资产在持有期间能够合理地确保增加购买力，就可以说这项投资是没有风险的。后面我们将会分析说明，一项价格没有波动的资产可能充满风险。

Investment possibilities are both many and varied. There are three major categories, however, and it’s important to understand the characteristics of each. So let’s survey the field.

可供选择的投资种类多种多样，但投资总体上可以分为三大类，理解每类投资的特点非常重要，因此让我们来仔细分析这三类投资资产。

Investments that are denominated in a given currency include money-market funds, bonds, mortgages, bank deposits, and other instruments. Most of these currency-based investments are thought of as “safe.” In truth they are among the most dangerous of assets. Their beta may be zero, but their risk is huge.

基于给定货币计价的投资，包括货币市场基金、债券、抵押贷款、银行存款和其他金融工具。大多数此类基于货币资产的投资都被视为"安全的"，但事实上它们是最危险的资产之一。它们的贝塔值可能是零，但它们的风险值却是巨大的。

Over the past century these instruments have destroyed the purchasing power of investors in many countries, even as the holders continued to receive timely payments of interest and principal. This ugly result, moreover, will forever recur. Governments determine the ultimate value of money, and systemic forces will sometimes cause them to gravitate to policies that produce inflation. From time to time such policies spin out of control.

在过去的一个世纪，这类投资工具摧毁了很多国家投资者的购买力，即使投资人能够按时收到支付的利息和本金。而且，这样的糟糕结果未来将一再重现。政府决定了货币的最终价值，而系统性力量有时会导致政府更加倾向于采取那些会导致通货膨胀的政策。而这些政策总是会一次又一次失去控制。

Even in the U.S., where the wish for a stable currency is strong, the dollar has fallen a staggering 86% in value since 1965, when I took over management of Berkshire. It takes no less than $7 today to buy what $1 did at that time. Consequently, a tax-free institution would have needed 4.3% interest annually from bond investments over that period to simply maintain its purchasing power. Its managers would have been kidding themselves if they thought of any portion of that interest as “income.”

即使是在美国，尽管政府强烈希望维持美元币值稳定，但自1965年我接管伯克希尔47年来，美元贬值了令人震惊的86%。今天要花至少7美元才能买到当初1美元的东西。因此，一个免税机构也必须从债券投资中取得4.3%的收益率才能保持购买力不变。假如投资经理人把任何利息收入视为"收益"，他们就是在自欺欺人。

For tax-paying investors like you and me, the picture has been far worse. During the same 47-year period, continuous rolling of U.S. Treasury bills produced 5.7% annually. That sounds satisfactory. But if an individual investor paid personal income taxes at a rate averaging 25%, this 5.7% return would have yielded nothing in the way of real income. This investor’s visible income tax would have stripped him of 1.4 points of the stated yield, and the invisible inflation tax would have devoured the remaining 4.3 points. It’s noteworthy that the implicit inflation “tax” was more than triple the explicit income tax that our investor probably thought of as his main burden. “In God We Trust” may be imprinted on our currency, but the hand that activates our government’s printing press has been all too human.

对于像你我这样必须缴税的投资者来说，情况就更加糟糕了。在过去这47年里，美国国债不断地滚动发行，年化收益率为5.7%。听起来好像还不错。但对于一个所得税率平均为25%的个人投资者来说，这5.7%的国债名义收益率却不能够产生任何实际回报。投资者有形的所得税将从他5.7%名义收益中拿走其中的1.4%，而无形的通货膨胀税将吞噬掉剩余的4.3%。值得注意的是，隐形的通胀税是显性的所得税的三倍多，而投资者却可能认为所得税是其主要负担。虽然每张美元上都印着"我们信仰上帝"，但实际上启动政府印钞机的却是凡人之手。

High interest rates, of course, can compensate purchasers for the inflation risk they face with currency-based investments -- and indeed, rates in the early 1980s did that job nicely. Current rates, however, do not come close to offsetting the purchasing-power risk that investors assume. Right now bonds should come with a warning label.

当然，投资基于货币的资产时，高利率能弥补投资者必须面临的通胀风险。实际上，1980年代早期的高利率确实很好地做到了这一点。可是，现在的利率水平并不足以抵消投资者承担的购买力减少风险。因此，现在的债券应该贴上一个风险警告标签。

Under today’s conditions, therefore, I do not like currency-based investments. Even so, Berkshire holds significant amounts of them, primarily of the short-term variety. At Berkshire the need for ample liquidity occupies center stage and will never be slighted, however inadequate rates may be. Accommodating this need, we primarily hold U.S. Treasury bills, the only investment that can be counted on for liquidity under the most chaotic of economic conditions. Our working level for liquidity is $20 billion; $10 billion is our absolute minimum.

因此，在目前利率水平低于通胀率的环境下，我一点也喜欢那些基于货币的投资资产。尽管如此，伯克希尔仍持有大量的这类资产，主要是短期品种。在伯克希尔保持充足流动性的需求永远被置于极其重要的中心地位，不管利率水平是多么低，它都不会被轻视。为了满足这种流动性的需要，我们主要持有美国短期国债，在最混乱的经济环境下，这是唯一可以指望获得流动性的投资资产。我们正常运营的流动性水平要求是200亿美元，100亿美元是我们的最低限度。

Beyond the requirements that liquidity and regulators impose on us, we will purchase currency-related securities only if they offer the possibility of unusual gain -- either because a particular credit is mispriced, as can occur in periodic junk-bond debacles, or because rates rise to a level that offers the possibility of realizing substantial capital gains on high-grade bonds when rates fall. Though we’ve exploited both opportunities in the past -- and may do so again -- we are now 180 degrees removed from such prospects. Today, a wry comment that Wall Streeter Shelby Cullom Davis made long ago seems apt: “Bonds promoted as offering risk-free returns are now priced to deliver return-free risk.”

在满足了流动性需求和监管强加给我们的要求之外，只有在基于货币的资产提供了非同寻常的收益时，我们才有可能购买——要么是因为特定的借款被错误定价，就像垃圾债券周期性暴跌期间发生的那样，要么是因为利率已经上升至较高的水平(债券下跌)，从而当利率下降期间，高评级债券有可能实现可观的资本收益。尽管我们过去曾经都利用过这两种机会，未来也有可能再次利用，但是现在我们距这类投资机会相距甚远。今天，华尔街人士戴维斯(Shelby Cullom Davis)多年前说的一句辛辣的评论视乎非常贴切："被宣传为提供无风险的回报的债券，现在的价格提供的却是无回报的风险"。
The second major category of investments involves assets that will never produce anything, but that are purchased in the buyer’s hope that someone else -- who also knows that the assets will be forever unproductive -- will pay more for them in the future. Tulips, of all things, briefly became a favorite of such buyers in the 17th century.

第二类投资是那些永远不会有任何产出的资产。投资者之所以买入，是寄希望其他投资者将来会为它们支付更高的价格，尽管这些人同样也知道这类资产永远不会有任何产出。17世纪，郁金香一度短暂的成为此类买家的最喜爱的投资品种。

This type of investment requires an expanding pool of buyers, who, in turn, are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further. Owners are not inspired by what the asset itself can produce -- it will remain lifeless forever -- but rather by the belief that others will desire it even more avidly in the future.

这种类型的投资需要不断扩大的买家群体，而这些买家反过来又会被吸引，因为他们相信买家群体会进一步扩大。资产所有者并不是被资产本身所能生产的东西所吸引(它将永远没有产出)，而是相信其他人在未来会更加渴望得到它。

The major asset in this category is gold, currently a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money (of whose value, as noted, they are right to be fearful). Gold, however, has two significant shortcomings, being neither of much use nor procreative. True, gold has some industrial and decorative utility, but the demand for these purposes is both limited and incapable of soaking up new production. Meanwhile, if you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end.

这一类别最主要的资产是黄金。目前黄金是投资者的最爱，因为(危机之后)他们对黄金以外所有资产都非常恐惧，尤其是纸币(正如前面所说，担心纸币购买力下降是正确的)。不过，黄金有两个明显的缺点，一是没有太多用途，二是没有生产能力。的确，黄金有一些工业和装饰用途，但这些用途的需求量是有限的，而且没有能力消化新增产量。同时，如果投资者一直持有一盎司黄金，那么最终你仍将只有一盎司黄金。

What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow. During the past decade that belief has proved correct. Beyond that, the rising price has on its own generated additional buying enthusiasm, attracting purchasers who see the rise as validating an investment thesis. As “bandwagon” investors join any party, they create their own truth -- for a while.

大多数黄金购买者的动机是他们相信对货币贬值恐惧的队伍会进一步升级。过去十这个信念被证明是正确的。除此之外，黄金价格的持续上涨本身也刺激投资者产生了额外的购买热情，吸引了那些把金价上涨看作验证了这种投资理论的投资者。随着"跟风"投资者的涌入黄金投资的狂潮，他们创造出他们自己信奉的真理，不过只是暂时的。

Over the past 15 years, both Internet stocks and houses have demonstrated the extraordinary excesses that can be created by combining an initially sensible thesis with well-publicized rising prices. In these bubbles, an army of originally skeptical investors succumbed to the “proof” delivered by the market, and the pool of buyers -- for a time -- expanded sufficiently to keep the bandwagon rolling. But bubbles blown large enough inevitably pop. And then the old proverb is confirmed once again: “What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”

过去15年里，我们看到的网络股泡沫和房地产泡沫都证明了：将一个最初合理的投资观念，与广为宣传的价格上涨现象结合在一起，就能创造出非同寻常的过度行为。在这些市场泡沫中，很多原本持怀疑态度的投资者，后来也屈服于市场给出的价格上涨"证据"，在一段时间内，买方群体的规模迅速扩大，不断增加的买入资金足以让泡沫继续膨胀。但吹的足够大的泡沫不可避免地会破裂。那时就会再次验证那句谚语：智者先行，愚者跟风。

Today the world’s gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce -- gold’s price as I write this -- its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.

今天，全球的黄金库存量约有17万公吨。如果把全球所有黄金熔在一起，就会铸成一个边长约21米的立方体，想象一下，其大小差不多正好可以放在一个棒球场的内场里。以我现在写作时的金价1750美元/盎司计算，全球所有黄金的市值约为9.6万亿美元。我们将这个黄金立方体称为A资产。

Let’s now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?

现在，让我们用同样的资金创建一个B资产。9.6万亿美元的资金可以买下美国所有的土地(4亿英亩，年产值约2千亿美元)，再加上16家埃克森美孚石油公司(全球最赚钱的公司，每年盈利超过400亿美元)。除此之外，还剩下约1万亿美元可用作流动资金。因此，即使是如此大手笔投资之后，也丝毫不会感到资金紧张。你能想像一个拥有9.6万亿美元资金的投资者会选择购买A资产而不是B资产吗？

Beyond the staggering valuation given the existing stock of gold, current prices make today’s annual production of gold command about $160 billion. Buyers -- whether jewelry and industrial users, frightened individuals, or speculators -- must continually absorb this additional supply to merely maintain an equilibrium at present prices.

除了现在全球黄金库存的市值高得惊人之外，按照当前的金价计算，黄金年产量也高达约1600亿美元。黄金的买家，不管是珠宝制造商、工业用户、非常恐惧货币贬值的个人、还是投机者，都必须不断地消化这些每年不断增加的黄金供应量，仅仅是为了在目前的金价水平上保持供需均衡。

A century from now the 400 million acres of farmland will have produced staggering amounts of corn, wheat, cotton, and other crops -- and will continue to produce that valuable bounty, whatever the currency may be. Exxon Mobil will probably have delivered trillions of dollars in dividends to its owners and will also hold assets worth many more trillions (and, remember, you get 16 Exxons). The 170,000 tons of gold will be unchanged in size and still incapable of producing anything. You can fondle the cube, but it will not respond.

一个世纪以后，美国4亿英亩的土地将产出数量惊人的玉米、小麦、棉花和其他农作物，而且不论未来货币是什么，都将继续生产这些宝贵的产品。埃克森美孚石油公司可能会向股东派发了几万亿美元的股利，而且公司还将会持有价值数万亿美元的资产(记住你拥有16家埃克森美孚石油公司)。而17万公吨黄金的体积不会有丝毫变化，而且仍然不会有任何产出。当然，你可以天天爱抚这个黄金立方体，但是它却不会对你有任何回应。

Admittedly, when people a century from now are fearful, it’s likely many will still rush to gold. I’m confident, however, that the $9.6 trillion current valuation of pile A will compound over the century at a rate far inferior to that achieved by pile B.

不可否认，即使是100年之后，当人们感到恐惧时，可能还是会有很多人冲向黄金。但我相信，在本世纪末当前价值9.6万亿美元的A资产，其年化回报率将会远远低于B资产。
Our first two categories enjoy maximum popularity at peaks of fear: Terror over economic collapse drives individuals to currency-based assets, most particularly U.S. obligations, and fear of currency collapse fosters movement to sterile assets such as gold. We heard “cash is king” in late 2008, just when cash should have been deployed rather than held. Similarly, we heard “cash is trash” in the early 1980s just when fixed-dollar investments were at their most attractive level in memory. On those occasions, investors who required a supportive crowd paid dearly for that comfort.

当恐惧心理达到顶点时，前两类资产最受欢迎：对经济崩溃的恐惧，驱使个人投资基于货币的资产，尤其是美国国债。而对货币崩溃的恐惧，则驱使人们投资黄金等非生产性资产。在2008年末，我们听到人人都在说"现金为王"，而当时应该花掉现金而不是持有现金。同样，在1980年代初，我们听到人人都在说"现金是垃圾"，但是那时固定收益投资正处于我们记忆中最有吸引力的高收益水平。在这两种情况下，那些盲目跟风的投资者为这种内心安慰而付出了高昂的代价。

My own preference -- and you knew this was coming -- is our third category: investment in productive assets, whether businesses, farms, or real estate. Ideally, these assets should have the ability in inflationary times to deliver output that will retain its purchasing-power value while requiring a minimum of new capital investment. Farms, real estate, and many businesses such as Coca-Cola, IBM and our own See’s Candy meet that double-barreled test. Certain other companies -- think of our regulated utilities, for example -- fail it because inflation places heavy capital requirements on them. To earn more, their owners must invest more. Even so, these investments will remain superior to nonproductive or currency-based assets.

我自己最看好就是我们接下来要谈到的第三类：投资生产性资产。不管是企业、农场，还是房地产。最理想的标准是：在通货膨胀时期，这些资产能够生产出保持其购买力的产出，同时只需最低水平的新增资本投入。农场、房地产和许多优秀企业，比如可口可乐、IBM以及我们拥有的喜诗糖果，都能经受住上述双重标准的检验。当然其他的公司之所以破产(比如受到政府监管的公用事业公司)，是因为通胀会给它们带来沉重的追加资本的要求。为了获得更多盈利，它们的股东必须投入更多的资本。尽管如此，这类投资仍将优于非生产性资产和基于货币的投资。

Whether the currency a century from now is based on gold, seashells, shark teeth, or a piece of paper (as today), people will be willing to exchange a couple of minutes of their daily labor for a Coca-Cola or some See’s peanut brittle. In the future the U.S. population will move more goods, consume more food, and require more living space than it does now. People will forever exchange what they produce for what others produce.

不管一个世纪后的货币形式是黄金、贝壳、鲨鱼牙，还是今天这样的一个小纸片，人们还是会愿意用几分钟的日常劳动，来换取一罐可口可乐或一些喜诗花生糖。未来，美国人肯定将运输更多的商品，消费更多的食物，要求更大的住房。人们将会永远用自己生产的东西交换别人生产的东西。

Our country’s businesses will continue to efficiently deliver goods and services wanted by our citizens. Metaphorically, these commercial “cows” will live for centuries and give ever greater quantities of “milk” to boot. Their value will be determined not by the medium of exchange but rather by their capacity to deliver milk. Proceeds from the sale of the milk will compound for the owners of the cows, just as they did during the 20thcentury when the Dow increased from 66 to 11,497 (and paid loads of dividends as well). Berkshire’s goal will be to increase its ownership of first-class businesses. Our first choice will be to own them in their entirety -- but we will also be owners by way of holding sizable amounts of marketable stocks. I believe that over any extended period of time this category of investing will prove to be the runaway winner among the three we’ve examined. More important, it will be by far the safest.

美国企业将会继续高效地提供美国人所需要的商品和服务。打个比方，这些商业"奶牛"将会存活上好几百年，并生产出更多的"牛奶"。它们价值高低不取决于商品交换的媒介，而是取决于它们的产奶能力。销售牛奶的收益将会为奶牛所有者带来复利增长，就像20世纪的股票投资一样，期间道琼斯指数从66点增长到了11497点(并支付了大量股息)。伯克希尔的目标将是不断增加一流企业的所有权。我们的第一个选择是整体收购这些一流企业成为唯一的主人，但我们也愿意通过持有大量流通股的方式拥有其部分所有权。我相信在未来任何一个较长的时期内，对于一流企业的这类投资都将证明，是我们前面分析的三类投资最终的赢家。更重要的是，它也将是迄今为止最安全的投资。

The Annual Meeting 年度股东大会

The annual meeting will be held on Saturday, May 5th at the CenturyLink Center (renamed from “Qwest”). Last year, Carrie Kizer debuted as the ringmaster and earned a lifetime assignment. Everyone loved the job she did -- especially me.

伯克希尔年度股东大会将在5月5日周六在奥马哈CenturyLink中心(原Qwest中心更名而来)。我们公司总部的员工CarrieKizer去年首次担任年会上我们旗下公司产品表演的总导演，做得非常好，因此赢得终身导演的职务。所有人都喜欢她做的这份工作，尤其是我。

Soon after the 7 a.m. opening of the doors, we will have a new activity: The Newspaper Tossing Challenge. Late last year, Berkshire purchased the Omaha World-Herald and, in my meeting with its shareholder-employees, I told of the folding and throwing skills I developed while delivering 500,000 papers as a teenager.

CenturyLink中心的大门7点打开。之后我们马上会推出一个新的活动项目：扔报纸挑战赛。去年底伯克希尔收购了《奥马哈世界先驱报》，在我们做为控股股东和员工的见面会上，我大谈我少年时期当报童时送了50万份报纸，练就一手卷报纸和扔报纸的绝技。

I immediately saw skepticism in the eyes of the audience. That was no surprise to me. After all, the reporters’ mantra is: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” So now I have to back up my claim. At the meeting, I will take on all comers in making 35-foot tosses of the World-Herald to a Clayton porch. Any challenger whose paper lands closer to the doorstep than mine will receive a dilly bar. I’ve asked Dairy Queen to supply several for the contest, though I doubt that any will be needed. We will have a large stack of papers. Grab one. Fold it (no rubber bands). Take your best shot. Make my day.

我立刻从看到台下的观众眼中看到了怀疑的目光。这并不让我感到吃惊。毕竟，记者的口头禅是："如果你妈妈说她很爱你，也要核查一下是否属实"。现在我得实际证明我所说的全部属实了。在股东年会上，我将和所有来宾一起，把《奥马哈世界先驱报》投掷得到10米开外的克莱顿之家的门廊。比我扔得更近的人就能获得一只雪糕。我已经让为这次挑战赛多准备几只雪糕，不过我怀疑这些奖品根本用不上，因为我想没有人会羸我。我们会有一大摞报纸。抓起来一份，卷好用力扔(不能用皮筋)。放马过来吧，让我开心一下。

At 8:30, a new Berkshire movie will be shown. An hour later, we will start the question-and-answer period, which (with a break for lunch at the CenturyLink’s stands) will last until 3:30. After a short recess, Charlie and I will convene the annual meeting at 3:45. If you decide to leave during the day’s question periods, please do so while Charlie is talking.

伯克希尔最新制作的年会电影将在8:30开始放映。一个小时后的9:30我们将开始问答环节，并将一直持续到下午3:30为止(中间短暂休息在CenturyLink中心的摊位上有午餐供应)。短暂休息之后，查理和我将在3:45召开年度股东大会。如果你要在问答环节离开会场的话，请在查理讲话的时候离开。

The best reason to exit, of course, is to shop. We will help you do so by filling the 194,300-square-foot hall that adjoins the meeting area with products from dozens of Berkshire subsidiaries. Last year, you did your part, and most locations racked up record sales. In a nine-hour period, we sold 1,249 pairs of Justin boots, 11,254 pounds of See’s candy, 8,000 Quikut knives (that’s 15 knives per minute) and 6,126 pairs of Wells Lamont gloves, a Marmon product whose very existence was news to me. (The product I focus on is money.) But you can do better. Remember: Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness simply hasn’t shopped at our meeting.

当然，离开会场的最好理由是去购物。我们为了给各位提供最好的购物服务，在与股东年会会场相邻的19万平方英尺的大厅里摆放了伯克希尔下属公司生产的各种商品。去年年会期间各位股东做得很棒，很多产品的销售都创下历史新高。年会召开的9个小时期间，我们销售了1249双Justin靴子，11254磅喜诗糖果，8000把Quikut小刀(每分钟销售15把)，6126双WellsLamont手套，这是Marmon的产品，它的出现对我来说是个新闻。(我最关注的产品是钱)。但是你们今年能够做得更好。记住：谁说金钱不能买来快乐，只是因为他没有到我们这里来购物过。

Among the new exhibitors this year will be Brooks, our running-shoe company. Brooks has been gobbling up market share and in 2011 had a sales gain of 34%, its tenth consecutive year of record volume. Drop by and congratulate Jim Weber, the company’s CEO. And be sure to buy a couple of pairs of limited edition “Berkshire Hathaway Running Shoes.”

今年新加入展览的公司是我们下属的一家跑鞋公司Brooks，它持续不断地攻占更多的市场份额，去年的市场份额已经高达34%连续十年创下销售记录。顺便拜访并向公司的CEO-Jim Weber表示祝贺。同时一定要买入一双限量款"伯克希尔专属跑鞋。"

GEICO will have a booth staffed by a number of its top counselors from around the country, all of them ready to supply you with auto insurance quotes. In most cases, GEICO will be able to give you a shareholder discount (usually 8%). This special offer is permitted by 44 of the 51 jurisdictions in which we operate. (One supplemental point: The discount is not additive if you qualify for another, such as that given certain groups.) Bring the details of your existing insurance and check out whether we can save you money. For at least half of you, I believe we can.

GEICO保险将设一个展台，有来自全美最优秀的保险顾问为您服务，他们随时准备为您提供汽车保险询价。在大多数情况下，GEICO将会给您一个股东特别折扣(通常是8%)。我们开展业务的51个司法管辖区中有44个都批准了这个特别优惠。(额外提示：这个折扣不可以与其他优惠叠加使用，比如给予特定群体的优惠)。把你现有的保单拿过来，看看我们能否帮你多省点钱。我相信我们至少可以帮助你们中一半人省去更多保险费。

Be sure to visit the Bookworm. It will carry more than 35 books and DVDs, including a couple of new ones. I recommend MiTek , an informative history of one of our very successful subsidiaries. You’ll learn how my interest in the company was originally piqued by my receiving in the mail a hunk of ugly metal whose purpose I couldn’t fathom. Since we bought MiTek in 2001, it has made 33 “tuck-in” acquisitions, almost all successful. I think you’ll also like a short book that Peter Bevelin has put together explaining Berkshire’s investment and operating principles. It sums up what Charlie and I have been saying over the years in annual reports and at annual meetings. Should you need to ship your book purchases, a shipping service will be available nearby.

一定要去书虫书店看看，这里将会提供超过35种图书和DVD，其中有一些是新出版的。我特别推荐关于讲述我们子公司MiTek发展史的一本书。你将会从书中看到，我最初对这家公司产生兴趣的原因是，我收到了一个邮包，里面装着一块丑陋的金属块，我根本不知道有什么用。自2001年收购以来，MiTek公司已进行了33次收购，几乎都很成功。我想你也会喜欢Peter Bevelin编写的一本小书，这本书汇总了我和芒格过去多年来在公司年报和股东大会上说的话，解释了伯克希尔的投资和经营的原则。如果您需要把买的书快递回去的话，旁边就有快递服务。

If you are a big spender -- or aspire to become one -- visit Elliott Aviation on the east side of the Omaha airport between noon and 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. There we will have a fleet of NetJets aircraft that will get your pulse racing. Come by bus; leave by private jet. I’ll OK your credit.

如果您是一位挥金如土的大款，或者希望成为这样的大款，请在周六中午到下午5点参观位奥玛哈机场东侧的Elliott航空中心。那里有我们下属的NetJet公司的私人专机编队，将让您心跳加速。坐着大巴来，乘着私人飞机回。别担心钱不够，我会给你贷款。

An attachment to the proxy material that is enclosed with this report explains how you can obtain the credential you will need for admission to the meeting and other events. Airlines have sometimes jacked up prices for the Berkshire weekend. If you are coming from far away, compare the cost of flying to Kansas City versus Omaha. The drive between the two cities is about 2^1 ⁄ 2 hours, and it may be that you can save significant money, particularly if you had planned to rent a car in Omaha. Spend the savings with us.

随同附上的股东大会资料中有个附件，告诉您如何获取参加股东的凭证，凭此才能参加股东年会和其它活动。在伯克希尔股东大会召开的周末，航空公司有时会提高机票价格。如果你从很远的地方过来，可以比较一下飞到肯萨斯与奥马哈的价格。飞到肯萨斯，再开车到奥马哈，只需要2个半小时左右，也许这样可以帮你省掉一大笔钱，尤其是你本来就打算在奥马哈租车的话。省下来的钱，一定要在会场上购物花掉噢。

At Nebraska Furniture Mart, located on a 77-acre site on 72nd Street between Dodge and Pacific, we will again be having “Berkshire Weekend” discount pricing. Last year the store did $32.7 million of business during its annual meeting sale, a volume that exceeds the yearly sales of most furniture stores. To obtain the Berkshire discount, you must make your purchases between Tuesday, May 1stand Monday, May 7th inclusive, and also present your meeting credential. The period’s special pricing will even apply to the products of several prestigious manufacturers that normally have ironclad rules against discounting but which, in the spirit of our shareholder weekend, have made an exception for you. We appreciate their cooperation. NFM is open from 10a.m. to 9p.m. Monday through Saturday, and 10a.m. to 6p.m. on Sunday. On Saturday this year, from 5:30p.m. to 8 p.m., NFM is having a picnic to which you are all invited.

内布拉斯加家具商场位于72街上，在Dodge和Pacific之间，占地77英亩，在这里我们将会再次举办"伯克希尔周末"特价促销活动。2011年，这家商场在年会期间销售收入为3270万美元，比很多家具商店一年的销售收入总额还要高。要得到伯克希尔股东的特别优惠，你必须在5月1周二到5月7日周一之间购买并出示参加年会的凭证。这次特价促销包括了几个著名的大牌厂家产品，一般情况下严禁打折销售，但考虑到这是一个特别股东周末活动，所以特别破例只为参加股东大会人士提供优惠折扣。我们特别感谢他们的支持。内布拉斯加家具商城在周一至周六早10点到晚9点营业，周日是早上10点到晚上6点营业。周六下午5点半到晚8点，内布拉斯加家具商城将会举行野餐会，邀请所有与会者参加。

At Borsheims, we will again have two shareholder-only events. The first will be a cocktail reception from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, May 4th. The second, the main gala, will be held on Sunday, May 6th, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. On Saturday, we will be open until 6 p.m. On Sunday, around 2 p.m., I will be clerking at Borsheims, desperate to beat my sales figure from last year. So come take advantage of me. Ask me for my “Crazy Warren” price.

在波仙珠宝店，我们将再次召开两场股东专场活动。第一个活动将是一场鸡尾酒会，在5月4日周五下午6点到晚上10点举行。第二个活动是一个大型售卖活动，在5月6日周日早上9点到下午4点举行。周六，我们将会营业到下午6点。在周日下午2点左右，我本人将会亲自在波仙担任销售员，我极度渴望能够打破我去年创下的销售记录。所以请大家来照顾我的生意吧，我会给你一个疯狂的巴菲特特别优惠价格。

We will have huge crowds at Borsheims throughout the weekend. For your convenience, therefore, shareholder prices will be available from Monday, April 30th through Saturday, May 12th. During that period, please identify yourself as a shareholder by presenting your meeting credentials or a brokerage statement that shows you are a Berkshire holder.

整个周末我们在波仙会有大批观众。因此，为了您的方便，股东价格将从4月30日周一到5月12日周六提供。在此期间，请出示您的会议证明或经纪公司声明，表明您是伯克希尔的股东。

On Sunday, in the mall outside of Borsheims, a blindfolded Patrick Wolff, twice U.S. chess champion, will take on all comers -- who will have their eyes wide open -- in groups of six. Nearby, Norman Beck, a remarkable magician from Dallas, will bewilder onlookers. Additionally, we will have Bob Hamman and Sharon Osberg, two of the world’s top bridge experts, available to play bridge with our shareholders on Sunday afternoon. Two non-experts -- Charlie and I -- will also be at the tables.

在波仙外的购物中心里，美国两届国际象棋冠军PatrickWolff将蒙上双眼，所有挑战者们六个一组，他一个人同时和6个人对奕。就在附近，著名的达拉斯魔术师Norman Beck将进行精彩表演。另外，两位世界级桥牌顶尖高手Bob Hamman和Sharon Osberg也会在周日下午与我们的股东们进行比赛。两位非专业选手，查理和我也会参加。

Gorat’s and Piccolo’s will again be open exclusively for Berkshire shareholders on Sunday, May 6th. Both will be serving until 10 p.m., with Gorat’s opening at 1 p.m. and Piccolo’s opening at 4 p.m. These restaurants are my favorites, and I will eat at both of them on Sunday evening. (Actuarial tables tell me that I can consume another 12 million calories before my death. I’m terrified at the thought of leaving any of these behind, so will be frontloading on Sunday.) Remember: To make a reservation at Gorat’s, call 402-551-3733 on April 1st ( but not before ) and at Piccolo’s, call 402-342-9038. At Piccolo’s, show some class and order a giant root beer float for dessert. Only sissies get the small one.

Gorat's和Piccolo's餐厅将于5月6日周日再次向伯克希尔股东独家开放。Gorat's会从下午1点营业到晚上10点，Piccolo's将会从下午4点营业到晚上10点。这两家都是我喜欢的餐厅，周日晚上我会在两家餐厅用餐。(保险精算资料表明，在我死之前要消耗1200万卡路里，我非常担心我还没有吃够就死掉了，所以周日要提前多吃一顿)。预定Gorat's请在4月1日致电402-551-3733(不要提前)，Piccolo's预定电话是402-342-9038。在Piccolo's餐厅，要显得你有品位，就得要上一大杯饮料作为甜点，要小杯不是男子汉。

We will again have the same three financial journalists lead the question-and-answer period at the meeting, asking Charlie and me questions that shareholders have submitted to them by e-mail. The journalists and their e-mail addresses are: Carol Loomis, of Fortune, who may be e-mailed at cloomis@fortunemail.com; Becky Quick, of CNBC, at BerkshireQuestions@cnbc.com, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, of The New York Times, at arsorkin@nytimes.com.

今年我们将再次邀请同样的三位财经记者引领年会问答环节，他们通过电子邮件收集股东提交给他们的问题，向查理和我进行提问。这三位记者和他们的电子邮件地址分别是：财富杂志的Carol Loomis: cloomis@fortunemail.com；CNBC的Becky Quick: BerkshireQuestions@cnbc.com；纽约时报的Andrew Ross Sorkin: arsorkin@nytimes.com。

From the questions submitted, each journalist will choose the dozen or so he or she decides are the most interesting and important. The journalists have told me your question has the best chance of being selected if you keep it concise, avoid sending it in at the last moment, make it Berkshire-related and include no more than two questions in any e-mail you send them. (In your e-mail, let the journalist know if you would like your name mentioned if your question is selected.)

从提交的问题中，每位记者将选择他们认为最有趣和最重要的十几个问题。如果你保持问题简洁，避免在最后一刻发送，问题与伯克希尔有关，并且在发送给他们的任何电子邮件中包含不超过两个问题，那么你的问题最有可能被选中。(在你的电子邮件中，如果你的问题被选中，请告诉他们你是否愿意提及你的名字)。

This year we are adding a second panel of three financial analysts who follow Berkshire. They are Cliff Gallant of KBW, Jay Gelb of Barclays Capital and Gary Ransom of Dowling and Partners. These analysts will bring their own Berkshire-specific questions and alternate with the journalists and the audience.

今年我们另外增加了另外一个由三名金融分析师组成的小组，他们是追踪伯克希尔的金融分析师：KBW公司的CliffGallant，BarclaysCapital公司的JayGelb，DowlingandPartners的GaryRansom。这些分析师会提问他们自己想问的关于伯克希尔的问题，他们将会记者以及现场听众轮流提问。

Charlie and I believe that all shareholders should have access to new Berkshire information simultaneously and should also have adequate time to analyze it, which is why we try to issue financial information after the market close on a Friday. We do not talk one-on-one to large institutional investors or analysts. Our new panel will let analysts ask questions -- perhaps even a few technical ones -- in a manner that may be helpful to many shareholders.

查理和我相信，所有股东都应该同时获得伯克希尔的最新信息披露，而且应该有足够的时间进行分析，这也是我们为什么总是努力安排在周五收盘之后公布公司财务信息的原因。我们不会与大型机构投资者或分析师进行一对一沟通。我们新增加一个分析师小组就是为了让分析师提出问题，也许会有几个技术性强的问题，希望这种方式能对很多股东提供帮助。

Neither Charlie nor I will get so much as a clue about the questions to be asked. We know the journalists and analysts will come up with some tough ones, and that’s the way we like it. All told, we expect at least 54 questions, which will allow for six from each analyst and journalist and 18 from the audience. If there is some extra time, we will take more from the audience. Audience questioners will be determined by drawings that will take place at 8:15 a.m. at each of the 13 microphones located in the arena and main overflow room.

查理和我事先都不知道任何与问题有关的东西。我们知道，记者和分析师会挑选一些难以回答的问题，这正是我们所希望的。总的来说，我们希望至少回答54个问题，每个记者和分析师能提问6个问题，现场听众提问18个问题。如果还有一些剩余的时间，我们将会回答现场听众更多的问题。听众提问者将通过8:15举行的抽签决定，13个提问用的话筒分别放置的会场不同的区域和主要的分会场。

For good reason, I regularly extol the accomplishments of our operating managers. They are truly All-Stars, who run their businesses as if they were the only asset owned by their families. I believe their mindset to be as shareholder-oriented as can be found in the universe of large publicly-owned companies. Most have no financial need to work; the joy of hitting business “home runs” means as much to them as their paycheck.

出于非常充分的理由，我会定期高度赞扬我们子公司负责经营管理的经理人取得的成就。他们都是真正的全明星，他们经营自己的企业就像这是他们家族唯一拥有的资产一样。我相信他们的这种心态，和那些大型上市公司一样，都是以股东利益为导向。大多数经理人根本没有任何工作的经济需求，对他们来说，打出商业上本垒打的乐趣和薪水一样重要。

Equally important, however, are the 23 men and women who work with me at our corporate office (all on one floor, which is the way we intend to keep it!).

然而同样非常重要的是在总部办公室和我一起工作的23名男女同事(所有人在同一个楼层办公，我们特意这样安排！)。

This group efficiently deals with a multitude of SEC and other regulatory requirements and files a 17,839-page Federal income tax return -- hello, Guinness! -- as well as state and foreign returns. Additionally, they respond to countless shareholder and media inquiries, get out the annual report, prepare for the country’s largest annual meeting, coordinate the Board’s activities -- and the list goes on and on.

这个只有23人的团队高效处理各种事务：美国证监会和其他监管要求，提交了多达17839页的联邦收入所得税申报文件，还有州收入所得税和海外收入所得税相关文件，此外，他们还回应股东和媒体的无数个询问，发布年度报告，筹备全美规模最大的上市公司股东年大，协调董事会活动，他们的活动清单还可以列举出来很多很多。

They handle all of these business tasks cheerfully and with unbelievable efficiency, making my life easy and pleasant. Their efforts go beyond activities strictly related to Berkshire: They deal with 48 universities (selected from 200 applicants) who will send students to Omaha this school year for a day with me and also handle all kinds of requests that I receive, arrange my travel, and even get me hamburgers for lunch. No CEO has it better.

他们态度愉悦地处理这些企业事务，效率之高简直令人难以置信，让我倍感轻松和快乐。他们的努力并不仅局限于伯克希尔相关的活动，他们还需要同48所大学打交道，这48所大学是从200名申请大学中筛选出来的，在本学年将选送一些学生到奥马哈，与我共同度过一天的时间。他们还要处理我收到的各种请求，安排我的旅行，甚至去帮我买午餐的汉堡包。没有一个CEO像我做得这么舒服了。

This home office crew, along with our operating managers, has my deepest thanks and deserves yours as well. Come to Omaha -- the cradle of capitalism -- on May 5th and tell them so.

这个家庭办公室的工作人员，以及我们的运营经理，向你们致以我最深切的感谢，他们也值得你们的感谢。5月5日，来资本家的摇篮奥马哈，告诉他们这一点。

Warren E. Buffett

Chairman of the Board

February 25, 2012

Footnotes

All per-share figures used in this report apply to Berkshire’s A shares. Figures for the B shares are 1/1500th of those shown for A. ↩

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2011_Letter_to_Berkshire_Shareholders.md

2011_Letter_to_Berkshire_Shareholders.md

BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.

Intrinsic Business Value 企业内在价值

Share Repurchases 股票回购

Insurance 保险业务

Regulated, Capital-Intensive Businesses 受监管的资本密集型业务

Manufacturing, Service and Retailing Operations 制造、服务和零售业务

Finance and Financial Products 金融与金融产品

Investments 投资业务

The Basic Choices for Investors and the One We Strongly Prefer 投资者的基本选择与我们的强烈偏好

The Annual Meeting 年度股东大会

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BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC.

Intrinsic Business Value 企业内在价值

Share Repurchases 股票回购

Insurance 保险业务

Regulated, Capital-Intensive Businesses 受监管的资本密集型业务

Manufacturing, Service and Retailing Operations 制造、服务和零售业务

Finance and Financial Products 金融与金融产品

Investments 投资业务

The Basic Choices for Investors and the One We Strongly Prefer 投资者的基本选择与我们的强烈偏好

The Annual Meeting 年度股东大会

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