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If Warren Buffett is to be believed, his announcement after Saturday’s annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway that he plans to step down as chief executive at the end of the year was news to all but a few close members of his family.
沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)在周六举行的伯克希尔•哈撒韦公司(Berkshire Hathaway)年会后宣布，他计划在今年年底卸任首席执行官一职，如果他说的是真的话，那么除了他的几位至亲之外，其他人事先都不知道这个消息。
Neither non-family directors, nor the tens of thousands of shareholders assembled at the annual “Woodstock for capitalists” in his native Omaha had an inkling about the precise timing.
无论是非家族董事，还是在他家乡奥马哈一年一度“资本家伍德斯托克”上聚集的数万名股东，都对确切的时机毫无察觉。
They probably should have done. His longtime business partner and acerbic sidekick at the Omaha meetings, Charlie Munger, died in 2023, aged 99. In February, in his most recent letter to shareholders, Buffett wrote: “At 94, it won’t be long before [chosen successor] Greg Abel replaces me as CEO.”
他们或许本该这样做。他在奥马哈会议上的长期商业伙伴、言辞犀利的搭档查理•芒格(Charlie Munger)于2023年去世，享年99岁。今年2月，巴菲特在他最近一封致股东的信中写道：“我已经94岁了，[指定继任者]格雷格•阿贝尔(Greg Abel)很快就会接替我担任首席执行官。”
“Buffettologists”, as close observers of his every move style themselves, have been speculating and worrying about succession for at least a quarter of a century. I wrote an analysis headlined “Shareholders ponder life after Buffett” after the 2003 Omaha gathering, when Buffett was a 72-year-old stripling. I quoted his remark that if he started “losing [his] marbles”, it would be up to his family to convince him to step down. “Probably it will take the whole damn family,” he added.
自称“巴菲特学家”的人——这些密切关注巴菲特一举一动的观察者——至少在过去的四分之一个世纪里一直在猜测和担忧接班问题。2003年奥马哈年会后，我写过一篇题为“股东思考巴菲特之后的生活”的分析文章。当时巴菲特还是个72岁的“年轻人”。我引用了他的一句话：如果他开始“变糊涂”，那就得由家人来说服他退下来。“可能得全家人一起来才行，”他还补充道。
The inevitability of his departure has done nothing to mitigate the shock. Among Buffett’s most devoted followers, it is comparable to the recent death of Pope Francis.
他的离任早已被认为是不可避免，但这丝毫没有减轻人们的震惊。在巴菲特最忠实的追随者中，这种冲击堪比最近教皇方济各(Pope Francis)的去世。
Buffett’s letter to shareholders, while not referring directly to Donald Trump’s second term as president, did appeal to “Uncle Sam” to spend judiciously the billions of tax dollars Berkshire sends to the US Treasury: “Never forget that we need you to maintain a stable currency and that result requires [his emphasis] both wisdom and vigilance on your part.”
巴菲特在致股东的信中，虽然没有直接提及唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的第二个总统任期，但他确实呼吁“山姆大叔”(Uncle Sam)要明智地使用伯克希尔向美国财政部(US Treasury)缴纳的数十亿美元税款：“永远不要忘记，我们需要你维持货币的稳定，而要实现这一结果，你（他特别强调）必须具备智慧和警觉。”
At a time of extraordinary geopolitical and economic change around the world, the same question shareholders were concerned about in 2003 still applies: can anyone replicate Buffett’s performance? The core class of Berkshire “A” shares closed on Friday at a record $809,808.50, up 20 per cent on the year. When Buffett gained control of what was then an ailing textile manufacturer in 1965, the shares were worth less than $20.
在全球经历着非同寻常的地缘政治和经济变革之际，2003年股东们关心的那个问题依然存在：是否有人能够复制巴菲特的业绩？伯克希尔“A”类核心股票周五收盘价创下了809,809美元的历史新高，年内上涨了20%。1965年，巴菲特接管当时还是一家濒临倒闭的纺织制造商时，这只股票的价格还不到20美元。
With the self-deprecation that has always marked him out from self-aggrandising fellow CEOs, Buffett has long attributed much of this success to the “ovarian lottery” that saw him born white, male and relatively well off, with the ability and capacity to invest at an auspicious time for US capitalism. He has likened the effect to a snowball — the title of Alice Schroeder’s excellent 2008 biography — that “just happens if you’re in the right kind of snow . . . You’d better be picking up snow as you go along, because you’re not going to be getting back up to the top of the hill again. That’s the way life works.”
巴菲特一直以自嘲著称，这也让他与那些自我吹嘘的同行CEO区别开来。他长期以来将自己的成功很大程度上归因于所谓的“卵巢彩票”——他出生时是白人、男性，家境相对优越，并且有能力和条件在美国资本主义的黄金时期进行投资。他将这种影响比作滚雪球——正如爱丽丝•施罗德(Alice Schroeder)2008年那本出色的传记《滚雪球》的书名所示——“如果你正好处在合适的雪地里，雪球自然会越滚越大……你得一路不断地滚雪球，因为你不可能再回到山顶重新开始。这就是人生的道理。”
But this self-analysis underestimates the steely persistence, perfectionism, focus and intellect that lie behind his public folksiness. For instance, when he invested in Goldman Sachs, helping to shore the investment bank up during the 2008 financial crisis, he did so on terms highly favourable to Berkshire, exemplifying one of his best-known maxims: “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”
但这种自我分析低估了他在公众面前表现出的亲和力背后所蕴藏的坚韧不拔、完美主义、专注和智慧。例如，在2008年金融危机期间，他投资了高盛(Goldman Sachs)，帮助这家投行渡过难关，而他为伯克希尔争取到的投资条件极为有利，这正体现了他最著名的格言之一：“别人贪婪时我恐惧，别人恐惧时我贪婪。”
Such bons mots are likely to be recycled for as long as financial markets exist, though we have almost certainly read the last of the wonderful letters to shareholders that remain the best, and best-written, guide to Buffett’s philosophy of life and investment.
只要金融市场存在，这些妙语很可能会被不断引用。不过，我们几乎可以肯定，以后无法再读到那些精彩的致股东信了——它们依然是对巴菲特人生与投资哲学最出色、最优美的阐释。
Replicating the philosophy will, however, be a vast challenge. Whatever the talents of Greg Abel, selected in 2021 to step into the biggest shoes in US investment history, and the board’s commitment to guarding the same culture and ethos, Berkshire is no longer the nimble vehicle that Buffett and Munger used to sweep up undervalued corporate assets in the last quarter of the 20th century. At times, even they struggled to find investments big enough to “move the needle” for their shareholders, as Buffett put it last year.
然而，要复制这种理念将是一项巨大的挑战。无论格雷格•阿贝尔（于2021年被选中，接替美国投资史上最重要的位置）有多么有才华，也无论董事会多么致力于守护同样的文化和精神，伯克希尔已经不再是巴菲特和芒格在20世纪最后一个季度用来收购被低估企业资产的灵活工具了。有时候，即使是他们也很难找到足够大的投资项目，能够像巴菲特去年所说的那样“真正对股东产生影响”。
Still, volatility has always created opportunities. Evidencing that he has not in fact lost his marbles, Buffett is leaving behind a vast, and growing, war chest of $348bn. At some point, he said on Saturday, Berkshire would be “bombarded with offerings that we’ll be glad we have the cash for”.
不过，波动性一直带来机遇。事实证明，巴菲特并没有失去理智——他正留下一个庞大且不断增长的“弹药库”，高达3480亿美元。巴菲特在周六表示，总有一天，伯克希尔会“被各种机会蜂拥而至，届时我们会庆幸手头有充足的现金”。
As Buffett’s snowball rolls to a halt, his successors have the resources to create a new one. Will they have the momentum, the conditions and the skills to direct it as the Sage of Omaha has?
随着巴菲特的雪球逐渐停下，他的继任者们拥有足够的资源去打造一个新的雪球。但他们是否具备足够的动力、条件和能力，能够像“奥马哈先知”那样引导它前行？