查克·阿克雷 - 三脚凳 - [像最佳投资者一样投资，重播]

我亲身经历过资产管理人面临的税务体系有多么复杂，而每一个新工具和数据源似乎都让问题变得更糟，增加了更多的复杂性、人力和风险。

I know firsthand how complex the tax stack is for asset managers, and seemingly every new tool and data source makes the problem even worse, adding more complexity, more headcount, and more risk.

Ridgeline 提供了一种更好的解决方案：一个统一的平台，自动化处理投资组合会计、对账、报告、交易、合规等所有这些复杂环节。

Ridgeline offers a better way forward, one unified platform that automates away all that complexity across portfolio accounting, reconciliation, reporting, trading, compliance, and more.

而且能够规模化实现。

All at scale.

Ridgeline 正在革新投资管理，帮助有抱负的公司更快扩张、更智能运营，并始终领先一步。

Ridgeline is revolutionizing investment management, helping ambitious firms scale faster, operate smarter, and stay ahead of the curve.

看看 Ridgeline 能为您的公司带来什么突破。

See what Ridgeline can unlock for your firm.

立即在 ridgelineapps.com 预约演示。

Schedule a demo at ridgelineapps.com.

大家好，欢迎各位。

Hello, and welcome, everyone.

我是帕特里克·奥肖内西，欢迎收听《像最优秀的人一样投资》。

I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy, and this is Invest Like the Best.

这档节目是对市场、理念、故事和策略的开放式探索，帮助你更好地投资你的时间和金钱。

This show is an open ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.

《像最好的人一样投资》是Colossus播客家族的一员，你可以在joincolossus.com上访问我们所有的播客，包括编辑过的文字稿、节目笔记和其他学习资源。

Invest like the best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

帕特里克·奥肖内西是Positive Sum的首席执行官。

Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum.

帕特里克和播客嘉宾表达的所有观点均为他们个人意见，不代表Positive Sum的立场。

All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum.

本播客仅作信息参考，不应作为投资决策的依据。

This podcast is for informational purpose only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.

Positive Sum的客户可能持有本播客中讨论的证券。

Clients of PositiveSum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

如需了解更多信息，请访问psum.vc。

To learn more, visit psum.vc.

我今天的嘉宾是查克·奥克里，一位如今广为人知的投资者，他于1989年创立了奥克里资本管理公司，目前管理着约100亿美元的资产。

My guest today is Chuck Okri, a now widely famous investor who founded Okri Capital Management in 1989, which now manages approximately $10,000,000,000.

我们讨论了他的投资风格以及评估公司的三脚凳模型。

We discuss his investing style and his three legged stool for evaluating companies.

请享受这次精彩的对话。

Please enjoy this great conversation.

鉴于这是我在中堡的第一次来访，我想从我们坐的这个地方开始聊起，这会很有趣。

So given that, Chuck, that this is my first time here in Middleburg, I thought it would be a fun place to start with the place where we're sitting.

你经常提到这个只有一盏红绿灯的小镇，

You've talked a lot about the one traffic light town as

是的。

Yeah.

这可能是一种优势，与典型的投资者非常不同。

Maybe an advantage, something very different from the typical investor.

谈谈中堡吧，你为什么选择这里，以及你热爱它什么。

Talk about Middleburg, why you're here and what you love about it.

我们来这里主要是因为生活质量方面的原因。

We're here because of in effect quality of life issues.

我恰好是一个在安静环境中工作得更好的人。

And I happen to be a person who works well without a lot of commotion around.

我认识很多喜欢喧嚣的业内人士，我也曾与其中一些人共事过。

And I know lots of people in the business who love commotion and I've worked with some of them.

但这里低强度的活动环境有助于我们敞开门坐着，不受外界事务的干扰。

But the low level of activity around here is just helpful for us being able to sit there with our doors open and not be disturbed by outside events.

如果我的办公室在中央公园南街，我会有一千个非常聪明、非常有趣的朋友，而我就会分心。

And then as it relates to, let's say, Middleburg versus Central Park South, if my office were there, I'd have a thousand friends who are very bright and very interesting and I would be distracted.

我会对他们思考问题的方式产生好奇并投入其中，这会分散我专注于自己擅长事情的注意力。

I've become curious and engaged in their thought process and it would distract me from what it is that I do well.

所以，就像在一个岛上投资一样，身处一个非常田园、美丽的地点。

So investing on an island, so to speak, in a very bucolic, beautiful spot.

确实如此。

Yes, indeed.

我们住在农场里，诸如此类，一切都恰到好处。

We live on a farm and that sort of stuff, so it all fits together.

我们会深入讨论涅槃投资的理念、三脚凳模型及其各个组成部分等等。

We're gonna talk a lot about the ideas of nirvana investing, the three legged stool, the components of that, etcetera.

但我想先从你为自己创造的这种独特隔离环境开始，聊聊你的一天是如何度过的。

But I'd love to begin with, given that you've created this sort of interesting isolation for yourself, what a day looks like for you.

在你目前的投资阶段，你每天具体都在做些什么？

So at this stage of your investing process, what are you literally spending your time on day to day?

是研究企业吗？

Is it looking through businesses?

是跟进现有的企业吗？

Is checking in on existing businesses?

这些工作是如何分配的？

How's that sort of allocated?

我对企业的参与在不断变化和发展。

My participation in the business evolves and continues to evolve and so on.

因此，我现在亲自进行的基本面研究比几年前少多了。

And so I'm personally doing less pure fundamental research today than I did years ago.

这里其他人会做这些。

There are others here who do that.

我们整天都在讨论各种想法和相关的事情。

And we talk about ideas and stuff all day long.

我花很多时间阅读。

And I spend a lot of time reading.

这就是我的思维中产生想法的方式。

And that's how ideas bubble up in my universe.

这里其他人会使用筛选工具，但大多是出于偶然、低效，不妨说是一种非量化的做法。

And others here use screens, but mostly where it is a serendipitous inefficient, let's just say non quantitative approach.

你之前提到过，想象力和知识一样重要，甚至更重要。

You mentioned before this idea that imagination is as or more important than knowledge.

你能稍微谈谈这个观点吗？

Can you talk about that concept a little bit?

这其实很简单。

Well, it's very simple.

在我的职业生涯中，我遇到过成千上万非常非常聪明的人，但他们未必是优秀的投资者。

I have in my career, run across literally thousands of people who are very, very bright, who are not necessarily good investors.

因此，纯粹的知识本身并不能保证你成为一个好的投资者。

And so pure knowledge is in and of itself not a ticket to being a good investor.

想象力和好奇心才是至关重要的。

Imagination and curiosity are what's hugely important.

多年来，我们正是通过保持好奇心，并持续参与寻找过程，才发现了这些卓越的企业。

And we've discovered things over the years purely by being curious and continuing to keep involved in the search process to find these exceptional businesses.

你能区分好奇心和想象力吗？

Can you distinguish it all between curiosity and imagination?

一个听起来像是探索，另一个则更像是创造性的力量。

One sounds like a search and another sounds like more of a creative force.

它们都是创造性的。

Well, they're both creative.

我大儿子曾经是一名终身教授，他常说，他所在的大学并不具备对学生群体进行高度筛选的条件。

My older son was a tenured college professor for a while and he used to say that he worked at a university that as he said, didn't have the luxury of being highly selective in its student body.

他说让他最失望的是，即使是他最好的学生、那些得A的学生，也通常只关心如何掌握取得A所需的那点知识，而不是保持好奇心。

And he said the thing that disappointed him the most was that even his best students, his students who got As, typically only wanted to know what they needed to know to get an A rather than have curiosity.

我发现，好奇心在我寻找投资机会以及将现实生活经验联系起来时非常有用，它让我能够探索各种思路，比如去弄清楚为什么一只股票的交易数据可能有趣，或者其他类似的事情。

And I find that curiosity has been useful to me in search for investing and in relating real life experiences to allowing me to pursue lines of thought that whether it's trying to figure out why a stock card track might be interesting or something else, that sort of stuff.

所以我想我可能不太擅长解释好奇心和想象力之间的区别，但它们在创造力和识别企业时是相辅相成的。

So I guess I'm probably not very articulate in explaining the difference between curiosity and imagination, but they go hand in hand in in being creative and identifying businesses.

我认为最让我欣赏的体现方式，就是Nirvana的三脚凳理念。

I think the manifestation I love is in the Nirvana three legged stool idea.

我很想听听这个理念的起源。

I'd love to hear the beginnings of that.

当然，请讲讲这个凳子的三条腿分别是什么。

Obviously talk about what those three legs are in the stool.

而且我一直对变化率很感兴趣。

And then I'm always interested also in rates of change.

是的，我们房间里确实就放着这样的凳子，这太棒了。

Yeah, we literally have the stools here in the room that we're in, which is awesome.

那么谈谈这三个方面的起源吧，那三个简单的

So talk about the origins of those The three simple

左边远处那个是来自马里兰州弗雷德里克县的挤奶凳，属于我父亲律师事务所的资深合伙人，曾被用作挤奶凳。

one on the far left over there is a milking stool from Frederick County, Maryland that belonged to the senior partner of my father's law firm and was used as a milking stool.

如果你从这个角度能看到它，后方的那条腿比另外两条更倾斜一些。

And if you could see it from this angle, the one leg there in the back is more of an angle than the other two.

那个农民在挤奶时，会坐下来一次只挤一头牛，他会把那根长柄举起来，放在自己屁股底下坐着，这样能贴近地面，方便操作。

And the farmer would who would sit down and milk an individual cow one at a time, would take that long handle and stick it up under his behind as he sat down to milk a cow, got close to the ground where he could work.

如果你仔细观察，会发现三条腿比四条腿更稳固。

And if you observe that, it's actually, the three legs are sturdier than four legs.

它能轻松适应不平的地面，而四条腿做不到这一点。

It can adjust to uneven ground easily that four legs cannot do.

我喜欢这个理念，它来自我父亲，有一次就放在我的办公桌上，我渐渐把它当作一种视觉构想，用来描述我们所称的优秀投资的核心组成部分。

I liked that notion and it had come to me from my father and it was just sitting on a table in my office one time, and I sort of began to adopt that as the, what I call the visual construct for what we choose to describe as the integral components of what makes a great investment.

这是我后来形成的观念，因为我对商业世界完全没有任何背景。

And that's something that I came to because I had no background whatsoever in the business world.

我主修英语，之前还当过预医学生，但从未上过任何商业课程。

And I was an English major and I'd been a pre med student before I was an English major and I had no courses in business whatsoever.

所以我有一张白纸，充满学习的意愿、渴望和好奇心。

So I had a clean canvas and a willingness and a desire and a curiosity to learn.

于是我的探索就是：什么造就了好的投资？

And so my voyage was what makes a good investment?

什么造就了好的投资者？

What makes a good investor?

在试图将这一切整合起来时，其中确实有定量的方面，但最终我们发现，好的投资正是由这三条腿构成的。

In trying to put all this together, there was a quantitative aspect to it, but we end up describing what makes a good investment is each of those three legs.

让我再退一步说，从一开始，我们的投资目标就始终是追求超越平均水平的回报。

Well, I'll back up again a little bit and say that our investment goal has always been from the outset to try to produce an outcome that's above average.

但再往前退一步，我早期就研究过各类资产类别的回报率，并发现长期来看，普通股票的回报率在无杠杆的情况下，始终高于其他任何资产。

But stepping back even a step further, I examined early on and continued to rates of return in all different asset categories and made the observation that the rates of return in common stocks over a long period of time was higher than anything else on an unleveraged basis, on a consistent long term basis.

在过去大约一百年里，美国普通股票的回报率大约在百分之九到十之间。

At the rates of returns on common stocks in The United States in let's say roughly the last hundred years is in the neighborhood of nine to 10%.

事实上，我们并不关心它具体是多少。

And in fact, we don't care what it is precisely.

我们想知道的是一般情况如何。

We want to know what it is generally.

我们对为什么是这样做出了一个定量的观察。

We made a quantitative observation about why that's so.

而我们的观察是，在我们看来，这与这些企业中所有者资本的实际回报率相对应。

And that observation is that in our judgment, it corresponds, correlates to what the real return on the owner's capital is in those businesses.

我们多次做过简短的演示，解释为什么是这样，并得出结论：我们的资产回报将接近净资产收益率。

And we can have done many times a quick little show and tell about why that's so and conclude that our return in an asset will approximate the ROE.

在我们的情况下，我们真正使用的是所有者资本的自由现金流回报率。

In our case, we really use free cash flow return on the owner's capital.

在估值恒定且没有分配的情况下，你可以从你的定量背景中完全得出这一点。

Given a constant valuation and given the absence of any distributions, you get that from your quantitative background completely.

然后你会明智地说：‘查克，人人都知道市场上的估值并不会恒定。’

And then you would wisely say, well, Chuck, everybody knows you don't have constant valuation in the market.

所以我们也很清楚这一点。

So we understand that too.

因此，我们努力以一个较为保守的初始估值起步，只是为了尽量降低这种风险。

So we work hard to have a modest starting valuation just simply to try to reduce that risk.

因此，如果我们希望获得超越平均水平的回报，就需要投资于那些具有超越平均水平回报的企业。

And so understanding that if our goal is to have above average outcomes, we need to have businesses that have above average returns.

这就是第一点。

So that's the first leg.

我们努力识别那些长期保持高资本回报率的企业。

We try to identify businesses that have had high returns on the owner's capital for a long time.

我们花了大量时间去探究为什么会这样，以及是什么原因导致了这种现象。

And we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why that's so and what's caused that.

那么，它们未来的增长空间又如何呢？

And then is there what's the runway ahead of them look like?

是宽广而长远的吗？

Is it broad and long?

他们是否仍然有机会获得高回报或高于平均水平的资本回报率？

Do they still have the opportunity to earn high or above these above average returns on capital and so on?

我们还希望这些企业由那些已证明自己卓越的管理者来运营，因为他们已经实现了这些成果，同时根据我们的观察，他们即使不认识我们，也把我们当作合作伙伴。

And then we want those businesses to be run by people who've demonstrated they're clearly great at running the business cause they've achieved this, but also who, by our observation, treat us as partners even though they don't know us.

你肯定读过很多遍了，但我有一个说法：一旦一个人把手伸进你的口袋，他就会再做一次。

You've read it enough times, I'm sure, but I have an expression where I say that our experience is once a guy sticks his hand in your pocket, he'll do it again.

所以我们完全没有理由去涉足这种情形。

And so we just have no reason to go there.

我的意思是，这是人性使然。

I mean, it's human behavior.

我们不断遇到那些行为与我们的利益背道而驰的人。

We're constantly finding people whose behavior is antithetical to our interest.

第一点是企业的质量。

So leg one is the quality of the business enterprise.

第二点是企业管理者的人品与诚信。

Number two is the quality and the integrity of the people who run the business.

第三点是它们的再投资记录以及再投资的机会如何？

And then the third leg is what is their record of reinvestment and what is their opportunity for reinvestment?

因此，当我们具备了所有这些条件后，就不愿意为这些企业支付太高的价格。

And so we have all those things that we say, once we have those in place, then we're just not willing to pay very much for these businesses.

这就是椅子的三条腿。

Those are the three legs of the stool.

人们记得这些，但却对此感到困惑。

People remember that, but they get confused by this.

他们说，哦，对，你们说的是那三条腿，对吧？

They say, Oh yeah, you're the three stools, aren't you?

或者类似这样的话。

Or something like that.

这仅仅是我们用来形象化表达的一种简略说法：第一、第二、第三，这些对我们来说很重要。

It was just a shorthanded way for us to sort of visually say, one, two, three, this is what's important to us.

我们的经验是，如果我们持有了卓越的企业，世界上最难做到的事之一就是不卖出它们。

And And our experience is that if we own exceptional businesses, one of the hardest things in the world is to not sell them.

所有企业都会遇到运营中的波折，都会发生一些未预料到或未曾充分考虑的事情。

All businesses have hiccups in their business operations and all businesses have things that occur that's unplanned for or thought about, but not necessarily expected.

这就是生活。

And that's life.

我的意思是，没有什么是完美的。

I mean, nothing is perfect.

没有什么能像杰克·韦尔奇所说的那样，每年稳定增长20%，稳赚不赔。

Nothing is Jack Welch's 20% a year, take it to the bank.

在他离开很久之后，我们才发现，那些成就很大程度上不过是纸牌屋。

Long after he's left, we found out that much of that was a house of cards.

因此，我们刚刚庆祝了Aker资本管理公司成立三十周年，做了一些演示，其中一位合伙人做了一场。

And so we just had our thirtieth anniversary for Aker Capital Management and did some presentations and and one of our partners did one.

这场演示的标题是《不卖出的艺术》。

It was entitled The Art of Not Selling.

而真正做到这一点确实非常困难。

And it's truly very hard to do.

事实上，我们最大的优势之一，或许就是我们不卖出的能力。

And in fact, it may be one of our great assets is our ability to not sell.

我是个量化分析师，但我认可那三根支柱中的艺术性，我很乐意花几分钟逐一探讨。

I'm a quant, but I recognize the art in each of those three legs of the stool, and I'd love to spend a few minutes on each.

在为我们的对话做准备时，我偶然发现了一个关于一家名为Bandag公司的有趣故事，我很想听听这个例子，看看它是如何识别一家企业核心价值创造的本质，以及为何其净资产收益率能长期维持在9%或10%以上。

So I came across a really interesting story in preparing for our conversation about a company called Band Aid, And I'd love to hear that as an example of trying to identify the essence of an underlying business's value creation and why its ROE can be above nine or 10 for a long period of time.

这实际上发生在我还在华盛顿特区一家名为Johnston Lemon的公司工作的时候，那是一家经纪公司。

So this was actually in the days when I was at a firm called Johnston Lemon in Washington, DC, and it was a brokerage firm.

我是公司的合伙人，当时公司里有一些实习生。

And I was a principal in the firm, we had some interns around.

我把一个装满从杂志和报纸上剪下来文章的盒子交给了这位实习生，对他说：你翻一翻，看看有没有什么有趣的东西。

And I took a inbox that was full of things I'd tear out of magazines and papers and put in a box and gave them to this intern and said, look through there and see if you find anything interesting.

一周后，他回来告诉我：我发现了一家叫Bandag的公司，挺有意思的。

And a week later, came back and he said, well, here's a really interesting company called Bandag.

为什么它有意思？

And why is it interesting?

它的资本回报率非常高，并且长期表现良好。

Well, it had very high returns on capital and then done well for a long period of time.

我说，那太好了。

And I said, well, great.

它是做什么业务的？

What business is it?

他说，这是整个业务。

And he said, it's the entire business.

我看了看资本回报率，说：显然不是整个业务。

And I looked at the returns on the capital and said, well, it's clearly not in the entire business.

你什么意思？

What do you mean?

我说，看看这些回报率，再看看其他轮胎企业的回报率，看看它们之间有什么关系。

I said, well, take a look at the returns and then take a look at the returns of all the other tire businesses you find and see how they relate to each other.

而Bandag的回报率是它们的三到四倍。

And bandags was three or four times what they were.

我的意思是，我说得很清楚，这根本不是轮胎业务，而是另一个行业。

I mean, I said, obviously it's not in the tire business, it's in another business.

我们的目标是弄清楚它到底属于哪个行业。

Our goal is to figure out what business it's in.

于是我们去拜访了他们，那个业务是由一个叫马蒂·卡弗的人经营的，而他父亲是这家公司的创始人。

So we went out to see them and a fellow by the name of Marty Carver was running the business that had been founded by his father.

公司位于爱荷华州的马斯卡廷。

It was in Muscatine, Iowa.

我安排了会面，马蒂在我们面谈时把脚翘在桌上，一边吃着苹果。

And I got the meeting and Marty had his feet up on the desk and was eating an apple during our interview.

所以你从一开始就感受到了不同的氛围。

And so you got a different feel right off the bat.

他们的业务是翻新卡车和公交车轮胎。

And their business was retreading truck and bus tires.

在此之前，我对这个领域一无所知。

It's something I really knew nothing about before then.

在20世纪70年代初，我们经历了美国的石油禁运，汽油价格飙升。

And we had been through the oil embargo in The United States in the early '70s where prices of gasoline went through the roof.

而轮胎成型和翻新最重要的原材料之一，当然是石油基产品。

And one of the principal components of tire molding and recapping is, of course, petroleum based.

因此，这导致他们的所有经销商的经营成本大幅上升。

And so it had caused all of their dealers to have a huge increase in the cost of doing business.

当价格开始回落时，Bandag公司将这些节省下来的收益以必须用于业务发展的前提分配给了经销商。

And when prices began to come back down, Bandag took those savings and distributed them to dealers on the basis that they had to use the money in the business.

他们不能拿这笔钱去买新的凯迪拉克，但可以建一家新店。

They couldn't go buy new Cadillacs, but they could build a new store.

因此，他们的主要竞争对手是那些拥有公司直营店的大型轮胎公司。

And so their principal competition was the major tire companies, all of whom had company owned stores.

所有Bandag的门店都是特许经营的。

All the Bandang stores were franchised.

所以他们打交道的是独立经销商，正如人们所说，这些经销商早上六点就到店，晚上九点才关门，而雇员型经销商则是早上九点到、六点就走。

So they were dealing with independent dealers who, as they say, got there at six in the morning and closed at nine at night as opposed to the employee dealers who got there at nine in the morning and left at six at night.

这些人受到自身利润等因素的驱动。

And these people were motivated by their own profits and whatnot.

因此，Bandag非常明智地与经销商分享了这些收益，而不是在当时全部分配给股东。

And so Bandag very wisely shared the wealth as it were with their dealers instead of passing it all on to their shareholders at that time.

这造就了极高的经销商忠诚度，经销商们甚至能进行非常精细的分析，比如比较使用Bandag胎面与其它类型胎面的卡车运营燃油成本。

And it created a huge dealer loyalty and the dealers were able to, they did very sophisticated things about identifying the cost of fuel to a trucking operation if they had a bandag tread on their tire as opposed to some other kind of tread.

卡车轮胎和公交车轮胎的设计是可以翻新两到三次的。

Truck tires and bus tires are built and designed to be retreaded two or three times.

大多数人并不知道这一点。

Most people don't know that.

汽车轮胎则不是这样设计的。

Automobile tires are not.

卡车和公交车轮胎就是按这种方式制造的。

Truck and bus tires are constructed that way.

总之，他们建立了一个庞大的独立经销商忠诚网络，这些经销商持续使用Bandag的品牌和产品开展业务，而不是选择全国性的轮胎公司。

Any rate, so they had built this huge loyalty network of independent dealers who continued to use the Brandeis name and product in their business instead of national tire companies.

因此，这家公司的资本回报率远高于其他轮胎公司。

And as a result of that, the company had much higher returns on capital than other tire companies.

这体现了好奇心、观察力和想象力的作用，也正是马蒂·卡弗的标志。

And so that was an issue of curiosity and observation and imagination and doing that sort of stuff and making the mark of Marty Carver.

正如我所说，他的父亲创办了这家公司，而他父亲在此之前就已经有些失控了。

And as I say, his father had founded the business and his father had sort of gone off the deep ends before this.

他买了一艘巨大的游艇，开始与拉斯维加斯的歌舞女郎交往，诸如此类的事情，因为公司当时非常成功。

He bought an enormous yacht, an underfoot yacht, and started going out with Las Vegas showgirls and all those kinds of things like this because the business had been very successful.

这是一段有趣的经历。

And it was an interesting experience.

你必须保持好奇，对那些可能带来成果的事情保持开放态度。

You have to be curious and open to those things that have them work out.

最终，这家公司在一些西欧国家扩张时遇到了麻烦，比如劳工问题等。

And at the end of the day, the business really ran into trouble expanding in some Western European countries where they land into labor issues and so on.

所以过了一段时间，我们就转向其他方向了。

And so we moved on after a while.

不过我们持有它很长时间。

We owned it for a long time, though.

如今一个主要趋势是，一些相当年轻的公司迅速创造了巨大的价值，也就是那些大型科技公司。

One of the major trends these days is enormous value creation by fairly young companies that's happened very quickly, the big technology companies.

在这一时期，你的表现相当不错。

In this period, you've managed to do quite well.

我想我大概不会把你归类为价值投资者，但作为一种投资风格，价值投资的表现非常糟糕。

Most I guess I wouldn't classify you as a value investor, but value investing as a style has done very poorly.

我很好奇，过去十到十五年间，你对业务内在价值的评估——也就是第一根支柱——是如何演变的。

I'm curious how your assessment of underlying business value in that first leg of the stool has evolved, say, over the last ten to fifteen years.

在定义一个

Are there major differences in what you're looking for in defining a

好的，第一个不同之处在于，过去十到十五年里，所有企业的整体回报率都下降了。

great Well, the first difference is that in the last ten or fifteen years, the overall returns of all businesses have gone down.

在我看来，我们在这里的判断是，这种下降是因为利率水平普遍降低。

And they've gone down in my mind, in our judgment here, because of the lower level of interest rates, the pervasive lower level of interest rates.

虽然这并不意味着A等于B加C，但这是一个普遍的影响，导致我们认为所有企业的回报率都降低了。

And while it doesn't, you don't necessarily A equals B plus C, it is a pervasive effect and it's caused the returns in all businesses to be lower in our judgment.

第二点是，这些企业获得回报的方式对我们来说是全新的，我们没有及时意识到。

The second thing is that the way some of these businesses have earned their returns are ways that were new to us and we didn't catch on to them.

因此，在过去几年里，我们的回报率一直远高于平均水平，而这完全是在没有投资任何FANG类公司或类似企业的情况下实现的。

So our returns in the last few years, which have been, continue to be well above average, have been done entirely without any of the FANG's or any of those businesses, without any of them.

这仅仅是因为我们不够聪明，也没有足够快地理解这些模式。

And it's just because we weren't smart enough and quick enough to figure them out and that sort of stuff.

你对未来如何看待这个问题？

How do you think about that moving forward?

每一天都是学习的日子，我们必须弄清楚这些企业中，哪些真正具有吸引力，且不会受到技术快速变化、政府干预或各国之间报复性问题的影响。

Every day's a learning day and we have to figure out which of those businesses, if any of them, are truly attractive and are not subject to rapid changes in technology or governmental intervention or retaliatory issues relating to different countries and different parts of the world and that sort of stuff.

也许深入探讨这个问题的一个有趣方式，是谈谈你们最近买入的企业。

Maybe an interesting way to dive in deeper on that would be to talk about recent businesses that either you've bought.

我知道你们的持仓时间非常长。

I know you hold for a very long time.

所以其中一些最近的公司可能已经有七年左右的历史了。

So some of the recent ones might be seven years old or something.

但谈谈你最近觉得最有趣的行业或公司吧，无论是什么。

But talk about something industries, companies, whatever that you find most interesting in recent

我们尽量不谈论投资组合中的公司，当然也从不谈论那些正在进入或退出的公司。

Well, we try not to talk very much about the companies in our portfolio and we certainly never talk about ones that are-

正在建仓，对吧。

Building, right.

正在进入或退出。

Coming in or going out.

所以这些问题都是一样的。

So the issues are all the same.

我的意思是，现在是2019年。

I mean, this is 2019.

在2010年3月，我们首次增持了万事达卡。

In March 2010, we added our first position to MasterCard.

那时正值多德-弗兰克法案和国会相关问题的时期。

And it was during the time of Dodd Frank and issues at Congress.

然后更具体地谈到了后来被称为多宾修正案的内容。

And then more specifically about what became known as the Durbin Amendment.

万事达卡和维萨卡当时收取的费用是十到十一次。

And MasterCard and Visa were selling it 10 or 11 times.

当你深入研究这些数据时，我们发现它们的运营利润率、回报率和资本效率，英语中根本没有足够强烈的词汇来形容。

And when you dove into the numbers, we discovered that the operating margins, returns and capital were, there's not a word in English language that's superlative enough to talk about them.

我只能说，即使把万事达卡和维萨卡的利润率砍掉一半再砍掉一半，它们依然远超美国企业的平均水平。

I would just say that you could cut the margins at MasterCard and Visa in half twice and you'd still be above average for an American business.

所以显然那里正在发生一些非凡的事情。

So clearly something extraordinary is going on there.

这意味着什么？

What does it mean?

我在办公室里提出了这个问题，但只是作为反问。

I asked this question rhetorically around the office.

这告诉你什么？

What does that tell you?

嗯，这说明第一，他们成了众矢之的。

Well, it tells you, A, there's a big target on their back.

人人都想分一杯羹。

Everybody wants some of that.

第二，这说明他们很可能把能想到的所有开支都塞进损益表，试图压低所显示的利润率。

B, it tells you that they're probably jamming every expense they can think of into the income statement to try to reduce how good the margin is that they're showing.

第三，我们花时间去探究是什么导致了这种情况。

And then three, we spend time trying to figure out what's causing that.

我们自认为知道原因，但已经不再讨论了。

We think we know and we've quit talking about it.

所以我不会跟你谈这个。

So I'm not going to talk to you about it.

但如果你读过任何华尔街的研究报告——虽然我们看得很少——根本没有人谈论他们资本回报率的问题。

But I mean, if you read any research from Wall Street, and we'd read very little, there is no one who talks about that, who talks about rates of return that they're earning on their capital.

我的意思是，没人这么做。

I mean, no one does.

因为华尔街的整体商业模式和我们的完全不同。

Because Wall Street in general has a completely different business model than we have.

我们的商业模式是让资本持续增值。

Our business model is to compound our capital.

华尔街的商业模式，概括来说，是创造交易，这很合逻辑。

Wall Street's business model generically is to create transactions, logically.

那么，创造交易的最好方式是什么？

Well, what's the best way to create a transaction?

就是制造我们所说的虚假预期。

To create what we call false expectations.

那什么是虚假预期？

And what are false expectations?

那就是盈利预测。

Well, they're earning estimates.

奥肖内西下一季度的收益将达到1.73美元。

O'Shaughnessy is going to earn $1.73 next quarter.

结果实际公布为1.72美元，人们却说他们差了一美分没达到预期。

And it comes in at $1.72 and the remark is they missed by one.

所以我们称之为差一美分达标，差一美分未达标。

So we call it beat by a penny, missed by a penny.

这就是这种现象。

That's the syndrome.

这为我们周期性地创造了机会，因为市场对这类事情的反应方式，在我们看来是不理性的。

And that gives us opportunities periodically because the markets behave in ways that we happen to think are irrational relating to something like that.

因此，一个过去四年频频登上新闻、并引发争议的公司是 Dollar Tree，我们持有其大量股份。

And so a name that's been in the news for four years now and had some controversy around it is Dollar Tree, where we own a big stake.

在美国，折扣店业务长期以来由三大巨头形成寡头垄断，分别是 Family Dollar、Dollar Tree 和 Dollar General。

The Dollar Store business was really in the oligopoly in The United States with three major players, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and Dollar General.

Dollar General 曾经被私有化，后来由 KKR 带回公开市场。

Dollar General had gone through it, had been taken private and brought back public by KKR.

Dollar Tree 的总部并不在弗吉尼亚州切萨皮克。

Dollar Tree had not been headquartered in Chesapeake, Virginia.

现在，他们迎来了历史上第三位首席执行官。

Now on their, basically their third CEO in their history.

通过经验，我们了解到，我们是出色的零售商，擅长物流，能够建设和管理7000家每件商品都售价一美元的商店。

And there's a business that we through experience have learned, we're terrific retailers and terrific at logistics, building and managing 7,000 stores where they sell everything for a dollar.

Dollar Tree 的商品价格都不能超过一美元。

Dollar Tree, nothing was more than a dollar.

他们的两个竞争对手，Dollar General 和 Family Dollar，而 Family Dollar 仍由创始家族运营，基本上对外出售。

The two competitors, Dollar General and Family Dollar, and Family Dollar was still run by the founding family, basically made itself available for sale.

Dollar General 多年来与他们进行了大量私下沟通。

And Dollar General had had lots of private conversations with them over a period of years.

然后，这逐渐演变成了一场竞标。

Then it sort of became an auction.

Dollar Tree 的出价较低，但最终赢得了竞标。

Dollar Tree had a lower bid, but won the bid.

Family Dollar 选择了他们。

Family Dollar selected them.

这两家公司，Dollar Tree 和 Dollar General，都必须参与竞标。

Both companies, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, simply had to bid on that.

如果一个三公司寡头垄断要变成两家，他们都必须参与竞标。

If it's a three company oligopoly going to two, they both had to bid on it.

这将使 Dollar Tree 的门店数量几乎翻倍。

It was gonna cause Dollar Tree to basically double the number of stores.

你一生能有几次这样的机会？

How many opportunities you get to that once?

我想知道，除了简单地以极高的净资产收益率或投入资本回报率，或者高于市场水平作为线索生成标准外，你们这些年是否还使用过其他启发式指标？

I'm curious if there are other markers that you've used heuristics over the years in addition to the simple idea of really high ROEs or ROICs or something above the market to sort of be the lead generation for

是的。

Yes.

对，新的情况怎么说？

Yeah, new what does it say?

一切应尽可能简化，但不可过度简化。

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

就是这样。

There you go.

因此，许多非常聪明的人会构建出非常有趣而复杂的模型，来判断某物为何便宜或昂贵。

So lots of very bright people can build really intriguing, complicated ways to figure out why something is cheap or expensive.

而我们努力让事情尽可能简单。

And we try to keep things as simple as possible.

如果你读一读你身后那本的话

And if you read the one right behind you

当然。

Sure.

所有投资的最终目标都是回报率。

The bottom line of all investing is the rate of return.

所以我们以此作为

And so we use that as

那就是工具。

That's the tool.

作为我们一切事务的关键工具。

As our key tool for everything.

我们试图从上至下的角度来审视一切。

And we try to look at everything from a top down basis.

我们刚才在谈论FANG公司和现代科技。

So we were talking about the FANGs and modern technology.

我们一般认为，所有这些都涉及各种形式的分销变革，无论是信息、汽车，还是亚马逊从卖书开始，逐渐扩展到销售世界上的一切，再到提供云服务。

We say that as a generalization, all of that is about changes in distribution of all kinds, whether it's information or cars or Amazon starting with books and then to selling everything in the world and then to selling cloud services.

这全部都是关于分销，信息存储的分销，诸如此类的事情。

It's all about distribution, distribution of saving information, that sort of stuff.

因此，这是以一种简单的方式来看待事物。

And so that's looking at things in a simple fashion.

让我们尽量简化它，理解正在发生的大背景，因为我们都有可能陷入琐碎细节中，而这会误导我们。

Let's try to make it as simple as we can and understand the big context of what's going on, because we're all at risk of getting caught in the weeds of what's going on, and that's misleading.

你觉得这种关于分销模式创新的想法公平吗？

Do you think it's fair to I love this idea of innovation in models of distribution.

范戴克是一个有趣而独特的例子。

Van Dyke was a kind of fun and interesting example of that.

你通常会把事情区分为产品创新和分销创新吗？不会。

Do you tend to separate things into product innovation and distribution innovation No.

评估一家企业？

Evaluating a business?

不会。

No.

我们没那么聪明。

We're not that smart.

没那么聪明。

Not that smart.

虽然没那么聪明，但似乎也还行。

Seems to be working okay not being that smart.

它运作得还不错。

It works okay.

这很重要。

That's important.

这是一个重要的观察。

That's an important observation.

它运作得还不错。

It's working okay.

让我们谈谈 stool 的第二条腿，也就是参与这些企业的人员。

Let's talk about the second leg of the stool, which is the people involved in these businesses.

我喜欢脚放在桌上吃苹果。

So what are the I love the feet on the table with eating an apple.

你认为那些你长期持有其股票的企业管理者最常具备哪些特质？

What would you say are the most common characteristics of managers of the businesses that you've ended up owning those stocks for a long period

时间？

of time?

他们办公室里不会放个屏幕显示股票价格。

Well, don't have a screen in their office showing them the price of the stock.

但确实有很多人会这么做。

And there are lots who do.

有时候你在公司的大堂里看到，有时候在CEO的办公桌上也能看到。

And sometimes you find it in the lobby of a company and sometimes you find it on the CEO's desk.

这对我们来说毫无吸引力。

That doesn't interest us.

我们曾遇到过公司老板打电话来问我们：你们为什么在卖我们的股票？

We've had instances where principals and companies have called us up and said, Why are you selling our stock?

在从这种令人不快的问题中缓过神来之后，如果我们确实卖出了股票——这可能是事实，或者我们已经全部卖出了——我们会说：实际上，这显然是正确的决定，因为我们不想和那些把注意力放在这些事情上的人合作经营企业。

Once we recover from that affronting question, if in fact we have been selling the stock, which may be the case, or we may have sold it all, we say, well, actually, that was clearly the right decision because we don't want to be partners with people who are concerned about those things running their business.

在我们看来，他们的关注点完全错了。

Their focus is on the wrong thing in our judgment.

所以这是一个很有趣的观察。

And so this is an interesting exercise.

我们喜欢问的一个问题，特别是针对首席执行官的是：你如何衡量自己在经营这家公司方面的成功与否？

One of the questions that we like to ask is, of a CEO particularly, is how do you measure whether or not you've been a success in running this business?

正如你所预期的，有些人会说，股价上涨了，或者我们达成了盈利目标，或者我们完成了董事会要求的所有事项等等。

And as you might expect, some of them say, well, the price of the stock goes up or we hit our earnings target or we delivered in all the things that the board asked of us and so on.

很少有首席执行官能清晰地表达出他们理解了每股经济价值复利增长这一理念。

It's a rare occasion where the CEO articulates an idea that shows that he understands the idea of compounding the economic value per share.

他们会退一步问：为什么这一点如此重要？

They stand back and say, Well, why is that so?

答案是，他们并没有接受过这方面的训练。

And the answer is that they're not trained to do that.

他们接受的是如何经营企业的训练。

They're trained to run businesses.

他们没有接受过如何思考每股内在价值或经济价值的复利增长——这才是真正最重要的事情。

They're not trained to think about compounding the intrinsic value per the economic value per share is really the single most important thing.

这听起来像是一个资本配置的故事。

That sounds like a capital allocation story.

我知道你非常喜爱商业传记，我最喜欢的那些人物之一就是亨利·辛格尔顿这类人，他们是资本配置的大师，通常也非常灵活。

I know you're a huge fan of business biographies, and some of my favorites have always been the Henry Singleton types of the world who are sort of master capital allocators and often very flexible.

谈谈在‘三脚凳’的第二条腿上，资本配置对首席执行官们的作用。

Talk about the role of capital allocation amongst the CEOs in the second leg of the stool.

我们持有一家名为O'Reilly Automotive的公司，它也属于一个寡头垄断市场，这个寡头市场主要由O'Reilly和Auto Zone构成。

So we own a company called O'Reilly Automotive, and it's also part of an oligopoly, the oligopoly really basically includes O'Reilly Auto Zone.

大约十年前，O'Reilly收购了一家名为CSK Auto Parts的公司。

And O'Reilly acquired a company called CSK Auto Parts, I'll say close to ten years ago.

实际上是在2007年或2008年。

It was, in fact, was 'seven, 'eight.

CSK在西海岸有强大的业务布局，而当时O'Reilly在那边完全没有存在。

CSK had a huge presence on the West Coast where O'Reilly had none.

在中部和南部各州有业务，但在中大西洋和东北部地区几乎没有任何渗透，但这次收购极大地扩展了他们的全国性业务版图。

Presence in the Middle part of the States, Southern part of the States, very little exposure in the Middle Atlantic and Northeast, but it gave them a much greater national footprint.

之后，他们在整合CSK所有门店到O'Reilly网络中的物流方面表现卓越，并将整个业务重新进行了商品陈列和调整。

And after that, and they did a superb job in the logistics of integrating all of the CSK stores into the O'Reilly network, remerchandising them as a whole business.

O'Reilly的业务大约有50%是面向‘代我维修’的客户，也就是独立汽修店，以及‘自己动手’的消费者。

And O'Reilly's business also was about 50% to the do it for me people, the independent garage business, as well as the do it yourselfers.

这很不寻常，因为大多数AutoZone

And that was unusual because most of the AutoZone

它的竞争对手。

Its competitor.

是的，另一家竞争对手在‘自己动手’客户群体中的占比要高得多。

Yeah, the other competitor had a much larger exposure to the do it yourselfers.

当你服务‘代我维修’群体——独立汽修店时，时间就是金钱，他们的升降机上停着一辆车，必须立刻拿到零件，因为一旦车停在升降机上等零件，升降机就无法使用。

When you were serving the do it for me group, the independent garages, time is money, and they had a car on their lift, they needed the part right away because the lift was out of commission if they had a car on it waiting for a part.

因此，零件配送的及时性至关重要。

So the timeliness of the delivery of parts was critical.

这意味着他们必须建立更密集的分销网络等等。

And that means that they had to have a denser distribution network and so on.

这相当有趣。

That was pretty interesting.

你也看到其他人正试图朝这个方向发展。

And you've seen the others sort of trying to move into that direction.

在那之后，奥莱利公司的债务负担非常轻。

After they did that, his company O'Reilly had very little debt they'd taken on.

实际上，2008年由于经济衰退，他们无法借到原本预期用于收购的所有资金，最终不得不发行股票。

Actually, in 2008, because of the recession, they were unable to borrow all the money they'd anticipated for that acquisition and ended up having to issue stock.

当时我们持有CSKA 10%的股份。

And we owned 10% of CSKA at the time.

因此，我们获得了奥莱利公司相当比例的股票，至今仍持有，其价值已涨至当初购买价格的12到13倍。

And so we got a reasonable share of O'Reilly's stock, which we still own, and it's 12 or 13 times what we paid for O'Reilly as a result of that.

无论如何，就资本配置而言，在偿还了因现金流充裕而使用的短期债务后，他们表示：我们不可能再进行其他重大收购，否则会触犯哈特-斯科特-罗迪诺法案。

At any rate, in terms of capital allocation, after they paid off that short debt they'd used because they were generating a lot of cash, They said, Well, we're not going to be able to make any other major acquisition that won't be a Hart Scott Rodino problem.

因此，他们调整了资本配置策略，开始加杠杆回购股票，而这是他们以前从未做过的事。

And therefore, they changed their capital allocation and they began to lever up the company and buy in shares, which they had never done.

从那时起，他们已回购了40%的股份，目前财务杠杆水平也处于合理范围。

They've now, since that period of time, bought in 40% of their shares and are reasonably levered now.

当时管理层和董事会做出了非常明智的资本配置决策，这非常罕见。

It was a really intelligent capital allocation decision by the management and the board at that time, which is highly unusual.

我们都见过一些董事会在公司估值达到顶峰时匆忙回购股票，但那不是他们所做的。

We've all seen boards that were rushing out to buy in their shares when they were at peak valuations and all kinds of, that's not what they were doing.

所以，那是一次非常有趣的资本配置。

So that was a really interesting capital allocation.

另一方面，这要追溯到上世纪80年代末，当时我参与了一家名为国际赛车场的公司。

The other side of that goes back to the late '80s, where I got involved in a company called International Speedway.

这说来话长，你可能已经读过相关故事，了解我是如何介入的。

And it's a long story, you've probably read about it, how I got involved.

但无论如何，当时该公司有250万股流通在外。

But at any rate, at the time the company had 2 and a half million shares outstanding.

这家公司的创始家族是弗兰茨家族，比尔·弗兰茨 Jr. 主导公司。

The family that had founded that was called the Frantz family and Bill Frantz Jr.

他领导着这家公司。

Led the company.