《金融时报》去粗取精
我上一篇关于市场时机的文章以“低买高卖”这一格言作结。当时我说，如果你以合理价格买入优质公司的股票，即便忘了“高卖”这回事，照样能赚钱。
I ended my last article about market timing, which can be encapsulated by the mantra “buy low, sell high”, by saying that if you buy shares in good companies at reasonable prices, you’ll still make money even if you forget the “sell high” bit.
可我说的“优质公司”是什么意思？你要是读投资研究，会看到大量关于盈利增长、每股收益增长或基于每股收益的估值内容。但很少看到关于公司已动用资本回报率（ROCE）的讨论。
But what do I mean by “good companies”? If you read investment research you will see a great deal about earnings growth, growth in earnings per share or valuations based on earnings per share. You will rarely read much about a company’s return on capital employed (“ROCE”).
这是个遗憾，因为 ROCE 很重要。如果你把资金投进基金、债券或银行账户，会很在意预期的回报率。买入一家公司的股票，实际上就是买下它资本中属于你的那份。为什么反倒不关心它能赚到多少回报？毕竟，你拥有它的一部分。已动用资本回报率通常这样计算：现金经营利润除以股东权益与长期负债之和——这些数字在一套普通公司账目里都能找到。
That’s a shame, because ROCE is important. If you invest your capital in a fund, a bond or a bank account, you will be very interested in the expected rate of return you will get. If you buy a share in a company you are in effect purchasing your share of its capital. Why aren’t you interested in the return it will earn on it? After all, you own part of it. Return on capital employed is usually calculated as cash operating profit divided by the sum of shareholders’ equity and long-term liabilities – all numbers that can be found in a normal set of company accounts.
我们个人如果以每年 5% 的利率借钱，拿去投资赚取每年 10% 的回报，会越来越富。可要是回报率只有 2.5%，就会越变越穷。公司也一样。回报率高于资金成本的公司为股东创造价值，低于资金成本的则在摧毁价值。
If, as individuals, we borrow money at a rate of say 5 per cent each year and we invest it at a return of 10 per cent a year, we will become richer. But if we earn a return of 2.5 per cent we would become poorer. The same is true of companies. Those that make a return above their cost of capital create value for their shareholders, while those that make a return below their cost of capital destroy value.
但按这个标准评估公司，比光看盈利要难，问题出在资金成本这个概念上。一家公司的债务成本容易估算——债务结构和利息成本的说明通常附在公司年报的附注里——可它的股权资本成本是多少？这是大量研究的课题，现实中只能是个估计值。不过别被这个吓退，因为作为投资者，你只该关注那些回报率高到超过任何合理资金成本估算的公司。
But assessing companies on this basis is less easy than just looking at earnings because of the cost of capital concept. We can easily assess the cost of a company’s debt – a description of the debt profile and interest costs is usually included in the notes to a company’s annual accounts – but what is the cost of its equity capital? This is the subject of much research and in reality it can only ever be an estimate. But don’t let that put you off, because as an investor you should only be truly interested in companies whose returns are so high that they exceed any feasible cost of capital.
我的话你不必全信。1979 年沃伦·巴菲特在致伯克希尔·哈撒韦股东的信中，把资本回报率称为管理公司业绩的首要检验标准。我一直纳闷，这么一位成功投资者说得如此清楚的话，怎么就被如此普遍地忽视了呢。
There’s no need to need to accept my word for this. In his 1979 annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett described return on capital as the primary test of performance in managing a company. It has often puzzled me why such a clear statement from such a successful investor is so widely ignored.
你可能以为自己的基金经理正忙着用 ROCE 这类指标挖掘好投资。我见过的可不是这样。经理们常常会投资那些行业回报率长期低下的公司。为什么？因为他们觉得自己能挑准一个买入时点，等着公司业绩好转。也许他们盼着经济周期回暖，或者新的管理团队接手，又或者公司本身被收购。
You may think that your fund manager is busy using metrics such as ROCE to dig out great investments. Not in my experience. Managers will often invest in companies in industries with endemically poor returns. Why? Because they think that they can pick a point to buy the shares at which the performance of the company will improve. Maybe they expect the business cycle to pick up, or a new management team will take over, or the company itself will be taken over.
航空业就是个好例子，行业整合长期以来被寄予厚望。国际航空运输协会（IATA）和咨询公司麦肯锡 2011 年发布了一份名为《2050 年愿景》的报告。报告显示，2010 年航空业投入的资本达 5000 亿美元。IATA/麦肯锡估算，该行业每年的整体资金成本为 7% 至 8%。把过去十年的回报与这一资金成本相比，他们发现航空业每年以约 200 亿美元的速度摧毁价值。在 2002 至 2009 年的商业周期里，航空公司投入资本回报率平均每年仅为 2.8%。即便在 2007 年——该行业那十年里最好的一年——按此标准，行业仍摧毁了超过 90 亿美元的投资者价值。而航空业远非孤例。
A good example of this is the airline industry, where consolidation has long been a great white hope. The International Air Transport Association and the consultancy McKinsey published a report in 2011 called Vision 2050. It showed that there was $500bn of capital invested in the airline industry in 2010. Iata/McKinsey reckoned the industry had an overall cost of capital of 7-8 per cent a year. Comparing the returns generated with this cost of capital over the previous decade, they found that the airline industry destroyed value at the rate of about $20bn a year. During the 2002-09 business cycle, airlines’ return on invested capital averaged just 2.8 per cent a year. Even in 2007 – the best year for the industry during that decade – the industry still destroyed more than $9bn of investor value on this basis. And airlines are far from alone.
问题在于，买入这些低回报公司的基金经理一边等着他们以为会改变局面的时机，公司一边在摧毁价值。但反过来，当你持有一家回报率远高于资金成本的公司时，情况正好相反。你不需要盼着被收购、董事会政变或商业周期转变，因为你可以确信，它的内在价值几乎每天都在增长。时间站在你这边。
The problem is that while fund managers who buy these low-return companies wait for the events which they think will change the situation, the companies destroy value. But the reverse is true when you own shares in a company that generates returns well above its cost of capital. You don’t need to hold out for a takeover, a boardroom coup or a change in the business cycle, because you can be assured that its intrinsic value is growing practically every day. Time is on your side.
这是关于投资基础知识的五篇系列文章中的第二篇。
This is the second of a five-part series about the fundamentals of investing.
点击此处查看 FT.com 上的全文。
Click here for the full article on FT.com.
Terry Smith
Terry Smith
Financial Times
Financial Times