Buffettology for the Chinese/巴菲特投资学之于中国

Mar 15th 2007 | HONG KONG

From The Economist print edition

Who should manage Buffett's billions? Or China's?

应由谁来管理巴菲特抑或中国的亿万资金？

WHEN Warren Buffett took over a fading textile company named Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, Mao Zedong was still plotting his Cultural Revolution, which forced anyone suspected of capitalist tendencies into crushing manual labour. From these rather different points of departure, both Mr Buffett and the People's Republic of China have arrived at a similar dilemma. Mr Buffett is now groping to replace himself as head of a company that has become, in essence, a $170 billion investment fund. The Chinese government meanwhile has yet to name the chief of its own, outsized investment fund, which will be split off from its $1 trillion-worth of foreign-exchange reserves.

1965年，当沃伦.巴菲特接手一个叫作伯克希尔.哈撒维的日渐萧条的纺织品公司时，毛泽东还在策划文革，强迫任何被怀疑有资本主义倾向的人接受艰苦劳改。虽然起点大相径庭，但是巴菲特和中国却都陷入了相似的进退两难之境。巴菲特正寻找接班人来接替其公司领袖位置，该公司实质上相当于1700亿美元投资基金。此时，中国政府则将任命主管来管理从其价值达1万亿美元的外汇储备中分离出来的巨额投资基金。

Reuters     

Hank Paulson enjoys Warren's wit

汉克.鲍尔森欣赏巴菲特的才智

图片来源：路透社

The predicaments facing Mr Buffett, the consummate capitalist, and the Chinese government, still avowedly communist, meet  many levels. Both are loss-averse; both have concerns about the dollar; neither can do much in Chinese currency (Berkshire by law, though it has managed to lose money speculating in yuan; China by mission). Both also suffer from their size. Whatever they hope to buy tends to become pricey because they are buying it. As Berkshire's fame and weight has increased, its returns have shrunk.

彻头彻尾的资本家巴菲特和仍公开承认是共产主义的中国所面临的困境在很多层面上交汇。两方都规避损失、关注美元；两方都无法在人民币问题上大有作为（伯克希尔公司是出于法律原因，虽然其仍“成功”在人民币投机买卖上亏损；中国则是出于使命原因）。两方都因规模而处于不利地位。无论两方想购买什么，该物品都会因其购买而变得价格昂贵。随着伯克希尔公司名誉和分量的提升，其回报反而缩水了。

And yet, despite these handicaps, both aspire to large returns. For Berkshire, a publicly listed company, this goes without saying. It is also true for the new Chinese fund, however. Qu Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC, says the fund will probably be charged the one-year bond rate of about 3% for the assets it manages. But because its funds will not be denominated in Chinese currency, it will also have to compensate for the appreciation of the yuan, which Mr Qu expects to be 3-5% a year. On top of that will be management costs of 1-2%. In sum, the fund may have to produce double-digit returns, which would not be that different from Berkshire's. This may cause it to hold the same kind of volatile assets, such as equities, commodities and junk debt.