巴菲特旗下公司面臨財務披露壓力
Warren Buffett is under fire from investment analysts who cover his $370bn company, Berkshire Hathaway, over the quality of its financial disclosures.
While Berkshire has grown to be the third-largest company on the US stock market, its quarterly filings reveal far less detail than companies of a similar size, according to the analysts, who all urged Mr Buffett to consider expanding disclosures, particularly about Berkshire’s large insurance businesses.
分析師稱，儘管伯克希爾哈撒韋已成長爲美國股市第三大公司，但其季度財報提供的具體信息遠遠不及同等規模的其他公司。這些分析師都敦促巴菲特考慮擴大信息披露，特別是有關伯克希爾哈撒韋旗下大型保險公司的信息披露。Mr Buffett rejected the criticism, telling the Financial Times that Berkshire communicates “all the relevant factors for a long-term investment in the shares”.
巴菲特反駁了這一批評，他告訴英國《金融時報》，伯克希爾哈撒韋已經公佈了“所有長期股票投資的相關因素”。
The FT interviewed five of Berkshire’s six analysts, all of whom noted the difficulty in modelling the company’s financial results. One said Berkshire “could stand to reveal more”; others described the level of disclosure as “limited”, “poor” and “terrible”.
英國《金融時報》採訪了6位分析師中的5位，他們長期研究伯克希爾哈撒韋，但他們都指出很難繪製該公司的財報模型。其中一位分析師表示，伯克希爾哈撒韋“還可以公佈更多”；其他人則認爲該公司的信息披露“有限”、“匱乏”和“糟糕”。Berkshire’s businesses span insurance, utilities, railways, manufacturing, retail, newspapers and many more industries. Eight of its subsidiaries would be Fortune 500 companies if they were split off.
伯克希爾哈撒韋的業務遍及保險、公用事業、鐵路、製造業、零售、報紙以及更多其他行業。如果分拆，有8家子公司將躋身《財富》(Fortune)500強。Berkshire has never sought analyst coverage — its six analysts compare with more than 20 for General Electric, for example — and Mr Buffett said that, since he began investing in shares at the age of 11, he had never once bought something on the basis of an analyst recommendation.
伯克希爾哈撒韋從不謀求分析師的研究報道，例如，對該公司進行研究的分析師有6位，而通用電氣(GE)則多達20多位。巴菲特表示，自從他11歲開始投資股票以來，他沒有一次是根據分析師的推薦來買入股票的。Many of the largest investment banks have declined to assign analysts to cover Berkshire because its high-priced and closely held shares trade relatively infrequently, and institutional investor interest in the stock is low compared with other companies.
很多最大投行拒絕指派分析師去研究伯克希爾哈撒韋，因爲該公司股價很高，投資者緊密持有，而且交易相對不頻繁，相對於其他公司的股票，機構投資者對這隻股票的興趣較低。
