저자: WarrenBuffett · 외국인
요약 보기
버핏은 과거 1969년·1998년·2002년 등 자금이 넘쳐 투자 기회가 사라졌던 시기를 회고하며, 현재도 기업 인수 측면에서 매우 불리한 위치라고 진단한다. 사모펀드·헤지펀드의 과도한 자산 매입 경쟁으로 밸류에이션이 역사적으로 높으며, 이 환경에서는 버크셔 주가도 과거만큼 좋은 성과를 내기 어렵다고 말한다. 대안은 없고 사실을 말할 뿐이라고 밝힌다. 찰리 멍거는 수수료 기반 펀드 매니저가 가격을 합리화하며 입찰 경쟁을 벌인다고 지적한다. 버핏은 본인들은 순자산 대부분을 걸고 있어 수익뿐 아니라 손실도 떠안기에 신중하다고 설명한다.
다듬은 글
over the decades just how fast things can change. Um it there have been at least three times maybe more where it's looked to me in my own career where it looked like there was so much money slloshing around that it would be impossible to do intelligent things with money. And I actually terminated a partnership back at the end of 1969 because uh I felt that the the money was coming out, you know, of the woodwork.
There were all kinds of people that wanted to use it and compete and I just didn't feel we could do intelligent things. Uh within four years I saw the greatest opportunities that I've ever seen in my lifetime. And we we've had several experiences like that. uh you know in 1998 when long-term capital management got in trouble in the fall of 1998 and other things were happening you had incredible opportunities available uh in the investment world now people were just as smart then they had all these people with 150 IQs running around and they actually had money but the world became paralyzed for a short period and you literally had so-called on the-run governments which were the most recent issue and off the-run governments which were issued by the same government, the United States government, payable in dollars, you had a 30 basis point differential between the 30-year and the 29 12 year.
Both bonds issued by the US government, you know, one a half a year shorter. Both quite liquid, but the on the run being more liquid. And a 30 basis point differential in yield means about a threepoint difference in price. Well, you wouldn't have believed that could happen in the United States of America in 1998, but it did happen.
And I think I have a slide here. Uh Mark, if it if we can put that up that shows what high yield bonds the situation in those uh just really less less than three years ago in the fall of Yeah, there it is. In the fall of 19 of the fall of 2002, you had all these high IQ people in the financial world.
you had lots of money and I don't know how easy it is to read that those figures, but you'll see that a bunch of high yield bonds. This is this actually is a table that involves a friend of mine, but we were doing pretty much the same thing. And you can see that he he was buying bonds that anywhere from a 25% to 60 or 70% yield basis and within 12 or 14 months had sold these same bonds on a 6% yield basis.
You don't need to do that very many times in a lifetime. But that was two and a half years ago after all these people had graduated with MBAs and studied modern finance theory and had money coming out of their ears and all had a desire to make money. And yet conditions like that could exist. We bought about 7 billion of junk bonds during that period because it was a fairly short period.
But things do happen that change the landscape dramatically. I mean really dramatically. in financial markets from time to time, but right now we are positioned very badly uh in terms of buying businesses uh and it's a big negative and your Bergkshire stock uh will not do as well uh under these conditions as it would do if if the conditions of five years ago or 20 years ago existed.
Uh, and I don't have any magic solution for that except just to tell you what the facts are. Charlie. Yeah. A lot of the buying by private equity funds in both real estate and stocks and for companies fee motivated. In other words, the investment manager will rationalize any price paid. Tried to buy warehouses with a lot of family money and he just stopped.
But every bid was always topped by some professional manager managing other people's money on a on a fee basis. So this is a very peculiar era where all these asset classes have been driven to very high valuations by all historical standards. Some investment operations are very ethical in this regound.
I think Howard Marx is here today. He sent a lot of money back and and stops soliciting money from his clients in certain activities where the opportunities went away. That's the right way to behave, but it's not normal. Yeah. I don't I I don't think you'll mind. I I didn't I didn't know Howard was here today, but those those actually are Howard's figures for one of his funds.
And like I say, we were doing similar things. We didn't we didn't know it at the time, but we we find out we had some similar positions later on. About five or six years ago, when the terms of these deals were somewhat different, I actually had a fellow call me whose name most of you would recognize.
and he started asking me questions about the the reinsurance business because he was in he said he was thinking about buying a given company which got sold and he didn't really know much about the business but that unless he spent these X dollars he was going to have to give it back to his investors in a few months because the term of the the initial signup period expired at that point and any unexpended funds were to be returned and he was going to get 2% a year on on those funds regardless of how they did.
So he he was looking at businesses that he didn't understand with the hope that he can uh place the money. Charlie and I are at a disadvantage in buying businesses because we have almost all of our net worth in the downside as well as the upside. So, you know, if we had a 2% fee and 20% of the profits and a goodbye kiss for the losses, uh, you know, that's that's a different equation than exists at Bergkshire.
So, we we we run it as if it's 100% our money, which it is close to 100% of our net worth. And uh, and we will own the downside. And we don't get we don't get paid for spending the money, we get paid for making money. And uh uh it's tough. The competing right now is is is tough and likely to be relatively feudal.
Although we have one or two things that that could happen that could involve the expenditure of real money. I I don't think any of the businesses that have sold to us over the years, which are run by the kind of people we like being associated with, would have wanted to sell to a hedge fund. So there is this a class of assets out there that doesn't want to deal with hedge fun hedge funds or private equity funds.
Thank God. Yeah. We've seen no deal anybody else has made in the last year that we wish we had made. Now that was not the case 15 or 20 years ago. There used to be plenty of deals made with other people that we we would have liked to have made if they'd come to us. But I have seen nothing that I've seen nothing that if it sold for 10% less than the advertised price that we would have had any interest in buying.
So we are we are in a different world right now. A few years ago uh we have a a dinner at at Gats the day after the meeting and we were in having the whole family was there having dinner. place was packed and uh there was a big line that had formed outside. Be sure not to go to Garats unless you have a reservation tomorrow because they're sold out.
But the uh big line had formed and it started raining cats and dogs and a waitress came to me. We were eating. waitress said uh said, "I got to tell you," she said that it's it's raining like crazy outside and there's a long line and Michael Eisner is standing out there getting soaked. So, I turned to Suz and Michael and Jane are friends of mine, good friends.
And I uh I said to Suz, "Uh, why don't you go out there and help them out uh before they get drenched?" And she looked at me and said, "I've waited in line at Disneyland." That seems to strike a responsive chord.
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