It may seem strange that we exult over a year in which we made three acquisitions, given that we have regularly used these pages to question the acquisition activities of most managers. Rest assured, Charlie and I haven’t lost our skepticism: We believe most deals do damage to the shareholders of the acquiring company. Too often, the words from HMS Pinafore apply: “Things are seldom what they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.”Specifically, sellers and their representatives invariably present financial projections having more entertainment value than educational value. In the production of rosy scenarios,Wall Street can hold its own against Washington.

我們一直以來總是定期地在給股東的信裡面花上幾頁的篇幅來質疑大多數經理人所進行的併購活動，但現在這些質疑會顯得怪怪地，因為我們自己這一年才剛發神經完成三件併購案。幸好大家可以放心的是，Charlie和我並未失掉我們一貫的懷疑態度：我們深信大多數的交易其實都會傷害併購公司的股東們的權益。一如HMS長圍裙所說：「事物往往不像表面看到的那樣，脫脂牛奶都能裝成奶油。」具體來說，賣方和賣方代表就往往提出娛樂性超過教育性的財務預估。就空中畫大餅這技巧來說，華爾街可是遠比華府強多了。

In any case, why potential buyers even look at projections prepared by sellers baffles me. Charlie and I never give them a glance, but instead keep in mind the story of the man with anailing horse. Visiting the vet, he said: “Can you help me?Sometimes my horse walks just fine and sometimes he limps.” The vet’s reply was pointed: “No problem - when he’s walking fine, sell him.” In the world of mergers and acquisitions, that horse would be peddled as Secretariat.

我總是搞不懂為什麼潛在買家會去在意賣家所提出的預測數字。Charlie和我從來都不甩這些報告，反倒是謹記跛腳馬主人故事：他對獸醫提到他的馬狀況時好時差，詢問獸醫能否改善？ 獸醫給了個一針見血的回答：「沒問題，只要趁牠表現好時趕緊賣掉就好了。」在併購的世界裡，這種馬常被當成聖物到處兜售。

At Berkshire, we have all the difficulties in perceiving the future that other acquisition-minded companies do. Like they also, we face the inherent problem that the seller of a business practically always knows far more about it than the buyer and also picks the time of sale - a time when the business is likely to be walking “just fine.”

在Berkshire，我們無從得知這些有意併購的公司以後會做些什麼，我們跟他們一樣，都面對著企業的賣方片面知道著遠比我們多的訊息，也比我們了解何時才是賣公司的好時機 — 也就是當企業「剛好表現得不錯」之時。

Even so, we do have a few advantages, perhaps the greatest being that we don’t have a strategic plan. Thus we feel no need to proceed in an ordained direction (a course leading almost invariably to silly purchase prices) but can instead simply decide what makes sense for our owners. In doing that, we always mentally compare any move we are contemplating with dozens of other opportunities open to us, including the purchase of small pieces of the best businesses in the world via the stock market. Our practice of making this comparison - acquisitions against passive investments - is a discipline that managers focused simply on expansion seldom use.

儘管如此，我們還是擁有幾項優勢，其中最有利的大概在於我們沒有一套策略性計畫，因此我們也就沒有非得遵照不可的固定方式(一種幾乎註定會以愚蠢價格成交的模式)，而完全端視是否對企業所有人合理來決定。如此一來，我們總是可以將每個動作和其他數十個機會深思熟慮地做比較，其中也包含經由股票市場買進世界上最棒的企業的部份股權這方式。我們通常的做法就是比較 — 購併與被動投資 — 這也是一心一意只想著擴張經營版圖的經理人絕對做不到的做法。

Talking to Time Magazine a few years back, Peter Drucker got to the heart of things: ” I will tell you a secret: Dealmaking beats working. Dealmaking is exciting and fun, and working is grubby. Running anything is primarily an enormous amount of grubby detail work . . . dealmaking is romantic, sexy. That’s why you have deals that make no sense.”

彼得．杜拉克在幾年前時代雜誌的一次專訪中，切中核心地提到︰「我告訴你一個祕密：搞個交易遠比埋頭苦幹好。搞交易既刺激又有趣，而埋頭苦幹卻只會弄得一身髒。但經營任何事業偏偏就是一堆骯髒的雜事，可是搞交易卻性感又浪漫。這也是為什麼會冒出一堆無釐頭的併購案。」

引自巴菲特：1995年給股東的信

看完Buffett在1995年的說帖之後，我們回頭再看看台灣明基那好大喜功西門子併購案，以及最近Google一個又一個快速且大量的併購動作。
身為投資人，我們必須一再地仔細獨立思考：這些是必要的嗎？好處在哪？壞處在哪？風險在哪？

千萬不要被這些金童的名氣給嚇到；老實說，這些人除了公司名聲、學經歷顯赫之外，往往不會比一般人英明睿智到哪去（請見【我看Web2.0的泡沫–更新版（二）傻子不敢走的路，天才一路衝過去！】）。許多人先入為主地認為：「Google的專家天才一大堆，肯定不會錯。」這種思惟無異於自己主動放棄思考與獨立，也就跟自我作賤沒兩樣。

關於併購，有興趣的朋友還可以再往前回推時間，看看Cisco、Microsoft這10幾年來的無數併購案件的成效。

似乎大多數的併購還是停留在「公主親了一堆青蛙期待親到王子」的戲碼…看不出這跟雜貨店似地滿手股票的散戶有何不同？

當然，也有很多集團的併購策略成功率高又精準得嚇人，像Buffett的Berkshire與台灣2000年後鴻海郭台銘的多數併購案。

但總體來看，號稱「獨立的專業經理人」表現往往不怎麼樣。投資人還是小心以對為上。