原文信息：
- 标题：Importance of ROIC Part 1: Compounders and Cheap Stocks
- 作者：John Huber
- 发表时间：2014-05-13
- 链接：Saber Capital
翻译信息：
Update: For those interested, I wrote a 5-part series about the concept of return on incremental invested capital and also a few other writings that discuss ROIC.
更新：对于ROIC感兴趣的读者，我撰写了关于增量投资资本回报率（ROIC）的系列文章（共五部分），以及一些其他讨论ROIC的文章（链接）。
A while back, I posted a couple articles on return on invested capital (ROIC) along with some comments on Joel Greenblatt’s Magic Formula. These posts attracted a lot of comments and email questions, and so I wanted to post some more thoughts on the topic of compounding generally, and maybe ROIC more specifically. Here are some links to posts that are somewhat related to this topic:
不久之前，我发表了几篇关于投资资本回报率（ROIC）的文章，并对乔尔·格林布拉特（Joel Greenblatt）（译者注：《股市稳赚》的作者）的神奇公式发表了一些评论。这些文章吸引了很多评论，也有读者通过电子邮件发来问题，因此我想就复利投资（更具体的说，是ROIC）这个话题展开讨论。以下是一些与本话题相关的文章：
- Thoughts on Return on Capital and Greenblatt’s Magic Formula Part 1 关于资本收益率与格林布拉特神奇公式的思考（第一部分）
- Thoughts on Return on Capital and Greenblatt’s Magic Formula Part 2 关于资本收益率与格林布拉特神奇公式的思考（第二部分）
- Buffett Shareholder Letter High ROE 1987年伯克希尔股东信：巴菲特对于高ROE的看法
- Wells Fargo vs. Small Community Banks 富国银行与小型社区银行
- A Few Thoughts on Buffett and Great Banks 关于巴菲特与大银行的几点思考
In this post I want to address a comment that has been made by numerous people regarding Compounders vs. “Cheap Stocks” and how some people have a tendency to completely fall into one camp at the expense of the other. The next post I’ll list some examples of why ROIC is crucial for long term business owners and shareholders. I’ll also have a post or two discussing the simple math involved with returns on capital and how that relates to compounding.
在这篇文章中，我想谈谈许多人都讨论过的话题：累进增长型企业和“廉价股票”，以及有些投资人是如何陷入完全“一边倒”的倾向的。在下一篇文章中，我将列举一些例子，说明为什么ROIC对企业的长期所有者和股东至关重要。我还将有一两篇文章讨论资本回报率所涉及的简单数学，以及这与复利的关系。
First off, one commenter pointed out that various studies have shown that ROIC is a metric that doesn’t actually add much value to returns. In fact, these studies say that better results could be had by simply just buying cheap stocks (low P/E, low EV/EBIT, low P/B, etc…). Forget the quality (return on capital), just focus on valuation (low price to earnings).
首先，一位评论人士指出：各种研究表明，ROIC是一个实际上并不能为回报增加多少价值的指标。事实上，这些研究表明，仅仅只买那些低估值的股票（低P/E，低EV/EBIT，低P/B……等等）就能获得更好的结果。忘掉公司质地（资本回报率），只需要关注估值（低市盈率）。
I believe this to be true–BUT, with a very important caveat. One very crucial point is often left out of these studies…. Holding period. Most of these studies pick a group of stocks based on some value measure (low P/E, etc…) and then after 1 year (or sometimes 2 years), sell those stocks and replace them with a new set of stocks that match that valuation criteria. Most of the studies turn their portfolios over once a year.
我相信这是真的。但是，需要注意的是，这些研究往往忽略了一个非常关键的问题——持有周期。这些研究大多是根据某种价值衡量指标（低市盈率等）挑选一组股票，然后在1年（有时2年）后，卖掉这些股票，换成一组符合该估值标准的新股票。大多数研究都会把他们的投资组合每年换手一次。
And I think many value investors see these studies and get excited about valuation, leaving quality far behind. Who needs quality when valuation is all that matters?
我认为许多价值投资者看到这些研究后，都对估值感到兴奋，而把公司质地远远抛在后面。当估值才是最重要的时候，谁会考虑公司的质地？
Here’s my take: I completely agree with these studies and with the practitioners who favor valuation over quality if their holding period is only 1-2 years. On balance, paying a high price for even a great business will not always work out well if you have to sell that business in 1-2 years, or even 3-5 years. But if you plan to hold your stocks for longer periods of time… 5 years, 10 years, or longer, then quality becomes much, much more important than valuation.
我的观点是：我完全同意这些研究，也完全同意那些在持有期只有1-2年的情况下，更看重估值而不是公司质地的投资者。总的来说，如果你必须在1-2年，甚至3-5年内卖掉一家企业，即使是一家伟大的企业，支付一个高价也不可能总是收益很好。但如果你打算长期持有你的股票——5年，10年，或更长的时间，那么公司质地就变得比估值重要得多。
I did a post on Wells Fargo a few months ago where I discussed how WFC’s long term business results trounced all of the small community banks’ long term results, and the WFC stock price had the same outperformance. WFC’s high return on equity (15%+ over long periods of time) was the most important factor in creating wealth for shareholders over time. A bank that produces 15% ROE will always result in better shareholder returns over a bank that produces 7% ROE, given enough time.
几个月前，我写了一篇关于富国银行的文章，讨论了富国银行的长期经营业绩如何碾压所有小型社区银行的长期业绩。与此同时，富国银行的股价也有同样出色的表现。富国银行的高股本回报率（在很长一段时间内超过15%）是长期以来为股东创造财富的最重要的因素。如果有足够的时间，一家具有15%ROE的银行总能比一家具有7%ROE的银行带来更好的股东回报。
Of course, buying a low earning community bank at 50% of book value can work out very well if/when the market corrects itself and the stock gets revalued at 100% of book value. But over 10-15 year periods or longer, paying 2 times book for a business like WFC will nearly always work out better than paying 0.5 times book for a low earning community bank.
当然，以账面价值的50%购买一家盈利性较差的小型社区银行，一旦市场进行自我修正，股价重估回账面价值的100%，收益率也会非常好。但在超过10-15年或更长的时间里，为富国银行这样的企业支付2倍的P/B，大多数情况下好过为一家盈利性较差的小型社区银行支付0.5倍的P/B。
The same goes for these studies that look at P/E ratios (valuation) and ROIC (quality). Over short periods of time, paying low P/E ratios or low EV/EBIT ratios will work very well, as the market typically corrects itself over 1-3 years or so. But over time, if you intend to participate in the long term results of your business and own the stock for 5-10 years or longer, you should be much more concerned with the quality of that business.
对市盈率（估值）和ROIC（公司质量）的研究也是如此。在短期内，买入那些低P/E或低EV/EBIT的公司收益率很好，因为市场通常会在1-3年左右的时间内进行自我修正。但随着时间的推移，如果你打算持有这些公司的股票5-10年或更久，享受该企业的长期业绩，你应该更加关心该企业的业务质量。
This doesn’t mean that one category should be focused on with complete abandon for the other. It just means that both play a role, especially in long term results.
但是这并不意味着关注估值就可以完全不关注公司质量，或者关注质量而完全忽视价格。事实上，估值和公司质量都发挥着作用，特别在长期的收益率表现中。
I think of the entire debate as follows: my ideal investment is the Fastenal type business that can produce high returns on capital and reinvest large amounts of retained earnings at similar high rates of return (when I discuss ROIC, what I’m really looking for is what return a business can generate on its incremental investments in the future–more on this in the next few posts). The result for shareholders of FAST has been north of 20% annually for the past 25 years or so.
我对此的观点如下：我的理想投资是类似Fastenal这样的企业，本身具有高资本回报率，并且能够以类似的高回报率将大量的留存收益进行再投资（当我在讨论ROIC时，我真正想要讨论的是一个企业在未来进行扩大再投资时能产生多少回报率——在接下来的几篇文章中将对此进行更多讨论）。在过去25年左右的时间里，FAST公司的股东每年的回报率都超过20%。
If one could only know in advance the next FAST, life would be simple, right?
哪怕一个人只能提前知道一件事——谁是下一个FAST，生活也会变得很简单，对吧？
We can look for clues for the next FAST, and that includes looking for businesses with simple products and simple models that can invest large amounts of capital at high rates of return.
为找到下一个FAST，我们可以按图索骥，比如寻找那些产品简单、商业模式简单的企业，这些企业可以以高回报率投入大量资本。
The problem is that capitalism is tough, and unpredictable things can occur that can harm a business’ economics. So I rely on valuation as my safety net. I prefer to find really cheap stocks, but I want them to be businesses that I think can grow intrinsic value. This provides me with a margin of safety not just in the valuation, but also because the gap between price and intrinsic value will widen over time as the business continues to grow its value.
问题是这是一个艰难的过程，不可预测的事情随时可能会发生，从而损害企业的经营状况。所以我依赖估值作为我的安全边际。我更愿意找到真正便宜的股票，但我希望它们是我认为可以增加内在价值的企业。这不仅为我提供了估值上的安全边际，也因为随着时间的推移，随着企业价值的不断增长，价格与内在价值之间的差距会越来越大。
So as I mentioned in the previous related posts, I want to have my cake and eat it too. I like quality businesses, I like great capital allocation, I like high returns on capital, but I demand value (as Buffett once said).
因此，正如我在之前的相关文章中提到的，“鱼和熊掌”我都想要。我喜欢高质量的生意，喜欢良好的资产配置，喜欢高资本回报，但是我需要“好价格”（正如巴菲特曾经说过的）。
One of my current holdings is a small bank that I purchased at around 60% of tangible book value and a P/E of around 7. There are many opportunities to own small banks at these metrics. The difference with this particular bank is that it has grown its intrinsic value by somewhere between 8-10% per year by my estimation. Book value has averaged over 9.3% annual growth since 2000 without a single down year, and the bank pays out a steadily rising dividend as well (it hasn’t cut, lowered, or missed a dividend payment since the 1920’s when it was founded, even through the Great Depression!). The bank is also extremely risk averse, and capitalized at around 17% equity to total assets.
我目前持有的标的是一家小银行，我买入的时候其价格约为有形账面价值的60%、市盈率大约为7倍。在这个估值水平上的小型银行很多。这家银行与众不同之处在于，按照我的估计，它的内在价值过去每年能够增长8-10%。自2000年以来，该银行的账面价值平均每年增长9.3%以上，没有一年出现负增长，而且银行支付的股息也在稳步上升（自20世纪20年代成立以来，即使是在大萧条时期，该行也没有削减、降低或错过派息！）。同时，该银行也非常厌恶风险，资本化率约为总资产的17%。
These types of situations are rare (both cheap and high quality), but they exist, and they are the type of ideas I’m looking to find for our portfolios. These types of businesses are compounders.
这种情况很少见（既便宜又高质量），但它们确实存在，我也正在为我们的投资组合寻找这样的标的。这些类型的公司是累进增长型的。
By the way, many seem to associate “compounders” with these mega cap quality businesses that Buffett buys (Coke, Walmart, Exxon, JNJ, P&G, etc…). Numerous people have commented lately that you can’t find compounders cheap except during market crashes. But there are many small, relatively unknown, quality businesses that are quietly growing their intrinsic values per share at 10%-12% per year that you can occasionally buy quite cheaply.
顺便说一句，许多人似乎把“累进增长型企业”与巴菲特收购的这些超大市值优质企业（可口可乐、沃尔玛、埃克森美孚、JNJ、宝洁等）联系在一起。最近有很多人评论说，除非市场崩溃，现在根本找不到便宜的累进增长型企业。但事实上，市场上有许多规模较小、相对不知名的优质企业，它们的每股内在价值正以每年10%-12%的速度悄然增长。你偶尔也能以相当便宜的价格购买这些企业。
I know of one such business that has a market cap of under $250 million that has grown its intrinsic value per share (by my estimate) at a rate of around 15-20% per year for the past 25 years. In fact, the stock is up more than 50 fold in that time, a compounded annual rate of return of about 17% per year before factoring dividends.
我就知道一家这样的公司，它的市值不到2.5亿美元，在过去的25年里，它的每股内在价值（据我估计）以每年15%-20%的速度增长。事实上，在过去这些年里，股票上涨了50多倍，不考虑股息因素的年复合回报率约为17%。
You might ask: how could it have compounded at that rate and still be so small? Well the short answer is it was very small 25 years ago, but in their annual report they discuss the incredible amount of capital that they’ve returned to shareholders via buybacks and dividends over the years. Basically, the company sold shares initially for a grand total of $1.7 million in proceeds, and that is the only the time the company has ever issued stock in its history. Since that time, the company has returned around $130 million to those happy original shareholders via buybacks and dividends, and the stock itself is 50 times more valuable than it was then as well. The company is small and doesn’t necessarily have huge reinvestment opportunities (thus the large buybacks and dividends), but it’s a great business with a strong niche and great management, and it has created enormous wealth over time for its long term owners.
你可能会问：这家公司怎么可能以这样的速度复合增长，市值却还那么小？一句话来说，25年以前它还更小。但是，在他们的年报中，管理层披露了这些年来通过回购和分红，实际返还给股东的价值，这是一个令人难以置信的数字。大体来说，公司上市时通过发行股票筹措了170万美元的资金，这也是该公司历史上唯一一次发行股票。从那时起，该公司通过回购和分红向那些幸运的原始股东返还了约1.3亿美元，而且股票本身也跟上市时比涨了50倍。这家公司规模很小，也不一定拥有巨大的再投资机会（因此会有大量的回购和股息），但它是一家拥有强大利基和优秀管理层的伟大企业，而且随着时间的推移，它为长期所有者创造了巨大的财富。
Businesses like this are out there, and occasionally they can be purchased well below the conservatively estimated present value of their future cash flows. Occasionally it’s a no-brainer. Those are the situations we’re looking for. Like the bank I mentioned with long term management, very stable business model, steadily growing book value, all for a price that represented 60% of tangible book and a fraction of estimated intrinsic value.
像这样的企业是存在的，而且有时可以比保守估计的未来现金流现值低很多的价格买到它们。偶尔会出现这种想都不用想的投资机会。这就是我们要找的情况。就像上面我持有的那家银行一样，长期主义的管理层、非常稳定的商业模式、不断增长的账面价值，所有这些都只支付了有形账面价值的60%和估计内在价值一小部分的金额。
It doesn’t mean these ideas work out each time, but given enough of a sample space and enough time, they are the situations that collectively aggregate to create a low risk portfolio with a high probability of achieving an above average rate of return.
这并不意味着这些想法每次都能奏效，但只要有足够的样本空间和时间，这些股票构成的投资组合会展现出低风险且大概率实现高于平均回报率的业绩表现。
So there you have it. Ideally, I want high quality… but since I’m unsure of the accuracy of my crystal ball (I don’t like predicting the future), I don’t want to pay much for what has heretofore been a quality business.
至此，您应该已经对此有所了解了。理想状态下，我想要高质量的企业。但是由于我不确定我预测的准确性（我不喜欢预测未来），我不想为一个历史上表现优质的公司付出太高的价格。
This sets up what academics call “asymmetric upside”. I prefer a more simple explanation—one that I stole from Mohnish Pabrai: “Heads, I win… Tails, I don’t lose much”.
这就构建了学术界所称的“非对称上涨”。我更喜欢一个更简单的说法——从莫尼什·帕伯莱（译者注：《憨夺型投资者》的作者）那里借鉴来的说法——“正面，我贏；反面，我輸不多”。
I’ll have a few more posts discussing this topic along with the math behind it so we can better understand its importance, and more practically, be able to identify these types of qualities in our own prospective investments going forward.
接下来还有更多的文章来讨论这个话题以及背后的计算方法，这样我们才可以更好地理解它的重要性，而且从更具实用性的角度，能够在我们未来的投资中识别出这种品质的类型。
John Huber is the portfolio manager of Saber Capital Management, an investment firm that manages separate accounts for clients. Saber employs a value investing strategy with a primary goal of patiently compounding capital for the long-term.
John also writes about investing at the blog Base Hit Investing, and can be reached at [email protected].