Some of my worst mistakes were not publicly visible. These were stock and business purchases whose virtues I understood and yet didn"t make. It"s no sin to miss a great opportunity outside one"s area of competence. But I have passed on a couple of really big purchases that were served up to me on a platter and that I was fully capable of understanding. For Berkshire"s shareholders, myself included, the cost of this thumb-sucking has been huge.
其实有些更严重的错误大家根本就看不到，那是一些明明我很熟悉了解的股票或公司，但却因故没有能完成投资，错失一些能力之外的大好机会当然没有罪，但是我却白白错过一些自动送上门，应该把握却没有好好把握的好买卖，对于Berkshire的股东，当然包括我自己本身在内，这种损失是难以估计的。
Our consistently-conservative financial policies may appear to have been a mistake, but in my view were not. In retrospect, it is clear that significantly higher, though still conventional, leverage ratios at Berkshire would have produced considerably better returns on equity than the 23.8% we have actually averaged. Even in 1965, perhaps we could have judged there to be a 99% probability that higher leverage would lead to nothing but good. Correspondingly, we might have seen only a 1% chance that some shock factor, external or internal, would cause a conventional debt ratio to produce a result falling somewhere between temporary anguish and default.
另外我们一贯保守财务政策可能也是一种错误，不过就我个人的看法却不认为如此，回想起来，很明显的我们只要能够再多用一点财务杠杆操作(虽然较之他人还是很保守)，就可以得到远比现在每年平均23.8%还要高的投资报酬率，即使是在1965年我们也可以百分之九十九地确定高一点的财务杠杆绝对只有好处没有坏处，但同时我们可能也会有百分之一的机会，不管是从内部或是外部所引发令人异想不到的因素，使得我们负债比率提高到介于一时冲高到负债倒闭之间。
We wouldn"t have liked those 99:1 odds - and never will. A small chance of distress or disgrace cannot, in our view, be offset by a large chance of extra returns. If your actions are sensible, you are certain to get good results; in most such cases, leverage just moves things along faster. Charlie and I have never been in a big hurry: We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds - though we have learned to live with those also.
我们一点都不会想要有那种99比1的可能性，以后也不会，一点挫败或是侮辱小小的可能性永远没有办法可以用很有可能大捞一笔的大好机会来弥补，只要你的行为合理，你就一定能够得到好的结果，在大部分的状况下，融资杠杆顶多只会让你移动的更快，查理跟我从来都不会着急，我们享受过程更甚于结果，虽然我们也必须学会去承担后者。
We hope in another 25 years to report on the mistakes of the first 50. If we are around in 2015 to do that, you can count on this section occupying many more pages than it does here.
我们希望25年后还能向各位报告Berkshire头50年所犯的错误，我想公元2015年的年报，大家应该可以确定这一部份将占据更多的版面。
Miscellaneous
其它事项
We hope to buy more businesses that are similar to the ones we have, and we can use some help. If you have a business that fits the following criteria, call me or, preferably, write.
我们希望能够买进更多像我们现在拥有一样的企业，当然我们可以透过大家的协助，如果你拥有符合以下条件的企业，记得打电话或者是写信告诉我。
Here"s what we"re looking for:
(1) Large purchases (at least $10 million of after-tax earnings),
(2) demonstrated consistent earning power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are "turnaround" situations),
(3) businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt,
(4) management in place (we can"t supply it),
(5) simple businesses (if there"s lots of technology, we won"t understand it),
(6) an offering price (we don"t want to waste our time or that of the seller by talking, even preliminarily, about a transaction when price is unknown).
We will not engage in unfriendly takeovers. We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer - customarily within five minutes - as to whether we"re interested. We prefer to buy for cash, but will consider issuing stock when we receive as much in intrinsic business value as we give. Our favorite form of purchase is one fitting the Blumkin-Friedman-Heldman mold. In cases like these, the company"s owner-managers wish to generate significant amounts of cash, sometimes for themselves, but often for their families or inactive shareholders. At the same time, these managers wish to remain significant owners who continue to run their companies just as they have in the past. We think we offer a particularly good fit for owners with such objectives. We invite potential sellers to check us out by contacting people with whom we have done business in the past.
我们想要找的企业条件
(1)巨额交易(每年税后盈余至少有一千万美元)
(2)持续稳定获利(我们对有远景或具转机的公司没兴趣)
(3)高股东报酬率(并且甚少举债)
(4)具备管理阶层(我们无法提供)
(5)简单的企业(若牵涉到太多高科技，我们弄不懂)
(6)合理的价格(在价格不确定前，我们不希望浪费自己与对方太多时间)
我们不会进行敌意的购并，并承诺完全保密并尽快答复是否感兴趣(通常不超过五分钟) ，我们倾向采现金交易，除非我们所换得的内含价值跟我们付出的一样多，否则不考虑发行股份。