Omaha, Nebraska: a place of pilgrimage, where 35,000 shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway have come to pay homage. This is a global event but quintessentially American. On Friday, the conglomerate’s products are on sale; See’s Candies and Fruit of the Loom T-shirts are the most popular. Precision Castparts, the maker of specialist components for aircraft engines, puts on a bewildering display. A model railway represents the

奥马哈，美国内布拉斯加州：一个朝圣之地。3.5万名伯克希尔哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway)股东不久前赶到那里朝拜。这是一项全球盛事，但具有典型的美国风格。4月29日，该集团旗下的产品开始搞特卖；时思糖果(See’s Candies)和Fruit of the Loom的T恤最受欢迎。飞机引擎专用配件制造商精密机件公司(Precision Castparts)的展品令人眼花缭乱。

Burlington Northern Santa Fenetwork. Sadly, there are no discounts on NetJets, the pay-per-flight private aircraft operator. In the evening, we drink cocktails and eat junk food in a tacky marquee alongside a display of expensive jewellery (25 per cent off for Berkshire shareholders).

一个铁路模型代表伯灵顿北方圣达菲铁路公司(Burlington Northern Santa Fenetwork)。遗憾的是，私人飞机租赁运营商利捷(NetJets)不提供折扣。晚上，我们在一个寒酸的帐篷里喝着鸡尾酒，吃着垃圾食品，周围展示的是昂贵珠宝（伯克希尔公司股东可享受七五折）。

The truly devout queue from 4am outside the CenturyLink Arena to secure seats near the front. Many are Chinese, with insufficient English to follow the lengthy proceedings; they seek only proximity to the master. Saturday starts with a movie full of in-jokes about personalities in the Berkshire family.

为了获得前排座位，真正虔诚的那些人从凌晨4点就开始在世联中心(CenturyLink Arena)门外排队。其中很多是中国人，他们的英语一般般，在漫长的大会议程中，他们其实听不大懂，只是希望离大师近一点。4月30日的大会以一部电影开场，里面有许多有关伯克希尔家族个性人物的笑话，只有内行才懂。

Then the ritual’s high point: journalists, analysts and shareholders fire questions at Warren Buffettand Charlie Munger, vice-chairman, for five hours. The stamina of Mr Buffett, 85, and Mr Munger, 92, would be astonishing if they were younger men. They engage in easy, witty repartee; if Mr Buffett is prolix, Mr Munger is sardonically concise.

接着，仪式进入高潮部分：记者、分析师和股东开始向沃伦•巴菲特(Warren Buffett)和伯克希尔公司副董事长查理•芒格(Charlie Munger)提问，这个环节长达5个小时。即便巴菲特（85岁）和芒格（92岁）再年轻一点，这种耐力也是惊人的。他们回答得轻松、风趣、机智；如果说巴菲特的回答有些啰嗦，芒格的回答则简短而冷峭。

The business model is as simple as it is effective: a closed-end fund, whose shares can be redeemed only by selling to another investor, with a strategy of long-term commitment and close en-gagement with the companies invested in. What is surprising is that Berkshire’s success produced so little imitation. Where other conglomerates use financial engineering and impose “transferable” management skills, Mr Buffett eschews creative accounting and has no illusions that he will manage Precision Castparts better than the incumbents. His method is to find well-run companies and give them more freedom than they would enjoy on public markets.

该公司的商业模式既简单又高效：一只封闭基金，其份额只能通过卖给另一个投资者才能变现，并遵循长期持有、与被投资公司密切接触的战略。令人意外的是，伯克希尔公司的成功很少有人效仿。当其他大型综合企业运用财务手段并实行“可接替”管理技能时，巴菲特却避免使用创造性会计方法，并且从不幻想如果他自己管理精密机件公司，会做得比现任管理层更好。他的方法是找到管理完善的公司，然后赋予它们比在公开市场上会享受到的更大的自由。

Yet the closed-end fund is out of fashion; financial advisers and regulators prefer the open-ended model, with all the accompanying constraints on long-term investment. In the EU, closed-end vehicles are to be classified as complex products, supposedly dangerous for small shareholders such as those who flock to the arena to applaud Mr Buffett.

然而，封闭基金已不流行；金融顾问和监管机构青睐开放基金模式，伴随着对长期投资的种种限制。在欧盟(EU)，封闭基金将要被列为复杂产品，理论上，这种产品对小股东（例如蜂拥到此为巴菲特鼓掌的那些）而言是危险的。

The control mechanisms in the group are tight but informal. Exchanges with analysts at the shareholder meeting demonstrate that the tiny staff at the headquarters in Omaha is familiar with what is happening in the operating businesses. Mr Buffett, however, is at pains to emphasise the absence of formal reporting lines and control systems, central budgets and targets, and complex incentive schemes. In a revealing moment, he was asked about the absence of conventional due diligence in his acquisition process; Berkshire had made bad acquisitions, he acknowledged, but never one that could have been avoided by the kind of information that due diligence might have revealed.

该集团的控制机制严密但非正式。在此次股东大会上与分析师的交流证明，奥马哈总部里人数很少的员工，对旗下运营公司的情况了如指掌。然而，巴菲特尽力强调，该集团没有正式的报告规则和控制体系，没有中央预算和目标，也没有复杂的激励机制。一个很能说明问题的时刻是，有人问道，为何他在收购过程中不做传统的尽职调查；他承认，伯克希尔公司做过错误的收购，但这些错误没有一个是原本可以通过尽职调查避免的。

The overriding ethos of the shareholder weekend is that of a cult, an ethos engendered by informality but also crucial to the effectiveness of that informality. Berkshire’s success is based on the trust between the group, its operating companies and its investors. It is a world apart from the notion of the company as nexus of contracts among people who find it mutually advantageous, for the moment, to do business to-gether; a world apart from the place to which financial innovation has led us.

此次股东大会的最高精神是崇拜，造就这种精神的是非正式的管理风格，但这种精神对于这种非正式管理风格的有效性至关重要。伯克希尔公司的成功基于该公司与旗下运营公司以及股东三者之间的信任。伯克希尔公司的成功与这种看法相差甚远，即认为公司连接着一群人之间的契约关系，这些人认为就目前而言，在一起做生意对他们有利；该公司的成功也与金融创新一直将我们带往的地方相距甚远。

Mr Buffett’s particular genius is not that he is a great stock picker. His genius lies in the relentless clarity of his appreciation of the nature of business: focus on competitive advantage, find good management, give that management freedom with accountability only for results. And in his creation of a business model that follows those insights.

巴菲特的特殊天赋不体现在他非常善于挑选股票。他的天赋体现为他对企业本质无比清晰的认识：关注竞争优势、发现优秀管理层、赋予该管理层充分的自由、只看结果。他的天赋还体现在他创建了一种遵循这些洞见的商业模式。