对于伯克希尔-哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）而言，沃伦•巴菲特的价值已大不如前。

    这位传奇的首席执行官宣布罹患早期前列腺癌之后的一天，伯克希尔的股价于周三小幅下跌约1%。巴菲特宣称，他的病情“远未危及生命”，只是需要放慢节奏。（从7月中旬开始需要接受为期两个月的放射性治疗，届时，他将无法旅行。）当然，股价仅仅只是出现了小幅下跌，部分原因在于几乎没人认为巴菲特会很快离开伯克希尔。但股价反应不强烈，也引发了这样一个问题：目前投资者怎么看待这位81岁高龄的首席执行官对于伯克希尔和其股价的价值？答案或许是大不如前。

    十年前，投资者们常常谈到巴菲特溢价。如今这种溢价看来已差不多消失殆尽。伯克希尔当前股价对应的市净率仅1.2倍，接近1998年时的一半。

    伯克希尔股票估值的下降某种程度上与巴菲特的年龄有关。但给这只股票带来压力的还有公司接班人的问题：巴菲特之后，谁将执掌伯克希尔仍不明朗。最多也就是巴菲特曾经说过的，可能会把他的工作分成4、5个职位。伯克希尔早已推出托德•康布斯和泰德•韦斯切勒这两位投资经理，并且声称，可能会在这两人之外再增加一名投资经理。他们将负责打理伯克希尔的投资业务，但目前尚不清楚伯克希尔的投资组合将如何划分。

    巴菲特也曾说过，他计划另外任命一名接班人，负责管理美国铁路运营商Burlington Northern以及多年来伯克希尔收购的其他一大批公司，包括冰激凌连锁店冰雪皇后（Dairy Queen）、涂料公司本杰明摩尔（Benjamin Moore）等等。巴菲特称，他已经选定了这名接班人，伯克希尔董事会对这个人也知根知底。据信巴菲特心中的人选可能是伯克希尔下属某家公司的管理者。这些管理者中可能性最大的是现年59岁的阿吉特•简，他已掌管伯克希尔最大的保险业务长达25年。但如果巴菲特想选年轻一些的接班人，那么很可能是现年48岁的格雷格•阿贝尔，他掌管着伯克希尔旗下的中美能源（MidAmerican Energy），是伯克希尔最年轻的高管之一。但Burlington Northern的负责人、现年50岁的麦特•罗斯如果入选，可能也合情合理，因为它体现了伯克希尔从保险业务的转型。但奇怪的是，巴菲特称，他选定的这个人本人并不知情。因此，也可能这个人会在巴菲特宣布消息之前离开伯克希尔，甚至可能根本不愿意接受这份工作。

    除此之外，巴菲特表示，他希望让他的儿子霍华德担任伯克希尔董事长，目前董事长一职仍由沃伦•巴菲特担任。霍华德不会在伯克希尔承担日常职务。这些人将如何共事？巴菲特还没有说明。他们能合得来吗？天知道。

    但巴菲特溢价的消失至少部分与伯克希尔的一些变化有关。过去，伯克希尔的价值很大程度上与保险公司产生的现金以及巴菲特如何使用这些现金进行投资联系在一起。如今，伯克希尔赚的钱很多都来自于其经营的公司。巴菲特仍在用这些钱进行投资，但他对部分投资盈利的依赖已经不如从前。

    Warren Buffett, it appears, is worth less than he used to be.

    Shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) fell slightly, down about 1%, on Wednesday, a day after the company's legendary CEO announced he has Stage 1 prostate cancer. Buffett said his condition is "not remotely life-threatening" and would barely slow him down. (He won't be able to travel, while getting radiation treatment, for two months starting in mid-July.) Surely, part of the small drop has to do with the fact that few think Buffett is going anywhere soon. Nonetheless, the muted reaction of Berkshire's shares raise the question of just what investors think the 81-year-old CEO is worth to the company and its shares. The answer might be a lot less than they used to.

    A decade or so ago, investors used to talk about the Buffett premium. That appears to have mostly eroded. Berkshire's shares trade for 1.2 times the book value of the company. That's nearly half the 2.3 price-to-book value they fetched back in 1998.

    Part of Berkshire's drop in value certainly has to do with Buffett's age. But also weighing on the stock is the fact that it's not clear who would run Berkshire when Buffett leaves. The best guess from what Buffett has said in the past is that he envisions that his job would be split into four, possible five, positions. Berkshire has already brought on investment managers Todd Combs and Ted Weschler. And the company has said it might add another manager to the mix. That would take care of the investing side, though it's not clear how the portfolio would be divided.

    Buffett has also said that he plans to name another successor who will manage Burlington Northern and the company's many other acquisitions it has made over the years, which includes ice cream chain Dairy Queen, paint company Benjamin Moore and many others. Buffett says he has picked the successor and it's someone who Berkshire's board of directors knows very well. It's assumed that the person Buffett has in mind is someone who already runs a company owned by Berkshire. Of those, the most likely candidate is probably Ajit Jain, 59, who has run Berkshire's largest insurance division for 25 years. But if Buffett is going for youth he might go for Greg Abel, 48, who runs Berkshire's MidAmerican Energy and is one of Berkshire's youngest top executives. But Matt Rose, 50, who is the head of Burlington Northern, might make the most sense, reflecting Berkshire's transformation from an insurance business. But oddly, Buffett says the person who he has picked doesn't know it. So it's still possible the person could leave the company before Buffett does, or, perhaps, not even want the job.

    On top of that Buffett has said that he would like his son, Howard, to become the chairman of Berkshire, a title that Buffett, Warren that is, also now holds. Howard wouldn't have a day-to-day role at the company. How would all these people work together? Buffett hasn't said. Would they even get along? Who knows.

    But at least some of the erosion of Buffett premium has to do with changes at Berkshire. A large part of the value of the company always had to do with the cash that was generated by the insurance companies and how Buffett invested that cash. But the company now makes a large part of its money from its operating companies. Buffett still invests that money, but he is relied on less to make that money grow than he used to be.

    实际上，很多巴菲特的忠实粉丝称，如今市场给予这位奥马哈先知的总估值为零。他们如何得到这样的结论呢？经营Wintergreen Advisors的巴菲特投资者戴维•温特斯称，如果将伯克希尔分拆出售，并将所得分给投资者，每股将获得16万美元，比当前股价119,650美元高出约33%。（伯克希尔还有便宜一些的B股，股价79.76美元。拆卖价值略高于106美元。）温特斯说，“（这等于说）投资者分文不花就得到了巴菲特的投资头脑。”

    但这并不意味着如果巴菲特突然宣布离职，伯克希尔股价不会下跌。像伯克希尔这样的企业集团，股价往往低于部分加总估值，有时折价幅度可能高达50%。

    对冲基金经理、巴菲特投资者惠特尼•蒂尔森就曾经说过，市场低估了伯克希尔的价值。但他同意，如果巴菲特的癌症诊断结果是他只剩下4个月生命，伯克希尔的股价将至少下跌10%，市值缩水110亿美元。或许，巴菲特对于伯克希尔的最大价值是他选择业务和项目能拿到更有利的条款，因为他是巴菲特。蒂尔森举例说，2006年巴菲特收购以色列金属公司Iscar的价格只有其他人可能须付价格的一半。金融危机期间，巴菲特购入高盛（Goldman Sachs）股票的条件甚至优于美国政府。很多公司，特别是那些似乎遇到了麻烦的公司，都希望宣称，巴菲特对它们抱有信心。所有这些都反映在了伯克希尔的股价中，但具体几何却很难讲。“巴菲特是个做聪明事的聪明人，”温特斯说。“没人知道他还能活多久，还会做多少聪明事。”

    但有一点很清楚，巴菲特眼下不会采取什么行动。

    译者：早稻米

    In fact, a number of Buffett's ardent fans say that the value that the market puts on the Oracle of Omaha these days is grand total of zero. How do they get at that conclusion? They say if you were to split up Berkshire and sell if off for parts, and then split up the proceeds to investors the product would be $160,000 a share, according to Buffett investor David Winters, who runs the Wintergreen Advisors, or roughly 33% more than the just over $119,650 the shares trade at now. (Berkshire also has a class of cheaper B shares (BRKB) shares that trade for $79.76. The break-up value for those shares is just over $106.) Says Winters, "You are getting Buffett's brain for free."

    But that doesn't mean that Berkshires stock is unlikely to drop if Buffett were to suddenly announce he was leaving the company. Conglomerates, which is what Berkshire is now, often trade a discount to the sum of their parts, sometimes as large as 50%.

    Whitney Tilson, a hedge fund manager and Buffett investor, has said it the past that the market is undervaluing Berkshire. Still, he agrees that if Buffett's cancer prognosis was that he had four months to live, the stock would at least drop by 10%, or roughly $11 billion. Perhaps, the biggest value that Buffett adds to Berkshire is his ability to pick up businesses and investments at better terms than others because he is Buffett. Tilson says, for example, Buffett was able to buy Israeli metal company Iscar in 2006 at a 50% discount to what others might have had to pay. During the financial crisis, Buffett was able to pick up shares in Goldman Sachs at better terms than were even secured by the U.S. government. Companies, particularly ones seemingly in trouble, want to be able to say that Buffett believes in them. All that is certainly baked into the value of Berkshire's shares but how much is hard to tell. "Buffett is a smart guy who does smart things," says Winters. "No one knows how long he is going to live and how many more smart things he will do."

    But what is clear is that Buffett's window for smart moves is far more closed than open.