原文信息：

- 标题：Importance of ROIC Part 2: Compounders and Cheap Stocks
- 作者：John Huber
- 发表时间：2014-06-04
- 链接：[Saber Capital](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/importance-of-roic-part-2-compounders-and-cheap-stocks/)

翻译信息：

- 参考翻译：[景泉 Value](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/E5O_ZXUrF1UWoU9dz1ovSw)，[旭犇投资](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/bOYuLkLll6yh0uPXsXPXew)
- 校译：Ponge

---

_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](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/tag/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](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/tag/roic/)）。

This is part 2 of my follow up thoughts on compounders, cheap stocks, and the importance of returns on capital. [Part 1 is here](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/importance-of-roic-part-1-compounders-and-cheap-stocks/). Also, some previous posts before that are relevant to this post as well:

这是我关于累进增长型企业、廉价股票和ROIC重要性后续思考的第二部分。第一部分请点击[这里](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/importance-of-roic-part-1-compounders-and-cheap-stocks/)。此外，之前的一些文章也与本文有关：

- [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）](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/thoughts-on-return-on-capital-and-greenblatts-magic-formula-part-1/)
-   [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）](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/thoughts-on-return-on-capital-and-greenblatts-magic-formula-part-2/)
-   [Buffett Shareholder Letter High ROE 1987年伯克希尔股东信：巴菲特对于高ROE的看法](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/1987-berkshire-letter-and-buffetts-thoughts-on-high-roe/)
-   [Wells Fargo vs. Small Community Banks 富国银行与小型社区银行](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/wells-fargo-vs-small-community-banks/)
-   [A Few Thoughts on Buffett and Great Banks 关于巴菲特与大银行的几点思考](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/a-few-thoughts-on-buffett-and-great-banks/)

To recap last post, I basically wanted to convey that valuation and quality are not mutually exclusive. There seems to be two factions within the large value investing community. It sometimes feels like a presidential primary race. We’re all on the same team at the end of the day, but these two factions seem to always disagree on numerous points. The factions I’m referring to are the Graham deep value followers and the Buffett quality company followers, for lack of a better way to put it.

回顾[上一篇文章](../John_Huber/Importance_of_ROIC_Part_1.md)，总体我想表达的是，估值和公司质地并不是相互排斥的。在广泛的价值投资界，似乎有两个派系。有时感觉像是总统初选。归根结底，我们都是同一支队伍，但这两个派别似乎在许多问题上存在意见分歧。我所指的两个派别（因为缺乏更好的说法）是指格雷厄姆派的深度价值追随者和巴菲特派的优质公司追随者。

I espouse that there really isn’t as much of a difference between the two that everyone seems to think. The end game is that we are all trying to locate low risk 50 cent dollars.

我认为这两者之间并没有大家认为的那么大的区别。最终，我们都想试图找到低风险的50美分。

In the last post, I made a comment about Fastenal, and that the stock has been one of the best performers in the US Stock market in the last 25 years, averaging better than 20% annual returns since the late 1980’s. Of course, many will say: “sure, it’s easy to use FAST as an example”. That’s true, it is…

在上一篇文章中，我们讨论了Fastenal公司，该股在过去25年中一直是美国股市表现最好的股票之一，自上世纪80年代末以来，平均年回报率超过20%。当然，很多人会说，“FAST公司很容易被用来论证这个问题。”这确实是。

And I agree that even though paying 50 times earnings would have worked very well for FAST shareholders in 1989, I’m not interested in going anywhere near that type of valuation, because I don’t want to rely on my dubious ability to predict the future that far in advance. However, this does not mean that I want to abandon my effort to study some of the most successful businesses of years past. Improving pattern recognition skills increases the probability of successfully identifying these types of quality firms going forward.

我也同意，即使在1989年以50倍PE买入FAST公司，收益也会不错，但我对那种水平估值的公司并不感兴趣，因为我不想借助我那不靠谱的能力去预判那么远的未来。然而，这并不意味着我不去努力研究一些过去几年最成功的企业。提高商业模式的洞察能力可以提高未来成功发现此类优质企业的概率。

I want to find good businesses and I want to own them. I just am not willing to pay the prices they typically trade at. So I wait for opportunities for good operating businesses at cheap prices, occasionally investing in some special situations, hidden asset situations, or other undervalued safe ideas. Often enough, I’ll locate an idea where I can buy into a quality company at a very cheap price. In the last post, I referenced a very low risk, low cost bank that I own that has grown book value at 9.3% annually over the past 15 years without a single down year, has paid a sizable dividend every year since 1926, and yet could be purchased at 7 times earnings and 60% of book value. Those are the types of compounders that I like to own. If I’m wrong about the quality, I didn’t pay much for it. If I’m right about quality, my returns will be significantly better than a similarly valued lower quality stock.

我希望找到好生意，并拥有它。我只是不愿意支付他们通常交易的价格。因此我等待低价拥有好企业的机会，在遇到一些特殊情况、或存在隐藏资产时、或者在其他低估安全的情境下进行不频繁的投资。通常情况下，我的投资思路是寻找那种我可以以非常便宜的价格收购一家高质量公司的情形。在上一篇文章中，我提到了我拥有的一家低风险、低成本的银行，在过去15年里，它的账面价值以每年9.3%的速度增长，没有一年的下跌，同时自1926年以来每年都支付了可观的股息，但可以以7倍的市盈率和0.6倍的市净率买到。这种公司就是我想拥有的那种累进增长型企业。即使我对公司质地判断错误，我也没支付太昂贵的价格。但如果我对公司质地判断正确，那么我的回报率将大大高于估值相近的低质量股票。

As Pabrai says, “Heads I win, tails I don’t lose much”.

正如莫尼什·帕伯莱所说，“正面，我贏；反面，我輸不多”。

# Return on Invested Capital is Most Important Over Time 随着时间的推移，投资资本回报率（ROIC）是最重要的

The following is a collection of some comments that I made following one of the previous posts. I thought it would be interesting to demonstrate the importance of quality (return on capital) when it comes to long term ownership of equities. Again, this doesn’t mean that buying at 70% of book value and selling at 100% is a bad idea (on the contrary, it’s one that I will participate in under certain circumstances) it just means that over time, companies that can consistently produce returns of 15% on their capital are going to create far more wealth for their owners than companies that only produce 5% on their capital.

下面是我在上一篇文章之后发表的一些评论汇总。我认为，当涉及到股票的长期所有权时，论证公司质地（资本回报率）的重要性是很有意思的。再说一遍，这并不意味着在市净率0.7时买入，在市净率为1时卖出是个坏主意（相反，我会在某些情况下参与此类投资）；这只是意味着，随着时间推移，自身资本回报率一直维持在15%的公司和自身资本回报率只有5%的公司相比，前者将为其所有者创造远高于后者的财富。

As I mentioned, I’ve done some rudimentary studies of this ROIC vs Value topic previously. A good way to demonstrate the importance of high returns on capital is to look at long term shareholder returns (over 15-20 years or more). For example, I just picked up my Value Line and flipped to the steel section, and industry that is known for their low returns on capital over time. Note: the steel industry is cyclical, which leads to very volatile results. The companies will produce periods of very high returns followed by periods of very low/negative returns. But over the full cycle, the economics of the steel business inevitably lead to very mediocre returns on capital of 4-6% in most cases.

正如我提到过，我之前已经对“ROIC与企业价值”这一主题做了一些初步的研究。要证明高资本回报率的重要性，一个好方法就股东的长期回报（超过15-20年或更长）。例如，我刚刚拿起我的《价值线（Value Line）》（译者注：一家独立的投资研究和金融出版公司），翻到了钢铁板块和以长期低资本回报率著称的行业。注：钢铁行业是周期性的，这会导致非常不稳定的结果。这些公司会经历一段时间的高回报率时期，然后是一段时间的极低甚至负回报率时期。但在整个周期内，钢铁行业的经济特征不可避免地导致资本回报率在大多数情况下只有非常平庸的4-6%。

We could do this exercise on a number of stocks, but take US Steel for example. This company has reorganized a couple times in the past few decades and so a glance at the chart doesn’t reflect the entire story, but it still provides a Keynes style “roughly right” look at the results a long term owner would have achieved. Pulling up a long term chart we see that the stock (X) traded around $30 per share in the early 1990’s.

我们可以在很多股票上做这种复盘，但这里我们用美国钢铁为例。这家公司在过去几十年里重组了几次，所以仅仅查看股价图并不能反映出整个情况，但是图表本身仍旧提供了凯恩斯式的“大致正确”的视角，来看待长期所有者可能取得的结果。看一下长期图表，我们看到美国钢铁（X.N）在20世纪90年代早期的交易价格大约是每股30美元。

![](../Elements/ROIC/X-Long-Term-Chart.jpg)

USX earned around $3 per share in the early 1990’s, followed by a few years of losses, and then a period of excellent profits in the early 2000’s, and then back to losses.

美国钢铁在上世纪90年代初每股收益约3美元，随后几年出现亏损，然后在2000年初出现了一段利润丰厚的时期，然后又开始亏损。

But just taking a snapshot in time in the early 1990’s, one could have bought the stock at $30 or so at around 10 times earnings. Today, the stock trades at $25, leaving long term shareholders with a loss of principal after 20 years or so.  Interestingly, even if we paid 3 times earnings for X in the early 1990’s—which would have been around $9 per share—our returns over the next couple decades would have only amounted to around 5% per year, which equates roughly to the company’s average return on capital.

回到上世纪90年代初，那时人们可以以30美元左右的价格，以大约10倍的市盈率购买该公司的股票。到如今，该公司的股价为25美元，这使得长期股东在上个世纪90年代初之后20年左右的时间里损失了本金。有趣的是，即使我们在20世纪90年代初以3倍市盈率买入美国钢铁（代码：X.N）——也就是每股9美元左右的价格——我们在接下来的几十年里每年的回报也只有5%左右，这大致相当于公司的平均资本回报率。

Now, you might notice that we could have paid 3 times earnings and then sold out at a profit a few years later, reaping a nice IRR. But this relies on buying low and selling high in a shorter period of time–a feat that is much easier said than done. In retrospect, it seems like a cinch: just buy in 2003 and sell in 2007, right? Some can practice this type of investing, but I find that timing is the most difficult aspect of executing an investment approach, so I try to minimize the importance of getting the timing right.

现在，你可能会注意到，我们本可以以3倍市盈率买入，然后在几年之后卖出，获得一个不错的内部收益率。但这有赖于在较短的时间内逢低买入、逢高卖出——这种技术说起来容易做起来难。回溯来看，这似乎很容易：只需要2003年买入，2007年卖出就好了，对吧？有些投资者可以进行这类投资，但我发现在实践一种投资方法时，时机是其中最难把握的因素，所以我尽量把投资中时机正确的重要程度降到最低。

But the point here is that paying low prices to earnings is more important if your holding period is a shorter period of time and you have confidence in your ability to know when to unload your shares at a higher price at some point in the future—a necessary skill when trying to buy and sell mediocre businesses that produce unexciting returns on capital.

但这里的关键在于，如果你的持股期限较短，而且你对自己的能力有信心，能够知道未来何时以更高的价格抛售股票，那么以较低的市盈率买入就更为重要了——这是你在试图买卖资本回报率较低的平庸企业时必须具备的技能。

# Some Other Examples in Steel 钢铁行业里的其他案例

Flipping through the steel section of Value Line, this example holds true with many other steel stocks—subpar ROICs over time leading to subpar investment returns over time. Gilbraltar (ROCK) traded at $7 in 1994 (20 years ago), and it trades at $15 now, an annualized return of just 3.5%.

翻开《价值线》的钢铁板块，上面的例子也适用于许多钢铁股票——随着时间的推移，投资低于平均水平的ROIC的公司会导致低于平均水平的投资回报。直布罗陀工业公司（代码：ROCK.O）1994年（20年前）的交易价格是7美元，现在是15美元，年化回报率只有3.5%。

![](../Elements/ROIC/ROCK-Long-Term-Chart.jpeg)

ROCK paid dividends in some years, but they weren’t large dividends, and even if we add 2-3% to those returns, they are still mediocre.

直布罗陀工业公司在某些年份里支付了股息，但股息并不高，即使我们将上述回报率增加2-3%，这个回报率依然低于平均水平。

One more example: Ampco-Pittsburgh Corp (AP) traded at $8 in 1994, and it trades at $21 today, a 4.9% annualized return before dividends, which again might add 2% or so to those returns.

再举一个例子：安博科-匹兹堡（代码：AP.N）1994年的股价为8美元，目前的股价为21美元，剔除股息后的年化回报率为4.9%，如果考虑股息后，年化收益率差不多也是再增加2%左右。

![](../Elements/ROIC/AP-Long-Term-Chart.jpeg)

An interesting note with AP, if we go back even further to 1984 (30 years ago), the stock traded at $22 per share. So 30 years later, our poor long term shareholder has roughly the same principal that he started with 3 decades ago, albeit at a much lower real value! It is likely that a buyer of AP stock in the mid 1980’s could have **paid far less than 1 times earnings for AP**, and still be left with very mediocre long term returns.

关于安博科-匹兹堡，还有一个有趣的说明：如果我们追溯到更早的1984年（30年前），这只股票的价格是每股22美元。因此，30年过去了，我们可怜的长期股东的本金与30年前差不多，尽管实际价值要低得多！在上世纪80年代中期，购买安博科-匹兹堡股票的投资者可能**支付了远小于一倍市盈率的价格**，但尽管如此，长期回报仍然非常平庸。

I’m not trying to pick on steel stocks. They are just an example of an industry that is burdened by miserable economic headwinds that has left most companies struggling to earn adequate returns over time. Of course, not every steel company produces low returns. The low cost producer might be able to sustainably create above average returns on capital over time. But in a business like steel or any other commodity business, it’s tough.

我并不是在挑选钢铁股。它们只是一个特定行业的例子，这个行业受糟糕的经济逆境拖累，这使得大多数行业内的公司长期难以获得足够的回报。当然，并非每家钢铁公司的回报率都很低。随着时间的推移，低成本生产商或许能够持续创造高于平均水平的资本回报率。但在钢铁或其他大宗商品行业，这很难做到。

The exercise is really about any company that produces low ROIC vs any company that produces high ROIC over long periods of time.

这个复盘实际上想说明低ROIC的公司和高ROIC的公司在长期的差别。

High ROIC always wins in the end, given a long enough time horizon.

在足够长的时间范围内，高ROIC的公司总会获胜。

# Compare Long Term Results from High ROIC Companies 相比之下，高ROIC公司的长期业绩

One of the best performing stocks of the past quarter century is Fastenal (FAST). FAST sells nuts and bolts, sounds basic enough… but the returns are far from basic. The company averages around 20% returns on capital and produces very consistent results. 25 years ago, the stock traded for a split adjusted $0.32. Today it trades at $44, or 138 times the price in 1989. A $10,000 investment in FAST in 1989 would be worth just shy of $1.4 million today and it would be throwing of $30,000 per year in dividend income to boot—the annual income from the dividend alone is three times the total initial investment! The stock has averaged 21.8% annualized returns not including dividends. This outstanding long term investment result nearly matches the company’s average return on capital over that time.

Fastenal（FAST）是过去25年表现最好的股票之一。FAST的业务是销售螺母和螺栓，这听起来很简单……但是其给股东的回报可远远不简单。公司的资本回报率平均20%左右，而且非常具有持续性。25年前，该公司股票的价格为0.32美元（经过拆股调整后）。目前的价格是44美元，是1989年价格的138倍。如果1989年买入1万美元的FAST，目前的价值差不多值140万美元，而且公司每年还会额外发放3万美元的股息收入——仅每年的股息收入就相当于初始投资总额的三倍！该股票不包括股息的年化收益率为21.8%。这一出色的长期投资业绩几乎与该公司同期的平均资本回报率相当。

![](../Elements/ROIC/FAST-Long-Term-Chart.jpeg)

Fastenal earned roughly $3 million in 1988, and a buyer of FAST paid somewhere around 25 times earnings for FAST in 1989. But a buyer could have paid 50 times earnings for FAST in 1989 (or roughly $0.65 per share) and the compounded annual return would have only decreased from 21.8% to 18.4%…. a big difference over time, but certainly still a splendid result.

Fastenal在1988年的净利润约为300万美元，一位FAST的投资者在1989年买入FAST时的市盈率约为25倍。但即使投资者在1989年以50倍的市盈率（或者说以0.65美元/股）买入FAST公司，最终的年化收益率只会从21.8%降到18.4%而已……随着时间的推移，结果会有很大的不同，但仍然是一个很好的结果。

This is just one simple example, but a similar long term result could be observed with Walmart, McDonalds, Starbucks, The Gap, Wells Fargo, M&T Bank, Eaton Vance, and many other well-known examples of high ROIC companies that have correspondingly high stock CAGR’s over time.

这只是一个简单的例子，但是在沃尔玛（代码：WMT.N）、麦当劳（代码：MCD.N）、星巴克（代码：SBUX.O）、GAP（代码：GPS.N）、富国银行（代码：WFC.N）、M&T银行（代码：MTB.N）、伊顿万斯（代码：EV.N）和许多知名的高ROIC公司中，也可以看到类似的长期结果。这些公司长期以来的股票年复合收益率都比较高。

# Valuation and Quality: “Joined at the Hip” 估值与质地：“密不可分"

The idea here is not to attempt to push long term compounders. And these comments above will agitate deep value guys. But, I certainly am NOT recommending paying 50x earnings—even for great businesses. Capitalism is too competitive and the future is too uncertain (at least for me) to be able to consistently pick out the next Fastenal.

这里论述的目的不是试图推销长期累进增长型企业。上面的这些讨论会让深度价值投资者颇有微词。事实上，我当然不建议以50倍的市盈率买入一家公司——即使是伟大的企业。资本主义竞争太激烈，未来也太不确定（至少对我来说是这样），我们无法保证能一直选出类似Fastenal这样的公司。

But it does demonstrate that a business that can sustainably produce high returns on incremental investments over long periods of time (a good business) is far more important for long term shareholders than the price they initially pay for that business.

但它确实表明，对于长期股东而言，一家长期能够持续地在增量投资中产生高回报的企业（一个好企业）远比他们最初为该企业支付的价格重要得多。

Again, I cannot emphasize enough that **valuation is more important over shorter time periods, quality is more important over long time periods (10-15 years or longer)**. The longer you hold a stock, the more important the quality of that company is, as your long term returns will approximate the company’s business results–and their internal returns on capital over time.

我再次强调，**在较短的时间段内，估值更重要；在较长的时间段（10-15年或更长）内，公司质地更重要**。你持有一只股票的时间越长，这家公司的质地就越重要，因为你的长期回报将接近这家公司的经营成果——你的回报率也会接近它这段时间的内部资本回报率。

In the shorter term (1-3 years), valuation is key. You can buy a steel company at 5 times earnings and will likely have the chance to sell it at 10 times earnings at some point. Same goes for low P/B stocks, net-nets, etc…

在短期内（1-3年），估值是关键。你可以以5倍市盈率买入一家钢铁公司，并有可能在某个时候以10倍的市盈率卖出。同样的道理也适用于低市净率股票、net-net股票（译者注：全称是 net-net working capital，格雷厄姆提到的一类股票，是指买入价格低于净净营运资本，其中净净营运资本等于净营运资本减去长期负债，净营运资本等于流动资产减去流动负债）等。

It seems that the two factions I referenced above always want to put their style into a box. I try to think about it more simply, more logically. If my goal is to locate and own a group of businesses, I want those businesses to be of high quality, conservatively financed, predictably stable, well managed, and cheap.

我上面提到的两个派别似乎总想把他们的投资风格贴上一个固化的标签。我试着把它想得更简单，更合乎逻辑。如果我的目标是找到并拥有一批企业，我希望这些企业具有如下特质：公司质地较好，融资行为保守，具有可预见的稳定性，良好的管理层以及估值便宜。

Forget about the metrics, the style boxes, the value leader you follow, etc… just try to think about what kind of business you want to own, and what kind of long term rate of return you demand, and then search out ideas that match those things. Look for the simple, the understandable, and the obvious—large gaps between price and value.

忘掉那些指标、风格标签、你追随的价值投资领袖等等，试着只考虑你想拥有什么样的企业，以及你需要什么样的长期回报率，然后寻找与之相匹配的理念。寻找简单、可理解、显而易见的事情——价格与价值之间的巨大差异。

The objective is the same: figuring out what something is worth and paying a lot less for it.

无论如何，最后的目标是一样的：弄清楚一个东西的价值，并为之付出少得多的价格。

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_John Huber is the portfolio manager of [Saber Capital Management,](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/) 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](https://sabercapitalmgt.com/), and can be reached at [john@sabercapitalmgt.com.](mailto:john@sabercapitalmgt.com)_