Fortunately, the fallout from many of my errors has been reduced by a characteristic shared by most businesses that disappoint幸運的是我選錯股的過錯會被某項特徵自然減輕: As the years pass, the “poor” business tends to stagnate, thereupon entering a state in which its operations require an ever-smaller percentage of Berkshire’s capital.爛公司發展停滯,所需資本較小 Meanwhile, our “good” businesses often tend to grow and find opportunities for investing additional capital at attractive rates. 好公司則一直成長,需要投入更多資本而且可得到高報酬 Because of these contrasting trajectories, the assets employed at Berkshire’s winners gradually become an expanding portion of our total capital.正因兩者發展軌跡不同,好公司的擴張讓波克夏的總資本越來越大
As an extreme example of those financial movements, witness Berkshire’s original textile business. When we acquired control of the company in early 1965, this beleaguered operation required nearly all of Berkshire’s capital. For some time, therefore, Berkshire’s non-earning textile assets were a huge drag on our overall returns. Eventually, though, we acquired a spread of “good” businesses, a shift that by the early 1980s caused the dwindling textile operation to employ only a tiny portion of our capital.
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