《金融时报》投资者如何忽视了特易购的警示信号
零售商资本回报率连年下滑
Retailer’s returns on capital have been falling for years
自创立 Fundsmith 基金以来，我被问得最多、被恳求买入的股票就是乐购。
Since starting Fundsmith the stock which I have most frequently been asked about, and implored to buy, is Tesco.
没错，就是那个乐购——六周内接连发布两次盈利预警，将中期股息削减 75%，股价跌回 2003 年水平的乐购。
Yes, the same Tesco which has just issued two profit warnings within six weeks, which has cut its interim dividend by 75 per cent and has a share price which has fallen to its 2003 level.
我甚至在该基金的某次股东大会上被问及此事，会后有位现场观众发推文表示难以置信，说我竟没有在这个问题上被进一步追问。
I was even asked about it at one of the fund’s annual meetings, and a member of the audience tweeted afterwards of his incredulity that I had not been pressed further on the subject.
表面上不难理解为何如此。我们谈论的不仅是英国最强大的零售商，它已多年跑输大盘，从而吸引了一批信奉“跌多了必涨”理论的投资者（他们无视艾萨克·牛顿爵士普及的理论恰恰相反），因此可能被视为买入良机。
Superficially it’s easy to see why. We are talking not just about the UK’s most powerful retailer which has underperformed the market for several years, thereby attracting investors who rely on the theory that what goes down must come up (ignoring the fact that Sir Isaac Newton popularised a theory which proclaims the opposite) and so might present a buying opportunity.
此外，这是一只沃伦·巴菲特持有的英国股票，巴菲特可是“奥马哈圣贤”。面对这样的背书，我怎能抗拒拥有这颗明珠？
Furthermore, this is a UK stock owned by Warren Buffett, the “Sage of Omaha”. In the face of such endorsement, how could I resist owning this gem?
我永远不太可能在 Fundsmith 股票基金中持有零售商的理由很多，但就乐购而言，圣贤本人的一课就足以让我却步。
There are many reasons why I am unlikely ever to own a retailer in the Fundsmith Equity Fund, but when it comes to Tesco, a single lesson from the Sage himself was enough to put me off.
巴菲特在 1979 年致股东的信中写道：“衡量管理层经济绩效的首要标准，是投入股权资本实现高收益率（不借助过度杠杆、会计花招等），而非追求每股收益的持续增长。”
In his 1979 letter to shareholders, Mr Buffett stated: “The primary test of managerial economic performance is the achievement of a high earnings rate on equity capital employed (without undue leverage, accounting gimmickry, etc) and not the achievement of consistent gains in earnings per share.”
这让我更加惊讶的是，巴菲特本人以及众多看似追随他进入乐购地狱之门的信徒，竟都无视了这张图表：
This makes it all the more surprising to me that both Mr Buffett and the many acolytes who have seemingly followed him to the gates of hell in Tesco, ignored this chart:
这不是我第一次见到这样的图表：一家公司报告每股收益稳步上升，而大多数分析师和“投资者”正盯着这个指标。对他们来说，每股收益的上升似乎具有《丛林之书》中蟒蛇卡奥般的催眠效果。但他们忽略了关键一点：为赚取这些收益所投入的资本越来越多，回报却越来越低。再加上乐购在此期间八次更改资本回报率（ROCE）的定义，这已足以让投资者落荒而逃——即使那些比我更不厌恶零售商的投资者也不例外。
This is not the first such chart that I have come across in which a company reports steadily rising earnings per share (EPS), on which most analysts and “investors” focus. For them, the rise in EPS seems to have a mesmeric effect like Kaa the snake in The Jungle Book. But they ignore the point that more capital is being employed to generate those earnings at ever lower returns. Add in the fact that Tesco has changed its definition of return on capital employed (ROCE) eight times during those years, and there’s more than enough material to send investors running for cover – even those who have less aversion than I do to retailers.
然而，关于乐购问题出在哪里的评论，大多把矛头指向 2011 年从特里·莱希爵士手中接任首席执行官的菲利普·克拉克，仿佛此前一切都顺风顺水。看看图表中的资本回报率曲线，显然并非如此。
Yet much of the commentary about what has gone wrong at Tesco focuses on Philip Clarke, who took over as chief executive from Sir Terry Leahy in 2011, as if everything was going swimmingly until then. Looking at the ROCE line in the chart it is clear that this was not the case.
此外，要记住的一点是：如果乐购在莱希时代的资本回报率从相当出色的 19% 跌至不尽如人意的 10%，这是投入资本回报率的平均值，其中既包括多年前投入的资本，也包括近期的新增投入。
Moreover, one thing to bear in mind is that if Tesco’s ROCE during the Leahy years fell from a very good 19 per cent to a less than adequate 10 per cent, this is an average of returns on capital employed, which includes both capital invested years ago and more recent commitments.
要让平均资本回报率如此戏剧性地下滑，那些年份新投资的回报很可能不仅不尽如人意，有些甚至是负的——命运多舛的美国扩张就是明证。
To drag the average ROCE down so dramatically it is likely that returns on new investments in those years were not just inadequate, but in some cases negative – as the ill-starred US expansion proved to be.
即使资本回报率对你来说没有像我或圣贤（至少 1979 年的圣贤）那样重要，也请想想这一点：过去 18 年中有 14 年（追溯到 1997 年特里爵士出任首席执行官那年），乐购的自由现金流减去股息（自由现金流定义为经营现金流减去总资本支出）为负数。
Even if return on capital employed does not have the same importance for you as it does for me, or the Sage (at least in 1979), consider this: in 14 of the past 18 years (taking us back to 1997 when Sir Terry became chief executive) Tesco’s free cash flow less its dividend (with free cash defined as operating cash flow less gross capital expenditure) was a negative number.
用大白话说，乐购既没有足够现金用于投资，也没有足够现金支付股息。这 14 年中有 7 年，固定资产处置所得让数字转正，但这算不上可持续的融资来源。
In plain English, Tesco was not generating enough cash both to invest and to pay its dividend. In half of those 14 years, the proceeds of fixed asset disposals took the numbers back into the black, but that is not exactly a sustainable source of financing.
所以猜猜他们改用了什么办法？没错，借钱。乐购的总债务在特里爵士接手时为 8.94 亿英镑，2009 年峰值接近 159 亿英镑。公司把大部分自由现金流投入到固定资产上，同时靠举债来支付股息。这既不健康也不可持续，乐购的投资者如今终于明白了这一点。
So guess what they did instead? Yes, they borrowed it. Tesco’s gross debt, which was £894m when Sir Terry took over, peaked at nearly £15.9bn in 2009. The company spent much of its free cash on fixed-asset investment and raised debt to help pay the dividend. This is neither healthy nor sustainable, as investors in Tesco have now come to realise.
这个概念是否可持续，几乎不需要多想。绘制资本回报率对比每股收益增长的图表也同样如此。然而显而易见的是，许多投资者，包括看起来奥马哈圣贤（他近年来一直在减持乐购股份）在内，要么没做这些功课，要么做了却无视结果。这让我不禁好奇，他们还在无视些什么。
The concept that this might not be sustainable hardly requires much thought. Neither does charting the ROCE versus the growth in EPS. Yet it is evident that many investors, including it seems the Sage of Omaha (who has been trimming his Tesco stake in recent years) either didn’t do this or ignored the results if they did. It makes me wonder what else they are ignoring.
Terry Smith
Terry Smith
Financial Times
Financial Times