昨日阅读2小时。 总阅读时间93小时
Book of Value - The Fine Art of Investing Wisely 2016(Anurag Sharma)
https://bbs.pinggu.org/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=6303889&from^^uid=109341(Page 225-244)
阅读到的有价值的内容段落摘录
Management Team That Lead to Outstanding Performance
In the modern corporation, small or large, power is highly centralized in the hands of a few people who make most if not all key decisions. These people, the top management team (TMT), exercise considerable discretion as to what gets priority, who gets the money, and what gets done. If not also the architects of the business model, they are its operators, ultimately responsible for the performance and financial health of the company and, therefore, for the safety of your investment in it. Because of the power they have, good managers can create tremendous value for shareholders. Steve Jobs, to take a well-known example, transformed the music industry by imagining what he could do with an external hard drive, a commodity widely available in the civilized world. Upon recognizing the potential in the hard drive, he boldly allocated company resources to build a global business that changed the way we listen to music. Moreover, even as he built the iPod, Jobs developed a powerful platform for innovations that has given us the iPhone and the iPad. One good insight from one good manager created billions of dollars in value for Apple shareholders. There are many other examples of good managers creating economic value by building new companies and by transforming existing ones. Sam Walton built Walmart, Ray Kroc built McDonald’s, Thomas Watson, Jr. revived International Business Machines, Jack Welch transformed General Electric (GE), Larry Ellison built Oracle, Phil Knight built Nike, Louis Gerstner revived International Business Machines yet again, Bill Gates built Microsoft, Jeff Bezos built Amazon, Howard Schultz built up Starbucks, Reed Hastings built Netflix; the list goes on.
The performance of a company and of your investment in it depends largely on the skill with which leaders seek opportunities and allocate capital to construct new or solidify existing streams of cash. Good managers are, in essence, good stewards of the resources entrusted to them by suppliers of capital at risk: the shareholders. They concentrate on delivering strong operating performance that, over time, has the potential to create a great deal of wealth for shareholders. But there is another side to this story. Many managers are not keen on anyone’s interests but their own. For shareholders, usually widely dispersed and often owning too small a part of the company to have much say in its affairs, not having managers who look after their interests bodes trouble.1 Because they control the resources of the company, managers have all the power and, as history teaches us, with power comes the potential for corruption in its many forms: hubris, entrenchment, nepotism, negligence, incompetence, and downright fraud. In many instances, top managers have systematically looted the wealth that was at their disposal, using company resources as if they were monies in a personal account. For shareholders, there is perhaps no more important an issue than the competence, integrity, and character of the managers in control of the companies in which they have invested. With the likes of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of Enron, Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, John Rigas of Adelphia Communications, Conrad Black of Hollinger International, and, of course, the one and only Bernie Madoff, we are reminded that capitalism produces its share of misfits and crooks in high places, and that unwitting shareholders are easily duped. The many high-profile cases notwithstanding, investors can lose even when executives do not engage in criminal action or outright fraud. Managers can enrich themselves in any number of ways, for the simple reason that they are in control of the resources and close to the action; they have a great deal of discretion as to what goes on and what gets reported. While most managers do their jobs honestly, and well-run companies usually have considerable internal controls to prevent misdeeds, investors trying to disconfirm their investment theses must keep a
lookout for what may be amiss in the character of the people who run the companies in which they invest. Investors must learn to make judgments about the competence and trustworthiness of the managers running the company, and to assess the degree to which their words and actions demonstrate respect for the rights of the shareholders.
阅读到的有价值信息的自我思考点评感想
Evaluating managers can be difficult, especially if you don’t have direct contact with them. Information about the managers is often spotty, and business issues can be complicated; you may also have insufficient access or resources with which to uncover major fraud, especially when those committing the fraud actively camouflage their actions. Big investors and institutions with large amounts of capital at stake may be able to hire specialists, such as forensic accountants and private investigators, to evaluate the background and character of top managers. For small investors, however, digging deep into every company out there is simply impractical. As such, for both small and large investors, a quick run-through of some of the basics can be useful, especially to the extent that knowing how to investigate the quality of a company’s managers will help keep your money out of the hands of at least the most egregious offenders. In order to make preliminary judgments about the quality of managers, therefore, it may be useful to review three broad areas: (1) demographics—to understand the people and the dynamics is in the executive suites; (2) track record—to evaluate past accomplishments by way of tangible results; and (3) oversight—to comprehend the incentives and monitoring mechanisms in place. Significant doubts about managers arising from such scrutiny may be grounds for disconfirming the investment thesis, in particular for those with bad records. Ultimately, evaluation of the top management team is a crucial part of investment analysis. Based on a range of quantitative and qualitative information, as discussed above, investors should make judgments about the competence and integrity of the company’s managers. If it turns out that your analysis reveals grave doubts about the managers or their oversight, then you must disconfirm the investment thesis.
In Hong Kong and China the ethics and capability of the management team is very important, and for small capital companies that are family-controlled, it appears it is more vulnerable to bad management of family members.
|