Why Warren Buffett Likes Wells Fargo: They Didn't Follow the "Dumb" Crowd

为什么巴菲特喜欢富国银行：他们没有跟随愚蠢的大众 （似水人生摘译）

Published: Monday, 20 Apr 2009 | 11:40 AM ET Text Size By: Alex Crippen
Executive Producer

 
Warren Buffett says you should judge a banker by how they bank, not by their speeches or PR:  "It's what they do and what they don't do.  And what Wells (Fargo) didn't do is what defines their greatness."

巴菲特说人们应该根据银行家是如何经营其银行而不是根据他们的讲话或者公关活动来分析判断一家银行的好坏。“要看他们做了或者没有做什么。而富国银行的不凡在于其没有做的部分”

Buffett tells Fortune's Adam Lashinsky that Wells didn't do "dumb things" just because all the other banks were doing them:

"Those guys have gone their own way. That doesn't mean that everything they've done has been right. But they've never felt compelled to do anything because other banks were doing it, and that's how banks get in trouble, when they say, 'Everybody else is doing it, why shouldn't I?'...

巴菲特告诉财富杂志的Adam Lashinsky说富国银行没有在别的银行都干傻事的时候跟风：

“这帮人按照自己的方式行事，尽管这不意味着他们干的事情都是正确的。他们从没有因为别人都在做某件事情就觉得自己也应该做同样事情。而往往就是大家在说“别人都在做，我们为什么不做呢”时，人们开始陷入困境。

"In the end banking is a very good business unless you do dumb things. You get your money extraordinarily cheap and you don't have to do dumb things. But periodically banks do it, and they do it as a flock."

如果不干傻事，其实银行是一个好行业，因为他们可以以很低的成本得到资金而不需要干傻事。但是人们时不时会犯傻，而且是集体犯傻。

 
Wells Fargo Chairman Richard Kovacevich
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Buffett gives a lot of the credit to Wells Fargo Chairman Dick Kovacevich:

"Wells just has a whole different attitude. That's why Kovacevich calls them retail stores. He doesn't even like the word banking. I mean, he is looking to have a maximum enduring relationship with many, many millions of people. Tens of millions. And at the base of it involves getting money in very cheap. When you do that that's a helluva start in the business. The difference between getting your money at 1-1/2% and 2-1/2% on a trillion-dollar asset base is $10 billion a year. It's hard to overemphasize that. He thinks more like (Wal-Mart founder) Sam Walton than he thinks like J.P. Morgan. I'm talking about the individual there. He's a retailer. He's not trying to influence Washington or be the most important guy on the scene or anything like that. He's just trying to do business with millions of people every day and make a few bucks off of them.

Lashinsky spoke by phone with Buffett on March 26 for a profile of the bank also running in the current issue.  Buffett's Berkshire is the biggest shareholder of Wells Fargo, with almost seven percent of the outstanding stock.

As for the other banks in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio, Buffett tells Fortune:

"We own stock in four banks: USB, Wells, M&T, and SunTrust. SunTrust I don't know about because South Florida is going to be the last to come back, and they've got a concentration down there. The other three, they're going to have a lousy year, but they'll come out of it with far more earnings power. The deposits are flowing in. The spreads are wide. It's a helluva good business."

 
Why didn't Buffett include Bank of America when he told Fortune "We own stock in four banks: USB, Wells, M&T, and SunTrust."
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(As of December 31, according to its Q4 SEC filing, Berkshire owned 5 million shares of Bank of America, which would currently be worth about $45 million.  Is that small enough to escape Buffett's attention, not worth mentioning, or did Berkshire possibly sell that stake since the end of the year?  Berkshire's stake in B of A did get cut by 45 percent, from 9.1 million shares to 5 million shares between June 30 and September 30 of last year.
UPDATE: Warren Buffett Resolves the 'Mystery' of the 'Missing' Bank of America Stake.)

Buffett's comments on favorable spreads for the banks right now echo what he told us when he was live on CNBC last month.  (See the WBW post: This Is Why Warren Buffett Says It's a "Great Time to Be in Banking")

Current stock prices:

Berkshire Class A: [US;BRK.A  85050.0    -3100.00  (-3.52%)   ]

Berkshire Class B: [US;BRK.B  2801.0    -99.00  (-3.41%)   ]

Wells Fargo: [WFC  18.18    -0.63  (-3.35%)   ]

USB: [USB  17.65    -1.62  (-8.41%)   ]

M&T: [MTB  49.60    -2.15  (-4.15%)   ]

SunTrust: [STI  15.40    -0.66  (-4.11%)   ]

Bank of America: [BAC  8.26    -0.50  (-5.71%)   ]

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