Sir Philip Green and Warren Buffett — thepermanently tanned, ostentatious rag-tradeentrepreneur and the soft-spoken, frugal Sage ofOmaha — could not be more different.
菲利浦•格林爵士(Sir Philip Green)與沃倫•巴菲特(WarrenBuffett)在各方面堪稱都天差地別——一名是皮膚漆黑、愛誇耀的裁縫商業企業家，另一名是平和、節省的“奧馬哈賢人(Sage of Omaha)”。
Yet they share a fierce desire to protect theirreputations and bear the scars of having held on tocertain investments for too long.
但是，兩人都有保護本身榮譽的猛烈願望，也都帶著持有某些投資太久的創痕。
When Mr Buffett took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 it was an ailing owner of textilemills in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Now, it is best known as a highly successful listed holdingcompany. For two decades, though, the declining mills were a thorn in his side that he refusedto excise.
巴菲特1965年接收伯克希爾哈撒韋公司(Berkshire Hathaway)時，後者只具有馬薩諸塞州新貝德福德幾家墮入逆境的紡織廠。現在，伯克希爾哈撒韋公司以一家極其勝利的上市控股公司著名於世。但是在長達20年時代，這幾家瀕臨停業的紡織廠曾一向是巴菲特不肯丟掉的累贅。
Sir Philip’s purchase and turnround of BHS in 2000 confirmed his talent as an entrepreneurand owner, but as he told me and my colleague Andrea Felsted last year, a few months afterfinally offloading the BHS stores to a consortium of little-known buyers for ￡1: “I wish I’d havesold it a long, long time back … I should have sold it, but didn’t.”
格林爵士2000年收購了零售團體BHS，使之扭虧為盈，這證實了他作為一位企業家和老板的稟賦，但他在客歲接收我與同事安德烈•費爾斯特德(Andrea Felsted)采訪時——那是在他以1英鎊的價錢終極將BHS連鎖店轉給一個由幾家不著名買家構成的財團幾個月後——表現：“我願望本可以早就把它賣掉……我本應賣掉，然則我沒有。”
Reputational risk motivated both investors. Sir Philip’s words may ring hollow for BHS’s11,000 staff now it is tumbling into administration, but he told us he had been reluctant tocut his longstanding ties to the business: “At the end of the day, I’ve got people here who havebeen with me from the beginning … I don’t want to just close the door. You do your best toensure that the people there are OK.”
榮譽危害是鼓勵這兩位投資者的動力。對正在進入停業治理法式的BHS連鎖店的1.1萬名員工而言，格林爵士的話聽起來大概有些空泛，但他告知咱們，他本不肯割斷與BHS之間的歷久紐帶：“歸根結柢，我身旁有從一開端就隨著我的人……我不想只是把門關上。我要盡盡力確保眾人過得不錯。”
Mr Buffett, who had been appalled by the adverse reaction when he quit an earlier investmentin a Nebraska windmill manufacturer, was afraid of the local backlash that might occur if heclosed Berkshire down with the loss of jobs. Justifying his continued ownership of the textilemills to his partners in 1969, he wrote: “I have no desire to trade severe human dislocationsfor a few percentage points [of] additional return per annum.”
昔時，對以前退出內布拉斯加一家風車制作商所激發的負面反響覺得驚詫的巴菲特，擔憂封閉伯克希爾的紡織廠會造成工人賦閑，激發本地反彈。1969年，為了向合股人證實持續持有這些紡織廠的公道性，他寫道：“我不想用緊張的社會淩亂調換每一年幾個百分點的分外回報。”
Nevertheless, in 1985, he finally had to close the last remnants of the original Berkshire,granting the 400 workers he laid off only “a couple of months’ extra pay”, according to TheSnowball, Alice Schroeder’s biography. Spending 20 years trying to revive the business wasone of his biggest mistakes, he admitted in 2001, even though by the time he sold it, it was, inMs Schroeder’s words, “a flyspeck” on the holding company.
但是，依據愛麗絲•施羅德(Alice Schroeder)所著的巴菲特列傳《滾雪球》(The Snowball)一書，1985年，他終極不能不封閉了原伯克希爾公司旗下末了幾家工場，而且只給被裁人的400名工人“兩個月的分外待遇”。他在2001年認可，用20年時光試圖重振紡織營業是他最大的毛病之一，只管在施羅德的筆下，在他終極將其出售時，這些紡織廠只是這家控股公司的“一個小不點”。
Since those early days, Mr Buffett’s fear of public opprobrium has led him on the whole, tochoose discretion over publicity, and to promote an avuncular niceness. The policy hasturned him into an acceptable face of capitalism.
從初期開端，巴菲特對"大眾,"責備的恐怖讓他整體而言選取謹嚴(而不是暴光)，並展示本身慈愛美妙的一壁。這一計謀將他打造成為了一名遭到社會認同的本錢主義代言人。
Sir Philip’s well-publicised tabloid lifestyle and belligerent relationship with the press haveinstead made him a high-profile hate figure. Mr Buffett is probably not as angelic as he isportrayed; Sir Philip is probably not as diabolical. But there are lessons there for would-bebillionaires everywhere.
格林爵士常常見諸小報的聲張生存方法及其與媒體間一觸即發的幹系，使他成為一個惹人註目標仇恨工具。巴菲特大概其實不像其被描寫得那般仁慈;格林爵士也並不是媒體傳播鼓吹得那末品德廢弛。但天下各地的準億萬財主們均可以從他們身上汲取履歷。
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