????沃倫?巴菲特正在試圖扭轉伯克希爾哈撒韋（Berkshire Hathaway）鑄下的一個大錯。

????周一，伯克希爾（Berkshire）宣布將收購煉油商Phillips 66旗下的特殊化學品公司。伯克希爾計劃將所持Phillips 66的股票還給這家公司，用以支付交易款項。

????伯克希爾持有的這些Philips 66股票來自于2008年對康菲石油（ConocoPhillips）的一筆投資。巴菲特是在油價接近高點時購入這些股票的。于是，它迅速變成了一筆顯而易見的糟糕交易。巴菲特曾經在伯克希爾的年度報告中稱這筆投資是“重大失誤”，愿意承擔所有責任。

????根據Seeking Alpha上的一份分析報告，巴菲特為近8,500萬股康菲石油的股票支付了約70億美元，合每股約82美元。目前，這只股票當前的股價為70美元。因此，假如伯克希爾仍持有所有這些股票，當前市值為59億美元，意味著巴菲特在這筆投資中損失了約11億美元。

????但伯克希爾沒有持續持有這些股票。它一直在賣出，目前僅持有約1,500萬股。這只股票在2009年初下探32美元的低點后，大部分時間都在走高。因此，巴菲特在此項投資中的損失很可能超過10億美元，他在這只股票的漲跌過程中選錯了時機。這就是為何康菲石油常常被視為是巴菲特最大的失誤之一。

????但分析中沒有提及的一件事情是，伯克希爾在此次分拆中獲得的Phillips 66股票。根據最近提交的文件，在此項收購前，伯克希爾擁有近16億美元的Phillips股票。伯克希爾的2012年年報中將此項持股的成本基礎計為6.60億美元。但伯克希爾在分拆后購入了更多的Phillips 66股票，因此，并不是所有的股票都來自康菲石油投資。

????如今，用這些股票中的一部分（伯克希爾和Phillips都沒有說明具體有多少），伯克希爾可以獲得Phillips旗下一家專門制造石油運輸專用化學品的子公司。類似于伯克希爾擁有的路博潤（Lubrizol）制造的產品。因此，基本上，伯克希爾是在消除競爭，盡管它將繼續單獨運營這家新子公司。而且，用Phillips自己的股票，而不是現金或伯克希爾的股票，將很可能幫助伯克希爾節約他通過Phillips股票獲得的所有收益而需支付的稅費。

????但是，此項交易再一次顯示，巴菲特能夠利用平常人所不具備的方式利用其投資，讓每一項交易都獲得盡可能多的收益，即便是那些糟糕的投資。（財富中文網）

????Warren Buffett is turning one of his biggest blunders into a deal for Berkshire Hathaway.

????On Monday, Berkshire (BRKA) announced it was acquiring a specialty chemical division of oil refiner Phillips 66 (PSX). To pay for the deal, Berkshire is going to use Phillips 66 shares it holds, handing them back to the company in exchange for the deal.

????Berkshire got its Philips 66 shares from a 2008 investment in ConocoPhillips (COP). Buffett bought the stock when oil prices were near their peak. It quickly became apparent it was a bad call. In Berkshire's annual report, Buffett called the investment a "major mistake," taking full blame.

????According to an analysis on Seeking Alpha, Berkshire paid roughly $82 a share for the nearly 85 million shares of Conoco it bought, or nearly $7 billion. The stock currently trades for $70. So if Berkshire still held all of its shares, that holding would be worth $5.9 billion, meaning Buffett would have lost about $1.1 billion on the investment.

????Berkshire didn't hold on to the stock, though. It sold along the way, and now only owns around 15 million shares. The stock has mostly gone up from hitting a low of $32 in early 2009. So Buffett probably lost more than $1 billion on the investment, mistiming the stock on the way down and the way back up. That's why Conoco is often seen as one of Buffett's largest blunders.

????But one of the things that gets left out of that analysis is the Phillips 66 stock that Berkshire got from the spin-off. According to its latest filing, before this acquisition, Berkshire owned nearly $1.6 billion in Phillips stock. Berkshire's 2012 annual report puts a cost basis on that holding of $660 million. But Berkshire bought more Phillips stock after the spin-off, so not all of it came from its Conoco investment.

????Now, for a portion of those shares (Berkshire and Phillips didn't say how much), Berkshire is getting a division of Phillips that makes a chemical used in transporting oil. It's similar to something made by Lubrizol, which is also owned by Berkshire. So, basically, Berkshire is taking out the competition, though it will continue to run the new unit separately. And doing the deal with Phillips' own shares, rather than cash or Berkshire's stock, will probably save Berkshire money on taxes it would have paid on any gains it had in Phillips stock.

????Still, the transaction shows once again how Buffett is able to capitalize his investments in ways that Average Joes can't, getting as much value as he can out of every deal, even the bad ones.