2002年巴菲特文章：股票期权和常识

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Stock Options and Common Sense

April 9, 2002

The Washington Post

By Warren Buffett

     In 1994 seven slim accounting experts, all intelligent and experienced, unanimously decided that stock options granted to a company’s employees were a corporate expense.  Six fat CPAs, with similar credentials, unanimously declared these grants were no such thing.  

     Can it really be that girth, rather than intellect, determines one’s accounting principles?  Yes indeed, in this case.  Obesity – of a monetary sort – almost certainly explained the split vote.   

     The seven proponents of expense recognition were the members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, who earned $313,000 annually.  Their six adversaries were the managing partners of the (then) Big Six accounting firms, who were raking in multiples of the pay received by their public-interest brethren.  

     In this duel the Big Six were prodded by corporate CEOs, who fought ferociously to bury the huge and growing cost of options, in order to keep their reported earnings artificially high.  And in the pre-Enron world of client-influenced accounting, their auditors were only too happy to lend their support.  

     The members of Congress decided to adjudicate the fight – who, after all, could be better equipped to evaluate accounting standards? – and then watched as corporate CEOs and their auditors stormed the Capitol.  These forces simply blew away the opposition.  By an 88-9 vote, U.S. senators made a number of their largest campaign contributors ecstatic by declaring option grants to be expense-free.  Darwin could have foreseen this result: It was survival of the fattest.  

     The argument, it should be emphasized, was not about the use of options.  Companies could then, as now, compensate employees in any manner they wished.  They could use cash, cars, trips to Hawaii or options as rewards – whatever they felt would be most effective in motivating employees.  

     But those other forms of compensation had to be recorded as an expense, whereas options – which were, and still are, awarded in wildly disproportionate amounts to the top dogs – simply weren’t counted.  

     The CEOs wanting to keep it that way put forth several arguments.  One was that options are hard to value.  That is nonsense: I’ve bought and sold options for 40 years and know their pricing to be highly sophisticated.  It’s far more problematic to calculate the useful life of machinery, a difficulty that makes the annual depreciation charge merely a guess.  No one, however, argues that this imprecision does away with a company’s need to record depreciation expense.  Likewise, pension expense in corporate America is calculated under wildly varying assumptions, and CPAs regularly allow whatever assumption management picks.  

     Believe me, CEOs know what their option grants are worth.  That’s why they fight for them.  

     It’s also argued that options should not lead to a corporate expense being recorded because they do not involve a cash outlay by the company.  But neither do grants of restricted stock cause cash to be disbursed – and yet the value of such grants is routinely expensed.  

     Furthermore, there is a hidden, but very real, cash cost to a company when it issues options.  If my company, Berkshire, were to give me a 10-year option on 1,000 shares of A stock at today’s market price, it would be compensating me with an asset that has a cash value of at least $20 million – an amount the company could receive today if it sold a similar option in the marketplace.  Giving an employee something that alternatively could be sold for hard cash has the same consequences for a company as giving him cash.  Incidentally, the day an employee receives an option, he can engage in various market maneuvers that will deliver him immediate cash, even if the market price of his company’s stock is below the option’s exercise price.  

     Finally, those against expensing of options advance what I would call the “useful fairy-tale” argument.  They say that because the country needs young, innovative companies, many of which are large issuers of options, it would harm the national interest to call option compensation an expense and thereby penalize the “earnings” of these budding enterprises.  

     Why, then, require cash compensation to be recorded as an expense given that it, too, penalizes earnings of young, promising companies?  Indeed, why not have these companies issue options in place of cash for utility and rent payments – and then pretend that these expenses, as well, don’t exist?  Berkshire will be happy to receive options in lieu of cash for many of the goods and services that we sell corporate America.  

     At Berkshire we frequently buy companies that awarded options to their employees – and then we do away with the option program.  When such a company is negotiating a sale to us, its management rightly expects us to proffer a new performance-based cash program to substitute for the option compensation being lost.  These managers – and we – have no trouble calculating the cost to the company of the vanishing program.  And in making the substitution, of course, we take on a substantial expense, even though the company that was acquired had never recorded a cost for its option program.  

     Companies tell their shareholders that options do more to attract, retain, and motivate employees than does cash.  I believe that’s often true.  These companies should keep issuing options.  But they also should account for this expense just like any other.  

     A number of senators, led by Carl Levin and John McCain, are now revisiting the subject of properly accounting for options.  They believe that American businesses, large or small, can stand honest reporting, and that after Enron-Andersen, no less will do.  

     I think it is normally unwise for Congress to meddle with accounting standards.  In this case, though, Congress fathered an improper standard – and I cheer its return to the crime scene.  

     This time Congress should listen to the slim accountants.  The logic behind their thinking is simple:

(1) If options aren’t a form of compensation, what are they?

(2) If compensation isn’t an expense, what is it?

(3) And if expenses shouldn’t go into the calculation of earnings, where in the world should they go?

　　

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1994年，7位聪明而有经验的苗条的会计专家一致认为，授予公司员工的股票期权是一项公司开支。6名拥有类似资质的胖注册会计师一致宣布，这些拨款不是这样的。
　　真的是腰围而不是智力决定了一个人的会计原则吗?是的，确实如此。几乎可以肯定的是，金钱方面的肥胖解释了投票的分歧。
　　7名费用确认的支持者是财务会计标准委员会(Financial Accounting Standards Board)的成员，他们的年收入为31.3万美元。他们的六个对手是(当时的)六大会计师事务所的管理合伙人，他们的收入是他们的公共利益同行的好几倍。
　　在这场对决中，六巨头受到了企业首席执行官们的推动，他们为了保持其报告的收益人为地高企，不惜激烈地埋葬巨额且不断增长的期权成本。在安然(enron)之前的客户影响会计时代，他们的审计师非常乐意提供支持。
　　国会议员们决定对这场争斗进行裁决——毕竟，谁能更好地评估会计准则?——然后看着公司的首席执行官和他们的审计人员冲进国会大厦。这些势力完全把反对派击垮了。美国参议员以88票赞成、9票反对的结果宣布，期权拨款是免费的，这让他们的一些最大的竞选赞助人欣喜若狂。达尔文本可以预见这个结果:最胖的人会存活。
　　应当强调的是，这一论点并不是关于使用各种选择。当时，公司可以像现在一样，以他们希望的任何方式补偿员工。他们可以用现金、汽车、去夏威夷旅游或其他选择作为奖励——任何他们认为能最有效地激励员工的方式。
　　但这些其他形式的补偿必须被记录为一项支出，而期权——过去是，现在仍然是，以极其不成比例的金额奖励给高管——根本没有被计算在内。
　　希望保持这种方式的首席执行官们提出了几个理由。一个是期权很难估值。这简直是胡说八道:我已经买卖期权40年了，知道它们的定价非常复杂。计算机器的使用寿命就麻烦多了，这个困难使得年折旧费仅仅是一个猜测。然而，没有人认为，这种不精确性消除了公司记录折旧费用的必要性。同样，美国企业的养老金支出是在相差很大的假设下计算的，注册会计师通常允许管理层选择任何假设。
　　相信我，ceo们知道他们的期权值多少钱。这就是为什么他们为他们而战。
　　也有人认为，期权不应该导致企业支出被记录，因为它们不涉及公司的现金支出。但授予限制性股票也不会导致现金支付——但这种授予的价值却经常被花掉。
　　此外，当公司发行期权时，会有一个隐藏的、但非常真实的现金成本。伯克希尔哈撒韦公司,如果我公司,给我十年的期权1000股的股票在今天的市场价格,这将是补偿我有现金价值的资产至少2000万美元——一笔公司今天会收到如果它在市场上出售类似的选项。对于公司来说，给员工一些可以换成现金的东西和给员工现金的结果是一样的。顺便说一句，当一名员工获得期权的那一天，他可以进行各种市场操作，立即获得现金，即使他公司股票的市场价格低于期权的行权价格。
　　最后，那些反对牺牲期权的人提出了我称之为“有用的童话”的论点。他们表示，由于中国需要年轻、创新的公司，其中许多是期权的大型发行者，如果将期权补偿称为一种支出，从而惩罚这些新兴企业的“收益”，将损害国家利益。
　　那么，既然现金补偿也会损害年轻、有前途的公司的收益，为什么还要将其作为一项支出记录呢?实际上，为什么不让这些公司发行期权来代替现金支付公用事业和租金——然后假装这些费用也不存在?伯克希尔将很乐意接受我们出售给美国企业的许多商品和服务的期权，而不是现金。
　　在伯克希尔，我们经常购买那些奖励员工期权的公司——然后我们废除了期权计划。当这样一家公司与我们谈判出售时，它的管理层理所当然地希望我们提供一个新的基于业绩的现金计划，以弥补失去的期权补偿。这些经理——还有我们——毫无疑问地计算出消失程序给公司带来的成本。当然，在进行替代时，我们承担了一大笔费用，即使被收购的公司从来没有为其期权计划记录成本。
　　公司告诉股东，期权比现金更能吸引、留住和激励员工。我相信这是真的。这些公司应该继续发行期权。但是他们也应该像考虑其他费用一样考虑这项费用。
　　在卡尔•列文和约翰•麦凯恩的领导下，一些参议员现在正在重新考虑如何恰当地解释各种选择。他们相信，美国企业，无论大小，都能经受住诚实的报道，继安达信(Enron-Andersen)之后，同样如此。
　　我认为国会干涉会计准则通常是不明智的。不过，在这件事上，国会制定了一个不恰当的标准——我为它回归犯罪现场而欢呼。
　　这一次，国会应该听取那些瘦削的会计师们的意见。他们的思维逻辑很简单:
　　(1)如果期权不是一种补偿形式，那它们是什么?
　　(2)如果补偿不是一项费用，那它是什么?
　　(3)如果费用不应该计入收入的计算中，那么这些费用又该流向何处呢?