$Brookfield资管(BAM)$ 从历年#博枫股东信#中，随手摘选一些时效性不强的文字。
【MARKET ENVIRONMENT 市场环境】
For almost 20 years, we have witnessed a period of unprecedented world economic growth and prosperity interrupted only briefly by periods of mild recession. This incredible period of growth has been fueled by globalization, the collapse of protectionism, huge productivity gains made possible by technology, and the secular decline of inflation and long-term interest rates, among other factors.
近20年来，我们目睹了世界经济空前增长和繁荣的时期，只是短暂地被几次轻度衰退中断。这段令人难以置信的增长时期是由全球化、保护主义的崩溃、技术带来的巨大生产力提高、通胀和长期利率的长期下降等因素推动的。
But as with everything, pressures and stresses eventually build up. Over the past few years, most of these remained below the surface. However, since the summer of 2007 they have now come into plain view. The first signs showed up in the debt markets, which by mid 2007 had become extremely robust. Today, credit spreads have widened dramatically as global banks struggle to clear their unsold inventory of transactions and deal with residential mortgage securities created in the prior environment. What began as a bank issue, is now beginning to affect homeowners, consumers and industry in general.
但就像所有事情一样，压力和压力最终会积累起来。在过去的几年里，其中大部分都停留在地表以下。然而，自2007年夏天以来，这些问题已经进入了人们的视野。最初的迹象出现在债务市场上，到2007年中期，该市场已变得异常强劲。如今，由于全球银行难以清理未售出的交易库存，并处理在此前环境下产生的住宅抵押贷款证券，信贷息差已大幅扩大。一开始是银行的问题，现在开始影响到房主、消费者和整个行业。
Time will tell how all of this plays out. That said, the powerful forces that started this period of positive growth largely remain in place. This provides us with many reasons to remain optimistic over the longer term. Nonetheless, we remain cautious in these uncertain times and have taken a number of actions and measures over the past six months to help manage our risks in this changing environment. Specifically, we:
时间将会证明这一切会如何发展。尽管如此，开启这段正增长时期的强大力量基本上依然存在。这为我们提供了许多长期保持乐观的理由。
尽管如此，在这个不确定的时期，我们仍然保持谨慎，在过去的六个月里，我们已经采取了许多行动和措施，以帮助我们在变化的环境中管理风险。具体来说,我们:
• raised capital wherever possible and extended the duration of debt. In particular, we sold assets which were not core to our long-term business;
•尽可能筹集资金，并延长债务期限。特别是，我们出售了不是我们长期业务核心的资产;
• ensured that our investment teams did not commit to any significant investment opportunities without committed financing in place;
•确保我们的投资团队在没有到位承诺融资的情况下不会对任何重大投资机会做出承诺;
• reduced the risk of short-term financial assets that we hold, through outright sale, or other means; and,
•通过直接出售或其他方式降低我们持有的短期金融资产的风险;而且,
• purchased credit protection on a portfolio of approximately $2 billion notional of corporate debt as a hedge against the rising cost of debt due to a widening in credit spreads. To date, this credit protection has generated realized and unrealized gains in excess of $100 million, some of which were accounted for in the results in 2007.
•为约20亿美元的名义公司债务投资组合购买了信用保护，以对冲因信贷息差扩大而导致的债务成本上升。迄今为止，这种信用保护已产生的和未实现的收益超过1亿美元，其中一些计入了2007年的业绩。
Fortunately, we have entered 2008 in a strong financial position. We also believe the current volatile environment favours long-term owners and operators of assets. Our balance sheet strength and our long-term investment horizon should, as a result, play to our advantage as other owners of assets wishing to sell begin to place greater importance on certainty of closing. And, as we typically finance our investments with significant equity, often comprising up to 50% of the purchase price, and finance the balance with fixed-rate, long-term investment grade financing, we are not as affected as many of our competitors who rely on the more volatile high-yield debt markets to finance their acquisitions.
幸运的是，我们以强劲的财务状况进入2008年。我们还认为，当前动荡的环境有利于资产的长期所有者和运营商。
因此，当其他希望出售资产的所有者开始更加重视交割的确定性时，我们的资产负债表实力和长期投资视野应该会成为我们的优势。
此外，由于我们通常在投资项目中投入显著的股本(通常占收购价格的50%)，并通过固定利率、长期投资级融资为余额融资，因此我们不像许多依赖波动较大的高收益债券市场为收购融资的竞争对手那样受到影响。
With credit costs and terms tighter, much of the drive behind the recent leveraged buyout environment has dissipated. With these factors no longer driving prices, we are more likely to attain our long-term return on investment goals going forward. In the context of these forward-looking views, we believe there will be great opportunities to put investment capital to work in our areas of focus in order to generate greater-than-average returns over the longer term.
随着信贷成本和条款收紧，近期杠杆收购环境背后的推动力已经消散。随着这些因素不再影响价格，我们更有可能实现我们的长期投资回报目标。在这些前瞻性观点的背景下，我们相信将有很大的机会将投资资本投入到我们关注的领域，以产生高于平均水平的长期回报。
And despite the possibility of a U.S. recession, we believe in the resilience of the U.S. economy, and the dramatic impact that the integration of the developing world is having on world GDP growth. These facts favour a positive investment environment once this adjustment process has run its course.
尽管美国有可能陷入衰退，但我们相信美国经济的韧性以及发展中国家一体化对世界国内生产总值增长的巨大影响。这些事实有利于在调整过程结束后创造积极的投资环境。
【GOALS AND STRATEGY 目标和策略】
As stated before, our long-term goal is to achieve a compound 12% annual growth in the cash flows from operations on a per-share value. This should lead to a total underlying value increase on a per-share basis of greater than 12%. This return will not occur consistently each year, but we believe we can achieve this objective over the longer term by continuing to focus on four key operating strategies:
如前所述，我们的长期目标是实现每股运营现金流每年12%的复合增长。这应该会导致每股基础价值的总增长超过12%。这种回报不会每年都持续出现，但我们相信，通过继续专注于四个关键的经营策略，我们可以在更长期内实现这一目标:
• Build a world-class asset management firm for institutional and retail investors, offering a focused group of products on a global basis to our clients.
•为机构和散户投资者打造世界级的资产管理公司，为我们的客户提供全球范围内专注的产品群。
• Differentiate our product offerings by utilizing our decades of investment and operating experience and our long-term investment horizons, allowing us to have a different, longer-term perspective in acquisitions and building operations, thereby enabling us to generate greater returns over the long term for our partners.
•通过利用我们数十年的投资和运营经验以及我们的长期投资视野，使我们的产品产品与众不同，使我们在收购和建设业务方面拥有不同的、长期的视角，从而使我们能够为合作伙伴产生更大的长期回报。
• Focus our products on simple to understand, high quality, long-life, cash-generating physical assets that require minimal sustaining capital expenditures and have some form of barrier to entry, a characteristic which should lead to appreciation in the value of these assets over time.
•将我们的产品集中在简单易懂、高质量、长寿命、能产生现金的有形资产上，这些资产需要最少的持续资本支出，并有某种形式的进入壁垒，这一特征应该会导致这些资产的价值随着时间的推移而升值。
• Maximize the value of our operations by actively managing our assets to create operating efficiencies, lower our cost of capital and enhance cash flows. Given that our assets generally require high initial capital investment, have relatively low variable cost, and can be leveraged on a long-term, low-risk basis, even a small increase in the top-line performance typically results in a much more meaningful contribution to the bottom line.
•通过积极管理资产，实现运营价值最大化，提高运营效率，降低资本成本，提高现金流。鉴于我们的资产通常需要较高的初始资本投资，具有相对较低的可变成本，并可以长期、低风险地使用杠杆，即使是营收的微小增长通常也会对利润产生更有意义的贡献。
We believe we can continue to successfully grow our global asset management business, because underlying fundamentals for asset management, particularly within the infrastructure space, continue to be positive. In fact, in an uncertain world, we believe our lower-risk, lower-volatility products should become even more appealing, especially as investors reprice risk in the marketplace.
我们相信，我们能够继续成功增长我们的全球资产管理业务，因为资产管理行业的基本面，特别是在基础设施领域，继续保持积极。事实上，在一个不确定的世界里，我们相信我们的低风险、低波动率产品应该会变得更有吸引力，特别是当投资者在市场上重新定价风险时。
Changes in both demand and supply continue to drive the fundamentals of our business. With respect to demand for our products, institutional pools of capital across the world now total in excess of $20 trillion. As allocations by these investors to our type of products increase, we believe the demand for our product offerings will continue to grow at a rapid pace.
需求和供应的变化继续推动我们业务的基本面。就对我们产品的需求而言，世界各地的机构资金池现在总计超过20万亿美元。随着这些投资者对我们这类产品的配置增加，我们相信对我们产品的需求将继续快速增长。
At the same time, the required investment in infrastructure assets is estimated at several trillion dollars annually in order to provide proper infrastructure in emerging economies, ensure appropriate upkeep of infrastructure in currently developed markets, and support further global expansion. We need only to participate in a very small way to fulfill our plans over the next ten years.
与此同时，为了在新兴经济体提供适当的基础设施，确保现有发达市场的基础设施得到适当维护，并支持进一步的全球扩张，每年所需的基础设施资产投资估计达数万亿美元。我们只需要以非常小的方式参与来完成我们未来十年的计划。
【GLOBAL OPERATING PLATFORM 全球运营平台】
For many decades we have owned and operated the type of assets we now buy in conjunction with our asset management clients. We believe this differentiation, with hands-on operators in all of our businesses, has and will continue to enable us to outperform investors who do not have these capabilities.
几十年来，我们一直拥有和运营我们现在与资产管理客户一起购买的资产类型。我们相信，这种差异化，加上我们所有业务都有亲力亲为的运营者，已经并将继续使我们超越那些不具备这些能力的投资者。
In order to service our highly sophisticated group of investors, we have continued to invest in our existing operating platforms in property, renewable power, timber and transmission. We have also been developing operating platforms to support other emerging forms of infrastructure, and globalized the business because many institutions are increasingly looking for an investment manager with a global product offering, providing reliable one-stop shopping.
为了服务我们高度成熟的投资者群体，我们继续投资于我们现有的房地产、可再生能源、木材和传输的运营平台。我们还一直在开发运营平台，以支持其他新兴形式的基础设施，并将业务全球化，因为许多机构越来越多地寻找具有全球产品供应、提供可靠的一站式购物的投资经理。
Over the past five years we have increased our staff to over 10,000, which includes 300 investment professionals. We have enhanced our presence in North and South America, built upon our business in Europe, added a meaningful presence in Australia, and established bases in Dubai, Hong Kong and China. We believe this corporate investment will pay off for you and for our co-investors as we increase the size of many of our fund offerings in the next few years.
在过去5年里，我们的员工人数已超过1万人，其中包括300名投资专业人士。在欧洲业务的基础上，我们加强了在北美和南美的业务，在澳大利亚增加了有意义的业务，并在迪拜、香港和中国建立了基地。我们相信，随着我们在未来几年增加许多基金产品的规模，这种企业投资将为您和我们的共同投资者带来回报。
【CURRENCIES 货币】
The increasingly global nature of our operating platforms has had the effect of increasing the foreign content of our business. To date, because of the decline of the U.S. dollar, this internationalization has added value to the company, compared to having only been invested in the U.S.
我们运营平台日益全球化的性质，增加了我们业务的国外成分。到目前为止，由于美元贬值，与只在美国投资相比，这种国际化为公司增加了价值。
We report our results in U.S. dollars and, from a currency perspective, changes in the value of the U.S. dollar relative to other currencies will impact the operating results and values of our non-U.S. activities. Often we hedge our non-U.S. operations with local debt, but typically the equity and increases in value are not hedged. We estimate that currently approximately 50% of our market capitalization is represented by U.S. dollars and the balance of 50% is invested internationally. The largest international investments are in Canada and Australia, with the next largest in Brazil and the UK.
我们以美元报告业绩，从货币的角度来看，美元相对于其他货币的价值变化将影响我们非美元业务活动的经营业绩和价值。我们经常使用当地债务来对冲非美国的业务资产，但通常股权和增值是不对冲的。我们估计，我们目前约50%的市值是美元计价，其余50%是国际投资。最大的国际投资集中在加拿大和澳大利亚，其次是巴西和英国。
The decline of the U.S. dollar against world currencies in 2007 had a positive impact on the intrinsic values and cash flow producing ability (in U.S. dollars) of our non-U.S. assets. A 10% movement in the U.S. dollar against our other currencies results in a change in the value of approximately $2.00 per share. These numbers are merely indicative, and the exact calculations will change quarterly. And, while we don’t try to take currency positions, we are an international investor, and therefore our returns are inevitably affected by currency movements across the world.
2007年美元对世界货币的贬值，对我们非美元资产的内在价值和现金流生产能力(以美元计)产生了积极的影响。美元兑其他货币汇率每波动10%，就会导致每股价值的变化约为2美元。这些数字仅仅是指示性的，准确的计算每季度都会发生变化。而且，虽然我们不试图建立汇率头寸，但我们是一个国际投资者，因此我们的回报不可避免地会受到全球汇率波动的影响。
【MARKETING OF FUNDS 基金的营销】
During 2007, we added approximately $10 billion of managed capital to our operations and are currently in the market with a number of private funds where we hope to raise several billions more. Most of this capital will come from global institutional investors, and in order to accommodate the increased demands on our resources, we have continued to expand our capabilities, both to market these funds and to better service these institutions.
在2007年，我们为我们的业务增加了大约100亿美元的管理资本，目前在市场上营销一些私募基金，希望在那里再筹集数十亿美元。大部分资金将来自全球机构投资者，为了满足对我们业务资源日益增长的需求，我们继续扩大我们的能力，既推销这些基金，又更好地为这些机构服务。
In addition to private funds, we also sponsor specialty public issuers that enable public market investors to participate directly in our investment strategies. The first major initiative in this regard was the creation of NYSE-listed Brookfield Infrastructure Partners. By now you should have each received your units of this new entity by way of a special dividend. As articulated before, we intend to utilize Brookfield Infrastructure as our primary growth vehicle for the purchase of certain infrastructure assets in the future. We hope that Brookfield Infrastructure will appeal to those investors seeking higher yield and lower volatility than traditional equity investments.
除了私募基金，我们还管理公开发行的上市企业，使公开市场投资者能够直接参与我们的投资策略。这方面的第一个重大举措是在纽交所上市的$Brookfield基础设施(BIP)$ 的创建。到现在为止，你们每个人都应该通过特别股息的方式获得了这个新实体的份额。
如前所述，我们打算利用BIP作为我们未来购买某些基础设施资产的主要增长载体。我们希望BIP能够吸引那些寻求比传统股票投资更高收益和更低波动性的投资者。
Our long-term goal is to substantially expand our assets under management, ultimately ending up with our commitment to each strategy at less than 20%. As a result, and given the scale of capital which we have in the business today, we should be able to substantially grow our assets under management with the capital we have in the business.
我们的长期目标是大幅扩大我们所管理的资产，最终使我们对每种策略的投入金额低于20%。因此，同时考虑到我们业务目前的资本规模，我们应该能够用我们在业务中的资本大幅增长我们管理的资产。
【INVESTMENT RETURNS AND FINANCIAL REPORTING 投资回报和财务报告】
As stated in our second quarter report to you, we are often asked about the overall make-up of our cash flow from operations, and in particular, whether we focus on current cash flows or cash flows on a total-return basis. The short answer is that we focus on both, but predominantly on total return.
正如我们在第二季度报告中所述，我们经常被问及我们经营活动产生的现金流的总体构成，特别是，我们是关注当前现金流还是总回报基础上的现金流。简而言之，我们两者都关注，但主要关注总回报。
To date, for simplicity purposes, we have focused our reporting to you on the cash flows generated on an ongoing basis from our operations and realization gains as they occur. Given our continued focus on total-return investing, this is an important concept to understand and worth exploring in further detail.
到目前为止，为了简单起见，我们向您报告的重点是我们的经营活动持续产生的现金流和实现收益。鉴于我们对总回报投资的持续关注，这是一个需要理解的重要概念，值得进一步深入探讨。
On average, we invest capital seeking at least a 12% to 15% leveraged return. We assess returns on a total basis – meaning that we include the present values of cash flows received over the life of our investment as well as the “terminal value,” which represents the value of the investment at a future point in time. This is commonly referred to as an internal rate of return, or “IRR”.
平均而言，我们的投资目标是寻求至少12%到15%的杠杆回报率。我们在总基础上评估回报，这意味着我们包括在我们的投资生命周期内收到的现金流的现值，以及“最终价值” （代表了投资在未来某个时间点的价值）。这通常被称为内部收益率(IRR)。
As you know, we focus on assets that we believe will generate increasing levels of cash flow over time, and that appreciate in value. In many cases, the current cash return from an investment at inception may be well below the targeted IRR. This means that for accounting purposes, the returns that are reflected in our financial results are typically significantly below our internal rate of return in the early years of our ownership. Over time, as the cash flows increase, higher returns will be reflected in our reported results.
如你所知，我们专注于那些我们认为会随着时间的推移产生不断增加的现金流水平，并会增值的资产。在许多情况下，投资初期的当前现金回报可能远低于目标内部收益率。这意味着，就会计目的而言，反映在我们财务结果中的回报通常显著低于我们所有权早期的内部回报率。
随着时间的推移，随着现金流的增加，更高的回报将反映在我们报告的结果中。
What is usually not reflected in our financial results are increases in the values of our investments over the amount of the original invested capital. The values of assets such as ours typically increase by an amount equal to the capitalized value of the increase in the associated cash flows. This appreciation in value is generally not reflected in our financial results until such time as we sell the asset, at which point we will record a realization gain. However, we are generally inclined to hold assets indefinitely, preferring to monetize the accrued value by refinancing the asset as opposed to an outright sale. This has the added benefit of deferring any accrued tax liability but, in the absence of a crystallization event, the accrued value may never appear in our reported financial results.
通常没有反映在我们的财务结果中的是我们的投资价值超过原始投资资本的增加值。像我们这样的资产的价值通常增加的数额等于相关现金流增加的资本化价值。
这种价值的增值通常不会反映在我们的财务结果中，直到我们出售资产时，这时我们将记录变现收益。
然而，我们通常倾向于无限期地持有资产，更喜欢通过资产再融资来变现应计价值，而不是直接出售资产。这有延迟任何应计税务责任的额外好处，但是，在没有出售的情况下，应计价值可能永远不会出现在我们报告的财务结果中。
The implications of this analysis are twofold. The first is that the cash flows reported on a meaningful amount of our capital are not, in our view, representative of the total return that we expect to receive over the life of the investment. This is particularly so for newer investments, development initiatives, and securities investments. The second implication is that realization gains, when they do occur, form an important part of our total returns and typically represent only a small portion of the overall increase in intrinsic value that is built each year within our operations.
这一分析有两层含义。首先，在我们看来，我们的大量资本所报告的现金流并不能代表我们在整个投资周期内预期获得的总回报。对于新投资、发展计划和证券投资尤其如此。
第二个含义是，当实现收益确实发生时，它是我们总回报的重要组成部分，通常只代表我们每年在业务中创造的整体内在价值增长的一小部分。
【SUMMARY 总结】
We remain committed to building a world-class asset manager, and investing capital for you and our co-investment partners in high quality, simple to understand assets which earn a solid cash-on-cash return on equity, while always emphasizing downside protection of the capital employed.
我们仍然致力于打造世界级的资产管理公司，为您和我们的共同投资伙伴投资高质量、简单易懂的资产，获得稳定的现金对现金股本回报率，同时始终强调所使用资本的下行保护。
The primary objective of the company continues to be generating increased cash flows, and as a result, higher intrinsic value on a per-share basis over the longer term.
公司的主要目标继续是产生更多的现金流，并因此在较长期产生更高的每股内在价值。
It is always important to remind ourselves that there may be occasional periods of time, maybe years, when the market value of any company, for various reasons, may not equate to the intrinsic value of the business. This fact often presents us opportunities to acquire assets in the public market at less than intrinsic value, but can similarly affect your shareholdings in our company for periods of time. Given the “bearishness” that exists in the capital markets today, this is probably more important to note than usual.
我们总是要提醒自己，可能会有一段时间，可能是几年，任何公司的市场价值，由于各种原因，可能不等于企业的内在价值。
这一事实通常为我们提供了以低于内在价值的价格在公开市场上收购资产的机会，但同样也会在一段时间内影响您在我们公司的持股。
鉴于目前资本市场存在的“看空情绪”，这一点可能比平时更值得注意。