英文早读第111篇，选自巴菲特年度信，友才翻译。
Hochschild, Kohn&Co.
孔恩百货公司
During the first half we, and two 10% partners, purchased all of the stock of Hochschild, Kohn & Co., a privately owned Baltimore department store. This is the first time in the history of the Partnership that an entire business has been purchased by negotiation, although we have, from time to time, negotiated purchase of specific important aspects of the business are evaluated and weighed against price, both on an absolute basis and relative to other investment opportunities. HK (learn to call it that - I didn't find out how to pronounce it until the deal was concluded) stacks up fine in all respects.
在上半年度，我们和两位10%比例的合伙人购买了孔恩公司所有的股份，这是一家私人所有的巴尔的摩百货商店。这是合伙基金历史上第一次通过协商购买整个业务，尽管我们已经，从始至终，协商购买这个业务的重要方面都评估和计量符合价格，无论是在绝对值基础上还是相较于其他投资机会上。HK（学会这样称呼他——直到交易完成我才直到如何发音）在和方面都很好符合预期。
We have topnotch people (both from a personal and business standpoint) handling the operation. Despite the edge that my extensive 75 cents an hour experience at the Penney's store in Omaha some years back gives us (I became an authority on the Minimum Wage Act), they will continue to run the business as in the past. Even if the price had been cheaper but the management had been run-of-the-mill, we would not have bought the business.
我们有一流的人（无从从个人还是业务观点）处理这个运作。尽管有个优势我很多年以前大量的在奥马哈的佩妮商店每小时75美分的实习经历带给我们的（我是在最低工龄法下授权的），他们将像过去一样继续经营这个业务。尽管价格更便宜了，但是管理普普通通的话，我们也不会购买这个业务。
It is impossible to avoid some public notice when a business with several thousand employees is acquired. However, it is important that you do not infer the degree of financial importance to BPL from its news value to the public. We have something over 50 million invested, primarily in marketable securities, of which only about 10% is represented by our net investment in HK. We have an investment of over three times this much in a marketable security where our ownership will never come to public attention. This is not to say an HK is not important - a 10% holding definitely is. However, it is not as significant relative to our total operation as it would be easy to think. I still prefer the iceberg approach toward investment disclosure.
当一个业务有几千个员工被雇佣时避免一些公众通知是不可能的。然而，这是很重要的你不会推断这个对于巴菲特合伙基金的财务重要程度从他的对公众新闻价值。我们有超过5000万美金投资，主要在股市，其中仅仅大约10%投资在HK。我们有超过3倍于此的投资在一个股票上但我们的持股从来没有得到公众注意。这不是说HK不重要，10%的持股确实很重要。然而，这和我们的整体运作没有非常重要的关系而他很容易去思考。我仍然希望通过冰山一角来揭开我们的投资。
It is my intention to value HK at yearend at cost plus our share of retained earnings since purchase. This policy will be followed in future years unless there is demonstrable change in our position relative to other department stores or in other objective standards of value. Naturally we wouldn't have purchased HK unless we felt the price was quite attractive. Therefore, a valuation policy based upon cost may somewhat undervalue our holdings. Nevertheless, it seems the most objective figure to apply. All of our investments usually appear undervalued to me - otherwise we wouldn't own them.
我倾向于在年底以成本加上自从购买后我们的股份占有的盈利在估值HK。这个政策将会在未来几年被遵循除非我们的市场地位相比于其他百货商店或者其他公平的估值标准有明显变化。自然的除非我们觉得价格相当有吸引力否则我们也不会购买HK。因此，这个基于成本的估值政策或许某种程度上或许低估了我们的持股。然而，这似乎是运用的最公平的数字。我们所有的投资通常似乎对我来说都是低估的——否则我们也不会持有他们。
21.topnotch：一流的；第一流的；拔尖的
22.extensive：广泛的；大量的；广博的
23.run-of-the-mill：普通的；平凡的；乏味的
24.notice：通知；注意；布告
25.infer：推断；推理；推论
26.disclosure：披露；公开；透露；揭露
27.demonstrable：可证明的；明显的；可论证的
28.stack up：比较；比高低；站得住脚；符合预期
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