英文早讀第182篇，選自巴菲特年度信，友才翻譯。

Merger With Diversified Retailing Company, Inc.
合并百貨零售公司

Your Directors have approved the merger of Diversified Retailing Company, Inc. into Berkshire Hathaway Inc. on terms involving issuance of 195,000 shares of Berkshire stock for the 1,000,000 shares of Diversified stock outstanding. Because Diversified and its subsidiaries own 109,551 shares of Berkshire, the net increase in the number of shares of Berkshire outstanding after giving effect to this transaction will not exceed 85,449. Various regulatory approvals must be obtained before this merger can be completed, and proxy material will be submitted to you later this year so that you may vote upon it.
董事會已經(jīng)批準(zhǔn)將百貨零售公司合并入伯克希爾哈撒韋公司，通過發(fā)行19.5萬伯克希爾股票股份換取百貨公司流通的100萬股。因?yàn)榘儇浌竞退淖庸緭碛?0.9551萬伯克希爾股票，這筆交易導(dǎo)致伯克希爾流通的股份數(shù)量凈增長不會超過85449股。各項(xiàng)監(jiān)管部門批準(zhǔn)必須在合并完成前通過，今年晚些時候代理材料將會提交給你這樣你可以對此投票。

Diversified Retailing Company, Inc., through subsidiaries, operates a chain of popular-priced women's apparel stores and also conducts a reinsurance business. In the opinion of management, its most important asset is 16% of the stock of Blue Chip Stamps.
百貨零售公司，通過旗下子公司，運(yùn)營著一系列平價女裝商店，并開展再保險業(yè)務(wù)。從管理角度看，他最重要的資產(chǎn)是藍(lán)芯票證公司16%的股份。

Blue Chip Stamps
藍(lán)芯票證公司

Our holdings of stock in Blue Chip Stamps at year-end amounted to approximately 19% of that company's outstanding shares. Since year-end, we have increased our holdings so that they now represent approximately 22.5%: implementation of the proposed merger with Diversified Retailing Company, Inc. would increase this figure to about 38.5%.
我們?nèi)ツ昴┰谒{(lán)芯票證持股總計大約占公司流通股份的19%。從年末開始，我們已經(jīng)增加了我們的股份，現(xiàn)在大約有22.5%。若提議的合并百貨零售公司完成，這個數(shù)字將會增加到大約38.5%。

Our equity in earnings of Blue Chip Stamps became significant for the first time 1973, and posed an accounting question as to just what period's earnings should be recognized by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. as applicable to the financial statements covered by this annual report. Blue Chip's fiscal year ends on the Saturday closest to February 28, or two months after the fiscal year-end of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Or, viewed alternatively, their year ends ten months prior to Berkshire Hathaway's. An acceptable accounting choice for us, and one which, if made, would not have required an auditor's disclaimer as to scope, was to recognize in our 1973 income an equity of 632,000 in Blue Chip's earnings for their year ended March 3, 1973 with regard to the fewer shares of Blue Chip we owned during this earlier period. But such an approach seemed at odds with reality, and would have meant a ten month lag each year in the future. Therefore, we chose to reflect as 1973 income our equity of 1,008,000 in Blue Chip's earnings based upon unaudited interim earnings through November as publicly reported by Blue Chip Stamps and with regard to our shareholdings during 1973. Because we made this choice of unaudited but current figures, as opposed to the alternative of audited but far from current figures, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. were unable to express an opinion on our 1973 earnings attributable to Blue Chip Stamps.
我們在藍(lán)芯票證中權(quán)益利潤變現(xiàn)在1973年第一次變的重要，同時帶來一個會計問題，究竟以什么時期的利潤作為伯克希爾哈撒韋所得。藍(lán)芯公司的財年在最近幾年2月28日的周六結(jié)束，或者說在伯克希爾哈撒韋財年結(jié)束之后2個月，或者說，換一個角度，他們的財年比伯克希爾哈撒韋提前10個月結(jié)束。一個我們可以接受的財務(wù)選擇，其中的一種，如果選定了，將不需要必須的審計免責(zé)聲明去仔細(xì)審查，就是按照我們在更早時期持有的更少量的藍(lán)芯股份計算，以1973年3月3日作為財年利潤中63.2萬美元按股本確認(rèn)權(quán)益做為我們的1973年收入。但是這個方法似乎脫離實(shí)際，將意味著在未來有10個月的滯后。因此，我們選擇反應(yīng)1973年的收入按我們股本占藍(lán)芯公司未審計的通過11月份藍(lán)芯票證公開報告算出的1008000美金權(quán)益作為我們在1973年收益的參考。因?yàn)槲覀冏隽诉@個未經(jīng)審計但是更具實(shí)效的數(shù)據(jù)的選擇，而不是另一個經(jīng)過審計但是脫離當(dāng)前數(shù)據(jù)的選擇，畢馬威公司無法對我們在藍(lán)芯票證公司在1973的所得盈利發(fā)表意見。

13.disclaimer：免責(zé)聲明；否認(rèn)聲明
14.implementation：實(shí)施；執(zhí)行；完成；貫徹
15.scope：仔細(xì)看；徹底檢查