Some lives are so intertwined with work that it is impossible to tell them apart. The backroom slaves who devote themselves to a company are harmless enough. But what of those rare titans who are synonymous with their business – the Richard Bransons or Rupert Murdochs of this world? Fitch, a rating agency, puts Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett unequivocally in this camp. Along with downgrading the insurer by one notch on Friday, Fitch reiterated its “long-standing concerns with respect to ‘key man' risk in the form of the company's chairman”.
有些人的人生與事業如此緊密地交織在一起，以至于人們不可能將其分開。那些在背后默默奉獻的勞動者不會對公司造成不利影響。而那些其姓名就是自身公司同義詞的少數巨頭——例如李察?布萊信(Richard Branson)或魯珀特?默多克(Rupert Murdoch)——又當如何呢？評級機構惠譽(Fitch)顯然把伯克希爾-哈撒韋公司(Berkshire Hathaway)的沃倫?巴菲特(Warren Buffett)劃入了這一陣營。上周五，惠譽在將這家保險公司的評級下調一級的同時重申，它“長期以來對該公司董事長這一‘關鍵人物'所蘊含的風險表示關注”。