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It's often better to not know so well, how the sausage is made

Egon [ @EgonKuhn ], Let's have some fun - it's Friday, right!? I know on the distance personally, professionally the CEO of Backahill put there by the Paulssons - it's certainly not a coincidence - because he is a pure play, 100% distilled unreasonable, enlessly demanding, bad manners a$$hole, sucking every available kJoule out of everyone around him for his own benefiit alone - however, he may have changed since then by now, though. At a moment in time I said to my boss, when I asked to be relieved from him [the Backahill CEO] in another context , getting an 'Absolutely NO!, -Period! - Just do as I ordered you.' : 'Ok then, but do never place me in a room with him, I may poor this little fat gnome out of the window!' <which got respected> - - - o 0 o - - - Pretty cool to have such a guy sitting around on boards watching over the Paulssons - and my - capital!

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-scrap-law-banning-insults-against-politicians/a-77630055 Hot off the presses. Germany might actually become more of a democracy. Germans are notoriously slow at making changes though so it might never happen. “private citizens found themselves under investigation by the police for publicly calling politicians "Schwachkopf" (idiot), "Lügenfritz" (lying Fritz) or "Pinocchio" on social media.” https://v4na.com/politika/retired-woman-fined-for-politician-caricature-153202/ https://sfg.media/en/a/germany-merz-insults-300-cases-court-disclosure/ Calling a politician an idiot is illegal in Germany and Ursula is preaching about Freedom of Speech? LMAO We all know from history that the Chancellor of Germany ought to be immune from insults, right?

I assume he means chapters in his book on leverage. Taking the number of chapters from two to one.

Missed the point yet again? Some questions may just be too difficult.. Or you simply have no answers. No worries, I'll stop asking.

I see. Of course I could stare at the endless rows of figures in TIKR for ages and still be none the wiser in the end If I understand you correctly, your impression from three years ago has been confirmed, and you’ve stuck with the investment vehicles of Paulsson and Lundberg, or perhaps even added to your holdings from time to time? Here in Germany my impression of REITs and REICs is that, while they somehow muddle through, they are ultimately treading water operationally. They are running, yet practically getting nowhere. Like a hamster on a wheel.

It really is quite amazing how folks rationalize laws where it is *illegal* to insult politicians. Knowing German history, they might have benefitted from allowing politicians to be insulted. Having laws against criticizing politicians is extremely un-democratic. Europe is not transparent. You asked “who promised Free Speech in the first place”? My answer: European/German leaders like Ursula. LOL. You come off as totally wrong because Free Speech has been a platitude of European leaders for a long time. In many ways it’s 1984-esque where they claim to champion things like Freedom of Speech and Democracy while doing the exact opposite (your post proves my point): “War is Peace” “Ignorance is Strength” etc etc

What do you mean, taking leverage from two to one? By my calculation, Fairfax invest an amount roughly equal to its equity in equity investments, and roughly twice its equity in fixed income investments. So I would have said thet have 3 to 1 leverage*, down from about 3.6 in 2021, but not 2 to 1 and cert. But perhaps you meant something else, and I don't see comments in this thread from sholland or patterson that might make it clear what you are referring to. *meaning they have $3 invested for every $1 of their own book value. But it depends how you define it. $1 invested for every $1 in book value, is that 1x leverage, or 0x leverage? Maybe the latter, in which case having 3 times as much investments as equity would be 2x leverage?

Oh how I miss all the dives and theatrics of previous decades Truly was a beautiful game, when it was done very well! Its all par for the course. SD

Egon [ @EgonKuhn ], I appreciate the discussion here. Please see green box called 'Fam Paulsson', upper part of chart, with a line to box 'Backahill', with a line [11%] to a box called 'Wihlborgs'. - Yeah, the whole chart appears quite confusing, until one starts trawling through some of the companies, looking at them. You can call my approach a 'jockey stock approach' - trying to assess and judge who are competent and not inept. Backahill is an awesome private company, doing its thing mostly under the radar. The Paulsson family members are far from inept, to me. [ Link, Link ] No, Egon [ @EgonKuhn].

Changing gears to the right thread here. I guess "K-Fastigheter" is something else than "Wihlborgs Fastigheter AB", so "Wihlborgs Fastigheter AB" isn't there in this graphic? The working hypothesis for all these Northern European and ultimately virtually all European REITs/REICs seems to be that Europe will never return to a growth trajectory again and that interest rate levels will therefore remain relatively low forever. One can certainly take that view, but I would feel somewhat more at ease if they were reducing their debt levels much more aggressively. Yet I don't see that happening anywhere neither with Germany’s Vonovia for instance nor with the Swedish companies. Whatever additional rental income comes in is swallowed up by steadily rising interest expenses. Consequently they are essentially treading water when you look at FFO trends over the last few years. Have you ever come across an example of a European RE play significantly deleveraging currently, moving toward a Debt/EBITDA ratio of for instance 5, like the major US multifamily REITs?

LoL! - Gave me a good laugh. - Bolded bullet points are great!

You can only suggest getting rid of the offside rule if you actually are not a fan/player. It's a totally ridiculous suggestion - sorry. There are def issues I'd like to get sorted. Like time wasting, cheating, professional freekicks (I'd like these yellowcard to give a 10 min suspension as they are so effective to kill the game). Having said all that I've thought the refereeing has been very good so far. One thing to keep in mind is that it's impossible for the referees to get it all right. Because they are human of course, but also because everybody never really agrees even after the fact with all camera angles if it indeed was a freekick, penalty or a yellow or red card. It's a continuous discussion after every match it seems.

Football is amazing for its simplicity, not too many rules and the myriad styles it can be played within that framwork. Millions play every day without refs and lineman without problems. Like any sport it does have issues and outsiders like you @Gregmal are key to getting those little tweaks to help the game progress. I'm in the camp that Croatia goal should count, not within the rules of today but it should as a lifelong player of the game. The ball was touched by the defender and that should reset the play. If the offside rule is there to limit cherry picking than there should be limits to its use once the entire field of players are cramped into the 18 yard box imo. Removing the offside rule entirely would have a bunch of negative consequences for the game but maybe some tweaks where anything in the 5 yard box is fine or something to do with the ball being played from within the 18 yard box.

Thanks, Egon, Please also see CofB&F topic : The Swedish Corporate Real Estate Crisis [2022 to ?] Swedish menu card [] : - - - o 0 o - - - Now who are in control of their sch*iße, and who are running a semidead zombie business with big arm movements for borrowed money? SBB has basically disingrated midair after I opened the topic mentioned above, others are chugging along as if almost nothing has happened, nose in the track, others more or less wounded and weak. -It's a fascinating space.

Thank you. Just getting to know the business. Will dive deeper into your previous posts. This is an informative start.

Honestly I have no idea. I’ve never really cared for soccer despite generally liking all sports. I’ve tried watching the WC, and just keep thinking a lot of this stuff is just so stupid. Shouldn’t there be penalties for all the guys who get breathed on and act as though they got shot out of a cannon? Then you see these great made for tv moments like today, and on some bs technicalities Ronaldo is denied a goal and then one of the most clutch goals I’ve ever seen is called off?

Missed this one @adventurer. Did a little writing on Hard/Soft in previous post but we can go further. Going long brokers in a hard market and short brokers in a soft market is similar to going long Goldman/Schwab in a bull market and shorting in a bear market. Looks easy but not as easy as it looks. #1 - Its difficult to generalize overall market as Hard/Soft overall due to the subsections of insurance. Property market going hard/soft gets the most attention, especially in CAT regions because the swings are huge. So any broker/carrier who writes CAT business, are subject to large swings up or down in market cycle. Homeowners gets alot of attention but generally is not a good barometer of where market is because its typically written admitted and state governments look for votes and voters are sensitive to homeowners premium. So soft homeowners doesn't mean soft everywhere. Each "line of business" has its own cycle AND each line of business is either being placed admitted or non-admitted (E&S) which will have its own cycle as well. Commercial Auto, Property, Casualty, Umbrella, Workers Comp, Professional Liability, D&O, EPL, Cyber, Homeowners, and personal auto are all different lines of business and are all being placed either admitted or E&S. Meaning Commercial Auto can be soft while Casualty is hard. Professional can be hard while Work Comp can be soft. There are also sub-categories for each. Property is broken up by CAT/Non-CAT. Commercial Auto is broken up in Trucking (interstate & intrastate), local service, fleet (250+units), even a personal fav "non-emergency medical transport", Casualty is broken up by class as well, Habitational (Hab for short), Lessors Risk, Heavy Products Liability, ect. And the complicate things further, the regionality of insurance plays by line of business's hard/soft cycle. Meaning Commercial Auto in NY can be hard while Commercial Auto in Texas can be soft. EPL (Employment Practices Liability) is a good one because Cali EPL is much harder than other parts of US. You could take a firm with 100 employees in Iowa, EPL spend might be $12K with a $10K retention - Move that account to Cali, spend is $25K with $50K retention. If you listen to the conference calls of brokers and carriers, they will break out their own rate increases/decreases for each line of business (LOB) - some even do it by region. For example, Property could be down 5-10% while CAT Property could be down 25-35%. Long winded answer to say when someone says "Its a hard market", make them explain what area of the market is hard because I could tell you 5 other marketplaces that are super soft at any given time while others are just flat. EXCERPT FROM BRO Q1 CALL DISCUSSING RATES: From a commercial insurance standpoint, the changes in rates remained relatively consistent with prior quarters except for CAT property, which declined further than in the fourth quarter of last year. Pricing for employee benefits was fairly similar to prior quarters with medical costs up 8% to 10% and pharmacy costs up over 10%. We continue to consult and advise our customers on multiple strategies that can be employed to manage high-cost claimants and pharmacy spend. We leverage our extensive consultative solutions to deliver high-impact strategy for population health, captives, stop loss and carve-outs for certain services. Shifting to the rate environment, the admitted P&C markets continue to be in the range of flat to up 5% versus prior year but did moderate slightly as compared to last quarter. Workers' comp rates remained flat to down 3%, while we saw a few states increase rates modestly. For non-CAT property overall, rates remained down 5% to up 5%, depending on the loss experience and the location. For casualty lines, rates increased 2% to 5% for primary layers, with excess layers increasing materially more. For professional liability, rates remained similar to the last couple quarters and were down 5% to up 5%. Shifting to the E&S market, let's split the conversation between property and casualty. For property, both wind and quake rates declined -- rate declines were modestly more than we experienced in Q4 of last year. Most of our placements for the quarter were down 15% to 35%. At the end of the quarter, we saw placements above and below this range. Generally, customers are capturing most of the savings. However, some are utilizing the savings to decrease deductibles, increase limits or buy other lines of coverage. These tactics are common when rates are moderating or declining. On the casualty front, not much has changed versus prior quarters. The ability to get higher limits is extremely challenging. Pricing continued to increase. Primary layers are becoming more expensive, and carriers are decreasing the limits they'll offer. We do not expect this trend to change materially over the coming quarters. #2 - Relationships with brokers and carriers are symbiotic and very tight - not at all antagonistic. A good broker builds a super strong relationship with a carrier and thats how a broker can win new deals. A broker is only as good as their carrier relationships allow them to be good. You could have the best account in the world as a broker, but if your reputation sucks with carriers, no one will help you place the deal. Wholesale has changed this dynamic because retailer is once removed from carrier relationship. When a tough deal needs to be placed, a broker will call their best relationship and say "hey, need you on this one" and carrier will think outside the box on that account because of the relationship - Underwriter can make an accommodation based on the risk, the account, or as a broker accommodation. Brokers are constantly trying to get better terms in the risk transfer market and need good/great relationships to do that for their clients. Think about it, at the end of the day, its the insurance company who pays the broker (using client funds). So naturally, brokers have to have good relations with carriers. Generally, I do not see how brokers zig while carriers zag. If carriers are taking in less premium, that means they are paying less commissions to brokers. If a carrier is growing, that means its being fed business by brokers - carriers are bringing in more business and paying commissions to do so. Brokers are always trying to get carriers to write deals they dont want to write and ask for higher commissions. A broker can not get one or both if the relationship is "antagonistic". On a personal note, as a broker, our team may interact with a typical client a dozen times throughout the year for general service/issues/questions ect. Our team will interact with a typical underwriter 4-5 times a day via email/phone on the 10-12 deals we are trying to place that given week.

Won't work Greg, the pitch is so large that any strong/fast striker can easily pass a defender in a one on one situation when given so much space. Additionally most goalies also don't have great odds stopping a shot from a striker in the box when there are no defenders blocking... In reality coaches will put two defenders on him. The result will be that their offensive capabilities reduce a bit by playing 8v9 and you're even more likely to end up with 0-0 games. It's a numbers game... 2v1 in the back greatly increases your defensive capabilities but 8v9 in front only mildly decreases offensive capabilities. Have a look at indoor football, which does not have an offside rule. However the game is 5v5 on a smaller pitch with smaller goals. Here a striker that stays in front does not have a large advantage going 1v1 on a defender. However that strategy isn't even used because if you do this, the opposing team will attack 4v3, making position loss and getting countered unlikely. Also scoring here 4v3 is quite easy... (I played outdoor football from 6y - 20y and indoor from 18y - 38y) I understand the frustration though, some leniency in the rules would be better but how? Gotta draw a line somewhere... However you could for instance make a rule that says that passing the ball with the upper body/head does not count for the offside rule. This would have allowed the Croatian goal and many other goals where it's borderline, without creating situations that ruin the game.

Because current and NTM earnings means very little for the intrinsic value of a stock. People focus on the low P (like rubbish commodity investors...), when the bubble seems to be in the E. Now this time might be different and all, but exploding gross margins are the hallmarks of a commodity (up)cycle. Lumber bros, met coal bros, shipping bros, gas bros can all tell semi bros a story as to what probably happens next.

You can’t get rid of the offside as it screws ups the game or more specifically how it’s played in the space. The cameras available now have made the judgment extremely precise and that alone makes the offsite trap a major gamechanger. You see now the defense teams relying on this swarming in perfect line formation. The same thing was done before the cameras were available but it was risky for defending team to rely on it, because the line referee may not be able to determine close offsite cases and let the play continue or give the goal. Its useless to complain and remember before we had many cases of questionable decision like Maradonas god‘s hand or the Wembley goal that wasn’t. So Croatia had bad luck, but the referee clearly made the right decision.

Yea lol I’ve definitely noticed some of this. Of my core positions, they haven’t really changed much over the past 3-4 years. But, thread popularity and interest? Fairfax, sure it’s a cult here, nothings changed. Joe peak interest was 2023. Nintendo is actually kinda right now. Not a ton a few years ago, everyone wanted Disney. And MSG(E/S) everyone basically lost interest after they went up 10% from $30/$150 a share…definitely something to observe.

And I’m duly guilty of this as well…honestly with life being busy it’s never been easier to be lazy and simultaneously convince yourself that you’re not lazy. The algos and curated echo chambers are your own worst enemy. I know for sure I could take my portfolio and find countless other investors on X, YouTube, Apple Podcasts or even COBF that share similar rational and holdings. I’m just not certain how good or bad that is. End of the day people have always had preference or “circles of competence” as Buffett would put it…but now it’s quite easy to find your herd and get stuck in an echo chamber.

Idk, hard to see how you screw up a game more than we just saw. That was pitiful. Totally ruined what could've been a classic. If someone wants to hang back, put a defender on em, plain and simple. Such a dumb rule.

Problem is if you get rid of offsides everyone just keeps a player out there to cherry pick and it screws up the whole game.