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There are plenty of examples of people being involved with Fairfax subs that did not feel "fair and friendly" with the take-outs/take-unders/sale of share of the underlying investments you could have been coinvested with them on. I'm not saying I have issues with Fairfax - but I am saying you probably cannot rely on them to act in a way that protects you as an investor in a vehicle alongside them. They're going to do what is best for Fairfax - not what is best for you.

They have a regulatory benefit in the insurance subsidiaries by owning a public company. Plus they paid all of the fees to go public and in the very long term there is optionality by remaining public although with the exception of accretive buybacks it’s hard to see right now. I don’t think going private is a likely scenario although it might effectively look that way when they have excess capital to resume buybacks.

when FFH IPO'd FIH it gave them access permanent 3P equity capital to fund deals and ability leverage their expertise/networks in India to generate AM fees. The ideal scenario for any asset manager is to generate good returns for investors, grow the capital pool and potential fee stream over time. If FFH were to fully privatise FIH by themselves, they would lose that 3P capital and AM fees and then there is the cost to fund/leverage considerations. So the question then is - is the value extraction opportunity so significant that it would justify a take private assuming they pay a 'fair & friendly' acquisition price etc? You could hypothetically have an Atlas/Poseidon type scenario where you get one or more investors (eg pension funds, sovereign wealth funds) who form a consortium with FFH to take FIH private - in which case maybe FFH (via HWIC) could possibly remain the asset manager and retains 3P equity capital with potentially deep pocketed investors - plus there are time/cost savings of not being a listed entity.