Leaderboard

Fairfax invested 400 million euro in Eurobank in 2014 and took nearly a 100% loss on it in the restructuring. They then committed a few hundred million more AND purchased Eurolife. Ultimately, Fairfax's capital commitment/capital at risk on Eurobank was significantly more AND while it was a significantly smaller company. I don't think we need to sweat UA just yet. I think people underestimate the size of the repurchases because they're not including the impact of the repurchases of associates and maybe not the impact of the TRS (which comes through earnings instead of a balance sheet reducing of shares). Fairfax HAS repurchased substantial amounts over the last 5-years demonstrated by any measure - float/share, earnings/share, stocks & bonds/share, etc. I don't think they need to commit 100% of excess capital to repurchases oyf there are other opportunities with attractive returns that diversify future return streams. I must be a glutton for pain. Forgave Fairfax and loaded up in 2021/2022 Forgave Eurobank and loaded up in 2020 Currently forgiving and doubling down on JACK Doubled down on Fannie/Freddie in 2020 when Biden was elected. Have owned Exor since 2014/2015, been adding to it ever since, and here we are below my average cost-basis for that 10-year period and I'm still adding. Accumulated BTC at $14k and rode down to $3k in 2020, accumulated the whole way up to $40k and road down to $15k in 2022, and accumulated all the way up to $100k and road down to the current ~75-80k now. I regularly chase pain, I suppose. But long term it's worked out for most of those.

Once again, I think there is confusion with capital allocation at the holding company vs the insurance subsidiaries. They can only pull so much capital out of the insurance subsidiaries while trying to maintain regulatory limits and credit ratings. That capital goes to pay interest expense, holding company costs (paying everyone at HWIC etc..) and buybacks for the most part. Investments like UA are happening at the insurance subsidiaries level and is not capital that could be used for buybacks.

Fairfax is going to earn well over $25 billion over the next 5 years. What they do with that pile of money (capital allocation) will have a much bigger impact on the company that whether their CR is 94% or 95%. Underwriting is important - ideally it needs to be sub-100%. So your cost of float is better than free.