I guess that's why the share price is up today in a down market - the market believes (probably correctly) that the capital they had reserved for buying IDBI will now go to repurchasing shares.
Thinking about what this would do to the book value, given that FIH is currently trading at 0.75x BV, buying a significant number of shares beneath book value would actually decrease the book value per share and postpone incentive fees paid to Fairfax.
They hav bought back share for $29m, $127m, $36m, $37m, $8m and $10m in the last six years. They only had $8m cash on the balance sheet at year end, despite the sale of Saraushtra for $75m which closed in November, so it's not clear where they would get the cash for significant levels of buybacks. The BIAL IPO would solve that problem, but then again, if that happens, the share price is likely to rise a lot, so it's not clear to me how they could take advantage of this price without asset sales.