Marco Van Basten

If they think that markets are overvalued, then they are not looking hard enough. Plenty of great businesses at very attractive valuations

Cape Verde - man, no matter who this ends, super impressive

A treaty is just a piece of paper - Kaiser Wilhelm II

Reminds me of how California cancelled Algebra for the same reason... Race in the Western World who will become dumber while China is laughing at us. Thank God for ayatollahs in Iran and communists in China & Putin & co in Russia that drive best and brightest out to the West.

I lived in the USSR, so don't give that bullshit. There is a difference between rules on conduct which every society has and rules on speech, which not every society has.

The point is that there is no freedom of speech in Europe

You are missing my point, in Europe free speech is limited, in the US, not really. Check out Paivi Rasanen case in Finland. Oh, and it's bullshit that you cannot say kniga in the US. It is a not a crime. I say it all the time in public to my kids. You were told not to say it because blacks might not hear the first letter and get offended. That's different from the government punishing you for it.

Freedom of speech. What will happen to me in France, UK, et all if I say that Islam is a threat to European civilization and Islamic immigration is incompatible with Western values?

If you have a choice between flight and fight, choose flight every time.

I am afraid that you are thirty years too late. I would argue that given the insane immigration, UK, Ireland, France, et all are low trust societies today. If you go to a small town in the US, you will see a high trust society, NYC is not a good representative of the country as a whole.

I love how all the left-wingers who claim to be open minded always insist on jamming their values down other people's throats.

Spek, I know plenty of people who summer in the Hamptons every year for two months and have not been to Europe in decades. Check out how much it costs to rent a house in the Hamptons for the summer, compare it to the cost of spending two months in Greece/Spain/Portugal/Italy. You will see that it's not the lack of money, it's the lack of desire to stand in two hour security lines in Paris Airports, zero air conditioning in Europe, and having to buy timed tickets to visit any sort of attraction in Europe these days. Europe is dirt cheap compared to the US. When my first son was born, I wanted to take the family to Maine for the summer, when I looked at prices, I realized that it would be cheaper to fly business class and stay in Ritz Carlton in Spain than to stay in Class B hotel in Maine. It's not that Americans cannot afford to go to Europe, it's just most don't value what you get in Europe - European culture, heritage, architecture and food.

When I was at Yale doing my undergraduate degree, I met a guy from Ethiopia who was a fellow student. He was a year older than he was supposed to be based on his class, and the reason was that he was left to repeat a class in Ethiopia when he was in kindergarten. Teachers in kindergarten had thought that he was retarded. The guy was an engineering major. Just because people think you are a retard at age 4 does not mean that you are, you may turn out to be smarter than everyone else, just wired differently.

So, it's interesting. If you look at Holcim's press release at the time of the acquisition announcement, it talks about USD 1.5bn price or at that time, PEN = 5.0544bn. That it turn implies PEN 3.706bn equity value or PEN 8.10 per share based on 03/31/2026 debt levels, and probably closer to PEN 8.30 per share based on 06/30/2026 debt levels. That implies $11.90 per ADR and $12.20 per ADR respectively. Also, in an interview with Nicolai Tangen on 06/24/2026, the CEO of Holcim stated that the Peru market is amazing and is booming. So if I had to guess, the bid is going to be north of USD 13 per ADR to make sure that Holcim gets all of the 50% that it does not own. Time will tell.

a) Why the termination? b) What would be the SG&A burn and how much value would be consumed, assuming it takes 24 months to sell the remaining asset? How much of deferred cap ex if any on the building? Any mortgage penalty? c) What is the remaining asset?

Why? Thank you.

If we keep letting millions of people come to the US who don't share our values then we will end up much worse than Europe - look at Mamdani and the policies he is advocating/pursuing in NYC. At this point, plenty of places in the US have much higher taxes than Europe - NYC, California, Hawaii

Good thing that you worked from home that day, may be work from home 5 days a week? By the way, still no Jardine transcript.

In my experience, when a CEO or CFO leaves voluntarily, it is rarely a good sign, unless the executive leaves due to really bad health issues. Also, have you taken a look at Yum Brands?

@changegonnacome, of course Israel by itself can wipe out Iran. Israel has nukes, and presumably chemical and biological weapons. Hell, Israel can just destroy Iran's oil industry and Iranian population starves to death.

Sure. In my opinion, you can measure it two ways: a) every equity investment made, including control/take private positions, as well as CDS & equity hedges, or as in a) but exclude CDS & equity hedges. I am not counting TRS since in my opinion it is a share buy-back.

John, very simple thesis: over the next forty or fifty years, annual volume growth of 3-5%, pricing ahead of inflation, EBIT margin goes from 25% to something closer to Transdigm's 50%.

@changegonnacome, USSR was in no position to help Iran in 1979 since it invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Don't forget USSR fought a border war with China in the 1970s. USSR sure as hell would not and could not help Iran - already fighting a war in Afghanistan, anticipating a possible Chinese invasion in the Far East, and now fighting the US? If Khomeini was worried about a coup originating from the US embassy, he could have just demanded that the embassy personnel leave in 48 hours or 72 hours. Taking an embassy hostage is an act of war and had either Carter or Reagan had guts, Qum and Iranian regime would have ceased to exist. You refer to the old Bismarck saying - nations have no permanent allies, just permanent interests. Sure, but where is the sense of creating enemies? Why turn two nuclear powers into enemies? Given Iran's interference in its neighbors affairs for 2,500 years, it can hardly object or be surprised that other countries will interfere in its affairs! You contradict yourself. In one sentence you say that those who believe in benign intentions cease to exist, in the next sentence you state that claims death to Israel and US are rhetorical flourishes. So which is it? Using your logic, US and Israel should have each wiped Iran of the face of the earth given Iran's post 1979 behavior. You talk about deterrence as Iranian strategy, but again, Iran's strategy is not deterrence but aggression that is guaranteed to result in massive retaliation. Neither country, to my knowledge, expressed a desire to attack Iran before Iranians fired the first shot (Embassy occupation and funding Hezbollah.). You also conveniently ignore Hezbollah and Hamas attacks on Israel, since they are the opposite of deterrence. It is one thing to keep guard dogs, it is another to sic them on your neighbor. The former deters burglars, the latter invited shooting the dogs and the owner. Irans's actions have been since 1979 been the opposite of deterrence. They have been begging for a war.

You should research and buy Safran and GE. (I am long both.).

Dude, you stated that the company owned a portfolio of 5 year bonds. So that's what I went on. Recently in the last couple of years, Fairfax disclosed or somebody stated on this board it was buying mortgages via KW at 8-10% yields. So in my opinion, your assumption of 4.2% annual return from fixed income portfolio is untenable and cannot be supported. Over the last 40 years, investment grade bond index returned 6.16% annual compounded return. So my assumption of 6% does not look unreasonable. My view which I am clearly articulating poorly is this: a) We have no idea how well the company's equity portfolio have performed over the long term. b) Using reasonable assumptions it is possible to show that the equity portfolio has underperformed the S&P 500 over the past 40 years, and similarly it is possible to show that it has outperformed. c) The equity portfolio is very unlikely to have materially outperformed the S&P over the past 40 years.