Marco Van Basten

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.

I agree with you, except the US and Israel did not take the high road, they took the stupid/suicidal road.

I think picking a fight with two nuclear capable adversaries and stating that your goal is destroying two nuclear armed states is asking to be nuked into Stone Age. How that is rational is beyond me. Had USA in 1979 or Israel since been run by anyone with guts, Iran and its great civilization (I truly believe that Iranian civilization is a great one and I am not being ironic) would have been wiped off the face of the earth.

If we assume that those returns are indeed correct, then why didn't Fairfax raised a twenty billion or forty billion hedge fund from endowments and ran it with the incentive and management fee going to the company?

Where are you getting average annual fixed income return = 4.2% over the past 40 years? That seems extraordinarily low. Even AI claims it averaged 4.61% for a 5 year treasury. Given that Fairfax seems to have bought corporate debt and mortgages, my guess is that the return on the fixed income portfolio was north of 6% per annum over the past 40 years.

Yes and no. Yes, you cannot eat relative returns, but if the S&P returns 15% per annum for 15 years while your equity portfolio returns 10% per year for 15 years, then clearly the people running the equity book are incompetent. As markets change, your investment style has to change. With all due respect, you could have bought plenty of incredible business at low multiple of earnings - ASR in 2004 is a good example (airport concessions in Mexico at 5x free cash flow.). If you need leverage to make your equity portfolio match the S&P then why not just be long S&P and avoid the issues that come with leverage?

Sure, that is even better. What is the company's 40 year track record when it comes to its equity book?

I agree with you that 5 years is enough, but the longer the time period, the more accurate is the evaluation. An organization that beats the S&P over five years but trails over 20 is not very good. This is why I chose 15, you are free to choose 20 or 25.

What you fail to realize is that the Iranian behavior over the past 47 years has never been rational. Iran was not at war with the US at the time of the revolution, instead Iran chose to take Americans hostage - an action that would have caused the Soviets to nuke them. Iran chose to fund Hezbollah which bombed Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Iran chose war against the US, it was not forced into it. Similarly with Israel, Iran was not a war with Israel in 1979, as a matter of fact, Israeli engineers built the Teheran water system. Iran chose to start a war against Israel via proxy. As a matter of fact, is it rational to fund Hamas and Hezbollah which are dedicated to the destruction of Israel? If one country is dedicated to wiping out the other, the logical conclusion is that it risk being wiped out itself! Is it rational to attack a country that is not at war with you, let alone a country that is armed with nukes? Iran chose to attack two countries - US and Israel. If you think that is rational, what is not rational in your opinion?

With all due respect, has the equity book outperformed the S&P over the last 15 years? By the way, there have been plenty of incredible opportunities in both US and non-US. Why buy Eurobank when you could have bought Aena, Halma, Diploma, Asml, Hermes, Sartorius Stadim Biotech, Safran? Why buy Blackberry, et all when Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Micron, Moody's, S&P Global, Idexx, Heico, Transdigm, GE, RSG & WM, and the list goes on were available? Why are we so proud of buying crappy businesses at 50 cents on the dollar when Nvidia was trading at 5 cents on the dollar 5 years ago?

Look, both Hezbollah and Hamas say that their goal is elimination of Israel. Unless Hezbollah and Hamas disarm, there will plenty of wars sadly. Also, I doubt that Hezbollah can afford a break unless Israel withdraws from Lebanese territory that it has captured in the recent war. Hezbollah's base will justifiably ask - what was the point of the war, so Hezbollah will try to recover territory asap.

You are right, and Wales had a separate team too... Shocking how Russia, India and China are not in, while Curacao is...

UK vs Croatia, what a game!

So, first of all, Holcim had to do it. What I think is incremental is that Holcim is planning to tender for ALL of the shares. Depending on the exchange rate, around $13 per ADR, however I wonder whether the local pension funds may ask for a higher price given the incredible Q1 results, and Holcim's statements at an investor conference (according to a research report that I read) that the synergies will be higher than forecast.

Can they be buried underground?

Well, what happens if you hire Elon Musk? May be three months....

I found it very interesting, he is quite bearish on Charter and telecom companies.