bearprowler6

Furthermore, Rivett/Botove were on the record as saying that their group will begin to sell off many if not all of the investments (Vertical Scope, Blue Ant, Black Press, Nest Wealth etc) that Torstar currently owns and expects to raise at least $100 million from these sales. By any measure this deal stinks. There is no justification for Fairfax supporting the Rivett/Bitove bid! https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-torstar-buyer-expects-to-raise-100-million-selling-minority-stakes/#comments

Furthermore, Rivett/Botove were on the record as saying that their group will begin to sell off many if not all of the investments (Vertical Scope, Blue Ant, Black Press, Nest Wealth etc) that Torstar currently owns and expects to raise at least $100 million from these sales. By any measure this deal stinks. There is no justification for Fairfax supporting the Rivett/Bitove bid!

There was an article in today's Globe which was even more disturbing. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-nordstar-ups-torstar-offer-in-what-could-end-bidding-war/ It would seem that the alternate bid might be superior because the proponents are suggesting that they are prepared to both bid higher in a cash-up-front perspective PLUS they have suggested that they would include contingent value rights to Torstar shareholders. Despite that, it seems like Prem has locked up our Torstar shares for the lower valued bid. I think that Prem might have a bit of explaining to do during the next quarterly teleconference if he is truly accepting an inferior bid from a former FFH executive. It's looking more and more like BearProwler called this one correctly... SJ https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/torstar-bid-raises-shareholders-ire-sparking-calls-for-osc-probe-1.1466294 From the BNNBloomberg article: "It's hard to understand the [families’] actions," said Groia, who worked at the OSC as associate general counsel and director of enforcement from 1985 to 1990. "My experience as a former regulator is any time you can't understand why people are reacting the way they are, the general answer is that there's something motivating them that we don't know about. That's what an investigation is for." Fair and friendly....hardly.....

Have the inflows of capital changed? Not that I'm aware of. I don't have industry data that measures that on a regular basis, but I can't think of anything that would have caused that to change. We haven't had any major catastrophes to scare money out, insurance linked products are becoming a bigger part of the industry, and the hardening of the market started long before all of this COVID stuff could have made capital scarce (and doesn't seem to be making it scarce for other risk products). My next door neighbour is a Managing Director at one of the major reinsurance brokerage companies. I just spoke to him about the current state of renewal rates, the existence of the hard market and why now for the hard market if one exists. To summarize what he said: -rates are hardening everywhere -the outbreak of the pandemic has not slowed down renewal rates at all. -the hard market which started last fall is continuing with no end in sight -best rate increases being experienced since 2005 -capital has not left however it is finally demanding an adequate return on investment. Too many lines of business were no longer profitable -as for why now---the industry simply couldnt hold out any longer. The low interest rates look like they are here for awhile and longer than anyone expected so increased renewal rates is the only chance the industry has to stay viable Hopefully this helps!

Let’s assume Thrifty3000 is correct and Fairfax stock price doubles in the next 5 years producing a very nice compounded rate of return over that period for those who buy in now. Buffett like indeed! Sadly however for those shareholders that have held Fairfax before Covid the return would be much less than impressive. In fact, if the doubling in share price occurs the share price would essentially get back to where it was about 5-6 years ago. So over what then is a 10-11 year period the rate of return would be much less Buffett like. Does Fairfax represent an interesting opportunity at the current time. I would say yes with several caveats! Does it represent the best opportunity from the entire universe of possibilities---in my view not likely! For the record, I have more invested in the equity markets now than prior to the outbreak of the pandemic. I was fortunate to come into the pandemic with a very healthy cash balance and was able to deploy a good portion of the cash into very high quality names that I had been following for years during the panic sell-off in late March. I still hold a smallish position in Fairfax although the position size relative to the size of my entire portfolio is significantly reduced from where it was several years ago and even from where it was at the beginning of the year. I was fortunate to sell off a significant portion of the Fairfax shares I held earlier this year as the pandemic news started to break – some above $600 CAD and some above $500 CAD. I sold the shares this year because I believed that Fairfax was not positioned (for all the reasons I have been writing about) to hold up well to what I expected would be a very difficult economic environment. So where does that leave things--- I believe that a decent rate of return can perhaps be made on Fairfax from these levels however other opportunities (e.g, certain reits, certain oil & gas names, CB or TRV if one insists on property & casualty exposure and perhaps even a direct investment into either or both Atco and Blackberry) of higher quality (my judgement) and of equal or greater rate of return potential are available and should be considered over an investment into Fairfax at this time.

Thrifty, I understand that the company is trading well below its book value. That point is not in dispute. A few questions need to be asked, first will the gap between the market price and book value close or at least narrow substantially and second, how long will it take to do so. My view and that all it is....the market has things about right at the current moment. Although there are exceptions (Atlas being one) for the most part the investment held by Fairfax are not very good and in many cases the onset of Covid has severely and permanently impaired the value of many of their investments. As for how long, I am solidly in the camp that the impact of Covid will last a lot longer than the general market seems to currently believe. As a result, I believe there are other investments (other than Fairfax) that offer better risk/reward profiles (with the emphasis on the risk aspect) than Fairfax currently does. I believe the perfect storm has arrived and the low quality level of many of Fairfax's investments along with its elevated debt levels has truly exposed Fairfax. I hope and pray that I am wrong but I have positioned my overall portfolio with these beliefs in mind. You are clearly positioning your portfolio otherwise and I respect that.

Amen...very well stated! My vote....don't give Recipe another dime and begin to look at ways of getting out as much of your investment as possible before it is completely wiped out! P.s. I have spoken with a lot of restaurant owners---both mom/pop types and those attached to major chains since Covid became a reality. bottom line---restaurants are not a segment where you want to deploy new capital going forward.

I think an examination of Fairfax's private/control equity investing activities would be a very worth while exercise. Performance in this segment of Fairfax's portfolio has been underwhelming at best. Why is that? To answer this question I think we need to agree on the investments we are talking about. I assembled the following list after a quick review of the recent annual report----feel free to add names that I may have missed: Retail Segment -Golf Town/Sporting Life -Toys R Us Canada -Kitchen Stuff Plus -William Ashley -Praktiker (in Greece) Other Segment -AGT Foods -Peak Performance (Bauer and Easton brands) -Boat Rocker -Rouge Media -Davos Spirits -Farmers Edge Dexterra would have been listed under the Other segment however its recent merger with Horizons Logistics with Fairfax taking back shares of the resulting public company seems to take this one off the table. My thoughts on the list of private investments: -very heavily focus on retail -none large enough to move the needle at the overall Fairfax level -a number of them were decent turnaround/restructuring opportunities however do not make for very good long term cash generating holdings -Praktikar (in Greece)---really---why bother? -a number operate in industries requiring massive scale and investment (e.g., Boat Rocker) which Fairfax cannot provide -Toys R Us Canada -- if the value was in the underlying real estate than steps should have been taken immediately upon completing the acquisition to realize on that valuu. One has to wonder why this was not done? -Some offer good longer term value although the extent of that value is hard to assess: AGT, Farmers Edge Overall I sense the private equity holdings are small, don't really offer much upside, are currently providing a poor return on invested capital, require considerable management time and attention and generally are operating in segments of the economy that have been hit very hard by Covid and will take years to recover. Thoughts/comments of others? I agree. You missed Quantum, the McEwan Group, Blue Ant, Arctic Gateway (partly in AGT). I am sure I have missed some too. Also, minor point but I think Peak Performance is the Bauer/Easton unit and Peak Achievement is the name for the merged Sporting Life and Golf Town. I may be wrong. It looks to me like they’re implementing a pretty clear strategy to improve overall ROI from their private companies and associates. They seem to be picking a leader in a given industry/region, and then seeking to merge like-companies under that leader to better manage/allocate the capital. Look at all the brands under Recipe now, Eurobank’s acquisition of Grivalia, and Seaspan/APR under Sokol. They’re basically using their influence to create mini-holding companies, with specialist managers that can recommend the best use of capital among the brands in their domain. I think the strategy was already starting to work at Recipe. Despite industry headwinds Recipe was shuttering failing locations, sharing best practices with lower performers, and reallocating capital to the winning concepts. I think the whole purpose of this strategy is to get lots of business experiments into the hands of several different, proven, managers, so they can more quickly ramp up the winners while letting the losers dwindle. Theoretically these managers will have their ear closer to the ground in their various industries and be able to make acquisition recommendations, etc. In a way, they’re taking the model they used to allocate capital among insurance subsidiaries, and expanding it to how they will manage private companies and associates going forward. (They did the same thing with investment management teams too.) It might be kind of brilliant. That is an interesting take on what Fairfax is doing....and if accurate may prove beneficial to Fairfax's bottom line over the medium to longer term. Sadly as a result of Covid many retail stores and restaurants will suffer and not be able to achieve a reasonable level of profitability in any reasonable period. I am attaching an interview with Rivett from yesterday (for a retired guy he sures seems busy) where he addresses the difficulties at Recipe: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/recipe-unlimited-chair-urges-landlords-to-play-ball-help-tenants-1.1441853 Industry difficulties create some of the best opportunity for long term capital allocators like Fairfax. If you’re a restaurant company flying solo then you are nothing but terrified right now. If you are a restaurant company backed by an insurance company with a $40 billion dollar portfolio printing $100 million of cash monthly, you call up Prem and say “hey we might have a cheap acquisition opportunity pretty soon. It will be a total dog during Covid, but after that your family will make a killing for as long as humans still like eating.” We will have to agree to disagree on the future for Recipe as a result of Covid......even if/when a vaccine is available the cost structure of dine in restaurants such as those offered under the Recipe umbrella are no longer economically viable as a result of the permanent changes imposed on the restaurants (and many retailers) as a result of Covid.... Restaurants, many retailers and numerous other businesses only make economic sense if they are crowded. The permanent social distancing including severe limits on crowd sizes simply make the fast casual restaurant segment uneconomical. It is for this reason that I believe landlords are not willing to provide rent relief or rent deferrals now.....they do not believe they will be repaid in the future. Just my take on things.

I think an examination of Fairfax's private/control equity investing activities would be a very worth while exercise. Performance in this segment of Fairfax's portfolio has been underwhelming at best. Why is that? To answer this question I think we need to agree on the investments we are talking about. I assembled the following list after a quick review of the recent annual report----feel free to add names that I may have missed: Retail Segment -Golf Town/Sporting Life -Toys R Us Canada -Kitchen Stuff Plus -William Ashley -Praktiker (in Greece) Other Segment -AGT Foods -Peak Performance (Bauer and Easton brands) -Boat Rocker -Rouge Media -Davos Spirits -Farmers Edge Dexterra would have been listed under the Other segment however its recent merger with Horizons Logistics with Fairfax taking back shares of the resulting public company seems to take this one off the table. My thoughts on the list of private investments: -very heavily focus on retail -none large enough to move the needle at the overall Fairfax level -a number of them were decent turnaround/restructuring opportunities however do not make for very good long term cash generating holdings -Praktikar (in Greece)---really---why bother? -a number operate in industries requiring massive scale and investment (e.g., Boat Rocker) which Fairfax cannot provide -Toys R Us Canada -- if the value was in the underlying real estate than steps should have been taken immediately upon completing the acquisition to realize on that valuu. One has to wonder why this was not done? -Some offer good longer term value although the extent of that value is hard to assess: AGT, Farmers Edge Overall I sense the private equity holdings are small, don't really offer much upside, are currently providing a poor return on invested capital, require considerable management time and attention and generally are operating in segments of the economy that have been hit very hard by Covid and will take years to recover. Thoughts/comments of others? I agree. You missed Quantum, the McEwan Group, Blue Ant, Arctic Gateway (partly in AGT). I am sure I have missed some too. Also, minor point but I think Peak Performance is the Bauer/Easton unit and Peak Achievement is the name for the merged Sporting Life and Golf Town. I may be wrong. It looks to me like they’re implementing a pretty clear strategy to improve overall ROI from their private companies and associates. They seem to be picking a leader in a given industry/region, and then seeking to merge like-companies under that leader to better manage/allocate the capital. Look at all the brands under Recipe now, Eurobank’s acquisition of Grivalia, and Seaspan/APR under Sokol. They’re basically using their influence to create mini-holding companies, with specialist managers that can recommend the best use of capital among the brands in their domain. I think the strategy was already starting to work at Recipe. Despite industry headwinds Recipe was shuttering failing locations, sharing best practices with lower performers, and reallocating capital to the winning concepts. I think the whole purpose of this strategy is to get lots of business experiments into the hands of several different, proven, managers, so they can more quickly ramp up the winners while letting the losers dwindle. Theoretically these managers will have their ear closer to the ground in their various industries and be able to make acquisition recommendations, etc. In a way, they’re taking the model they used to allocate capital among insurance subsidiaries, and expanding it to how they will manage private companies and associates going forward. (They did the same thing with investment management teams too.) It might be kind of brilliant. That is an interesting take on what Fairfax is doing....and if accurate may prove beneficial to Fairfax's bottom line over the medium to longer term. Sadly as a result of Covid many retail stores and restaurants will suffer and not be able to achieve a reasonable level of profitability in any reasonable period. I am attaching an interview with Rivett from yesterday (for a retired guy he sures seems busy) where he addresses the difficulties at Recipe: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/recipe-unlimited-chair-urges-landlords-to-play-ball-help-tenants-1.1441853

I think an examination of Fairfax's private/control equity investing activities would be a very worth while exercise. Performance in this segment of Fairfax's portfolio has been underwhelming at best. Why is that? To answer this question I think we need to agree on the investments we are talking about. I assembled the following list after a quick review of the recent annual report----feel free to add names that I may have missed: Retail Segment -Golf Town/Sporting Life -Toys R Us Canada -Kitchen Stuff Plus -William Ashley -Praktiker (in Greece) Other Segment -AGT Foods -Peak Performance (Bauer and Easton brands) -Boat Rocker -Rouge Media -Davos Spirits -Farmers Edge Dexterra would have been listed under the Other segment however its recent merger with Horizons Logistics with Fairfax taking back shares of the resulting public company seems to take this one off the table. My thoughts on the list of private investments: -very heavily focus on retail -none large enough to move the needle at the overall Fairfax level -a number of them were decent turnaround/restructuring opportunities however do not make for very good long term cash generating holdings -Praktikar (in Greece)---really---why bother? -a number operate in industries requiring massive scale and investment (e.g., Boat Rocker) which Fairfax cannot provide -Toys R Us Canada -- if the value was in the underlying real estate than steps should have been taken immediately upon completing the acquisition to realize on that valuu. One has to wonder why this was not done? -Some offer good longer term value although the extent of that value is hard to assess: AGT, Farmers Edge Overall I sense the private equity holdings are small, don't really offer much upside, are currently providing a poor return on invested capital, require considerable management time and attention and generally are operating in segments of the economy that have been hit very hard by Covid and will take years to recover. Thoughts/comments of others?

Before wading into today's discussion on Fairfax's poor record on its private market investments and the reasons for Fairfax's poor performance; I thought it worthwhile to post an article from today's Financial Post which features comments from both Rivett and Bitove on their recent Torstar acquisition: https://business.financialpost.com/news/burning-cash-for-years-pair-acquiring-torstar-eye-growth-while-vowing-to-keep-progressive-values Two points covered in the article are worth noting: - Rivett/Bitove will not be engaging in a massive cost cutting exercise at Torstar. - Fairfax will not be involved in any way going forward. Its a good article and I wish them well. Too bad their enthusiasm and efforts for a turnaround were not applied during the course of the almost 10 years that Torstar shares were held by Fairfax.

Were other bidders even given a chance? Seems they have been prevented from bidding on Torstar because the Bitove/Rivett offer was accepted and a break up fee agreed to without testing the market. The pension issue at Torstar was dealt with. The pension liability was moved off the books in late 2019. Non-issue here. Sure the newspapers are a dying business however Torstar is much more than its newspapers.....its investments in Veritical Scope and Blue Ant are surely worth something. The 40% of Veritical Scope was bought 5 years ago for $190 million and has grown (albeit with a lot of debt) since than and as for Blue Ant....well Fairfax owns a large chunk of this directly as well so lets hope its not a zero. If the value of all the other assets of Torstar net to a negative value please explain how the auditors signed off on the BV of the company only a few months ago. Covid has not changed things that much. Back to the other bidders.....why not Fairfax itself. Sure turnarounds and liquidations are terrible but why give away any potential value that such actions could surface to Bitove/Rivett. Enough said. I am pleased that Fairfax has dealt with its Torstar mistake but in my view the price is too low. Others disagree. As for the optics around Rivett's involvement. I will leave that to each of you to decide on for yourselves. BP6

Norm, none of that justifies accepting, on behalf of Fairfax shareholders, the $0.63 takeover price. Fairfax is in the liquidation business. You don't suddenly get cold feet and give away considerable value (that will take some work to unlock) within Torstar to a former executive of Fairfax who supposedly retired. Please stop defending Prem....he needs be held accountable for yet another one of his Fair and Friendly deals.

I never bought into the retirement story for Rivett and stated as such on here numerous times over the last several months. I hate to be proven right..... The congratulations for Rivett is simply because he has picked Prems pocket on his way out the door. If this sale goes through at $0.63 per share than it will go down as one of the greatest corporate deals of all time....from Rivetts perspective alone. I am outraged....and other Fairfax shareholders should be as well...Fairfax holds more than 40% of the class B shares of Torstar. They have huge input into any takeover of the company. A takeover of Torstar does not occur unless Fairfax agrees. This deal should not go through at $0.63 per share. Wake up Prem! Something is very very wrong at Fairfax....this is just another example....

Optics is not good on this one. I don't like it. In Feb 2020 Prem commented, “Paul told me recently that for family reasons, he wanted to retire as President of Fairfax. It was with great sadness that I accepted his decision". I've been a big proponent of Prem and hold a lot of shares. Going forward, I'll have to approach any such comments with greater skepticism. Yes optics are terrible.....moving on is not a bad thing...but getting robbed by a former executive of the company who was apparently in retirement is quite something else. Why the hell would Fairfax agree to a buyout of Torstar at $0.63....the cash balance (and no debt) alone is worth more. The rest of the what Torstar owns....newspapers, several media properties (Torstar paid $190 million for their investment in Vertical Scope only 4 years ago and own 15% of Blue Ant Media etc) are worth considerable more than zero. Fairfax shareholders (and Torstar shareholders but who cares about them) should be outraged....but all we have here is largely silence from Fairfax shareholders.... I agree with Sanjeev on this one.....good for Paul Rivett....but this should not be allowed to happen.... As for the tax loss carryforwards this sale will create for Fairfax....these are only of value if you have investment gains to offset them which is not something that has been in abundance at Fairfax recently. BP6

https://www.torstar.com/images/Torstar_press_release_-_May_26_2020.pdf Paul Rivett comes out of “retirement”! Paul Rivett joins Jordan Bitove in taking Torstar private at $0.63 per share or approx $52 million in total. Fairfax Financial fully supports the take private transaction and will vote its 28.9 million class B Torstar shares in favour of the transaction. Fairfax will realize proceeds of $18.2 million on the sale of its shares. So let me get this straight....Rivett retires from Fairfax 3 months ago in order to spend time with his family and now comes out of retirement 3 months later in order to take Torstar private which results in a massive realized loss for Fairfax on its Torstar investment? How massive a loss? Well Fairfax acquired its 28.9 million Torstar Class B shares over several years including in the following transactions: - Nov 6/17 ---- 9.4 million shares @ $1.25 per share - Aug 25/16 --- 2.6 million shares @ $1.40 per share - June 3/16 --- 939,400 shares @ $1.77 per share - Mar 14/14 --- 2.4 million shares @ $5.35 per share - Earlier purchases were done at much higher per share values BTW at March 31, 2020 Torstar had more than $78 million in cash on its books and no debt! Thoughts or comments?

Prem did mention Exxon by name at the Annual Meeting conference call. He made reference to a 10% dividend rate. If they bought it in March and already sold it a few weeks later, they might have made a quick 20% or 25%. SJ Could it be that they purchased after March 31st which is the current filing date? The call was few weeks after that, right? That could explain why it isn't showing. Yep, that would be a sensible explanation. Of course, that would also mean that they are probably only ahead by 0-10% if they bought in April. I guess it's better than a kick in the pants. SJ It is also possible that Fairfax did not buy Exxon and Prem misspoke. Something similar happened on a quarterly call not that long ago when Prem referred to Brookfield and yet no transaction involving Brookfield had occurred. I know I have been bashing Prem and the team at Fairfax quite hard recently however in my view it is warranted. It seems to me that Prem has failed as an effective communicator which has resulted in frequent situations such as this where investors do not really know what has gone on. Fairfax is no longer a small little truck insurer run by a bunch of investment professionals with a value investing bias. It is a multi billion dollar global enterprise that needs and quite frankly deserves a fully staffed and professional run Investors Relations team. In addition to the poor investor communication my other concerns remain including too much debt, numerous long standing equity investments that are under water and not being dealt with and an aging management team with no obvious succession plan in place.

Allied World's Reinsurance book of business is also worth watching as Covid claims are identified. Noteworthy here is the facultative coverage offered by AWRe related to workers compensation. Also, as mentioned much earlier in this thread, Fairfax's overall exposure to 3rd party reinsurers as quantified through its Reinsurance Recoverables also deserves special attention as the extent of Covid claims unfolds over the next several quarters.

Although some employees thrive at home most employees are just not as productive on their own in their homes as in the office. I heard this from a cousin yesterday who is a very prominent architect in Toronto. He has 20 architects working for him. The last 2 months have been a disaster. The quality of work has suffered, costs soared due to work needing to be done over and deadlines missed. He has now installed plexiglass dividers between the workstations at the office and is moving from all staff working from home to a rotation of half from home and half working in the office. This is his experience and with a group of highly trained professionals. I have heard many stories similar to this. Employees have not been as productive from their homes and they had been previously been. There are many possible explanations for this however the reasons don't matter. Staff needs to be in the office in most cases in order to produce work at any reasonable level of quality. Recent comment by the CEO on the Brookfield Property Q1 call... they have been getting calls from most of their major tenants looking for more space...not less. These existing tenants will need to spread out their employees due to social distancing thus require more rental space and not less. This will reverse a trend that has been in place for the last 20 years.

And everyone would lose. No, Liberty (the concept) would win. ;) How naive you are. You think China would come out of a world war more democratic? You think liberty in the US would increase in the face of nuclear war? You think Taiwan wouldn't be potentially destroyed? You think dead people are free? Didn't Germany and Japan come out of a world war more democratic? East or West Germany?

Information on 13F filings can be found below: https://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/13ffaq.htm From Questions 7: "The Official List of Section 13(f) Securities primarily includes U.S. exchange-traded stocks (e.g., NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ), shares of closed-end investment companies, and shares of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Certain convertible debt securities, equity options, and warrants are on the Official List and may be reported. But see Section 13(f)(4) (referring to equity securities of a class referred to in Exchange Act section 13(d)(1)) and exemptive rules 12a-4 and 12a-9 under the Exchange Act." Non US securities are excluded from the 13F filing so for an international entity/manager such as Fairfax it is essentially useless as a source of information on their overall holdings.

A shiny object for us to focus on: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200514005103/en/Kennedy-Wilson-Fairfax-Launch-New-2-Billion

+1

Thanks Petec. Disagreeing about investment valuations is what makes a market! Let me start with a few comments on Eurobank....Prem's thesis was that it was very cheap relative to book value. Perhaps the cheapest bank on the planet. He never seemed to say much beyond that. Fairfax now owns something like 40% (I did not look up the exact percentage so apologies if this is off somewhat) of this company. How many recaps of this company did Fairfax participate in? Clearly the original thesis was wrong and Prem and team were unwilling to throw in the towel. I believe this was due to ego and also position sizing being too large. both of these raise other issues that seem to repeat at Fairfax. The most recent "recap" involving the merger with Grivalia seemed promising but now Eurobank owns real estate that is no doubt deeply affected by Covid. My bet is that further real estate write downs will be needed which will negatively impact BV in my view. Furthermore, I believe that unfortunately the Greek economy will be severely impacted by Covid. I believe that something like 20% of the economy is derived from tourism. This will impact many of Eurobank's clients in my view resulting in additional loan losses further impacting BV. The ultra low interest rates, which I believe are here for a very long time, were never good for Eurobank (or any other bank for that matter) and now seem to be here for the long haul. Sure the political climate in Greece is better now but given the hardship that Greece will likely experience as a result of Covid its not something (stable political environment) that I think we can count on going forward. I think the shares need to triple to get back to where they were trading at the beginning of the year. A tall if not impossible task if you ask me. Given the current backdrop economic backdrop we are all facing I would suggest that owing Greek banks is the last place I would want to be invested in especially in the size that Fairfax has. The attached article may be of interest: https://www.ekathimerini.com/252538/gallery/ekathimerini/business/the-cost-of-coronavirus-greek-tourism-slump-threatens-a-decade-of-hard-won-gains I would be pleased to provide you with my thoughts on Resolute and Stelco (I live about 20 kms from Stelco's head office so I know this one well) if you want to contact me in a PM.

Just after the last potential seller throws in the towel! Low interest rates (all else equal) mean less income from float. So yes, bad. Covid 19 has two impacts: 1) big recession means less demand for insurance. 2) potentially higher claims although Fairfax don't think they are badly affected. But who knows why the stock is getting (even) cheaper today. Might be Powell's comments, might be because Eurobank is down 10%, or it might just be because there are more sellers than buyers today. Bryggen, I am sorry you are experiencing this pain however a few of us on here (myself included) attempted to warn shareholders and those considering becoming shareholders to stay away from owning the shares of this company. Before I write anything further please understand that there are a few on here that will continue to strongly advocate for investing in Fairfax. They will cite the "undervalued" nature of their major equity holdings, the fixed income yield pick up during the bottom in mid-March, the long term track record of Prem and team, the hardening market, the vastly improved underwriting results and of course the fair and friendly culture. In my view, none of these reasons is sufficient to overcome the many deficiencies that have existed at Fairfax for several years and which are now being exposed for what they are. For every positive point put forward by those who still believe and advocate for investing in Fairfax's shares are equal and in my view more compelling reasons for not doing so. The company is now swimming in debt, it never had a strong capital structure however it is now simply awful. Its long term holdings in Eurobank, Resolute Forest, Stelco to name just a few are likely impaired beyond repair. I fear a similar fate for Recipe and the myriad of its private holdings in the retail space. These were low margin businesses at the best of times and that was before any additional costs that Covid will impose on all retail establishments. Fairfax Africa and India have been so very disappointing for shareholders in those companies as well as for shareholders of Fairfax who have watched their seed capital into these entities melt away. Furthermore, the low interest rates will hamper all insurance companies going forward. God help any existing shareholders if we have an active hurricane season this year. You now have a decision to make. Continue to hold and believe in the long term value of Fairfax (that was hard for me to write) or sell your shares now and redeploy the proceeds into other more compelling opportunities. The choice is yours. I have made mine!