Hoodlum

Fairfax has expanded to UK Indian restaurants. https://www.hospitalityandcateringnews.com/2025/11/mw-eat-owners-of-chutney-mary-and-veeraswamy-acquired-by-fairfax/ MW Eat, which owns some of UK’s most acclaimed Indian restaurants, Chutney Mary, Amaya, Veeraswamy and Masala Zone today announced that it has been acquired by certain affiliates of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (collectively “Fairfax”), a holding company based in Toronto, Canada. The acquisition will accelerate MW Eat’s growth strategy as Fairfax plans to make significant investments in the group to pursue international expansion aligned with the successful brand values and explore new restaurant formats. MW Eat is widely recognised for trail-blazing the Indian dining experience globally from the time it was started by Namita Panjabi and Ranjit Mathrani with the creation of Chutney Mary in 1990. Camellia Panjabi, the former Main Board Member at Taj Hotels joined them in 2001. Namita, Ranjit and Camellia will continue working with Fairfax so there can be a seamless handover as the MW Eat’s group of restaurants is expanded. MW Eat’s expansion plans will also benefit from Fairfax’s deep understanding of India’s business landscape and commitment to India through several major investments across the Indian economy, including Bangalore International Airport, one of India’s largest and fastest-growing aviation hubs; Thomas Cook (India), a major player in travel, foreign exchange and related services, and Sterling Holiday Resorts, a leading vacation ownership and leisure hospitality group Camellia Panjabi, Group Director of MW Eat said: “This acquisition marks a transformative chapter for MW Eat. Fairfax brings financial strength, global perspective, vision and a long-standing commitment to India. These qualities perfectly complement MW Eat’s heritage and future ambitions. We have developed excellent restaurants with excellent people whose career opportunities will be enhanced by the new investment and ambitions of Fairfax. MW Eat is in very safe hands. The three MW Eat Directors look forward to supporting Fairfax to take our unique brands global. Our committed staff backed by the new owners will make this happen”. Prem Watsa, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax Financial Holdings said: “We are delighted to welcome MW Eat into the Fairfax family. The leadership team at MW Eat, led by Ranjit, Namita and Camellia, has done a terrific job building a number of iconic restaurant brands, and we are very pleased to take stewardship of these brands in the years to come. We are familiar with hospitality businesses through our operating subsidiary Recipe Restaurant Group (the largest full service multi-brand restaurant company in Canada) and we remain optimistic about the potential for MW Eat over the long term.”

David Thomas posted some excerpts from the book related to Fairfax's "Big Short" play. https://financialpost.com/fp-finance/inside-story-fairfax-financial-even-bigger-big-short

Additional comments can also be found in the below book thread. M

According to Marval web site, they have over $400M CAD in assets. So Fairfax share would be over $245M US (400M * 0.71 * .864). This is about what I was expecting. Maybe it falls into an Other category.

How does Fairfax report the current value of the Marval Fund investment? I believe their initial $50M investment is up over 3x and they andded another $100M last year. I could not find it in their latest report.

I believe his son Tyler is a Senior Associate in the Debt Management Group at KW. He is in his late 20's so too young to take over and like you say, Fairfax has more control now.

I see that Fairfax has started a small position in Yoga Pants.

Thanks @glider3834

Thanks for posting this. I will pick up a copy and cancel my Amazon order. I noticed that it is the #1 seller on Amazon Canada, under the Business Biography category. https://www.amazon.ca/gp/bestsellers/books/935138/ref=zg_b_bs_935138_1

That acquisition along with the additional shares and warrants by Fairfax was an amazing deal. It is quite amazing what has happened with Fairfax’s ORLA investment in just the past 12 months.

A significant portion of that was obtained through convertible debt.

I don’t believe Prem has publicly stated it before.

We will need to wait for confirmation but apparently Prem confirmed to David Thomas in the book, The Fairfax Way, that his son Ben would become chairman when he decides steps down. https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/business/at-fairfax-ben-watsa-to-be-chair-after-father/amp_articleshow/125283014.cms Indian-Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s son, Ben, is slated to succeed his father in future as the chairman of Fairfax Financial Holdings, according to a book titled The Fairfax Way, a draft of which was shared with ET prior to release.

Thanks @Viking I presume you are not including any Reserve Release for Q4. While there is no way to predict what this could be, we have seen increasing releases from 2023 to 2024 due to the hard market from ~4 years prior. While there is no guarantee, I would not be surprise to see us match or exceed 2024's Reserve Release of $500M+. That would push us well over $200/diluted share.

I posted a little more info on this book that is coming next week.

While we wait for the book to ship next week, David Thomas provided a little snippet of what to expect in the book. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-the-fairfax-way-prem-watsa-investing-transformation-buybacks/ For those behind a paywall to the above link, hopefully the below will work for you. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/88b464f77c2863c66a9326ee3eb93664ae337885ca5483f02881b645ad033c36/ODOUNSVLH5EZ3KKKE3AQNGQPUE/

I always find it interesting when Analysts lower their targets based on current stock price, rather than fundamentals. These were posted today although may have been out on Friday, and likely accounted for the selling since the Q3 results were released. I am sure we will see this reversed in short order. Raymond James lowered its target to $2,900.00 from $3,050.00. BMO Capital Markets lowered its target to $2,600.00 from $2,700.00.

I believe today is also the last day of black our period for Fairfax. While they were likely buying during blackout, we don't know what instructions were provided to their broker. Fairfax may become more aggressive with buybacks starting tomorrow.

ahh. I had missed that. Thanks.

I had thought that once there were dividends that matched the initial investment, future dividends would be counted as earnings. That is where I came up with the ~$70M US after applying $20M in addition to the $108M Regular dividends to the initial $129M US investment. But it sounds like the dividends can continue to be subtracted from the initial investment even if it goes negative.

So it looks like ~$70M US will show up as Q4 earning from the $130M CAD special dividend, after accounting for the regular dividends to date. This regular dividend will also now become a new earnings stream of ~$75MUS/yr starting in 2026.

Where does the WEF Strathcona investment show up in the Fairfax results. I am trying to understand how many shares of Strathcona they own as the MEG acquisition by CVE is expected to close mid-November and Strathcona is expected to issue a $10/share dividend soon after that (likely Q4). I presume that would flow through to Fairfax and have some meaningful contribution to earnings in Q4.

At least now we know that any reserve release would be announced in Q4. It sounds like this timing of Q4 can be expected every year.

If it is Fairfax’s intention to buy back the shares under the TRS, then the timing of that happening would not be based on the share price but rather when there is no better opportunity for their cash. They could buy back now at $2200 with a lower price, or wait and capture additional earnings before paying more later to buy back at $3k. It is pretty much a wash either way long term. It is just showing up in different buckets.

Possibly, although Insurers have been going up this week including today. Everyone except Fairfax. Eventually Fairfax’s share price will jump as well.