Hoodlum

I wonder what the reserve and bids were. IDBI stock dropped today to lowest level in 5 months. I suspect it will drop further to May 2025 levels. It will be tough for India to attract future bids when selling state businesses, considering how long this took and the end up not selling.

I have to keep reminding myself of this. I didn’t think Fairfax would sell Poseidon or at least not in the next couple of years. I wonder how they feel about Eurobank. I was not expecting them to sell this either in the next couple of years but anything is possible. The only sacred cows seem to be the P&C Insurance subs.

The Poseidon shares are owned by the insurance subs, so my guess is that the insurance subs could allocate this towards the IDBI Bank acquisition depending on how it is structured.

I believe this will provide a ~$900M ($43/share) gain in Q2 once this closes. I hope that is accurate.

Fairfax has sold just over half it's shares (23.2% of outstanding) in Poseidon for $1.9B. Fairfax still own 22.1% of outstanding shares. https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-agrees-to-sell-a-portion-of-its-interest-in-poseidon-corp-2026-03-10/

220k shares were traded today including a 50k block on the CBOE exchange where Fairfax as done large blocks previously, although I can’t see who was the buyer. I suspect Fairfax was very active today. They will likely buyback well over 300k shares before end of Q1, possibly a lot more if the share price stays near this level.

thanks @Viking for bringing attention to this as I had not realized how much the number of insurance profit centres have grown over the past 4 years. It would be interesting to see this broken down by sector and region.

At the moment they seem to be on different lanes, but that could change over time. BIAL and assuming IDBA would dwarf everything else so trading of stocks would seem quite small.

Does anyone know if there is any accuracy to this. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/ipos/fpos/fairfax-omers-to-extend-ipo-timeline-of-bangalore-airport-holding-company/articleshow/129253901.cms?from=mdr Fairfax Financial and OMERS have extended by 12 months the timeline for the planned IPO of Anchorage Infrastructure, the holding company owning a stake in Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. The revised deadline is September 2026, giving investors more time to secure approvals and create a monetisation route for OMERS’ investment.

Yes, I am certain that Fairfax vetted this hire and that Gaye will be a good fit. Here is an interview from 2022 after leaving First Republic Bank and going to Greystone. You can certainly see how Gaye would be a good fit with the Fairfax culture and help with the growth of Kennedy Wilson. I also wonder if Fairfax has some other banking goals that we are not aware of.

I thought this was a very interesting hire in late 2025. It will be interesting to see how her role evolves. We are pleased to report that late in 2025, Hafize Gaye Erkan joined Fairfax as President of Banking and Insurtech. She has a wealth of knowledge of the banking sector through senior positions at Goldman Sachs & Co, Co-CEO 11 and President of First Republic Bank and most recently as Governor of the Central Bank of Turkey. Hafize will initially provide oversight to our banking operations and assist with developing opportunities in the Insurtech space. A big welcome to Hafize.

I remember there were previous questions on the employee stock plan. I don't remember this being shared previously. Fairfax also has an Employee Stock Ownership Plan that is available to essentially every employee in the company. The plan offers each employee the opportunity to take up to 10% of their salary annually in Fairfax shares. The company will automatically match 30% and then if certain targets are met (primarily underwriting profit), the company matches an additional 20%. The participation rates differ by company but generally for our large companies, we have a participation rate of approximately 60% and it has been increasing over time.

Bloomberg did an interview with Murad Al-Katib of AGT Foods. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/video/shows/the-close/2026/03/05/agt-foods-to-rebuild-investor-confidence

Am I understanding correctly that Fairfax did not buy back any shares between 2/11 and 2/24.

Now we know why Fairfax did a private placement. The AGT IPO will go for $23/share. https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/agt-food-and-ingredients-inc-announces-pricing-of-initial-public-offering-and-concurrent-fairfax-private-placement-of-common-shares-872634784.html

AGT has updated their prospectus. One item I noticed is a $200m private placement by Fairfax. https://www.sedarplus.ca/csa-party/records/document.html?id=40ad68f0892d309654fcd49e8649c338eb67be655ad0c498cca6a12a1a93ed86 Certain affiliates of Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited (collectively, “Fairfax”) have agreed, concurrent with the closing of the Offering (the “Closing”), to purchase an aggregate of ● Common Shares (the “Fairfax Private Placement”) on a private placement basis, at the Offering Price, for gross proceeds of approximately $200,000,000

Here are the details of what was said. The rest of the article is just rehashing previous articles and comments. Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. is the frontrunner to buy a majority stake in IDBI Bank Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, in what could be the biggest foreign investment in India’s banking sector. Shares rose. Fairfax, founded by Indian-born Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa, is in advanced talks with the government and is considered ahead of rival bidders, the people said, asking not to be identified because the process is private. The 61% stake that the government and a state-run insurer hold in the private lender is worth about $8 billion at the current market price. Negotiations are ongoing and there’s no certainty a deal will be completed, the people added. Spokespeople for India’s finance ministry and Toronto-based Fairfax didn’t respond to requests for comment. IDBI Bank declined to comment. Shares of the lender erased their losses and rose as much as 2% in Mumbai, hitting their highest level since Feb. 18.

It doesn't look like there are any details yet.

Fairfax may have the winning bid according to Bloomberg source. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-27/fairfax-said-to-lead-race-for-8-billion-india-bank-stake-sale?embedded-checkout=true

I came across this credit rating for The Keg where they were issuing a $200M note to pay off existing loan and revolving credit facility. It does provide some detail on how they plan to grow The Keg. What is interesting is that when refer to LFG managing expertise, LFG is only referred to as a minority owner. https://dbrs.morningstar.com/research/468876

Thanks @Viking for posting these detailed estimates. I was just thinking about this over the past few days and I appreciate that you have taken a somewhat conservative approach, allowing for possible upside. The one caveat of course is a large Cat season (Hurricane). The Q1 Insurance CR comparable with last year will look good as there had been no significant Wildfire like we had last January.

Thanks. Looks good now

It certainly helps that the 5 year Canada bond is almost 1% less than the 5 year treasury.

Fairfax has announced a new debt offering of $650M. My guess is this is will be used to purchase the remaining minority interest in Allied World or possibly the remaining preferred K series. https://www.fairfax.ca/press-releases/fairfax-launches-c650-million-senior-notes-offering-2026-02-24/

I may have been thinking of the AGM.