FFHWatcher

The laws are very geographically different, so it really depends on where the person gets married and where they get divorced. Both are important, I believe. I had a pre-nup. It was super easy, no stress whatsoever. I believe it made my marriage better because we never ever fought about money. Many marriages end because of financial stress and this eliminated all of that, for the most part. We kept our bank accounts separate. I had my responsibilities and she had hers. She was the one actually asked about the pre-nup as her parents told her she should get one because they had bought her a house. I agreed to her (parents) request as my net worth was 3-4x's her's at the time of getting married. I didn't own a house, so her parents thought I was poor :-) I think if a potential future spouse won't agree to a pre-nup, that is a potential problem, not the other way around. If a person isn't willing to be in the same place they are in before they get married as after getting divorced, then they are entering a marriage for the wrong reason too. I disagree with others posters opinions on not worrying about the money because you shouldn't be getting married if you don't trust them and are already thinking about divorce, etc. In my opinion, those posters live in a bubble. People change over 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Some marriages and couples are meant to be together forever but not everyone is made that way. Just because a marriage only lasts 5 or 10 years and then ends, doesn't make it a failure, in my opinion. Don't fear divorce or a relationship ending or you might never have a good one because you might avoid all possible candidates. We are all value investors here. Imagine one of our investee companies not having a rock solid employment agreement with the CEO's, CFO's that are hired or are founders? Imagine not planning for the day they might leave, in advance? The reality is, about half of marriages end before a person dies so the reality check is, there is a good chance it is going to last forever. Be prepared, just in case. Do you know how many unhappy rich people there are out there that stay married because neither of them want to see half their networth disappear? A LOT!!! The tricky part is if you have kids. In Canada, a person can't sign away a kids rights so if you get out of paying your fair share of child support, that may change after your kids grow up. I am told, they can come after the other parent for their fair share of support because they never agreed to anything in advance, because they were minors (this is applicable to step kids - getting married to someone who already has kids). I think natural kids would be eligible to their fair amount based on parents income, under most circumstances.

I sold a few at $600...just to say I did.

So, perhaps we need to be investing in law firms? They never lose, do they? ;) (Of course, lawyers would just maximize payouts to themselves, leaving little or nothing for shareholders)

Good investment. Seems expensive...it's not. If anything, it is educational. You have to have at least a few hours/month to read it. If you don't, than yes, it is a waste of $$.

Aren't his shares multiple voting shares, 10:1 or something like that. Not sure how that would show up.

Does anybody follow the MB warrants? Why no time value? Why did FFH, Trimark, Vic Bertrand all convert to shares 2 years before the expiry? Chou, Krembill, etc. all are converting using a cashless transaction (not investing any more capital but converting to shares using the intrinsic value of the warrants, unlike Bertrand, Trimark, FFH who are putting in $50M or so). The warrants were in the money. They had $2. ($0.10 x 20 = $2) of time value when they were out of the money. Now a few months later, still 2 years to go until expiry, they are in the money and the $2. has virtually disappeared. Any suggestions or possible explanations?

175

Cardboard, do you mind sharing? % cash? % short? % hedge?

How do we fwd this to Prem? It may be the best way to get a dividend increase.

$150.

Is there a secondary market for tickets yet? Can we start the bidding at $1,000?

That is a helluva way to get a date for the festivities. LOL! I think he's just trying to save some money. Cheers! ;) Gotcha. Kraven : Did you want them to post a pic? Likes and dislikes? Net Worth?

1) I think you find out next week that Steel head has tendered to ABH. 2) That gives ABH control and kills the MERC deal. 3) ABH will extend the offer again under the same terms to allow remaining shareholders to tender without the competing MERC offer in the way. For those comfortable in following FFH et al into ABH, I think the proper decision was to sell FBK and immediately repurchase ABH over the last two days. FBK could be had for around $.98 after the Supreme Court Decision was made. ABH traded below $13. ABH stock is priced at $15.83 in the deal. So, this manual transaction gives you 22% more ABH shares not including friction costs. Volume was there to support larger trades. Just under 9M shares in the last 2 days. And, at least you could enjoy your weekend knowing you upped Prem by 22%. ;D (Hopefully, ABH doesn't reprice the deal above that! :'() With RFP pushing to $17.50 today ... the highlighted transaction together with the recovery of RFP have put me back into the money with my SFK.un / FBK purchases...... Took a while but with RFP looking very undervalued, I might get out of this with a nice profit yet ! Thanks for the jinx!! Just be quiet!!

Yup, pretty much. Or they know that the system can be dragged out for over a decade, and there is still the possibility it will fail the prosecutors making the case with no financial settlement. Cheers! Our US friends should take notice what Canadian courts do to these thieves and cheats. Check out Livent and Garth Drabinsky/Myron Gottlieb. I wouldn't be surprised if Canada was forced to give Drabinsky his Order of Canada back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Drabinsky He was sentenced to 7 years in jail, over 10 years after his company declared bankruptcy/insolvency and the gov't started the investigating him and his partner. My math showed he spent less than 2 years. Is that right?

Aren't gov't prosecutors basically saying that they don't trust the 'system' either, when they know someone is guilty and have to accept negotiating a financial settlement versus real punishment/jail time? They are playing the odds, like a gambler or investor and know the system favours the wealthy/guilty, so they go for the sure thing/settlement.

That passage was in reference to disclosing a funds top 25 holdings at a point in time (ie. quarterly). I believe he is saying that his funds has never held 25 holdings at any one point in time. Cumulatively, who knows but it is a lot less than the Templeton Growth Fund and others

Until RIMM comes out with a Rights Offering... :-)

Frank, please define how you use the term cigar butt. Someone else (maybe you) used it recently to discuss another company and I didn't exactly understand how they were using it. As for MB, they screwed up buying Rose Art. It sank the company, FFH participated in a recapitalization transaction (perhaps two of them?). If you reverse out the Rose Art transaction and the business that they picked up with that purchase that lead to the major class action lawsuit against them, MB has been an ok operator. I think most would agree that MB is turning the corner on profitability (not just a final puff), which is why I don't really understand how you are using the phrase. Perhaps you are using Cigar Butt to describe a stock chart that declines and declines, .... or perhaps you just like the term? Have you followed/read their financial reports that describes their business, sales, margins, debt, etc. over the past couple of years?

Did anybody else end up being a dissenting shareholder? Where do we go from here? Has someone organized a group?

Not to beat this dead horse more than it needs to be beaten but how do others feel about loading up at $0.95 and tendering to ABH? Risk of lower ABH share valuation, risk of ABH not moving ahead to get the other 50% and just letting it dangle until it declines again? I am thinking that there is an 80% chance that FBK shareholders, now that MERC is gone, realize that it is likely that ABH will gather enough shares. Perhaps there is a 5% short term gain here? Or this just another opportunity for shareholders to lose on FBK stock, yet again?

I like the line of thinking that puts ABH and MERC together. Let's face it, the entire industry is tough and the fewer competitors there are, the better. Perhaps a deal could be even be more complex than that. Perhaps have ABH tender to MERC @ $1.40, and in return sell the US mills to ABH and also have St Felicien sign a long term chip supply deal with ABH? ABH would make 40% or $26M on their $65M investment, use some of that $26M profit on the US mills and then get a major long term chip supply deal for St. Felicien in Quebec. Maybe even some sort of 50/50 joint venture?

Speaking from personal experience, even if there are real operations, even if there is a real auditor (big 4), even if there is real cash in the bank, who says that as a shareholder, it is yours? Who says that the excess cash flow can leave the country? North America and Europe have laws to protect property and shareholders. In China, to my knowledge, there is no legal way to prosecute or file a lawsuit against wrongdoings by North Americans. Therefore, there is really nothing stopping executives from pilfering the company. The company I was a shareholder in had the founder raise a bunch of capital in North America, move all that capital to China for operations and acquisitions and then he went down to the 'Registrar's Office' and transferred the ownership in the company back to himself. He then raised more money with Citic (one of the largest state owned investment companies in China) through selling equity and issuing debt to them, and at the end of the day, there is apparently nothing shareholders can do about it. Hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and stock .... poof...gone. The largest State investment company is doing nothing to stop it, or to make it right and there seems to be no legal remedy. Bottom line, you have no legal recourse in China, to my knowledge. Without legal recourse and consequences for the perpetrators, it is simply too risky to invest there. What is stopping the criminals? They are stealing money from non-Chinese investors and China is doing nothing about it. Imagine if Citic bought into a company in North America, the employees/original founders decide to go down to the registrar's office, transfer those shareholdings back into the founders name, and rip Citic off for hundreds of millions of dollars.... What do you think Citic would do? It would be a friggin' International incident!! They/chinese firms do it everyday to us. I can't believe more isn't being done. Why not just invest in Argentina oil operations?

It certainly isn't clear to me that ABH will have to 'bid up' to get those last 1.6M shares. Maybe if they 'bid up' to 96 or 97 or 98 cents, they could get the rest. I don't consider that 'bidding up' FBK. Our partners (fellow shareholders) are a bunch of losers...present company excluded.... unless you gave up and sold a whack at under $1.00...than I would have to put you in the loser category and I mean that in the nicest way :-) Let us assume that they get 50.1+%. What is next?

IV, I appreciate your input and opinion on this. Fact (as I understand it) : Steelhead owns about $170M of ABH and $7M of FBK (approx. 24x's more money in ABH than FBK). FFH has approx. 7x's more money in ABH than in FBK** per NASDAQ.com Do you feel it is possible for Steelhead to make a purely financial decision based entirely and only on their FBK position, at this point in time, knowing how it affects their other holdings? Or do you feel that their financial interest in Resolute Forest Products, due to it being 24x's larger than their FBK holdings, is best to sacrifice their FBK value to ensure a higher future value in ABH? Based on a multiple on 24:1, wouldn't $2M lost on FBK result in $48M made/saved for ABH? It would seem that Steelhead holds all the cards right now, so why would they settle for $1.00? There is no way that ABH wants less than 100% of FBK and they certainly don't want 46%. How does Steelhead lose, if they decide not to tender to ABH at $1.00?

Anyone who pays a 'fair' price for something and is offered 40% more the next day and decides not to take it, would be considered...what? Unless of course, $1.00 is WAY below a fair price? No way ABH will take $1.40 from MERC and, unfortunately, I doubt MERC wants to be in partnership with ABH, although I know of no competition between the two. Maybe??? Why not?? Perhaps ABH needed to pay $1. for about half the shares and is now willing to pay $1.40 for the remaining half (via matching MERC offer)? It would seem fair from a minority shareholders position and save ABH from paying $1.40 on 50% of the shares. FFH, Pabrai and Oakmont would get screwed a bit...but they're the ones who signed the hard lock up. Steelhead would want $1.40...after all, money is money, even if you own, MERC, ABH and FBK (not sure if that is a mess for Steelhead or brilliant?). I think only a corporate lawyer would have true insight into this, the rest of us are guessing with a conflict of interest.