John Hjorth
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Posts posted by John Hjorth
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flesh,
It's an accounting decision - related to the consolidation of PCP in the group financials for BRK at the first time - based on the assessed economics inherent in the aquisition, and based on the price paid for the company, compared to the book value of the company at the time of the aquisition.
It has nothing to do with taxes in BRK group financials.
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I would really like gio to put some shade on this, based on his local/national knowledge, and his professional involvement in the RE/construction business.
gio does not seem to around here anymore - within the last few months, unfortunately.
I really hope gio comes back to us all.
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First of all, I do not see what IBM has to do with this topic.
Is there a second of all?
I apologize for couch moderating here, especially to LongHaul. I hope you accept my apology.
In the beginning of 2014 I was looking at Hawaiian Airlines, based on a topic on this board. I passed on it, because I could see and understand the inside Hawaii moat, but could not get to some kind of conviction about "the rest" of the activities of the company.
A few months back I actually took a closer look at LuftHansa, spending a couple of days on it, and I was tempted, but passed. I haven't looked back at it since then. It is about [more or less overlapping]:
1. The value of the airplane fleet [leased or owned]. I have no idea how to get to some kind of conviction about if the book value is fair or not. The capital I a priori would commit to the investment did not justice the time of mine involved in diving deep into this matter.
2. The lack of calme "inside" some of these carriers [not particulary related to LuftHansa]. Constant battles between unions, certain staff groups and management and board, to get things to work in the daily operations. Shareholders are hostages in these fights [Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA [NAS.OS] and Scandinavian Air Line Systems comes to mind here].
3. Especially, I have been following what has been going on for years with SAS. It seems like a never ending story of restructurings, based on fights between management/board and certain staff groups.
4. Norwegian Air Shuttle has actually been able to reach a size within a relatively few years that is comparable to the size SAS. I haven't been able to get to some kind of understanding of what's been going on, other than somebody is betting hard. So, I'm still in the dark about the competitive dynamics in this industry.
Especially bullet 4 has been touched earlier in this topic. [Norwegian Air Shuttle, Easyjet, RyanAir etc.]
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The whole industry seems to me to be some kind of "Last man standing" revolver game, as i.e. container shipping right now.
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This kind of investment simply does not fit my temper with regard to risk, and prospects of reward [, - however I might get it totally wrong - so what? I certainly have other - for me more interesting - cases on my desk].
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Edit:
My family and mine overall investment in BRK is right now a bit above 20%. When you start merging toes with an "old lady" late in life, you have to take the whole package "as is". Unless you have the capital - and thereby votes - to make a change. There are quite some dents to BRK lately - within the last year or so -, that I do not like to read about. To me, this BRK airline bet is about ~USD 1 B, relative to USD 2-hundred-and-something B.
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Not sure who bought the airlines but I thought it was very stupid.
One thing is pretty clear - airlines are some of the riskiest companies out there. The industry history is filled with bankruptcies. And you can't look at the recent 5- 10 yrs, you have to go back 40 or so.
Bottom line is that ULCC are Much lower cost carriers on a CASM basis and are growing like weeds.
Low cost producers win in a commodity industry. The history of almost all the high cost producer airlines is bankruptcy. We'll see...
IBM was a mistake.
First of all, I do not see what IBM has to do with this topic.
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The "problem" here beeing the Italian banks, where EU don't accept the Italian State to bail out the Italian banks, because it's considered state subsidies by EU, based on common EU competition regulation. [Denmark has also had such certain cases with Danish banks].
Basically, everybody - except the greek citizens and I - want to leave EU. Nothing new under the sky here.
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I've always taken it as:
4= BRK (WEB is the name it's under, since he is 'manager' of BRK)
You are correct. That's why it shows up on every line.
This cannot be the full explanation. If you compare the 2015 10-K with the year end 2015 13-F [page 109 in the 10-K - ultimate holding/parent company balance sheet and income statement] you will see that the only material listed equity security held at ultimate holding/parent company level is the KHC investment. Thus, all other material listed equity securities specified in the 13-F must be held by subsidiaries.
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Perhaps a BRK employee met in at office one morning very tired after a long night in town, and a cascade of hypnic jerks caused the buy button unitentionally beeing pressed.
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Just a quite late reaction and humble reaction here to some fellow board members posts earlier in this topic.
Just to put some shade on the general living conditions for the European population and the spread in it - the spread is quite big - for my fellow North American board members. The spread is not an East vs West thing, it's actually more of a North vs South thing:
Uemployment rate in EU contountries .
To me, it's very concerning, as EU citizen. The unemployment rates in Grece and Spain among the young part of the population is sky high. We are talking about actually - more or less - "the lost generation" for those countries. There will be material implications for those societies because of social inheritance for the future generation, the siblings of the "lost generation".
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More locally [Danish]:
I don't remember things have been better than right now - in general - naturally partly from my own local personal perspective. [The first snow fell about a week ago - for the first time in many years, days are short, and it is cold, forget that - I could just move my butt to the south - but the Lady of the House won't - so it's just a no-go.]
In connection with the Financial Crisis there was a major set back here locally. It was mostly related to RE, and spread to other industries related to RE, and was a real mess.
I live in the third largest city of Denmark, located in the center of Denmark about 150 km west of Copenhagen, on a island called Funen. The number of habitants is about 175K.
I don't recall for many years to have seen a RR, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini on the streets here - a few Porsches though. Is the local society on aggregate poor then [by having no really rich citizens]? My answer: Absolutely not.
There are a lot of privately held Danish businesses [of which I know more than a few], that bare doing very well. And they prosper "below the radar". Their owners own and drive a high end Mercedes or BMW, or something like that, and own a reasonable, but still nice home, nothing extremely flamboyant. And yet, some of them are billionaires in DKK, if you try to value their businesses by comparing to similar listed companies.
It's about :
"Tailor stay at your last".
Kama Sutra, The man book, About society life:
"After end of education, one should use ones money, no matter if they come from gifts, warfare, trade or one have inherited them, to buy an appropriate house,and become a righteous citizen."
They shy the lime light.
They go to work every day and meet in no later than every employeé, in most cases before. And they are the l"ast man standing" just about every day, turning off the lights as the last one in office leaving.
It's the long haul, building their companies even stronger day by day - every day - in some cases taught by their parents, or even inherited work attitude built by three generations or more.
Their worst nightmare is to be forced to sell the company, based on some kind of pressure on the business, combined with telephone calls from fast talking and very agressive young MBAs or M.Sc. associates at a PE firm [Nordic Capital, EQT or what ever] calling now and then because they have read the last financials for the company, promising gold and green forests, while the owner knows what will happen is the company will be levered up with tons of debt, taken out as tax free dividends to the Cayman Islands, and the company will be either flipped or IPO'ed at a later point in time to dumb investors, who don't have a clue about what has been going on.
So they try to lay low - to their very best.
Some of those companies end up being owned by foundations - special purpose vehicles - set up for the purpose to protect the company - to avoid inheritance taxes. There are many of those here in Denmark.
Such an owner and operator will never hit i.e. cardboards radar, because basically, and formally, the operator does not own much, but he controls a lot - after the foundation is set up.
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Is anyone here changing their portfolios due to the election?
My humble answer: Basically, no. Loading up further on NVO is [still] on my mind though.
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petec,
If you go to the "Fairfax Financial" forum/section from the board index, you will se an arrow pointing to the right at the right side of your screen in line with this topic, because you are OP. If you hover the arrow with your cursor, a popup tells you: "Move topic". ; - )
- Just saying, to help a fellow board member. ; - )
-There is no better service than self service, It's a part of the whole idea of having this board running as a Simple Machine Forum [GPL attitude at its finest].
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Thanks for posting the interview Jurgis
+1. And actually nice to see and hear Mr. Buffett out again of his selfinduced "media hibernation" / silent period.
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Market appears to prevent a stock buyback from happening. Wondering if there is a glass floor of 1.3x BV in anticipation of a bump up from the 1.2. Will watch over the next year to see if this is indeed true.
It reads very reasonable, longinvestor. The book value becomes gradually less relevant - gradually more [and too] conservative - going forward for BRK as measure of intrinic value, thus an increase in the buyback treshold market price must be expected.
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I just made a couple of back on the envelope calculations related to the 13/F we will see in a few days.
Purchase of equity securities first mine months of 2016: USD 5.185 B
-Purchase of euity securities first six months of 2016: USD 4.129 B
=Purchase of equity securities 2016Q3: USD 1.056 B
Sales and redemptions of equity securities first nine months of 2016: USD 19.989 B [including KHC preferred redemption in June 2016 USD ~8.320 B]
-Sales and redemptions of equity securities first six months of 2016: USD 12.444 B [again, including KHC preferred redemption in June 2016 USD ~8.320 B]
=Sales and redemptions of equity secuties 2016Q3 USD 7.545 B,
Meaning net sales of equity securities in 2016Q3 of USD 6.489 B,
signalling a bearish view at BRK on the market in general or on certain investments in 2016Q3.
As always it will be interesting to see the changes in the portfolio, despite they for 2016Q3 are expected to be - relatively - small.
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... There are a lot more questions but the one I am most interest in is whether Trump will regain control of his twitter account. ...
tengen,
I'm not in any way trying to troll or beeing condescending here: I like your comment - if fits my Scandinavian humor.
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- His promises and overall plan seem to be boiled down to what he said in the time span 5:13 - 11:13 in the clip - six minutes!, and a total U-turn in behavioral dimension compared to before this [especially longinvestors post above comes to mind here].
I have read a lot of posts in this topic, to which I can relate - both pros and cons. I really don't know what to think right now. I just really want my fellow US board members to hold Mr. Trump up on what his has promised here.
Is this another Trump pivot? How many of those did he have?
I definitely hope that it was all an act and that he's really a reasonable and capable person as opposed to a petty dishonest vindictive nut job.
The scary part is that many people in the past said exactly what you did and boy were they wrong.
rb,
My answer to your question #1: Personally, I don't know.
My answer to your question #2: I can't count them. [i think valcont posted about it some days ago with a link to www.star.com about Mr. Trump's lies, inaccuracies etc.]
As I have already posted: I really don't know what to think right now. What for me really matters here: I do not in any way underestimate Mr. Trump, one way or another.
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- His promises and overall plan seem to be boiled down to what he said in the time span 5:13 - 11:13 in the clip - six minutes!, and a total U-turn in behavioral dimension compared to before this [especially longinvestors post above comes to mind here].
I have read a lot of posts in this topic, to which I can relate - both pros and cons. I really don't know what to think right now. I just really want my fellow US board members to hold Mr. Trump up on what his has promised here.
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There is this active topic these days on the board about hedging against the US Presidential Election.
On the November 4th I got hit by some very concerning news here, original source here.
That really made me panic with an outburst to the lady of the house: "You really need to go buy me some hedging in downtown now - right away!" She: "What??" Me: "Please go buy some more of those to hold them up - before they go out of stock - to hold me up!". She looked at the monitor to understand what I was talking about and shaked her head.
After which I glided from a panic state of mind into a state of depressed apathy.
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Monday evening at 10:21 PM my local time I got an e-mail notification about a new memo from Howard Marks.
Basically it's about: Now it's time for comity, and the need for constructive, bipartisan gorvernmental action. I highly recommend my fellow board members to spend some of your time on reading it. It's food for thought - as allways, when Mr. Marks has been writing.
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Trump skeptics forces Canadian immigration website to its knees. [You can read it using the translation tool in Chrome.]
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... Too old, too big and too boring. ...
Well, that could actually be me! [<- place smiley here].
This is an oversize Rock of Gibraltar, a former failing textile business, earlier gone into run-off mode [-What a run-off mode!]. Is rock productive? The market price per share now is about the same as two years ago. Please lookup 2014Q3 reporting and compare to 2016Q3 reporting, and take a look at what has happened in those two years.
Perhaps I should consider stop expressing my impatience and buy more.
I get more and more dizzy reading the financials quarter by quarter for this thing. Now we have:
- Net cash flow from operations at USD 25B for 9 months,
- Insurance float at USD 91B,
- Deferred taxes at approx. USD 74B,
- Cash and cash equivalents at USD 85B,
- Equity securities at USD 101B.
- Net cash flow from operations at USD 25B for 9 months,
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84.8B cash - 24% of the market cap.
The pleasure of working with permanent capital - from very patient, long term investors. You meet in at the office, every day, stating to your secretary: "No calls to me today about WFC, please - thanks!".
In the middle of the day you take a nap on the couch in office, thinking about things in general. Then you get up in the middle of your rest, calling Mr. Munger: "Any ideas?" Answer: "No". Then you go to, or call T&T with the same question. Same answer.
Then you you go back to the couch, trying to get some rest, but to no avail, because the couch is standing in a high bow, because of the cash pile below it.
Problems [to the contrary of conditions] are issues, to which you are able make a difference.
I'm [still] waiting.
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is available now here. Enjoy!
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NVO, Friday.
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For completeness on this.
Went to healthcare.gov and entered in my family stats. I make too much to get any subsidies, although interestingly enough they recommend that I enroll my kids in the state's medicare program. Interesting way of shifting costs.
Cheapest plan is $400/mo with a $14k out of pocket max. So we're talking about $1500/mo for health care. Maybe you get a few years where it's cheaper, but I'd expect to budget the full amount.
It's crazy what things cost. One of my sons had a camera put down his throat to examine some vocal nodules, cost was $14k, insurance picked up everything but about $1500. The "original" cost was $60k that was knocked down to $14k due to insurance company discounts. So one procedure like that which took about an hour and you've blown your deductible.
I could rant on this for a while, but this is it for now. Bottom line, it's extremely expensive to not be under employer health insurance in the US. Some can do it, they're usually young, and hit the genetic lottery and perfectly healthy. You can roll the dice and see where they land, but I've had a few encounters where if healthcare wasn't available a family member wouldn't be living right now.
The costs are terrible. I'm trying to psych myself up to pay $5k for a birth in early 2017. I will probably not even look at the bill and blindly pay. Looking at these bills is infuriating. They stick an IV in you and suddenly there's a $200 drug in there you didn't know about. Or the $37 Advil pills, or how the doctor and hospital double charge you for everything. The hospital charges $200 for an xray because it took place in their building, then the doctor charges $200 for the xray because they actually did the xray. Such a scam. But there's nothing that can be done unfortunately.
It is a difficult problem, not unsolvable. Part of the problem lies with the perception that a single payer system, such as our provinces have is socialism. As we know this is not a well liked concept in the US where folks appear to value their civil liberties more than a social safety net.
From my perspective this is not a correct assumption. Our health system is similar to any western countries public education system, including the US. Health care eats a greater peice of the pie than education but it is similar in nature. The US uses the military both as a social safety net, and as a means to move government money into the private sector. Other countries do this to a lesser degree.
If government mandated single payer health care is socialism, than certainly government mandated military expenditures into the private sector are also socialism. Its just better hidden.
Please do not shut up. It's an interesting discussion [, but hardly investment related, though].
Personally, I pay a - basically - flat rate "health contribution" of 3.68% of my gross income by working, to the Danish state. It's not tax deductible, so it's a tax. A minor part of my municipality tax [basically a flat rate of 24.5% of my gross income by working, at total level] goes to the running of nursery homes for the elders situated there in the municipality.
It's a social contract established between generations and citizen in the society over time, established by the society - by law. I pay it gladly [,said the capitalist, & educated and professionally trained capitalist henchman [CPA]].
Buffett's Berkshire takes stakes in four major airlines
in Berkshire Hathaway
Posted
I did take a quick look at Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA [Publ] yesterday. I have the same perception as KCLarkin based on the quick look. Not much money has been earned within the last 10 years, and a very low equity ratio. This combined with an enormous planned and committed fleet expansion for the next few years.
A major rise in fuel prices for a longer period going forward, and this company will end up in deep trouble. It seems to me to be like an all in bet for the future of the company with the risk nowhere near zero of running the company in the ditch.
Mr. Kjos does not seem to take into consideration margin of safety in investment decisions. He appears to just want the company to grow - the faster the merrier. He will either die very rich, or the opposite. There will be no in-between outcomes. And most likely he does not give a damn about it, as already mentioned - as an "in general" comment - earlier in this topic.