John Hjorth

I agree with alwaysinvert here. My own experience is that English language is the common denominator in Scandinavian international business [both internal and external, written and oral, except peer to peer communication between two persons with same mother tounge]. [Last year in the spring I was stressed due to the workload, overworked and very worried about the potential consequenses of the situation in the near future - just dire straits. One morning in that period she said to me: "John, you have started talking while at sleep again..." Me: "What did I say?" She: "It was just fragments, I did not get it all, but it was work related, I could hear... - the really weird part for me was that it was in English!". [Not weird at all for me, because I had noticed that I had started thinking in English, the outcome of my thoughts getting expressed in English, searching for the Danish expressions and terms while speaking, applying shortcuts using English expressions and terms in a whole mess because of those beeing more immediate available in my brain, thereby derailing my Danish language.] http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-students-learning-english-in-europe.html

Bought more Novo Nordisk A/S B [uS ADR: NVO]. It tanked about 10% today under wild trade upon the release of 2016 Q2 reporting this morning. A lot of retail investors was picking it up. 17.4 million shares shifted hand today, total turnover in this stock at Masdaq OMX CPH was DKK 5.851 B.

Mateo, Basicly, I will describe LUND B as a combination of a real estate company and a "Mini Investor AB". I like what I see, but I have a hard time to find a meaningful method to calculate a value of the real estate part of the company. I have been looking at other listed real estate companies based in Sweden for some kind of comparison, but I simply don't understand those market valuations. I bought it in the February downturn this year, it's only a 2% position for my family and I for now, for the above reason. I need to do more work on it before - basicly the whimp here [me] just has the hand a bit on the cookplate with this. Here is a link to an article about the company and the family behind LUND. It's in swedish language, but it will be possible for you to read it using the translate feature in Chrome, though some shades of the colour will be hard to catch for you because the translation feature is far from perfect: Fredrik Lundberg building his empire bit by bit[/me]

Fellow board members actively participating in this topic, Please read this straight out, no sarcasm, humor or anything else intended: As a board member living in the Northern Europe it is very educational to read this topic every day, no matter your political orientation and what opinion or argument you post. To me, this topic measures the pulse in USA of what is going on the political scene, discussed in a so-so orderly manner - it is about politics, right? - among intelligent persons. - I have never ever experienced that possible on any message board so far! H/T to you! [Even Sanjeev posted in the "Ohh Wilbur" topic the other day that he did not consider this possible, right?] Thank you, and and keep your posts coming - I learn a lot!

mateo999, Thank you for bringing this topic up. Based on what is already suggested, I will add : Norway: Norwegian Finans Holding ASA [NOFI.OS] [This sucker & money machine has produced about 69% gain for investors this year - allwaysinvert has posted about it in the Protector topic]. The company is located just outside Oslo. Sweden : Investor AB [ INVE A.STOCK & INVE B.STOCK] HQ is in downtown Stockholm. L E Lundbergföretagen AB [LUND B.STOCK] HQ is in downtown Stockholm. - - - o 0 o - - - Good luck - and enjoy the trip!

Thanks for posting the link to this article, globalfinancepartners. I'm not trying to start some kind of heated discussion here about the content of the article, but I must say that I'm shocked by the picture painted of this Berkshire CEO at some places in the article.

Hasn't Buffett stated in the past that he doesn't participate in auctions? Is this a new practice for him, or has he bought companies via auction in the past? I personally can't recall any off the top of my head. Yes it's mentioned in the aqusition criteria section of the shareholder letter every year. Wasen't there a similar situation a few years back, where Ajit Jain on behalf of Berkshire Re placed a bid [one final bid] on a listed reinsurance company [Transocean Re or something like that was the name of the company, if I remember correctly].

Thank you Hawks.

What to me makes sense is real estate investment based on making money holding the real estate in the long run, not [trying to] flip it in the short run. EBVAT/S compared to price/S are the crucial paramenters for me, combined with an overall assesment of what you are buying into [quality]. The financing is part of that equation.

What a year its been for this thread. The COBF giveth and the COBF taketh away. What matters isen't what happened to/at this topic, but what happened to/at Theranos. Gio has explained him self earlier in this topic.

Bought more BRK.B and NVO [uS ADR, I bought the Danish share listed on Copenhagen Stock Exchange] on 1st July. I'm now very near 20% in BRK in all accounts for the family, and I won't go above 20% for now, and NVO is now about 14%, maybe I will go above 15%, but not sure at the moment. Still adding cash every month for stock investments, and still at 20% cash. I will continue buying month by month unless we hit a recession.

Buffett Applies to Fed to Build Wells Fargo Stake Beyond 10% http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-01/buffett-applies-to-fed-to-expand-wells-fargo-holding-beyond-10

I feel like we're already starting to see the turn in the cycle. Santander is already pullling out of the deep subprime space, cost of ABS funding has gone up ~100bps over the last year (to ~3.5% today), many of the small lenders (many started by PE in the last 4 years to chase yield) are shutting down or slowing. Go Financial, Dealer Funding, and a few others have closed in the last month. Also channel checks with dealers are suggesting the same as well. I'd highly suggest taking a look at CACC and their shareholder letters if you're interested in this space. I think they're well positioned to take share as this cycle turns. AccentricInv, Please elaborate your comments on SAN at a specific level [in this topic, or in the SAN topic in the investment ideas forum]. Thank you.

Please accept my apology for posting outside the scope of the topic scope here, Dough. Please delete the quote of my post in your commenting to my post, now deleted, to retain the tone and the scope of this topic. Sorry to all by not doing my homework of reading the topic title properly.

Post deleted, based on comment from Dough.

Bought quite a lot of SAN, which is down approx. 20% today.

Up until the the 16th of June, the Leave campaign had been steadily gathering momentum and at that point the vote looked to be on a knife edge. However, that day the British MP, Jo Cox was murdered by an anti-EU extremist. That was a turning point that in my opinion was decisive. Campaigning by both sides was suspended, and the wind was taken out of the sails of the Leave campaign. The fact that it was a Leave extremist that murdered the MP left a serious taint on the Leave campaign - undecided/swing voters almost certainly will jump to the Remain side because of it. With the momentum gone and only two days remaining, there is no time for the Leave vote to recapture the initiative. Remain is all but a done deal. I question how significant the murder was (especially because while the man was clearly an extremist, he also has a long history of mental illness). I think we were always going to vote remain (sadly). I've been watching this far too closely. I agree, that this murder should have no bearing upon the result whatsoever, but yet it has. Look at Sterling, look at the FTSE for the last week. Since the murder, both have strengthened significantly since the event. The same happened a few weeks back when Boris made his gaffe about the bendy bananas and the comparison of the EU to a Nazi super-state. Sterling and the FTSE went on a huge tear on the back of that as the Leave campaign faltered. It's not remotely logical, I know, but I think the swing voters will always shy away from the controversial and choose a safe option. I have exactly the same perception from what I have been reading the last few days. Furthermore, I have read a lot from Scandinavian sources about the reliability of the Brexit/Bremain polls beeing biased, i.e. excluding/given biased weight in the poll compared to the total population of voters of Scotland and Wales, which regions of UK are known to be pro EU.

Thanks for a comforting post from another European fellow board member, writser. My mindset is on overall basis like yours. I had the opportunity to pick up a good chunk of SAN at 4.00 a few days ago, but I was thumbsucking at that time. Now have it as an order at 4.00 in the market expiring the day before the vote. Let's just see how this plays out.

+1 - I can't agree more. This Brexit mess is simply put just a buying opportunity [like "the Greek tradegy" last year, Chineese "crisis" last year , and so on] if you think really carefully about what you are buying.

+1 - Very well phrased, globalfinancepartners. I concur fully to that. mikazo, The more long term your investment horizon is, the less your entry point is important for your investment outcome. It's math. Racemize has posted a very good paper about it on this board. If I remember correctly, Racemize had MKL in mind writing it.

How was his compensation similar? My understanding is that it wasn't very similar. They charge on AUM/committed capital, Buffett didn't. Buffett had a true return hurdle (vast majority of PE doesn't, they get catchup or no hurdle; not sure about HF). I thought Buffett's issue with most structures is the pay for non-performance. He only got paid after his LPs made money. +1 Also the net returns (after fees) for his partners were > the benchmark. +1 He didn't come out and say it, but he was not about to disappoint his partners as his AUM got bigger at the same time that the market looked to go into turmoil. I believe he figured out that the fees he or anyone else charged would be the reason for disappointment. He is too smart to go up against mathematics. He took up the sport he's still playing where there are no expectations while trying to outperform. Like Munger says this game requires them to be simply better than the idiots.Way different than charging egregious fees Longinvestor, I like your way of phrasing a huge paradox.

rb, It's hardly a direct reply to your post, but I found the full version on Youtube today [and I don't know if it will stay there - [Yahoo IP[?]]].

Paul, Yes, I [for one] noticed that. [However I'm not sure I understand your comments about the S&P 500 - as I understand things, S&P 500 is measured before tax]. Earlier [after my first post in this topic] I looked up the quaterly holdings for SA on Edgar, and what stoke my mind [from a quick view on it] was that XOM was the second biggest position, next to BRK, in the fund. I would really like to read more about that SA thesis [based on value investing [pricing power etc.], but I'm not entitled to, as a non client. However, that does not change my mind on or my perception of the SA BRK analysis. Is XOM a relatively recent pickup? ZenaidaMacroura, I haven't checked it out, so I don't know. Disclosure : I have a small position myself in XOM [less than 2% for myself, less than 0,5% on overall level], and I'm [personally] up about 9% [ex. dividends, in my own obscure functional currency [DKK], related closely to EUR] since I bought it, about the same time that BRK invested in XOM.

Paul, Yes, I [for one] noticed that. [However I'm not sure I understand your comments about the S&P 500 - as I understand things, S&P 500 is measured before tax]. Earlier [after my first post in this topic] I looked up the quaterly holdings for SA on Edgar, and what stoke my mind [from a quick view on it] was that XOM was the second biggest position, next to BRK, in the fund. I would really like to read more about that SA thesis [based on value investing [pricing power etc.], but I'm not entitled to, as a non client. However, that does not change my mind on or my perception of the SA BRK analysis.

Today I received an email from Chad, containing the SA client letter. Basicly, the client letter was contained as two attachments to the email, consisting of a cover letter [in pdf] and the document [in pdf] linked to by jberkshire01 above. Attached is the cover letter, as promised [nothing material news in that]. 16_Apr_25_WOWS_Listening_In_Chris_Bloomstran_Cover_Page.pdf