John Hjorth

From an accounting and reporting perspective, provisions for taxes already deferred in the US will be adjusted downwards, the adjustments eventually ending up in book equity. Edit: Added the word "already".

Irish Times: Senior euro zone figures call for calm after Italian vote. Translates for me to : "Crisis? - What crisis? -It's just a "permanent situation - Italian style"". -To solve a problem one must first acknowledge its existence. Oh well.

Not sure, sailor of this board, So far, I haven't read any info implying they are hole brother inlaws. - By the way, I think I really need to go bed now before this is escalading into something I don't know what! I mean: Does it matter? Are Italian banks cheap right now or not? [For me so far: Not!].

Thanks Uccmal, and as already posted by indirect: Good night, and sleep well - what ever your time zone may be.

The voting procedure is running right now in Italy. I'll stay up and look at TV about it till the bitter end at about 03 AM this night, my local time. I still have no clue what this will bring for tomorrows markets [,perhaps some cheap SAN ADRs in the afternoon]. We'll see.

You are welcome, TBW. I really hope you get the book as a Christmas gift from your wife, and that you enjoy reading the book like I have.

Full title: Investor 100 years - "To move from the old to what is about to come is the only tradition worth keeping." I bought the books [both the Swedish version and the English version] in the beginning of October 2016, and I have just finished reading the English version. The book is about the first 100 years of the history the Swedish investment company Investor AB - the central and core company in "the Wallenberg sphere", today actually in control of quite a large part of Swedish international business, and quite a large part of the companies listed on the Swedish stock exchange Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. Ticker: INVE A [sTO] & INVE B [sTO]. The book was written by the Swedish journalist Ronald Fagerfjäll. To me, it's very well written. I have the feeling after reading the book [i have only read the English version so far], that the author is a quite skilled investor himself. It's the story about how about aproximately SEK 500 thousand has been turned into about SEK 290 billion during the work of 6 generations of the Wallenberg family within 100 years, in a historic Swedish business context. I have learned a lot about the Wallenbergs and how they work by reading it, and it has been a really interesting, entertaining and educational read, all at the same time, with everything put in a historic perspective with regard to Swedish business. - - - o 0 o - - - Scandinavian investors outside Denmark can get the books at a 46% discount [price: SEK 179.00 each] here. As a Danish investor, I found the books cheapest including postage and VAT at CDON.COM. The English version of the book is available on Amazon UK at GBP 29.00 here. I haven't been able to find the Swedish version of the book available outside www.adlibris.com and CDON.COM. - - - o 0 o - - - Disclosure: INVE A [sTO] ~3% position. I will perhaps buy more in 2017.

Anybody on this board following the Italian situation - some places called "Quitaly" - right now? -The Referendum vote is on this coming Sunday. Personally, I have no idea about what this will bring short term - in the light of the US Presidential Election about three weeks ago.

Brendan, Just a side note here. The PBMs have been holding their heads low - as far as I have observed - with regard to the political discussions going on pre US Presidential Election about pharma companies making outragious profits on diabetes health care [sanders at that time especially mentioning Novo Nordisk, Elly Lilly and Sanofi], while everybody knows a part of the total equation for patients is the slice of price ex. sales tax taken by the PBMs.

I predict you're wrong. Bieber is Canadian. But whatever. Us Canadians are just glad he moved to the US. He's your problem now. Make with him what you wish. Sure but that won't matter after the U.S. and Canada merger in 2038. A joke I hope... or I will be getting my guns out. Don't worry to much, Uccmal. All merger discussions will most likely eventually strand, drowned in heated and emotional discussions about the flag for the continuing entity.

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.

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.

LuftHansa : Strike of the Pilots Union Cockpit on 23. November 2016.

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.

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.] - - - o 0 o - - - The whole industry seems to me to be some kind of "Last man standing" revolver game, as i.e. container shipping right now. - - - o 0 o - - - 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]. - - - o 0 o - - - 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.

First of all, I do not see what IBM has to do with this topic.

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.

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.

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.

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". - - - o 0 o - - - 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.

My humble answer: Basically, no. Loading up further on NVO is [still] on my mind though.

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].

+1. And actually nice to see and hear Mr. Buffett out again of his selfinduced "media hibernation" / silent period.

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. - - - o 0 o - - - 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.

tengen, I'm not in any way trying to troll or beeing condescending here: I like your comment - if fits my Scandinavian humor.