gg

I've loosely followed them over the years, but never too closely. Anyone know why they're shares have tanked lately? Is it a Mongolia issue, company-specific, something else?

Even if it's long term gains ?

Does anyone know the actual tax rate that Berkshire would have had to pay on the PG shares if they instead just sold them outright? I'm curious what the"avoided" tax bill of this swap was, and I simply don't know if corporations that sell appreciated stock have different tax rates than individuals. THanks in advance

To people on this board, buybacks are known and understood to be a great benefit to shareholders when the buybacks are done at attractive levels. The issues with all the media commentary on buybacks, and the several research studies on the topic, are that they look at all buybacks. Obviously, not all buybacks are good. If shares are cheap, buybacks are great; if shares are expensive, buybacks are probably not the ideal use of capital. Ultimately, just as with the rest of the markets, most people are not good investors, and they buy high and sell low. With buybacks, you get the exact same dynamics. Smart companies that do it right are few and far between, but that doesn't impact whether or not "buybacks" as a concept are a positive or negative.

I have to respectfully disagree with Oddball's approach. If you want to talk to farmers asap, you have to understand that "city folk just don't get it". Try this site instead -- www.farmersonly.com

Do you still own SED shares? Curious if you have any thoughts on their current progress?

Not exactly term loans, but closer to that or general unsecured debt, as opposed to Trups (or a real specific security like that).

Thanks Ham. Let's say that I am an investment fund interested in investing in the debt of XYZ Corp. I know that XYZ Corp has a bunch of debt, but all of the XYZ Corp's debt securities are currently held within CDOs. Is there any way to find out which CDO's hold the debt? Have you seen any situations where the investment funds are able to connect with the CDOs and buy some of the securities that the CDOs own?

I understand how CDOs work at a high level, but I am wondering if anyone here could explain how I can (if possible) go about finding CDOs that hold debt obligations of a specific issuer?

As a very general statement, I'd caution that 13Fs for event driven and special situation managers are not necessarily a great proxy for their actual portfolios.

Is this the small cap that you are on the board of? Agree that it will be an incredible story if Gad saves this thing, but he absolutely did "mount a huge change in the compensation package". He has made himself the CEO of each company he's acquired, and taken large salaries for each role. So large, in fact, that he almost certainly makes more money from the CEO pay than he does from his fund management and performance fees. Also, how can they not provide any information to SED shareholders, and then make all these disclosures to PGNT shareholders? Seems a little unethical

Looks like there were some trades at 0.10 cents/share today

I'd assume that if he's talking about Home Depot, then he means 15 as in 15% yield to maturity, but haven't looked into it

Agree 100% with oddball

Paragraph 4 on page 2; "How do I determine the discount? I usually focus on free cash flow and enterprise value (market capitalization less cash plus debt). I will screen through large numbers of companies by looking at the enterprise value/EBITDA ratio"

I'm interested in learning more about the for-profit education industry. There are a lot of bad headlines out there, and probably many bad actors, but in theory, I think a long term solution to the USA's student debt problems and mismatch of job openings to the skill levels required of skilled are efficiently run trade schools that can teach students practical skills at a reasonable price (enabling students to learn a while not forcing the students to go into enormous debt. I've done a fair amount of research into the space already, and I'm curious if there are any board members that are experts in the industry (i.e. employees, directors, investors in the industry).

Actually buying the plants would be overly capital intensive. This is my favorite SEC filing ever, in which a company figures out a way to get on the marijuana stock hype wagon with minimal working capital requirements... From: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1360442/000144586614000008/form8k01072014.htm "2. Kush will grant the Company an exclusive license to a pending patent application for what the Company believes to be a unique strain of cannabis known as the CTA strain (the “CTA Strain”) for a period of 50 years in consideration for the issuance of shares of the Company’s common stock having a value of $1,000,000 (valued at $1.25 per share). In addition the Company shall have the option to acquire 100% of Kush in exchange for additional shares of the Company’s common stock having a value of $1,000,000 (based on the value of the stock at the last trade at closing on the date Kush supplies audited financial statements to the Company)."

PGNT's 10-K is out, and gives some interesting information. SEDN was delisted, and this would has an interesting impact on PGNT's financials. "As of December 31, 2013 the Company had 1,430,860 shares in SED International Holdings, Inc. (SED) representing 27.7% of the outstanding share capital of SED. At December 31, 2012, SED was traded on the NYSE and the Company accounted for its shares in SED as a marketable equity security. Effective on or about November 26, 2013, SED voluntarily delisted its common stock on from the NYSE and began trading on the grey market of the OTC markets under ticker symbol SEDN, which is not considered an active market as defined by ASC 320, Investments – Debt and Equity Securities. As a result, the Company adopted the equity method of accounting for its investment in SED. Under this method, the Company’s equity in the earnings or losses of the investee is reported currently in the Company’s earnings. Upon adoption, the investment, results of operations and retained earnings were adjusted retroactively on a step-by-step basis as if the equity method had been in effect during all previous periods in which the investment was held. The financial statements for 2012 have been restated on a comparable basis, which resulted in a change in total equity at December 31, 2012 of $289. SED’s last available published financial statement is for period ending June 2013. No further quarterly reports are publicly available. The latest closing price of SED is $0.70 as of March 31, 2014. " This means that the massive loss in value of the the SEDN investment is not only no longer required to appear in PGNT's financial statements, but now PGNT will actually appear to have much higher revenue by including the SEDN numbers in their financials.

I would love to hear Parsad's thesis on this company, or anyone else who is long. If this can be turned around, it will be a huge winner -- the operating leverage will just be enormous. I just have no insight into whether they can or will turn things around. Anyone here communicate with anyone at the company or any of Sham Gad's investors?

Is anyone on COBAF a VIC member? Have a quick question I'd like to ask a current member, if so

If the company is doing something illegal, than you shouldn't feel bad about taking some action. However, you need to think about what your end goal is here? Are you going to lose your job no matter what due to outsourcing, and so you are just trying to get some tiny bit of revenge by causing a headache and small fine to your firm? If so, probably not worth the reputation risk that you might take on this, and your time could be better served looking for a new job. I don't imagine there is much damage to the US government here where you could potentially get paid through the government's whistleblower program. If you are doing it because you think its the right thing to do, then go for it.

+1. I think a lot of people on this board have lost their senses of humor lately... But I am interested in DTEJD's question -- Parsad, any idea what % of posters are women?

http://www.trunkclub.com/

Not to diminish the harm being done to the elderly by boiler room fraudsters and the like, but between; (A) a 'grandma' being sold by a boiler room fraudster on a quick rich scheme, or (B) a young adult being sold by a school on a scheme where if you put in several years of hard work and take on tons of loans to earn a graduate degree, you will have a x% likelihood of getting paid $x I actually have much more sympathy for the young adult if the school is purposely misrepresenting the benefits of the education

ukvalueinvestment - There are plenty of For-Profit schools in the US (and many of them publicly traded) who do have a direct incentive to lie to potential students about the benefits of purchasing a degree from their school. This is like any other consumer product - there is some room for exaggerating in the marketing campaign, but there is a line that, once crossed, is simply fraud. Many for-profit schools have the incentive to lie, and do so. If the schools are certified by a regional/national government, and are enabling their students to rack up significant debt, then the schools should certainly be held accountable for misrepresenting the benefits to their customers.